JUDGMENT TRAMP is FREE Feb. 18-20!

http://amzn.to/wBpEKB
4.5 stars Amazon Kindle

From the first paragraph, you are hooked . . . characters are strong, realistic, and story line drags you right into the pages. Thrills, chills, a little romance, and great attention to detail. Could not put my Kindle down - stayed up til 3 am reading so I could find out what happens to everyone!"~Debra Field

"Things are rarely what they appear to be in this deftly written novel of intrigue and judgment. Eb is a wonderful character, masculine yet real, dealing with real human challenges, trying to find inner peace in a world writhing with turmoil and hidden and half truths. The ending is powerful and, like the rest of the book, complicated and satisfying." ~Martha Bryce

Ex-Army helicopter pilot Eb McLean is struggling to deal with his emotional scars and return to civilian life, but a sudden explosion and vicious murder throw him back into another kind of war. Now his sister Maggie's car is burning in front of their restaurant and hardened FBI agent Nick Kavadas wants to nail Eb for the crime. Eb finds himself in a race against time to find the real killer and peel back the layers of deceit and lies which threaten to destroy everything he holds dear. But whom can he trust? ATF Special Agent Danielle Ricci, who may be harboring a secret of her own? The sexy, but deadly, Imme Amoud? Or could his involvement with her be a fatal attraction? In the frantic hunt for the killer Eb is forced to confront his own tortured past. 

http://amzn.to/wBpEKB

#BuyIndieMonth is coming to a close. It's the end of the month and I have just added my last selection to my February list of books by independent authors. Does this mean I stop acquiring books by other indie authors? Of course not! This month has served to remind me that every download, every like, every tag, and every review is important to my fellow indie writers, just as it is to me. So now the fun begins...I promise to read every book on my list and leave positive, honest reviews for my fellow writers, so stay tuned!
If you want to see my #BuyIndieMonth selections, you can find them here=> Buying Indie Month
Below you can find links to the lists of other writers and #BuyIndie who have posted their reading selections as well:

Benjamin X. Wretlind
Michael K. Rose
Carmen DeSousa
Clive S. Johnson
Hobbes End Publishing

If you have posted a list and would like me to include it, just let me know. Happy reading, all!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...and books

Everything changes.

I happen to be the proud owner of a Chevrolet Corvair--you know, the car made famous by Ralph Nader? That's right. I own an "Unsafe at any speed" Corvair. Mr. Nader may know some things, but he was full of crap about the Corvair--and now, almost 50 years later, the Corvair has one of the highest survival rates (relative to overall production) of any car from its era. Part of this is due to a dedicated owners club and a good supply of parts from several suppliers, and a lot of it is due to the durability of the car.

But make no mistake--the Corvair is a dinosaur. EVERY car from that era is--Mustangs, Camaros, Ramblers, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs...they are all relics of an age that is gone forever. The 60's are long gone, and cars run for 100,000 miles without a tune-up nowadays. Corvairs were unloved "used cars" for years, but now prices are creeping up. A 1965 Corvair convertible recently sold for almost $40,000 at auction.

Once upon a time, Trans World Airlines relied on a plane known as the "Super-Connie", the Lockheed L-1049G. This was the great passenger airliner of the late 1940's and 1940's, in an era when an airline meal was edible, a female flight attendant was called a "Stewardess", and when air travel was comfortable. The Super-Connie became obsolete when jet-engined airliners came on the scene, but the Super-Connie hung on as a passenger airliner until the late 60's. The jets that replaced the Super-Connie are long gone from passenger air travel themselves.

The Electromotive F7 was the standard freight locomotive of the late 40's and 1950's, and F-units were also used in passenger service. The Santa Fe Super Chief was pulled by F-units (there's a nice shot of that train in the movie "White Christmas", which is hilarious--as the train ran from California to Chicago, IL, not to Vermont), and for many people the Santa Fe F-unit was the face of American railroading, after Lionel made a best-selling model of the Santa Fe locomotive.

These were the iconic machines of the postwar world, along with Edsels, Cadillacs, Alco PA passenger locomotives, and Boeing 707's. They exist now, if at all, in collections, museums, and scrap yards.

I love planes, trains, and autos...but I think they pale in comparison to words. A story lives forever. Tom Sawyer is timeless. Huck Finn is still relevant today, maybe more relevant than ever. Gone With The Wind will still be read when I have turned to dust, and Steinbeck will endure.

 

Maybe someday the book as a medium will disappear, relegated to the dustbin of history like the Corvair. But people will still read. Rhett will chase Scarlett, Huck and Jim will raft the Mississippi, and Of Mice and Men will still be on student reading lists. We may read with a tablet, but the medium will never be as important as the message. We all have to tell our story, and we will need to read about this experience known as life, as long as humans feel, think, laugh, cry, plot, kill, work, play, and love.