Audiobook Review: The Coelho Medallion by Kevin Tumlinson

In an off-the-beaten-trail location in Colorado, near the borders of Texas and New Mexico, a team of archeologists has uncovered an ancient medallion covered in symbols from various native languages as well as what appear to be Viking runes.  Is this evidence that pre-Columbian European explorers interacted with Native Americans this far into the North American continent? Somebody seems to believe so, and when evidence of a previously uncharted underground river possibly connecting the site to locations further north is uncovered, the speculation and the intrigue kicks into high gear.

The book, The Coelho Medallion, is named for this artifact; the artifact is named for its discoverer, an Hispanic archeologist named Coelho (pronounced Quay-o.) The story is reminiscent of Dan Brown’s Langdon series, the Indiana Jones franchise, and a little bit of the National Treasure movies as well. There are bad guys, heists, chases, an unrealized romantic backstory, a rich playboy/adventurer hero, a damsel in distress, an FBI sidekick, and loads of twists and turns – and I’m not just talking about the underground river.

Kevin Tumlinson

All of the tropes are present, but they are handled deftly and in a way that makes the story feel believable. Everything is told in a third-person omniscient POV, so we never leave our role as observer to become part of the action, and I personally like that. It’s more theatrical – which is just the mood a story like this requires. If the book has a weakness, it’s a dearth of strong female characters. There’s the damsel in distress, Dr, Evelyn Horelica, and the owner of a shady bar who is only in one scene and could just as easily have been a male character, but other than that the main cast of 
players is a sausage party rivaling Twelve Angry Men.

Richard Rieman

The audiobook version is ably narrated by Richard Rieman. He has a rich baritone perfectly suited to the gravitas of the story without distracting from the mood. He sounds familiar and pleasant without sounding generic and chipper. He does, however, have a verbal tell in the way he pronounces the word “room” in what feels to me like a West Virginia accent. And the word seems to appear in the story an inordinate number of times. Most people probably wouldn’t even notice it. Well, you will, now, because I brought it to your attention, but otherwise…

Overall, I really enjoyed the experience, and if it was ever made into a film starring – oh I don’t know – Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Ryan Reynolds, I might watch it – eventually, on cable. Also, I understand that the character, Dan Kotler, is a recurring character with other adventures to his fictional name in the works as well as a prequel novella. Would I read or listen to those? Given the opportunity; absolutely. Would I seek them out though, that’s the real question.  They’re already in my Google Alerts cue.

Audible link

May Promo

It's time, once again, for the monthly promo hosted by Renée Pawlish. This weekend (May 13 & 14) features 99¢ mystery and thriller eBooks. There are nearly 50 books and a few box sets in the promo, so for under half a C-note you can own over 50 titles.

My own book, Common Sense, the second title in the Lupa Schwartz mystery series is included in the mix.

   Common sense tells Cattleya Hoskin that her reporter ex-husband wouldn't have gone out night-fishing by himself in the middle of an investigation. The unaccommodating local authorities see it differently. In an effort to prove them wrong, Cattleya enlists the help of her private investigator friend, Schwartz, to follow through with Dave’s investigation—theft from the power grid in a small Ohio town.
   The inquiry is complicated by crooked contractors, a menacing white van, and some long-abandoned coal mines and antebellum tunnels. Aggressively loud church bells and the amorous advances of a bounty hunter Schwartz brought in to help add to an already convoluted situation. Yet Cattleya feels she owes it to Dave to figure out what happened to him, for better or for worse.

You can find the promo and links to all of the titles at ReneePawlish.com/promo/

Book Release on June 7!

All of the final beta notes are back or coming soon. The ARC team has been sent their rough draft copies. Final edits will be completed in the next few days. Then on June 7th, 2017, my latest novel, my first full length thriller, On the Side of the Angel, will be available in paperback and through Kindle Unlimited and on Amazon for Kindle. A few weeks after, it will leave KU and it will be available in wide distribution on all channels; Kobo, iBooks, B&N, everywhere.

On the Side of the Angel is the first in a proposed series of novels featuring the Bartering Angel, a fixer with a private vendetta. The story arc for Angel is epic, beginning in Alaska in the 90s and moving through time and multiple locations to the present day, with each story representing a stop in her journey to revenge and vindication. Here's the description:

   Lina Forman has an assumed name, a vendetta, a résumé of varied skills, and the knowledge to make her a force to fear.
   Known in the criminal underground as The Bartering Angel, a mysterious “fixer” whose help keeps the bad guys out of trouble, she assumes the name Lina when she arrives in the Pittsburgh area in 2005. When the son of a local drug runner murders a convenience store clerk during a botched thrill robbery, Lina must keep him out of jail to prove her worth to the local criminal underground. Despite her elaborate scheme to confound the evidence and mislead authorities, two local cops threaten to disrupt her plans and steer the FBI on a path to avoid her red herrings.
   Can Lina preserve her reputation and make good on her promises before she has to abandon her vengeance, change her name, and start again? Or will a careless oversight expose her secrets?

The eBook will be available for the introductory price of $2.99! You can pre-order now, if you are so inclined, at this UBL. As other installments in the Bartering Angel series are released by other authors, I'll keep you informed or you can check out the series' page at Bartering-Angel.weebly.com/

Happy Easter Weekend

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a particularly (or at all) religious man, but I enjoy the secular aspects of the holiday and I respect the beliefs of those who observe. It's also a time when many people have time off from their jobs or schooling, and with that time on your hands it's an opportunity to binge your favorite show, to catch up on some current music, or to read some of the literature that's been building up on your e-reading device.

If you're on my beta-reader or ARC team, you should have received an email from me by now with the latest and next-to-final edits of my upcoming release, On the Side of the Angel. I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to your remarks regarding your reading experience.

Until next month, happy ham shopping! Oh,and if you have any good leftover ham and boiled egg recipes, send them my way. Let's make this a Dyngus Day to remember!

Easter Freebies!

This weekend is also the weekend of Renée Pawlish's April promo, and this time around it's FREE kindle ebooks. Check out the more than 20 free thriller and mystery titles here on April 15 and 16.

Again the stars have aligned, and Anne R. Tan's Instafreebie giveaway is also beginning this weekend. It runs April 16 through 19, and the more than 30 participating mystery titles can be found here.

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And for the first time, Anne has handed off the responsibility to handle the Instafreebie giveaway for thriller titles. Whereas her promo used to be mysteries AND thrillers, now Craig Hart has taken over thriller titles. His promo is hosted here, and all of the thriller titles are available on the same dates as Anne's promo. Enjoy.

Guest Post: Why I wrote the Vanishing Café, by Hana Esselink

Hana Esselink is a Public Relations Consultant, who has worked in Communications for 16 years for public and private sector organisations, charities and individuals. She has worked for organizations with high profile reputations such as the National Audit Office, HMRC and the Food Standards Agency.

Hana Esselink

Hana has helped an East London based artist who was a former businessman, to achieve success in producing two solo exhibitions. One featured on BBC London news and the other received good media coverage in East London.

A creative thinker who relates well to people from different backgrounds and ages, Hana grew up in multi-cultural London – a city that influences her work and writing.  She likes to think and develop ideas outside the box. She is also interested in spirituality and is a devotee of yoga and swimming. A keen traveler who likes to experience other cultures, Hana enjoys writing, art, music, film, cooking, reading a good novel and visiting diverse parts of London, such as Brick Lane.

As a writer, Hana likes to explore the human and metaphysical aspects of life. She is currently writing her second novel, set in the era of Jesus Christ.

Hana currently lives in South Kensington, West London.

The Vanishing Café by Hana Esselink

 The cafe had a metaphysical spirituality, a mystical - almost holy - vibe. It's where Nina had felt most alive. Where she was reborn. There she shed her driven persona as a public relations hack who cared only for the surfaces of things and for getting ahead.
The place was hardly trendy. Dim, indifferently furnished, it existed almost outside time. Oddly, it never even had a name, just a distinctive red canopy. But inside, Nina met people who opened her eyes to the world - to worlds behind the world. Small-p philosophers, Tarot-card readers, wise misfits, inspired eccentrics. Miraculous things took place there. Nina found she could hear what others were thinking. For a few minutes one day, before her eyes, the dowdy room transformed itself into a Buddhist temple. Over time, the cafe transformed Nina. She became more mindful, more receptive...more loving. It was a supernatural experience; a metaphysical awakening. And that let her find love. Nina married Pieter. Reliable, stable, wonderful Pieter. Now, after five years away, she has the chance to revisit the cafe. She has the chance to show him the miraculous place that changed her.But the cafe, once so brilliant with life and spirit, is derelict.And there's a second shock. Pieter, ever the cool rationalist, scoffs at the very idea of the cafe's magical realism. He disbelieves Nina's transformation - the very thing that allowed her to love him.Nina is bereft. Her friends, her teachers, her guides are gone. Suddenly, with the cafe defunct and Pieter mocking it - mocking her! - she's no longer sure of anything.Had that red canopy truly shaded a doorway to higher consciousness? Or had it all just been a supernatural hallucination?And...must her marriage break up over this? If Pieter can't accept this most important, magical truth of her life, could it possibly last?If only the café would suddenly reappear, so that she can convince Pieter of its power and win back his trust!Or can she somehow manage that on her own?

So the question arises: why did I write my novel The Vanishing Café?

It’s a genre that is either classed as magical realism, ‘spirituality’- and whatever that entails or inspirational. I like inspirational because for me, writing that novel felt inspired.

It took me the best part of 10 years on and off to write the book, which was originally called The Butterfly Dance, until I realized that no one would ever understand what that meant and for someone who is a communications professional (I’ve worked in public relations and communications for 16 years) that was a tragedy.

So, I hired an editor to help me reshape the novel and a guy from the States called Mike Alvaer, who is a Kindle expert and we changed the whole thing from the cover design to the title, to parts of the narrative until it flowed better, until it read better, until it just was better.

You see, as a communications professional working most of my career in public sector organizations amongst other places, I was used to being told that we couldn’t talk about certain subjects to the media as some topics were too ‘sensitive’ or the reputation of the organisation had to be protected. There was plenty of red tape, silly politics and bureaucracy along my career path.

That’s when I decided to write a novel about a café in Soho, where the narrator, Nina, would be on a hunt for the ‘truth’. For her, it meant that after the death of her beloved grandmother in India, she realized that her driven persona as a public relations hack was too shallow, that there was more to life. Despite the obvious similarities, I didn’t base the narrator on myself.

Nina wants to know if there is life after death, as her spiritual grandmother told her there was, she is fed up of living a life that only cares for the surface of things and for getting ahead, not for the things that really matter.

At this time, I was also going to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, London regularly. This is every Sunday, listening to people talking about religion, faith, socialism, anything that takes their fancy. People stand on their soapboxes and relay what they feel is most important, their Jesus, their Muhammad, the difference between the Bible and the Quran. Some of the speakers are serious and moody, others joke and want to play down religion. Still others, put each other down for their beliefs. However, for me it was a great way to learn about the search for ‘truth’, it was each to their own. It became a search for our feelings.

At one point during this time, I found a little café in Greek Street in Soho, which is now long gone (replaced by a small corner shop, selling sweets and chocolates and a few other things). During my time there, it was run by an Italian lady and was frequented by a transvestite and a few other regulars. I wasn’t working that summer, so the idea for The Vanishing Café came from this place.

However, I made my story very different. I wanted Nina, my narrator, to have been through something so painful, that she was hungry for a change in her life, a different direction that could pierce her reality after the death of her grandmother. I wanted Nina to create something so vivid in her imagination that no one would ever know if it was true or imagined.

So it was that the café in The Vanishing Café became the place for that transformation, the place where Nina met all the crazy characters who helped change her life. The café is like Dr Who’s tardis, it can transport her to other realities.

The cafe is hardly trendy. In fact it’s dim and indifferently furnished, it exists almost outside time. Oddly, it never even has a name, just a distinctive red canopy. But inside, Nina meets people who open her eyes to the world — to worlds behind the world. These are small-p philosophers, Tarot-card readers, wise misfits, inspired eccentrics. Miraculous things take place in the café. Nina finds she could hear what others are thinking. For a few minutes one day, before her eyes, the dowdy room transforms itself into a Buddhist temple.

Over time, the cafe transforms Nina. She becomes more mindful, more receptive and ultimately, more loving. And that lets her find love. Nina marries Pieter, her Dutch husband. He is reliable and stable, he is wonderful.

The novel begins with Nina and her husband coming back to London, after living five years away in Amsterdam. Nina has the chance to revisit the café again with Pieter, who has never been. She has the chance to show him the miraculous place that changed her. But the cafe, once so brilliant with life and spirit, has closed down and is derelict.

And there’s a second shock. Pieter, ever the cool rationalist, scoffs at the very idea of the cafe’s magic. He disbelieves Nina’s transformation — the very thing that allowed her to love him. Nina is bereft. Her friends, her teachers, her guides are gone.  

Suddenly, with the cafe defunct and Pieter mocking it and mocking her — she’s no longer sure of anything. Had that red canopy outside the cafe truly shade a doorway to higher consciousness? Or had it all just been a hallucination? Nina is starting to think that her marriage can now break up over this. If Pieter can’t accept this most important truth of her life, could it possibly last?

If only the café would suddenly reappear, so that she can convince Pieter of its power and win back his trust! Or can she somehow manage that on her own?

The reader is like Nina’s husband - skeptical and wondering if the café really was as magical as she says. Or was she suffering from too much grief at that time and did that emotion take over her and did she, in fact, imagine it all?

Only the reader can decide if the café really was a place of magic that transformed a woman’s life or whether Nina is indeed crazy in her imagination. Was the café a gateway to a higher energy than ourselves? Nina is defiant that it is, but once again, her emotions may have taken her there.

So it is that the search for the ‘truth’ still continues.

***

Follow @hanaesselink on Twitter

The Vanishing Café is available on Amazon.

Author Interview: Frank Cavallo: Author of Rites of Azathoth

Frank Cavallo is a horror and dark fantasy writer. His previous works include Eye of the Storm, The Lucifer Messiah, The Hand of Osiris, and the Gotrek & Felix novella Into the Valley of Death.

Frank Cavallo

He was born and raised in New Jersey. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in Communications in 1994 and he earned a JD from the Cleveland Marshall College of Law in 2001. His life-long fascination with the darker side of human nature has led him to devote most of the past 15 years to a career as a criminal defense attorney, at the Cuyahoga County Public Defender Office, in Cleveland, Ohio. There he has come face-to-face with some of the truest horror in this world. Murder, rape, burglary, drugs. That's his bread and butter. 

Rites of Azathoth 

F.B.I. criminal profiler Diana Mancuso doesn’t do field work anymore. Not since a tragic mistake that cost innocent lives. But when notorious serial killer Luther Vayne escapes from prison and resumes his campaign of brutal murders, the Bureau convinces her to take one last case. To catch him, she must understand him. She must delve into the arcana that fuels his madness, risking her life and her sanity to follow his twisted path. The trail plunges her into a shadowy world of occult rituals and unspeakable horrors, leading to a secret cabal operating at the highest levels—and a plot to summon the darkest of all powers, to bring forth an evil that does not belong in our world—to enact the Rites of Azathoth.

Who are your influences?

Since my newest book contains a Lovecraft character in the title, you’d probably expect me to say HPL, and you’d be right. But there are plenty of others, especially from that golden age of pulp fiction.

I remember reading the preface to an old collection of Robert E. Howard stories in which the writer (I can’t remember who, unfortunately) said that a lot of writers made him want to read, but only a few writers made him want to write. That stuck with me, for two reasons. One, because I agreed with him, Robert E. Howard made me want to write too. Second, there are very few writers I’ve come across since who made me feel that way. Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker are the two guys working today who have that effect on me.

When did you begin writing?

When I was about eight years old, I started writing stories in school. At first they were just monster stories at Halloween, then sci-fi stories in the mold of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. That became kind of a habit, and I haven’t stopped since.

 

How do you come up with your stories, characters, character names, POV, etc?

I try to write stories that I would want to read, and I hope that other people share the same interests as me. As far as how I come up with them, that’s a harder question to answer. I usually work through an idea a little at a time, mulling over various scenarios and permutations until I find something that I think would be interesting to explore.

Things like character names are particularly fun to toy with, and highly dependent on the setting. I wrote a “weird western” a few years ago set in the late 19^th century. So I scoured things like lists of Civil War generals to get a sense of what names were popular 150 years ago. The fashions change from era to era of course, and in those days there were a lot of Biblical and Classical names being used. Today very few guys are named Jedidiah or Lysander, but back then it was pretty common. Once you have the names down it really gets you into the feel of things.

Do you work from an outline?

I definitely do, but I don’t always stick to it. At one time I did not outline at all, I would just start writing and see what happened. That was a messy way to do it, and I found that it was taking me a very long time to write a single piece, since I was constantly changing course, re-working the story, etc. These days I outline everything on the front end, but I’m always willing to deviate from that structure as things develop. So I take a sort of hybrid approach.

Tell me about your favorite scene in your novel.

Without giving too much away, there is a scene fairly early on in Rites of Azathoth that I enjoyed writing. It’s pivotal point for one of the characters, where he is just being introduced to this secret cult that worships the dark gods. The rituals he’s initiated into are violent and soaked with blood, but he’s very much aware that this horror represents a path to something he desperately wants. So he’s forced to choose—accept these twisted and obviously horrific practices or turn away and risk losing the chance to finally have the thing he wants most in life.

I love getting into questions like that. How much are you willing to tolerate to get what you want? How much are we willing to compromise in the service of our deepest desires?

Can you tell us a little about your writing philosophy?

This isn’t exactly revolutionary, but I’m very much from the school of “character first.” Everything proceeds from that, no matter what kind of fiction you’re writing. It all starts with interesting, flawed characters who confront their internal issues while also dealing with some external problem. You sometimes hear people say that there are only about seven basic stories that can be told. My thought on that is “who cares?” Because that idea misses the point. What you should always be doing as a writer is examining the human experience through the lens of a single character, who just happens to be embroiled in some version of one of those seven plots. The journey of that character is why you’re writing.

Have you ever tried writing in any other genres?

In a way, I suppose. I’ve written science fiction, fantasy and horror, broadly speaking. In each of those, I’ve tried to blend elements from different genres. In a larger sense, there’s an argument that all three of these are really just one genre: “speculative fiction.” If you look at something like The Twilight Zone that was not strictly a horror show or a fantasy show or even a sci-fi show, but from week to week the stories ran the gamut between all of them. So in a sense, I feel like everything I’ve been writing falls under this broad umbrella.

In terms of branching out into something very different, like romance or literary fiction, then the answer is definitely “no.” I just don’t know enough about those genres, because I’ve never read them. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Do you have any interesting writing-related anecdotes to share?

The book I released last year, Eye of the Storm, took place in a steppe society, very much like the ancient Mongols or Scythians. I always try to get as close to what I’m writing as possible, so in this case it gave me an excuse to do something I’d always wanted to do, to go trekking in Central Asia for a few weeks. Hopefully some of that comes through in the book, like the taste of fermented horse milk, for example. It’s better than you’d think.

Frank Cavallo’s latest novel, Rites of Azathoth, was released in January 2017, published by Bedlam Press (An Imprint of Necro Publications).

“Rites of Azathoth is an occult-thriller rooted in the H.P. Lovecraft tradition, or what is sometimes called the Cthulhu Mythos. It is a book that will appeal to general horror audiences, especially any fans of Lovecraft himself, as well as fans of Clive Barker, Peter Straub and Jack Ketchum,” says Cavallo.

Readers can connect with Frank on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. 

To learn more, go to http://www.frankcavallo.com/

Two Promos; One Weekend

In the past, I have told you about Renée Pawlish's sales promos and Ann R. Tan's Instafreebie promos. Normally I can only tell you about one per post because they fall at different times of the month. However, this month, the planets have aligned, weekends have converged, and there has been a shift to the paradigm of epic proportions. Okay, that may be a little hyperbolic, but just a little.

Here's the situation, on the weekend of the 18th and 19th, Renée's promo featuring mystery and thriller ebooks on sale for 99 cents is running concurrent with Ann's Instafreebie mystery and thriller group giveaway which runs March 19 to March 21. 

Renée's promo can be found here:

Ann's can be found here: