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Doug and Jackie Christie are an unusual couple in the glittery world of NBA. Not only they are married and have three children together, they actually profess to love being married to each other and choose to be faithful to each other. For this they have been highly ridiculed in the media, both by some fans and certain reporters. Now they tell their story in No Ordinary Love

Doug is a 14-year NBA veteran, who has played for a number of teams and had been honored several times with All-League defensive awards. Jackie is a former fashion model. Both came from single-parent households, which just might have been the deciding factor in choosing the path they’ve chosen.

While not completely traditional from the beginning (they had their first child a while before they’ve decided to get married), nowadays they live like any perfectly ordinary family. They profess to do most of the work in the house by themselves (and yes, Doug is supposed to be a great cook!), their children are being watched over by the grandmother and Doug, as much as he loves basketball, does not put it ahead of Jackie and their family. Continue reading »

Choices Meant for Gods, the first in a trilogy by Sandy Lender, was reviewed by Prudy Taylor Board

Sorcerers, dragons, monsters, magic! Choices Meant for Gods, Sandy Lender’s delightful debut novel has them all.

Lender’s protagonist is Chariss, a beautiful young woman born with the mark of the Protector, an amethyst on her cheekbone, high up near the corner of her right eye. However, no one — including Chariss — understands its meaning until she and Master Rothahn travel to Tiurlang and there, in the prophecy scrolls, they uncover not only the stone’s meaning, but her life’s purpose.

As the book opens Chariss and Hrazon, her wizard guardian, flee the evil Lord Drake whose goal is to kill her. She and Hrazon take shelter in the home of Godric Alan Taiman, where she begins a series of lessons — including swordplay with monsters —  that train her to guard The Ultimate One.

The pages fly by and they are filled with twists and turns, with quirky, exciting characters who experience the gamut of universal and eternal emotions ranging from love and evil to fear and tremendous courage, from despair to exultant victory. All this and a satisfying ending!

Sandy Lender is personally interesting because she represents the new wave of authors who have embraced the Internet and electronic marketing. This is reportedly the future of book sales — especially for midlist authors. She does the typical signings at bookstores and speaking to clubs, but before this book launched, Lender visited a different blog, web site, author chat room or Yahoo group page every day for two months. She introduced herself, discussed her book, her characters, and created a base of readers and fans.

“As for ‘normal’ online marketing,” she explains, “I’ve got six blogs working that at the moment.” (If you’re not familiar with the term blog, it’s an online journal.) Nigel Taiman, her hero, has an amusing blog listed below. Continue reading »

Thank you to Gerrie Hugo, author of the autobiographical book Africa Will Always Break Your Heart for taking the time to sit down with Blogging Authors for this interview. (E-book version is also available here)

1.  What prompted you to write this book? How did you come up with the idea?

Africa Will Always Break Your Heart saw the light purely as an exercise in therapy. I suffer from Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and needed an escape valve to let off steam in an effort to put the demons of the past to rest.

It is also my confession and apology for living a large part of my life as a racist.

I wrote the first draft in six weeks. It just bubbled over. During the editing process numerous other agendas came to the fore i.e. setting the record straight. Illuminating to some people just how backward their opinions are. To anger my enemies and bring the heart failure they so justly deserve on a bit sooner. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer

In his third novel, The Passion of Maryam, Loren Woodson takes a lot of chances, both conceptually and technically, in writing a novel about characters so well known to the public: not only are his story and characters part of the fabric of religious beliefs, they are also icons, and to ‘re-tell’ as though his story is another of the gospels takes courage and requires extensive research. Woodson has both prerequisites.

He has obviously spent years studying the architecture, landscape, foods, clothing, political hotbeds, religious factions, and language, and that depth of research allows his novel to be read as credible fact.

And while many other authors have explored this touchy region of history (from Kazantzakis’ “The Last Temptation of Christ” to the current run of novels such as Juan Gomez-Jurado’s “God’s Spy”, Javier Sierra’s “The Secret Supper” and yes, Dan Brown’s ” The Da Vinci Code”), those authors challenged centuries old concepts while Woodson simply offers another version of the life of the ‘Holy Family.’ Continue reading »

What happens when a former financial writer turns mystery novelist? A page-turning whodunnit - that’s what! Read more about Big Numbers the new novel by Jack Getze.

Read an excerpt

Who is killing Austin Carr?

About to be murdered–snatched off a private fishing yacht by a six-hundred-pound giant bluefin tuna–a down-on-his-luck stockbroker recalls the collection of events, miscalculations, and character flaws that led to his current dire predicament: Living in a truck-mounted camper on the Jersey Shore, struggling to keep up with alimony and child-support payments that no longer reflect his shrinking income, the big-smiling, wise-cracking Austin Carr has been searching for a way out of the stock and bond business.

So when his richest client tells Austin he’s dying, and the future widow–a redheaded knock-out–offers tender consolation, Austin’s increasingly desperate financial situation draws him deeper and deeper into a barbed web of bad behavior and deceit. Austin’s would-be killer, whom he dubs “Mr. Blabbermouth,” could be any one of several suspects, as Austin’s words and deeds have attracted the wrath of many in recent weeks.

The potential murderers include a wacked-out professional wrestler angry over Austin’s poor investment recommendations, a jealous sales manager who Austin regularly belittles, and even Austin’s greedy employer whose personality traits include a nasty, violent temper. Or could there be another suspect Austin overlooked entirely until he stepped on board that private yacht.

About the Author
Jack Getze is a former reporter for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and the Los Angeles Times.  Getze covered financial and economic issues for more than 15 years. Switching professions, Getze later sold stocks and bonds for a regional securities firm on the New Jersey Shore. He retired in 1999 to write novels. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer 

Jeff Vande Zande writes beautifully. His style is one of concentrated poetic prose that seizes on fragmentary moments of observed nature in the wild and nature in the very rough state of human vulnerability and confusion and disrepair, forming from these puzzle pieces a tale that is at once solid in structure and challenging in content.

Two days in the life of an antihero occupy the pages of Into the Desperate Country, and while the pace of the book in unrelentingly brisk, the author finds time to raise questions concerning goals and lack of same, approach/avoidance conflicts of relationships, the isolation of contemporary man longing for life to make sense, the panic of coping with society’s expectations instead of following personal dreams, death, and many other breathless issues.

It is a book that entertains as fast as a flash on the river of life and yet pushes the envelope of reader participation just when it seems that ‘thinking’ is least needed. Continue reading »

Today, June 25, marks the 131st anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and Custeriana is still going strong. At a recent auction, George Armstrong Custer’s frayed battle flag sold for more than $896,000. 

The flag was left at Custer’s headquarters at Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory, in 1876, when Custer and his men were wiped out at Little Big Horn by Lakota and Northern Cheyenne warriors.

Custer books are also in hot demand, including first edition copies of the three books his wife, Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wrote following his death: “Boots and Saddles” Or, Life in Dakota With General Custer, Tenting on the Plains or General Custer in Kansas and Texas, and Following the Guidon .

In the early morning hours of June 25, 1876, Custer’s Indian scouts told him of a huge village encamped on the banks of the Little Big Horn (Greasy Grass).  Custer dismissed their claims, divided his forces, and attacked the village. Historians believe his hasty ride into battle was prompted by his fear that the village would scatter and the Indians would get away.

The rest, of course, is history. The men under Custer’s own command were wiped out, and those under Benteen and Reno managed to hold out until help arrived.

Want to learn more about the Boy General?  My favorite books include:

Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors 

Custer: Cavalier in Buckskin 

The Custer Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Life of George Armstrong Custer and the Plains Indian Wars 

Meet Yvonne Perry, author of RIGHT TO RECOVER: Winning the Political and Religious Wars Over Stem Cell Research in America

BloggingAuthors: Yvonne, what prompted you to write your book? How did you come up with the idea?

Yvonne Perry: Reverend Dan Bloodworth came to me in 2005 seeking a ghostwriter for his son’s story.Dan’s All-American athlete son, Brian, suffered a spinal cord injury when he was hit by lightning in 1987.

Motivated by his desire to find a treatment that would allow his son to communicate and become mobile again, Dan has devoted 16 years of his life to learn everything he could about stem cell research and share that information with anyone willing to listen. I was immediately intrigued by his enthusiasm regarding stem cell research.

Dan decided he was not ready to write about his son at the time since his job was taking too many of his hours, but our interview left an impression upon me.

In 2006, while working with Michael Davis on his book, FROM TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH: A Personal Story about Living with Quadriplegia, I was reminded of the healing potential that blastocystic (also known as embryonic) stem cell research offers victims of spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, cancer, renal failure, paralysis, heart disease, and many other illnesses. Continue reading »

In his new book, Africa Will Always Break Your Heart, author Gerrie Hugo shares his first-hand story of racism, corruption and hate during the period before the first ever South African democratic elections.

This book is about paying the ultimate price when speaking out against crimes against humanity committed in the name of Apartheid. And who better to tell the story than someone who was part of the system?

Hugo’s military career began during the Apartheid era. The Government’s propaganda led the white South African to believe that the “Red Peril” wanted to take control over the country. Hugo and many, many others believed that the Communists using the country’s black population as pawns, was the real enemy.

The author joined the army at the age of 17, one of the first to invade Angola.

Hugo tells of the violent hell he survived as a young soldier. For more than 16 years, he fought for Apartheid to save his beloved country from the Communistic onslaught.

In 1991 the negotiations leading up to a democratic South Africa was well under way. Hugo had by then advanced to Colonel. When realizing that the Generals were planning to sabotage the reform-process Hugo lost his blinkers. The real enemy was not some abstract “Red Peril”, but found within the very system he served; the military.

Knowing the consequences would be grave, he took his story to international media. His former brothers-in-arms retaliated swiftly and relentlessly. A price was put out on his head and Hugo was forced to live on the run for many years.

“In Africa, controversy can get you killed,” he says. Continue reading »

Meet Peter Davies, author of Scatterlings of Africa. Born and raised in Africa, Peter Davies served as a territorial soldier in Rhodesia from 1963 to 1975. He saw action, and took part in captures and interrogation.

This gave him insight into terrorist minds, many of which were successfully encouraged to ‘turn’ and fight alongside Rhodesia’s soldiers against their former comrades.  Davies wrote his novel, “Scatterlings of Africa,” using his own recollections of how the war was fought, and how it affected Rhodesia and its people.

Interview posted with permission of ReaderViews.

Juanita:  Welcome to Reader Views Peter, and thanks for the opportunity to talk with you today about your new novel “Scatterlings of Africa.”  Your story takes place in 60’s-70’s Rhodesia.  Would you paint a picture of this area for readers, and tell us what was happening politically in the region?

Peter:  Well, thank you for inviting me, Juanita.  As you know; after almost fifteen years of war, Rhodesia fell under the grip of Marxist dictator Mugabe who changed its name to Zimbabwe in 1980.  But Scatterlings of Africa takes you back to December 1972 in Rhodesia’s Zambezi Valley.  At that time, the Valley was full of animals that were wild and free – it was what was known as a ‘protected hunting area’, not one of the relatively tame ‘game reserves’ that most people see.  I had many encounters with lions, elephants, buffalo and other big game in addition to all the usual smaller stuff like wart hogs, antelope, etc. in this beautiful but wild part of the Valley.  Scorpions, tsetse fly and other nasty insects abounded and there was abundant bird life. Continue reading »