Welcome to Day 6 of Harriet Hodgson’s new book tour. You’ll love this!
GIVEAWAY: (2) $5 Amazon gift cards
Author Bio:
Harriet Hodgson has been making books since she was eight years old. In her 43-year career as a freelancer, she has written 44 books and thousands of print/internet articles. Major publishers, such as Warner Books, John Wiley & Sons, and Hazelden, have published her work. Harriet loves writing so much she writes in her sleep.
Becoming the grandmother of twins changed Harriet Hodgson and altered her life course. According to Hodgson, we live in a fast-paced, complex time, a time when too many grandchildren are victims of bullying, Internet scams, and sexual abuse. Hodgson believes that grandmothers are needed today more than any other time in history.
“Grandmas can’t be passive,” she declares. “Every grandma has the power to protect and guide her grandchildren and needs to tap this power.”
This narrative weaves Hodgson’s personal story with research findings. It’s packed with ideas for helping grandchildren. Hodgson’s age, child development degree, life experience, teaching experience, witness to history, and extensive research converge to make this an inspiring read. Working individually and together, grandmas are changing the world.
“The Grandma Force is about the power of love and the power of one,” Hodgson says. “One-by-one, grandmas are standing up for grandchildren and creating a hopeful future for them.”
And a little surprise goody from Harriet for your visit:
BLT Chopped Salad with Blue Cheese Crumbles
Ingredients
1 cup cooked wheat pasta (small)
1 2.8 ounce package precooked real bacon pieces
3 large Roma tomatoes, chopped
1 small bunch green onions and tops, chopped
1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
2 cups iceberg lettuce, chopped
Dressing
2 tablespoons extra light olive oil
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
½ teaspoon Country Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon salt (may be omitted)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Method
Prepare salad ingredients, put in separate bags, and refrigerate.
Make salad dressing and set aside.
A few minutes before serving, combine ingredients in salad bowl, add dressing, and toss gently. Makes 6 generous servings.
Thank you for your visit, and please don’t forget to post a comment to be eligible for one of the door prizes. Please check out Harriet’s book today. You can read a free preview on Amazon by clicking the link above.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE. Thanks for supporting this author and her work!
Today, we welcome author Randy Overbeck to tell us about the latest addition to his current series. Check it out right now, and here’s why:
GIVEAWAY: $25 Amazon Gift Card & 1 e-book or paperback copy of one book in the Haunted Shores series (Winner’s choice). Simply leave a comment below for your chance to win!
Christmas Ghost Stories
When readers pick up a Christmas story today, even a Christmas mystery, they will likely encounter brilliant Christmas lights , a decorated Christmas tree or even a Santa Claus—in addition to a murder victim or a detective, of course. In fact, listening to the incessant stream of cheerful, holiday songs, readers might think it was always so. Not true. Not so long ago, during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, children and adults were told stories of a different kind of “spirit.” In England—the same country that gave us such holiday traditions as Christmas cards and mistletoe—children and adults gathered around a fireplace on a wintry Christmas eve and were frightened into the Christmas “spirit” via a few creepy ghost stories.
The most famous of these eerie Christmas tales is, of course, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with its four specters to scare straight Ebenezer Scrooge. But Dickens is hardly alone. Henry James’s most famous work, The Turn of the Screw, which also takes place on Christmas eve, is the tale of a governess who encounters the ghostly figures of a man and a woman.
In the same British holiday convention, A.M. Burrage’s eerie short story “Smee” is about a group of young people messing around on Christmas Eve who decide to play a game of hide and seek in a spooky house in which a young girl died years before. What could go wrong?
The list goes on and on.
This tradition of sharing ghost stories on Christmas eve is thought to emanate from the pre-Christian celebration of the Winter Solstice, a time when light dies and the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest…and many of these threads continue even into our time. For years, the BBC hosted “Ghost Stories for Christmas,” spooking late night audiences into the ‘70’s. Even the recent hit series, Downton Abbey—which portrayed life in England in the first half of the twentieth century–featured a Christmas episode where family members are gathered around a Ouija board, trying to access a spirit.
My new title, Scarlet at Crystal River, continues this fine tradition of spooky Christmas ghost stories. During the Christmas holidays, Darrell and Erin travel to Florida for their honeymoon, but, once there, the ghosts of two murdered children interrupt their romantic excursions. The newlyweds are driven to find out what really happened to the two kids, even when they are shot at, driven off the road and nearly killed.
This year, why not continue a centuries-old tradition and grab an alluring Christmas ghost mystery to read by the burning yule log this holiday?
“Scarlet at Crystal River is an eerie paranormal mystery I couldn’t stop reading. Randy Overbeck is a masterful writer of the paranormal, drawing the reader in before instilling shivers down the spine. 5+ stars.” ?????+—N. N. Light’s Book Heaven
Check out the link below.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good fright!
Dr. Randy Overbeck is an award-winning educator, author and speaker. As an educator, he served children for four decades in a range of roles captured in his novels, from teacher and coach to principal and superintendent. His thriller, Leave No Child Behind (2012) and his recent mysteries, the Amazon No. 1 Best Seller, Blood on the Chesapeake,Crimson at Cape May and Scarlet at Crystal River have earned five star reviews and garnered national awards including “Thriller of the Year–ReadersFavorite.com, “Gold Award”—Literary Titan, “Mystery of the Year”—ReadersView.com and “Crowned Heart of Excellence”—InD’Tale Magazine. As a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Dr. Overbeck is an active member of the literary community, contributing to a writers’ critique group, serving as a mentor to emerging writers and participating in writing conferences such as Sleuthfest, Killer Nashville and the Midwest Writers Workshop. When he’s not writing or researching his next exciting novel or sharing his presentation, “Things Still Go Bump in the Night,” he’s spending time with his incredible family of wife, three children (and their spouses) and seven wonderful grandchildren.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the authors’ tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE. Thanks for supporting this author and his work!
GIVEAWAYS: (4) e-book copies of A GHOST AND HIS GOLD
The four forts surrounding Pretoria
Background
After the Jameson Raid in 1896, Pres Paul Kruger of the “Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek” decided to protect Pretoria by constructing forts in strategic places. Eight forts were to be built initially, but due to a shortage of funds, only four were completed. Germans designed three of the four forts, of which Fort Schanskop in Groenkloof, Pretoria is one.
Fort Schanskop was completed in 1897 and was built in such a way to avert possible attacks on Pretoria from the Johannesburg and Lourenco Marques railway line, as well as from the Johannesburg road. By mounting revolving artillery on the embankment of the fort, attacks from all directions could be warded off. Schanskop was armed with one 155 mm Creusot gun (Long Tom) and two Maxims (Pom-poms) by 1899. The soldiers included one officer and 30 privates from the Transvaal State Artillery.
At the outbreak of the war the soldiers and armament were transferred to the Natal front, leaving the fort undefended.
After the invasion of Pretoria by Gen Roberts, the British occupied the forts on 7 June 1900. The 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers occupied Schanskop.
The abandoned forts are featured in A Ghost and His Gold.
Photograph by Robbie Cheadle of Fort Schanskop
Photograph by Robbie Cheadle of the front gate of Fort Schanskop
A short extract from A Ghost and His Gold featuring the forts:
““Pieter, I’m confiding in you as one of my most loyal and trusted citizens. The government has decided not to defend Pretoria against the Khakis. I’m preparing to leave the city shortly with several my advisors. We’ll establish a provisional capital in Machadodorp.”
“Why has this decision been made, Oom [Uncle] Paul? We have our four forts that were specifically built to defend the city. Why are they not going to be used?”
Oom Paul’s shoulders slumped, and his large frame seemed to crumple momentarily. Then he pulled himself upright and straightened his shoulders. “The government fears that the British will destroy all our beautiful buildings in a bombardment if we attempt to defend the city. For this reason, we have decided to abandon the city, as was done with Bloemfontein. Johannesburg will not be defended for the same reason and is expected to fall imminently.”
Pieter thought it was a strange decision, but he smiled at the elderly president. “I understand, what do you need of me?”
“I want you to take this, Pieter,” Oom Paul said, pointing to the two heavy sacks on the floor. “The Boers in your area will need it to rehabilitate themselves after the war, whatever the outcome.””
BOOK BLURB:
After Tom and Michelle Cleveland move into their recently built, modern townhouse, their housewarming party is disrupted when a drunken game with an Ouija board goes wrong and summons a sinister poltergeist, Estelle, who died in 1904.
Estelle makes her presence known in a series of terrifying events, culminating in her attacking Tom in his sleep with a knife. But, Estelle isn’t alone. Who are the shadows lurking in the background – one in an old-fashioned slouch hat and the other, a soldier, carrying a rifle?
After discovering their house has been built on the site of one of the original farms in Irene, Michelle becomes convinced that the answer to her horrifying visions lie in the past. She must unravel the stories of the three phantoms’ lives, and the circumstances surrounding their untimely deaths during the Second Anglo Boer War, in order to understand how they are tied together and why they are trapped in the world of ghosts between life and death. As the reasons behind Estelle’s malevolent behaviour towards Tom unfold, Michelle’s marriage comes under severe pressure and both their lives are threatened.
AUTHOR BIO:
Roberta Eaton Cheadle is a South African writer and poet specialising in historical, paranormal, and horror novels and short stories. She is an avid reader in these genres and her writing has been influenced by famous authors including Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Amor Towles, Stephen Crane, Enrich Maria Remarque, George Orwell, Stephen King, and Colleen McCullough.
Roberta has short stories and poems in several anthologies and has 2 published novels, Through the Nethergate, a historical supernatural fantasy, and A Ghost and His Gold, a historical paranormal novel set in South Africa.
Roberta has 9 children’s books published under the name Robbie Cheadle.
Roberta was educated at the University of South Africa where she achieved a Bachelor of Accounting Science in 1996 and a Honours Bachelor of Accounting Science in 1997. She was admitted as a member of The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants in 2000.
Roberta has worked in corporate finance from 2001 until the present date and has written 7 publications relating to investing in Africa. She has won several awards over her 20-year career in the category of Transactional Support Services.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE. Thanks for supporting this author and her work!
Today, I’m thrilled to offer this blog to the awesome #RRBC_Community authors, Breakfield and Burkey, who are showcasing their latest chapter in the Enigma Series. As well, they are offering the following incentives:
(1) $25 Amazon Gift card & (10) e-book copies of the “shorts” in the Enigma Series
In the new digital world, there is no tolerance for privately owned supercomputers. Globally, computers are hunted and destroyed for the greater good, by the new cyber police CESPOOL. The information this group receives is manipulated by subversive hidden machine learning devices, the MAG running on the dark net.
Judith and Xiamara are freebooters who steal machine time for their PaaS, porn as a service business. The machine they chose for delivery is the last untapped supercomputer not in the hands of a sovereign. Their activity is spotted by the MAG, but the renegade R-Group steps in to alter the outcome. Leroy teams up with Zara to help these opportunists escape prosecution. They are drafted as reluctant participants in the fight.
Jacob and Quip are trapped in the Chihuahuan Desert trying to reconstruct the base of ICABOD’s logic core. The stress of their isolation is taking a toll. Their wives and children are safe in Brazil for the time being, but Interpol is prowling for answers.
The R-Group has assembled a way to communicate with orphaned satellites. While the next R-Group plans the ultimate honey pot to trap their nemesis who is driving their corrupted agenda. The odds are against R-Group’s success, but they have creative surprises on their side.
The stakes have never been higher. The R-Group young and old must rise to defeat the MAG.
BIO:
Breakfield is a 25+ year technology expert in security, networking, voice, and anything digital. He enjoys writing, studying World War II history, travel, and cultural exchanges. He’s also a fan of wine tastings, winemaking, Harley riding, cooking extravaganzas, and woodworking.
Burkey is a 25+ year applied technology professional who excels at optimizing technology and business investments. She works with customers all over the world focusing on optimized customer experiences. She writes white papers and documentation, but found she has a marked preference for writing fiction.
Together they create award-winning stories that resonate with males and females, as well as young and experienced adults. They bring a fresh new view to technology possibilities today.
We wanted to share the future plans for Breakfield & Burkey’s writing endeavors near term and long term.
Breakfield and Burkey will keep writing the Enigma Series. We offer each story in ebook, paperback, and audible formats. The audibles are available on Amazon and iTunes. Derek Shoales, our award-winning narrator and voice actor, is the voice of the series. Book 1 was narrated by another great professional, Steven Jay Cohen.
Book 12, The Enigma Threat, is the focal point of this tour. It is ready for release in all formats on January 8th, 2021. The central theme, the next generation of our heroes in the R-Group against the rogue artificially intelligent supercomputers. The Enigma Beyond, book #11, is where we brought in the talents of the younger R-Group members.
Short stories as individual eBooks are an ongoing focus for us. We entered a few into contests and was awarded a spot in those collective anthologies. For lack of a better term, these are backstories of characters within the series. We have a couple of more planned for 2021. We were delighted to also be asked to contribute to another anthology for a new group. Proceeds for this are going toward an agreed charity. Our 4 new short stories offered in 2020 are listed in differing genres, specifically young adult, women’s contemporary, and family. Having completed work on book 12 of the series, The Enigma Threat, which will release January 8th, 2021, we hit on the idea of crowdfunding to help drive the next phase.
We decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign for support for a screenplay for The Enigma Threat. This is gaining some additional exposure to new areas. Our goal is to continue to expand our brand into multiple global markets and to raise awareness of our stories.
For the last few books, we have done contests to gain support from readers and followers who want to become immortalized as characters in a story. For Books 13 through 18, currently in the planning stages, new characters are needed. The Kickstarter campaign is a unique way to earn that spot in our award-winning series.
We wanted some practice in screenplay writing mechanics. Breakfield is out shopping the screenplay for Out of Poland. It is currently registered and being shopped. This learning will help us collaborate on the script for The Enigma Threat.
For the ladies who want a book role, it is a toss-up between being an evil genius, femme fatale, or a geeky girl. Dr. Judith Briles earned the spot of a geeky girl in The Enigma Threat. On one of our Channel 8 Good Morning Texas interviews, we were asked how we came up with great characters. We did a short explanation, then Breakfield asked the hostess if she would be interested in the evil femme fatale role in our next book. After he petitioned her for a resume to get the part, one of the camera technicians actually chuckled loud enough to hear, for which Breakfield was awarded her blush.
But as a rule, we love telling stories and creating new ideas from the technology we know exists. We will continue to deliver our works in multiple formats. Next year we are revising a couple of the earlier books in the series, The Enigma Wraith and The Enigma Stolen, to make them tighter.
Also, we are working on some special RWISA training to elevate our skills. For us and our full-time work, 2020 has been a hectic year. We had hoped to complete the lessons but may require an extension.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit theauthors’ tour pageon the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please clickHERE. Thanks for supporting these authors and their work!
GIVEAWAY: (2) Complete sets of the Billy Battles trilogy. For your chance to win one, please leave a comment below!
Q & A with Ron Yates (Part 3)
If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Winston Churchill. He was brilliant, and I would hope that by the end of dinner, some of that brilliance would have rubbed off on me though I seriously doubt it.
What is one food you would never eat?
Monkey Brain Sushi (yes, it is a real dish in China, and I won’t tell you how it’s prepared). It is considered a cure for impotence (what isn’t?).
Another dish I will continue to eschew is Balut, which is a delicacy in The Philippines. It is fertilized chicken or duck eggs in which the developed embryo is boiled and eaten from the shell. Yum!
Which brings me to some advice an old Chicago Tribune copy editor named Spokely gave me when I was getting ready to leave Chicago for my first posting as a foreign correspondent. “You are going to places that serve strange food, and you will be tempted to say ‘no thank you,’ when it is offered. Don’t do that. It will be an insult to your host. When somebody offers you something to eat that looks or smells horrible, just remember Spokely’s Law: Everything tastes more or less like chicken.”
What were the last couple of movies you watched?
1917, Midway, Little Women, Bombshell, Joker, The Good Liar, and Harriet.
What was the scariest moment of your life?
There have been several. One was during the evacuation of Saigon in 1975. The last day was chaos incarnate. Russian made 122mm rockets were slamming into buildings, 130mm mortars were hitting Tan Son Nhut airport, and the U.S. Embassy was surrounded by frantic South Vietnamese desperate to get out of the country because they had worked for the American military or some U.S. agency. The city was in full panic mode. Several of us made our way to the sprawling Defense Attaché Office building at Tan Son Nhut, and we were finally evacuated by a U.S. Marine CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter. It was a relief until the door gunner told me later aboard the U.S.S. Okinawa that the pilot had to drop a flare to misdirect a S.A.M. -7 (surface to air missile).
Another was during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre when several Chinese students and I were pinned down near the square for 30 minutes or so by Chinese soldiers shooting in our direction. Several students near me were wounded, and we were helping them get to a doctor’s house nearby so he could treat them. I was convinced I was going to wind up dead in the square. Then suddenly, the shooting stopped, and I was able to get my Red and White bicycle that I had chained to a lamppost and peddle like crazy for the Jinhua Hotel where I was staying and from where I was filing my stories to the Tribune.
Another memorable moment was during the revolution in El Salvador when two German correspondents and I were stopped in our car near the town of Suchitoto by Communist guerillas. They put cloth bags put over our heads and forced us to kneel alongside the road. We were sure we were going to be executed. However, suddenly the “jefe” (leader) showed up and set us free. “Don’t kill journalists–unless they are armed,” he yelled at his troops. I was greatly relieved that I had left the Model 1911 Colt.45 pistol I had purchased a few days earlier back in the hotel in San Salvador. I believe it is still there.
Ahhh yes, the life of a foreign correspondent…never a dull moment. Nevertheless, I still believe I had the best job in the world, and I wouldn’t trade my career for anything.
What books have most influenced your life?
Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh; The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck; The Quiet American, Graham Greene; Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger; The Jewel in the Crown, Paul Scott; Kim, Rudyard Kipling; Huckleberry Finn, Samuel Clemons (Mark Twain); A Passage to India, E.M. Forster; Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser; The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer.
What do you do to unwind and relax?
What else? I read. I find that a good book helps me escape from my writing, which I need to do on occasion.
I have a couple, and they are both from Evelyn Waugh: “Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.” It is a line from Waugh’s book Scoop written by nature writer William Boot for the London Daily Beast just before he is mistaken for a famous foreign correspondent and sent off to the fictional African country of Ishmaelia to cover a war.
AND from Waugh’s book, Vile Bodies comes this great line: “I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence.”
If it were mandatory for everyone to read three books, what books would you suggest?
Huckleberry Finn;Grapes of Wrath; Sister Carrie. Not only are these classics, but they are also beautiful stories about the human spirit, its resiliency and strength, and its deficiencies and weaknesses.
Is there ever a time when you feel like your work is truly finished and complete?
I don’t know if that ever happens. I do know that at some point, YOU MUST LET IT GO! Writing a book is a bit like rearing a child. Eventually, after you have imbued the child with as much of your worldly experience and wisdom as he or she can grasp and absorb, you have to allow your creation to encounter the world. It’s the same with books. Writers can fiddle with plots, characters, endings, and beginnings ad nauseam and never feel the book is finished. My advice–JUST FINISH THE DAMNED BOOK! Get over it and get the book out into the public domain. Readers will let you know if you have finished the book–and if they like it.
What is the biggest misconception beginning writers have about being published?
Probably that once you get a publishing contract, you are going to become a millionaire. I have published two books before Billy Battles with traditional publishers, and I am still in the hunt for my first million. The J. K. Rowling’s of the world are anomalies. However, thank God they do exist because it keeps the rest of us working our tails off in pursuit of that elusive kind of success. Now, I believe many writers write for the sheer joy we get from telling a good story–at least I do. The money is less of an incentive.
What would you like readers to gain from reading your books?
Because the Finding Billy Battles trilogy is historical fiction and is set in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, I would like readers to get a sense of the time and place of the story told in the three books. I would like them to have an appreciation of the way people lived, how they thought, and how they dealt with both adversity and triumph in a very different era. Finally, I would like readers to finish my trilogy and think to themselves: “Damn, I didn’t want that story to end!”
BOOK BLURB:
The Finding Billy Battles trilogy tells the story of a remarkable man who is born in 1860 and who dies in 1960. For decades Billy lives an improbable and staggering life of adventure, peril, transgression and redemption. Then Billy mysteriously disappears. For several decades his family has no idea where he is or what he is doing.
Finally, with his life coming to an end, Billy resurfaces in an old soldiers’ home in Leavenworth, Kansas. It is there, when he is 98 that he meets his 12-year-old great-grandson and bequeaths his journals and his other property to him — though he is not to receive them until he is much older.
Years later, the great-grandson finally reads the journals and fashions a three volume trilogy that tells of his great-grandfather’s audacious life in the old west, as well as his journeys to the Far East of the 1890s—including French Indochina and The Philippines—and finally, in the early 20th century, to Europe and Latin America where his adventures and predicaments continue. One thing readers can be sure of, wherever Billy Battles goes trouble is not far behind.
AUTHOR BIO:
Ronald E. Yates is a multi-award winning author of historical fiction and action/adventure novels, including the popular and highly-acclaimed Finding Billy Battles trilogy. His extraordinarily accurate books have captivated fans around the world who applaud his ability to blend fact and fiction.
Ron is a former foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and Professor Emeritus of Journalism at the University of Illinois where he was also the Dean of the College of Media.
The Lost Years of Billy Battles is the final book in the trilogy and recently won the Independent Press Award’s 2020 Distinguished Favorites Award. In 2019 it also won Best Overall Book of the year and the Grand Prize in the Goethe Historical Fiction Category from Chanticleer International Book Awards as well as a Book Excellence Award and a New Apple Award. The second book in the trilogy, The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles, was published in June 2016. It won the 2017 KCT International Literary Award and the New Apple Award in the Action/Adventure category. The first book in the trilogy, “Finding Billy Battles,” was published in 2014 and won a Book Excellence Award and Laramie Award from Chanticleer International Book Awards.
As a professional journalist, Ron lived and worked in Japan, Southeast Asia, and both Central and South America where he covered several history-making events including the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia; the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing; and wars and revolutions in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, among other places. His work as a foreign correspondent earned him several awards including three Pulitzer Prize nominations.
Ron is a frequent speaker about the media, international affairs, and writing. He is a Vietnam era veteran of the U.S. Army Security Agency and lives just north of San Diego in Southern California’s wine country.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to schedule your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE. Thanks for supporting this author and his work!
GIVEAWAYS: During this tour, the author is giving away (1) $10 Amazon Gift Card, (2) $5 Amazon Gift Cards, (2) e-book copies of EMPTY SEATS & (1) copy of the author’s acclaimed “SINGING ALONG WITH THE RADIO” CD which features many prominent folk music singers (a $15 value)! For your chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment below as well as leaving a comment on the author’s 4WillsPub tour page. GOOD LUCK!
I haven’t
explained my other passion, nor how it led me to be the public address
announcer at Fenway Park for one day.
I’ve been a
singer/songwriter most of my life and the folk music DJ at the Albany, New
York-based National Public Radio affiliate since 1982. Prior to that, I was a
folk DJ at a small station in Worcester, Massachusetts. My father introduced me
to folk and country music practically right after I was born, and I’ve loved
and sung it ever since. I made a CD called “Singing Along with the Radio,” on
which I sang with some of the musicians I’ve always wanted to play and sing
with over the years.
In 2011, I had
the privilege of meeting and spending a couple of innings with Red Sox Public
Address Announcer Carl Beane. He was a kind man, welcoming me into the booth
with him to see what happens during a game as he told everyone in the stands
what was happening. His booming voice filled the stadium with information such
as who would sing the National Anthem, the line-up for both teams, the umpires’
names, and players as they came to bat. As someone who’d been in radio for more
than 30 years, I found the whole set-up to be interesting and took notes in my
head of what went on.
Carl let me try
on his World Series rings from 2004 and 2007. He was a small man, and those
rings both fit me perfectly.
“Carl,” I said,
“you’d better take these back right after I take a picture of them.”
“You can wear
them for a while,” he replied.
“No, you’d better
take them back. They fit me all too well, and I might forget I’m wearing them!”
“Oh, okay.”
As he took them
back, I asked him if he liked one better than the other.
“I think the one
from 2004 is the most special. It’s because that’s the year when the Sox ‘broke
the curse,’ and they hadn’t won a World Series in 86 years. But I love the 2007
one, too. Any World Series win is special.”
Carl also told me
that day that being the Red Sox’s public address announcer was “the best job in
the world.”
Fast forward to
May 2012.
Carl was killed
in a car accident. The Red Sox and their fans were stunned. Who would be their
PA announcer?
What to do? What
to do?
The Red Sox
decided to have what they dubbed the “guest in the chair” approach, in which
they would invite local media personalities to do the PA announcing, with a
different one for each game. For example, they had someone from the Bruins’
announcing team do a game, someone from the local public radio station, etc.
I wanted to do
this. Badly.
I called the Red
Sox and told them that I’d been in radio for many decades and would like to be
considered. Should I send a tape?
“Yeah, yeah,
okay,” the response came. Sign up in the
fall when you can try out and we’re trying to replace Cal on a permanent basis.
“You don’t
understand,” I protested. “I’m a professional broadcaster. My station goes to
seven states terrestrially, including three in New England. I want to do this.”
They took my name
and phone number. I thought it was the end of my chance to be the PA
announcer—even for a day.
About a week
later, I was at a doctor’s appointment when my phone rang. I looked down and
told the doctor, “Err—I have to take this call.”
Caller ID
indicated that it was the Boston Red Sox calling. I couldn’t let that one go to
voice mail.
“Hi, Wanda, yeah,
this is the Red Sox. Say, we Googled you and found out that you really are a
professional broadcaster. We’d like to have you come down and do a game. How
about this date?”
They offered me a
Tuesday night—the week before my daughter’s wedding!
“I can’t do that
date,” I replied, and told them why.
“Okay, you give
US a date, and we’ll take it from there.”
I already had
tickets for the August 5, 2012 game. Since I worked for New York State in a
managerial position, I wouldn’t have been able to take free tickets for my
family, anyway. “How about August 5?”
“You got it.
We’ll confirm in a couple of weeks. Thanks.”
I put down my
phone and explained it to my physician. She was ecstatic, because she knows how
much broadcasting and baseball mean to me.
We got through
the wedding, and, as August 5 approached, I began to wonder if I’d done
something stupid, thinking I could handle a major-league game. The last game
I’d announced was for Schenectady (New York) Babe Ruth when my son was 13 (he
was then married with a child). Could I actually do this? Had I bitten off more
than I could chew?
I pulled into the
players’ parking lot (that’s right, THE PLAYERS’ PARKING LOT) with my little
Subaru, which was dwarfed even more by huge SUVs and shiny sports cars. The
valet took my keys, and off I went, up to the third floor, where I’d be for the
next several hours.
The whole operation
was incredible. They had a script prepared, which I had plenty of time to
study. I checked out the rosters for both teams (although I knew the Red Sox
roster by heart). The Minnesota Twins were their opponent that day, and the
only player whose name I couldn’t pronounce was a new reliever from Japan who’d
just joined the team the day before. I said a little prayer, pleading that he
wouldn’t be brought into the game.
I met with the
team—the producer, Jack, the music man (TJ the DJ), and everyone else in the
booth, did sound check and looked out over the field. Fenway never looked so
good. I felt as if I were in baseball heaven. Then I looked out at the
scoreboard: My name was emblazoned all over it: Today’s Guest-in-the-Chair:
Wanda Fischer, WAMC, Albany, New York. Wow. Just wow. That’s all I could say.
Many years
before, when I was about 16 or 17, my mother had seen me, under an umbrella, on
TV, in the bleachers, as we fans waited to hear whether a rain delay would turn
into a rain washout. I wished my mother
could have seen me that day, with my name on that huge electronic sign—the one
that didn’t even exist on umbrella day so long ago.
Jack, the
producer, guided me along, pointing on the script to my lines, as the game
progressed. I told him it was unlike working on public radio, where I have to
do everything myself to get my show together and get it on the air. “No, we try
to make it as easy as possible,” he said.
Thanks to a
terrific team, I only made one mistake during nine innings. The Red Sox, who
were terrible that year, actually won that game.
When it was over,
my grandson, who was then three years old, came up to me and said, “Grandma!
Grandma! Where were you? I could hear
you, but I couldn’t see you!”
Book Blurb
What Little Leaguer doesn’t
dream of walking from the dugout onto a Major League baseball field, facing his
long-time idol and striking his out? Empty
Seats follows three different minor-league baseball pitchers as they follow
their dreams to climb the ladder from minor- to major-league ball, while facing
challenges along the way—not always on the baseball diamond. This coming-of-age
novel takes on success and failure in unexpected ways. One reviewer calls this
book “a tragic version of ‘The Sandlot.’”
(Winner of the 2019 New Apple
Award and 2019 Independent Publishing Award)
Author Bio
Following a successful
40-year career in public relations/marketing/media relations, Wanda Adams
Fischer parlayed her love for baseball into her first novel, Empty Seats. She began writing poetry
and short stories when she was in the second grade in her hometown of Weymouth,
Massachusetts and has continued to write for more than six decades. In addition
to her “day” job, she has been a folk music DJ on public radio for more than 40
years, including more than 37 at WAMC-FM, the Albany, New York-based National
Public Radio affiliate. In 2019, Folk Alliance International inducted her into
their Folk D-J Hall of Fame. A singer/songwriter in her own right, she’s
produced one CD, “Singing Along with the Radio.” She’s also a competitive
tennis player and has captained several United States Tennis Association senior
teams that have secured berths at sectional and national events. She earned a
bachelor’s degree in English from Northeastern University in Boston. She lives
in Schenectady, NY, with her husband of 47 years, Bill, a retired family
physician, whom she met at a coffeehouse in Boston in 1966; they have two grown
children and six grandchildren.
Thank you for supporting this author and her tour. To follow along with the rest of the tour, please drop in on the author’s 4WillsPub tour page. If you’d like to schedule your own 4WillsPub blog tour to promote your book(s), you may do so by clicking HERE.
Title: ‘Whispers
of the Past’ Blog Tour, by Stevie Turner
I am delighted to take part in this blog tour to promote ‘Whispers
of the Past’, a paranormal anthology compiled by Kaye Lynne Booth. The
anthology features eight stories by six authors, namely myself (Stevie Turner)
and also Kaye Lynne Booth, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Julie Goodswen, Lauren
McHargue, and lastly Jeff Bowles, whose story ‘A Peaceful Life I’ve Never Known’,
was the winner of the 2019 Wordcrafter Paranormal Short Fiction Contest.
I’ve always enjoyed ghost stories since I was a child. In fact, my favourite genre to write in is
now the paranormal genre, as no research needs to be done and I can just write
away from past experiences.
Yes, I’ve had several paranormal experiences as a child, as
we lived in a haunted flat where some poor soul had previously committed
suicide in my bedroom. There was often
an imprint of a body on my freshly made-up bed, my bed would shake and lift off
the ground (I would dive under the covers until the shaking stopped), and the
room itself was always cold. I often saw
ghosts in the flat as a young child but thought nothing of it. Thankfully when I was seven years old, we
moved to a new house, and the ghostly events ceased.
I am a firm believer in the paranormal, as I have first-hand
experience. Later in life I attended a
spiritualist meeting with a clairvoyant, who passed on a message from my
deceased uncle that absolutely convinced me that there is life after death. I had never met the clairvoyant before, and
she had no idea who I was. I had been
having trouble opening the front door to my flat – the key was stiff, and the
lock was old. My uncle told the
clairvoyant about this, and he also added that I would never have any more
trouble unlocking the door. When I got
home the key slotted easily in the lock, and it did forever more until I moved
out.
There is definitely an ‘afterlife’. If you read ‘Whispers of the Past’, it
may convince you too!
BOOK BLURB:
A paranormal anthology with nine stories from six authors,
including the winning story in the 2019 WordCrafter Paranormal Short Fiction
Contest, A Peaceful Life I’ve Never Known, by Jeff Bowles.
AUTHOR BIO:
Stevie Turner
Stevie Turner is a British author of suspense, paranormal,
women’s fiction family dramas, and darkly humorous novels. She has also
branched out into the world of audio books, screenplays, and translations. Most
of her novels are now also available as audio books, and ‘A House Without
Windows’ gained the attention of a New York media production company in
December 2017. Some of Stevie’s books have been translated into German,
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.
Stevie can be contacted at the following email address:
stevie@stevie-turner-author.co.uk
Thank
you for supporting this author and her “group” tour. To follow along
with the rest of the tour, please drop in on the authors’ 4WillsPub tour page. If you’d like to schedule your own 4WillsPub blog tour to promote your book(s), you may do so by clicking
I’m a sucker for a good thesaurus. I
realize that may make me sound like one of the most boring people on the
planet, but just hear me out.
About twenty years ago or so, I was living
life as a recent college graduate and newlywed professional in the camping
industry, a job I truly enjoyed but rarely miss. We didn’t have any children
yet and when my husband’s burgeoning career came to an anticipated crossroad, I
found myself with a good opportunity to pursue a different professional path.
That’s when I went back to grad
school at the University of Missouri to earn my master’s degree in literature
and creative writing. Before I could do that, however, I had to take the
Graduate Record Exam (GRE).
The first step was, of course, to
buy one of those big test prep books—you know the ones that are as thick as an
old-fashioned New York City phone book stacked on top of the “S” volume of the Encyclopedia
Britannica that still collects dust on the shelf in your parents’ basement?
Yeah, that’s the one.
It’s been quite a few years and I’m
unfamiliar with the test format now, but one of my biggest concerns then was
the analogies portion in which I would be asked:
If shoe is to apricot,
then rodeo is to______.
a. Golden Retriever
b. Grecian vase
c. central heating
d. toothbrush
Except replace all the words in the
question and answers with ones you’ve never heard of before.
The Great Big Book of Test Prep
recommended studying with a thesaurus. So, I bought myself another book that
weighed roughly the same as your run-of-the-mill anvil and got to work. I
looked up the words from practice tests and any grandiloquent words I came
across in my pleasure reading. Soon I had whole families and clusters of new,
slightly pretentious, words to which I could attach at least vague meaning.
And I had become a huge fan of Mr.
Roget.
Since then, my collection has
expanded to include multiple generations of recently updated thesauri, a handy
pocket version, and an early edition from 1866, about fourteen years after the
original 14,000-word masterpiece compiled by Peter Mark Roget.
Of course there are several online
versions available as well, but I rarely write without a print copy of a
thesaurus nearby. Because I write a great deal of historical fiction, the
oldest one in my collection especially comes in handy.
My most recent historical novel, Smoke
Rose to Heaven, benefited greatly from Mr. Roget’s assistance. His
marvelous book and its descendants helped me to put the final polish on the 19th
century world my characters inhabit. It served to pepper their language with
quaint, but still accessible, words as they galloped across their lush
historical landscape occasionally stumbling over an abandoned child, a lost
manuscript, or an assassin.
And that’s why I’m a sucker for a
good thesaurus. Also, the answer is C, which I’m sure you already knew.
Book Blurb:
New York, 1872.
Diviner Ada Moses is a finder of hidden things and a keeper
of secrets. In her possession is a lost manuscript with the power to destroy
the faith of tens of thousands of believers.
When a man seeking the truth knocks at her door with a
conspiracy theory on his lips and assassins at his heels, she must make a
choice.
Spurred by news of a ritualistic murder and the arrival of a
package containing the victim’s bloody shirt, Ada must either attempt to vanish
with the truth or return the burden she has long borne to the prophet
responsible for one of the most successful deceptions in US history.
Protecting someone else’s secret may save Ada’s life, but is
that worth forcing her own demons into the light?
Author Bio:
SARAH ANGLETON is the author of the historical novels
Gentleman of Misfortune and Smoke Rose to Heaven as well as the
humor collection Launching Sheep & Other Stories from the Intersection
of History and Nonsense. She lives with her husband, two sons, and one
loyal dog near St. Louis, where she loves rooting for the Cardinals but doesn’t
care for the pizza.
Sarah is giving away 5 e-book copies of SMOKE ROSE TO HEAVEN and all you have to do for a chance to win a copy is to leave a comment below. To follow along with the rest of her tour, please drop in on her 4WillsPub tour page. If you’d like to take your book or books on a virtual blog tour, please visit us at 4WillsPublishing.wordpress.com and click on the VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR tab. Thank you for supporting this author’s tour and also the blogger of this post!
I
deeply thank my host for this opportunity to discuss the crisis millions of
American patients in pain are facing—suffering because their prescription
opioids are being denied to them. In previous posts on my tour, I told readers
about our Valiant Veterans being denied their usual prescription narcotics for
their war-injury pain; about patients with all kinds of severe, lifelong
conditions being tapered to too-low-opioid-doses making them ineffective for
analgesia; and about the suicides of patients suddenly cold-turkeyed off their
years’-long effective opioids. It’s caused by the virulent actions of
government bureaucrats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
the Veterans Administration (VA), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA).
This
healthcare outrage is so severe that it’s spread from those once
long-effectively treated with prescription opioids for their chronic pain to
every conceivable painful condition—lifelong, somewhat-prolonged, and even
acute. You can now go to your local ER with a severe injury or painful
acute illness and be denied crucial, medically indicated morphine relief. Forget
about narcotic pain relief after surgery! Those government “OxyMORONS”
intimidated your surgeon. After your root canal, forget about opioid pain
relief! Those government Cold Turkeys “warned” your dentist. In
hospice or end-of-life care? Forget about your opioid analgesic! Got
cancer? Forget about your rightful opioid! Teenager in Sickle Cell
Crisis? Forget about your essential morphine infusion! My book reports
in-depth on these tortures affecting even children whose pediatricians are
being “cautioned” by non-medical government functionaries. Now
they’ve targeted your pets.
Besides
the feds, even local municipalities have been suing every legitimate,
scientifically based pharmaceutical manufacturer that has the temerity to
develop and market the opiates morphine and codeine and their analog opioids
(chemical spin-offs). To date, more than 1,200 suits have been filed against
Johnson & Johnson (Tylenol and Duragesic) and Purdue Pharma (OxyContin). It
robs these companies of funds essential for Research and Development of new and
better drugs, causing the inflation of prices for yours and my prescription
medications. This untreated pain causing epidemics of death from health
deterioration and suicides is being totally ignored by the CDC, the agency that
exists “to prevent epidemics.” Paradoxically, the CDC published
a clueless “guideline” for opioid-prescribing physicians that was
supposed to be a mere “recommendation,” but which morphed into fiat.
When
I learned of the terrible cost in human suffering and suicides the CDC, the VA,
the DOJ, and its DEA continue to inflict on some 50 million Americans, I became
distressed, tearful, angry, and determined to do something about this. As
both a registered nurse and a long-published medical-science and prescription-pharmaceuticals
writer, I felt it my duty to thoroughly research this catastrophe, to bring the
diverse facts together in a book, to expose our government agencies’ actions.
The result is American
AGONY: The Opioid War Against Patients in Pain, published by Fresh Ink Group. Many
related issues, plus patients’ and physicians’ personal stories, are quoted
throughout this 24-chapter book. It includes legal, legislative, and voting
solutions; 237 references; and a roster of heroines, heroes, and paincare
advocates whose voices are getting louder and louder, soon to reach critical
mass.
Thank
you to my host. I’m very much heartened by this invitation to share this vital
national medical emergency.
About the Author: Dr. Helen Borel wrote poetry and
played piano as a child growing up in two orphanages. She became a registered
nurse, then earned her master’s in creative writing. After 18 years as a
medical, psychiatric, and pharmaceutical copywriter, she published books,
literary criticism, satire, and fiction. She became a doctor in
psychoanalytical studies with her own website, PsychDocNYC.com. Always
outspoken for the underdog, her intense research is the basis for her
passionate expose of government wrongs and the legal rights pain victims must
assert. Find her at PsychDocNYC.com and on Twitter: @BorelMedWriter or
@PsychDocConnect.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar fashion, please click HERE.
Today we celebrate #RRBC super-star author Harriet Hodgson, and her book The Grandma Force. Being a grandpa, I can certainly agree wholeheartedly on the role grandmas fill. Enjoy!
Key
Points from The Grandma Force
To
emphasize key points, I asked the graphic designer to highlight them.
Key
points are centered and have a shaded background. These are just a few of the
key points I included.
Contemporary
grandmas have many talents and experiences to share.
Being
a grandma doesn’t mean you say yes to everything.
Although
we often view thoughts as shaping words, words shape thoughts.
Safety
comes first when traveling with a grandchild.
Having
emotional maturity doesn’t mean one has emotional intelligence.
Self-care
is a gift to yourself and your family.
Grandmas
need to be agents for change.
Gratitude
gives you happiness that lasts.
The
grandmothers of the world are wisdomkeepers.
Author Bio:
Harriet Hodgson has been a freelance writer for 38 years, is the author of
thousands of print/online articles, and 37 books. Hodgson is a member of the
Association of Health Care Journalists and the Alliance of Independent Authors.
She has appeared on more than 185 radio talk shows, including CBS Radio, and
dozens of television stations, including CNN. A popular speaker, she has
given presentations at public health, Alzheimer’s, bereavement, and caregiving
conferences. She lives in Rochester, Minnesota with her husband, John. Please
visit www.harriethodgson.com for more information about this busy
wife, mother, grandmother, caregiver, speaker, and author.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE. Thanks for supporting this author and her work!
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