Book Highlight - Remember the Maelstrom by Josh Sinason

        

Remember The Maelstrom

Josh Sinason

  Genre: S.F. Romance

Publisher: TWB Press

  

Number of pages: 40

Word Count: 10,000

Book Description:

A botched investigation into the past triggers a domino effect, thrusting T.I. Agent Amanda West into a race to get home to the man she loves in a future that may no

longer exist. 

Available at Amazon                Smashwords                 TWB Press            

    Excerpt:

“Let’s go, rookie.” I set my blaster on stun. “I want to be home in time for dinner.”

Corporal Winger nodded and drew his gun.

I noticed his hand shake. That should have been my first cue something was wrong. He clutched his gun so tense his knuckles turned white. This was his first op, and it already went way far south way too soon. This was just supposed to be a routine run: bring back a fugitive who had bolted through an unauthorized time portal. We were the closest ship to it. He was just one guy, but he had a gun. Who would have thought things could’ve gone so wrong?

I kissed the scar on my right hand before we chased him through Central Park in the year 2014. It was a silly ritual, but when I found myself far from home, I started to get superstitious. On cold nights, when time, space, and a universe kept me away, I’d look at that scar and think about Parker.

Winger was a hair faster than me catching up with our time jumper. Maybe if I’d been there a second or two sooner I could have stopped him, but I arrived just in time to watch him aim his gun. I was just within view when our jumper pulled in a hostage, a little girl, something that would’ve made any experienced agent hold his fire.

Winger was just reacting on instinct.  He didn’t pull back in time, and the guy held the kid in front of him. The scene played out in slow motion. Maybe Winger thought he could make a head-shot on the perp, or maybe he just fired in the heat of the moment; we were both tired. All I knew was, as the girl and our jumper fell to the ground, the look of horror on Winger’s face didn’t last long.

I’d never seen a person fade from existence before, not until that moment. The theory, according to Temporal Investigations, was that one dies before actually disappearing completely. Sheer shock and horror was the killer, like falling off a tall building. But Winger looked me in the eyes the entire time, silently pleading for help as he faded right in front of me. I reached out to grab his hand, but it vanished, and that’s when I noticed my scar begin to ghost.

I didn’t know who that little girl was. Maybe she had invented something that made the Galactic Conferences possible, or maybe she was the grandmother of the grandmother of someone who assigned cores in the Academy, and because she no longer existed in the future, Parker and I may have ended up in different course plans. Or maybe she did something at just the right moment, a move in one direction or another, a decade from now, and things just fell into place for us. It was impossible to tell what could happen without her influence, but I feared something was wrong. I could have lost Parker already without even knowing it.

When I saw that scar on my hand ghost, I knew it was a sign that the time stream was starting to realign. We were briefed on ghosting at the Academy. They told us to run; they said always run back to the ship, flat out as fast as we could. But we all knew the truth. We couldn’t outrun a time realignment. It would be like outrunning the hand of the universe.

The moment I saw that scar flicker, I took off in a dead sprint back to the ship and leaped into the captain’s chair. As the controls came on around me I felt the hum of the hyperspace time bubble curling around the ship like a warm blanket. Then, when I tried to catch my breath, I felt a hot sting in my gut. Our jumper had managed to get off a shot, and as luck would have it, his blaster charge went straight through Winger’s ghosting body and hit me in the stomach. I did my best to breathe slowly, but each inhale felt like razor blades slicing through my chest. I winced and put pressure on the singed and bloody wound then throttled up the engines.

“Well today just sucked, didn’t it.” I looked at the picture of Parker I kept on my dashboard. We had our pictures taken when we were assigned to The Bartlett. Knowing this meant I hadn’t forgotten about him...at least not yet. Then I looked to make sure the hyperspace time bubble had restored the scar on my hand. Yes. I gave it another kiss for luck. Just lifting my arm sent shooting pains through my stomach, but I figured I needed a fair amount of luck right about then, so the pain was worth the effort.

“Just make it home for dinner.” I clutched the steering yoke tightly. “Just one more trip.” I forced a breath. “Let me see that everything is all right with Parker. Then let whatever changes I’ve made to the future do what they will to me.”

“Some time cop I turned out to be.”

I slammed on the thrusters hard and gunned the engine boosters through the time jump, but the inertia field didn’t have time to boot up, so I felt my ribs crack as my chest slammed against the crash belt and the back of my head bounced off the top of my chair.

I screamed in pain.

In flight school I had experienced what happened without an inertia field. Senior cadets would watch Parker and I train in the flight deck sim. We’d shoot to hyperspace without any problems. But every once in a while the cadets would program in an inertia field glitch just to see how we’d respond to the stress, at least that’s what they told the instructors. It was really a rite of passage made worse by the fact that the simulator didn’t have crash belts, so the only way to go was flying backwards. If it wasn’t for the crash helmets, our brains would’ve splattered against the cold metal exit door.

“Stupid prank,” I said, spitting blood. I was bleeding internally. The scar on my hand ghosted again. The time bubble was weakening already, so I started going over my past, wondering just how much of it I would forget.

I decide to listen to my personal logs and make sure everything was just as I remembered. Hopefully that last ghosting wasn’t a sign that I was too late. The computer accessed my files, starting with my first week studying for the Academy mid-terms.

I remembered that day by the lake on the Academy grounds, fresh in my mind no matter what time jump I was in. The lake was clear blue enough that I could see the incoming spaceships reflected in the surface. I had sat there so often over that first month I could tell how low the ships were flying by the ripples their wakes made in the water.

I sat near a tree, hoping to keep my mind on my introductory engineering midterm studies. Sometimes the Academy felt like a monster looking to swallow cadets whole, but out there, under the shuttles flying by and the transport ships jumping to hyperspace like little daylight shooting stars, the Academy grounds felt peaceful. That day the transports lit up the clouds like purple and red lightning. I listened to the low rumble of the shuttles as I skipped a rock across the water. Then I cracked open a book.

About the Author:

Josh Sinason grew up in DeKalb, Illinois, and has been featured in the Two With Water reading series and at DIY-Film.com.

In addition he has won the Creativity in Media award for his work on

  

www.stairwellblog.com              

      

His work has been recently featured in Burroughs Publishing Lunchbox Romance Line and Eternal Press’ young adult fiction line.

https://twitter.com/JRSinason            

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8094737.Josh_Sinason/blog            

        

LOVE, LATTES, AND MUTANTS by Sandra Cox - Cover Reveal and Giveaway

I'm really excited to welcome my friend Sandra Cox to the Flight Deck today, and to reveal the gorgeous cover of her latest book
Be sure to enter the contest at the end of the post to win one of the beautiful prizes she is offering.

LOVE, LATTES, AND MUTANTS

Sandra Cox

Cover Reveal

Blurb: Finding love is hard, even when you aren’t a mutant.

Like most seventeen-year-olds, Piper Dunn wants to blend in with the crowd. Having a blowhole is a definite handicap. A product of a lab-engineered mother with dolphin DNA, Piper spends her school days hiding her brilliant ocean-colored eyes and sea siren voice behind baggy clothing and ugly glasses. When Tyler, the new boy in school, zeroes in on her, ignoring every other girl vying for his attention, no one, including Piper, understands why...

Then Piper is captured on one of her secret missions rescuing endangered sea creatures and ends up in the same test center where her mother was engineered. There she discovers she isn’t the only one of her kind. Joel is someone she doesn’t have to hide from, and she finds herself drawn to the dolph-boy who shares her secrets. Talking to him is almost as easy as escaping from the lab. Deciding which boy has captured her heart is another story...

Bio:

Multi-published author Sandra Cox writes YA Fantasy, Paranormal and Historical Romance, and Metaphysical Nonfiction. She lives in sunny North Carolina with her husband, a brood of critters and an occasional foster cat. Although shopping is high on the list, her greatest pleasure is sitting on her screened in porch, listening to the birds, sipping coffee and enjoying a good book. She's a vegetarian and a Muay Thai enthusiast.

Links:

EKensington: http://www.ekensingtonbooks.com/author.aspx/31643

$2.99 at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Love-Lattes-Mutants-Sandra-Cox-ebook/dp/B00PP2ZXBE/ref=sr_1_7?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1420399004&sr=1-7&keywords=sandra+cox

$2.99 at Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-lattes-and-mutants-sandra-cox/1120791624?ean=9781616506063

$2.99 at Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/love-lattes-and-mutants

Blog: www.sandracox.blogspot.com

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/sandra_cox

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SandraCox.Author

Giveaways:

First prize:

A Piper-approved necklace and $10 Starbuck Card

Second Prize:

A Piper-approved bracelet

Host Prize:

To enter:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/927e5e0011/

To enter for Hostess Only Giveaway:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/927e5e0012/

Hook by K R Thompson - Release Blitz

BOOK INFORMATION

TITLE – HOOK
 AUTHOR – K.R. Thompson
 GENRE – Fantasy/Fairy Tale/Adventure
PUBLICATION DATE – January 1, 2015 LENGTH (Pages/# Words) - 300 Pages/78,000 words

BOOK SYNOPSIS

Archie Jameson dreamed of adventure. Today, it found him. Caught in a chilly October storm, he ducked into a tavern, hoping to escape the rain. What he found, was a room teeming with pirates. Shanghaied by the most elderly of the lot, Archie awakens to discover that he is serving on a ship captained by the fiercest pirate ever to sail the seven seas--the man known as Blackbeard. Through a series of thrilling twists, Archie finds himself captain of another of Blackbeard's ships, the Jolig Roger. In an attempt to flee danger, his ship becomes lost beneath uncharted stars and arrives at a mysterious island. Determined to save both his crew and the woman he loves, Archie will make decisions that will forever seal his fate. For in Neverland, not all is as it seems.

BUY & TBR LINKS

AMAZON KINDLE US – AMAZON KINDLE CA – AMAZON KINDLE UK – GOODREADS

EXCERPT

The breeze picked up and was bursting insistent, frigid puffs that threatened to dislodge his hat. Archie clamped one hand on top, squishing it down around his lean face as he resolutely lengthened his stride and marched on, determined to make it home before the storm set in. He'd almost made it to the corner, to the place where he normally made the left on N. Westburl, and then a right onto 43rd, followed by a various assortment of other long deviations that would get him safely home, when a large crack of thunder shook the air. He decided that just this once he might consider taking the most direct route, albeit dangerous, foreboding, and possibly life-threatening. 

He stopped right on the bend of the street, uncertain for a split moment, until the next jolting crack of thunder made up his mind for him. He headed straight along Market St that followed the length of the Thames River, hoping that the seedy individuals who lurked around the pier were as mindful of the storm as he and would not cause him trouble on this particular evening, for even though he was quick-witted and could talk himself out of most troubles, sailors tended to be a harder breed of people. They were a sharp and cunning lot, and Archie did not know if he could outsmart anyone else that day and didn't wish to press his luck. He made it past the pier, hesitating just long enough to glance at the small boats tied to the dock. There were obviously people about, and so far he had been lucky enough not to encounter any of them. But one final ground-shaking crack and the tinkling sound of bells changed it all. The clouds overhead clashed and he ran for the shelter of a nearby tavern, barely escaping the torrent of rain. Archie had never been in The Captain's Keg before.

He stopped just inside the door and let his eyes adjust to the dark, smoke-filled room. He realized that not only had he run into the very people he wished to avoid, but that he also had a new problem. These men weren't just sailors. He was ready to run back out and take his chances of drowning in the street, when he heard the same tinkling of bells from earlier. This time, it sounded like mocking laughter. Well. He might very well be losing his mind, but a coward he was not. He straightened to his full height—all six feet and four inches of it—and removed his crumpled hat with a flourish, tucking it under his arm. He walked proudly down the three steps that led into the heart of the tavern—to a bar, teeming with pirates. A couple of heads turned at his arrival and those who met his solemn, blue gaze were quick to drop their eyes back to their drinks. His spirits momentarily lifted, Archibald nodded to himself more than to anyone else in particular, a slight smile playing on his lips. He was holding his own. Still erring on the side of caution, he scanned the length of the bar, finding three open seats. Two were between rather burly, shifty-looking blokes with tattoos. The third seat, nearly on the end of the bar, sat betwixt an elderly gentleman with longish white sideburns, a round belly, and spectacles to match that sat precariously upon a rather bulbous nose. The gent on the other side was scrawny, his clothes in tatters, thin face in a scowl as he stared at a leaflet of paper before him. Even though he sat still, there was a nervous energy that pulsed off the small man. He gave Archibald the impression of a jittery, starving squirrel. 

Archibald decided his best chances lay between the old man and the squirrel and so he took his seat, nodding in a genial fashion to the old man, whose watery blue eyes barely gave him a passing glance. The squirrel didn't acknowledge his presence. "What'll it be, mate?" the barkeep asked. Archibald bit his lip to keep from laughing. Every drink in the tavern was the same yellowish liquid. Why the bald man standing behind the bar bothered to even ask such a mundane question was beyond him. Perhaps he was daydreaming again. He did do that a lot and at times it seemed real.

"'Tis all ale, is it not?"

 "Aye, but will it be single or double ye'll be havin'?" 

Archibald lifted a single finger and waited for his drink. "Ye'd have much better luck with rum, I should think," the old man said quietly as he stared down into his own glass, "The ale's watered down. Not fit for a fish to drink, it isn't."

 One dreg out of the glass, and Archibald was quite certain the gentleman was more than right. It tasted like something poured from an old boot. Not that he regularly drank from old boots, mind you. Thank heavens he hadn't ordered twice the amount of the vile stuff. Deciding it better not to even bother asking for the rum, which most definitely hidden beneath the counter and out of sight, he tossed a couple of coins down on the scarred wooden bar, and sat looking down into the remnants of his glass, listening to the patter of rain on the tin roof. A strange thought came suddenly. For a bar filled with pirates, it was most unusual. It was rather quiet, an odd comment here or there, but otherwise there was nothing but silence. Surely they weren't all sitting around listening to the rain. Archie couldn't figure it out. But he knew one thing, these people certainly weren't living up to his expectations of the loud, fearless persons he always thought pirates to be.

 The squirrel on his left shifted around on his stool, staring even harder at the parchment. Sweat popped out on a face that was now a color that reminded Archie of the paper in the print shop, a colorless, pasty white. Good for paper, not for squirrels. "Well?" a low, deep voice rolled out from a dark corner and broke the silence so suddenly that it startled Archie. "Give us the news then, Harper." Ah, well now. Things may get lively yet, Archie thought, casting a quick look to the corner from where the voice rumbled. It was too dark to see the man who sat against the wall, but Archibald got a good look at the pair of worn, dark leather boots propped up on the table, and the curling wisps of cigar smoke that floated up to the rafters

. "It says a r-roy, royy…" the squirrel named Harper stuttered, the paper shaking in his hands. "Ach! The man canna read it anymore than the rest o' us." A complaint hurtled from one of the tattooed blokes at the opposite end of the bar. As if he were getting more anxious, Harper tried again, his voice in a near squeak, "A royy-alll…" Archie spied the lettering, and against his better conscience, whispered just loud enough that Harper would hear, "A royal pardon is offered to those pirates who surrender on or before the fifth of September, this year of 1718." He waited as Harper relayed the message, then continued, "Being limited to crimes committed before the fifth of January. All other crimes committed after such date, will be considered for a death of hanging."

 Archie sensed the old man on the other side of him shuffle about, as if he were searching for something on the insides of his pockets, but Archie's attention was fixed on the squirrel he saved. Harper turned and gave him a toothless, yet thankful, smile and set to guzzling the contents of his glass as quickly as possible in an effort to calm his shaking nerves. "Well, that counts us out, lads," a dark chuckle came from the corner, "'No pardon for the likes o' us, I fear. We all be hanged." 

"Aye, but they must catch us first. I won't be finding me neck in a noose," a shout rang out, followed by the murmur of agreement from all the others as they lifted their glasses in salute. Feeling rather in-tune with the pirates, Archibald picked up his glass as well and toasted the luck of the now boisterous lot, draining the last contents of his glass. Some small part of his brain noted that while the ale was certainly vile before, it also became bitter the longer it sat. The bitterness left nearly as soon as he noticed it, having been replaced with a rather calming sensation. Pirates truly weren't a bad lot, he thought sleepily, just people like everyone else. They were only misunderstood. He turned to convince the elderly gentleman on his right of exactly that, when the darkness came and took over. The last thing he heard was the old man chuckle, singing softly, "Yo-ho, me mateys, yo-ho…"

***

"Careful now, lads, mind the poor lout's head, aye? He'll be having a dreadful headache come morning without any extra bumps ye'd be givin' him along the way." The voice was familiar—rather achingly so—though Archie couldn't quite seem to get his faculties in order to remember who the owner of the voice was. The few times he could open his eyes, nothing at all made sense. It all came and went in blurs with distorted figures he couldn't quite make out. The darkness came and went, so in the end, he figured it better to keep his eyes shut for the time being and try to concentrate on other things, foggy and confusing as they might seem. He thought he was being drug along the rough boards of the pier, and while that familiar voice seemed to care about the condition of his head, his legs and backside seemed to be another matter entirely of which the man cared not a whit as they bumped him along each splintering plank. Luckily, the drug slipped in his drink deadened the pain, and he only registered the faint, odd pricks and scrapes where the wood had its way with his flesh.

"He's got hair like black candles, he does," a crackling voice snickered by his head. "Aye, Smee, are we taking this poor soul aboard for his long locks? Did the Cap'n order you fetch him a wifey, then?" another voice chimed in, followed by raucous laughter, and a low retort from the man named Smee that Archibald couldn't make out. "A good bit heavier than he looks," the first voice by his head huffed, "Slow ye down a bit, Murph. I'm losin' my grip. Oh drat, there he goes!" And those were the last words Archibald ever heard on the shores of bonnie England as his head hit the pier and the darkness crept over him once again.

AUTHOR BIO

K.R. Thompson lives in southwest Virginia with her husband, son, three cats, and an indeterminable amount of chickens. An avid reader and firm believer in magic, she spends her nights either reading an adventure or writing one. She still watches for evidence of Bigfoot in the mud of Wolf Creek.

AUTHOR FOLLOW LINKS

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE – WEBSITE / BLOG – FACEBOOK – TWITTER – GOOGLE+ - GOODREADS

This Release Blitz Was Organized & Hosted By

Heart of Steel - Release Day Spotlight and Review

Congratulations to Elizabeth Einspanier on the release today of HEART OF STEEL, a Science Fiction Romance. Elizabeth is giving away a $20 gift certificate to Steampunk Emporium. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

When reclusive cyborg Alistair Mechanus meets his captive, ER doctor Julia Parker, it is love at first sight--for him. While he eagerly drops his plans for World Conquest to woo her, ten years of solitude have left his social skills badly rusted. When his misguided act of kindness spirals out of control, however, Julia is forced to trust the mad genius with her life, and she discovers the vulnerable side under his armored plating. She has the skills he needs to unlock his forgotten past, but learning who he used to be may come at the cost of his remaining sanity.

MY REVIEW

Heart of Steel could be summarised as 'The Island of Dr Moreau meets 'Beauty and the Beast' except that this description seems a bit flippant for such an enjoyable story. Although I would class it as Science Fiction, and the description of medical and electronic procedures was written with confidence and an air of authenticity, there is also a 'Steampunk' feel, especially in the last chapter.

I was drawn into it from the start, and although I have to admit I initially felt a 'mad Scientist' called Dr Mechanus was a little like a 'comic strip' character, as the story progressed I realised there was far more to Alistair Mechanus than his desire for world domination.  It transpires that even this desire is actually more altruistic than manic. There are occasional references to Jules Verne and Star Trek and at times Julia seems to feel she's living in a dream world, and well she might, with a cybernetically enhanced and very jealous ex boyfriend on the rampage, various bio-electronic creatures and automatons, and  a charismatic, if seemingly deranged bionic genius who first takes her captive and then enlists her help.

Alistair Mechanus's deepening affection for Julia is touching, as is the gentle way he treats her, his thoughtful acts of courtesy seemingly at odds with his reclusive nature and macabre appearance. The story is fast moving and had me turning the pages, anxious to see whether Julia really could help him recover his memories of his past without sending him over the edge, while being reluctant for the story to finish.  I don't want to give too much away, sufficient to say that the end is satisfying and neatly ties up the loose ends.  I finished it, wanting more, which is not a bad thing. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a sweet romance spiced with plenty of action and intriguing Science Fiction elements.

Enjoy an excerpt:

She advanced cautiously, trying to get a look at the subject of his study in the next room. Before she could, however, the tall man in the hall with her spoke.

“Greetings, Julia,” he said in the baritone she’d heard from the speaker. She turned, and saw to her shock that a significant portion of the left half of his face, now revealed to her, was crafted of overlapping segments of unpolished metal, apparently riveted through the flesh and into the skull and jaw. His left eye was a mechanical lens that turned and focused in perfect coordination with its biological counterpart as he regarded her, its iris dilating as he offered her a welcoming smile. “I am, as you have probably guessed, Dr. Mechanus. I welcome you to my humble lair.” He sketched a bow to her, and she either heard or imagined the sound of countless motors whirring within him.

At first her thoughts were consumed by a single horrified thought—what the hell what the hell what the hell—repeated over and over again until her mind filled with what the hell from top to bottom and side to side. She felt light-headed, and braced herself against the edge of the observation window to avoid falling, but some persistently reasonable corner of her mind gently informed her that now simply was not a good time for her to faint or throw up.

Stay frosty, Julia, the voice advised her, in a familiar-sounding voice that Julia couldn’t immediately identify. Think of this like your first car crash in the ER. Sure, it looks horrible, but you can get through this. Just breathe. Get through this, and find out what’s happened to Jim. You’re okay.

PURCHASE ON AMAZON

About the Author:

Elizabeth Einspanier is the self-published author of the Weird Western novella Sheep’s Clothing and the upcoming S/F romance novel Heart of Steel. Her short stories have been published in Down in the Dirt and Dark Fire Fiction. She is a member of the St. Louis Writer’s Guild and an associate member of the Horror Writers of America. She lives in St. Louis, but frequently spends extended periods in worlds of her own creation.

Website: http://elizabetheinspanier.com
Blog: http://calliopeskiss.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GeekGirlWriter
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ElizabethEinspanier/
Amazon Author Page: http://amazon.com/author/elizabetheinspanier

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