Therefore, stories with Native American protagonists are essential for children as well as for adult readers. Many of us are uninformed about the contemporary and historical lives of native peoples and would benefit greatly from novels that offered accurate portrayals of Native Americans. Through literature, we might be better able to appreciate and recognize these citizens' current and past contributions to this country as well as their histories and struggles.
Oak Tree Press has several authors who are intimately familiar with Native American culture and write about Native American characters, situations, and settings. Please look for these titles in our bookstore! One of them is among our recent releases.
The season of giving is truly upon us, and now is a great time to begin the search for that special gift of a book -- perhaps even a signed copy or a new Kindle pre-loaded with great titles -- for the reader on your holiday shopping list!
Thank you for stopping by our blog for the roundup this week. Here as always, for your reading pleasure, we have the week's news, book signings, events, reviews, blogs, and more from our authors to share with you.
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"The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one."
~Oliver Goldsmith
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A reminder from Jeana: All OTP books are on Manic Readers!
Need help choosing a great book to read?
Check out our sample chapters on
We
have plenty to choose from. Just click on a title and you will be
directed to a free read! These sample chapters will be updated
frequently, and new releases will also be featured.
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J.L. Greger writes thrillers and mystery novels with tidbits about recent scientific advances. For example, did you know Cuban researchers recently patented a vaccine against a rare type of lung cancer? When you read her thriller Malignancy, you’ll see this fact makes modern Cuba emerge from the pages of the novel.
Don’t worry if you’re not much interested in science, her novels are filled with action and suspense, twisted but convincing plots, and the characters just quirky enough to be appealing. Her other mystery/ thrillers include Coming Flu, Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, and Ignore the Pain.While a professor in the biological sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, J.L. sharpened her story-telling skills with lectures in biochemistry and nutrition at eight-thirty in the morning. She found that students were more likely attend class and retain the “dry” facts if she “humanized” the science with relevant stories. She enjoys writing novels because now the facts are secondary to the story, instead of vice versa.
Her two great passions are Bug and travel. Bug is a pet therapy dog at local hospitals and the inspiration for the Bug in her novels. She's included her travels to Bolivia and Cuba in Ignore the Pain and Malignancy. J.L. has also done consulting in the Untied Arab Emirates and Lebanon. When she's not traveling, she lives with Bug in the American Southwest.
J.L.'s short stories focus on families and their crises. One of them, “Shoes,” won an award from the Public Safety Writers Association. Malignancy was a first-place winner in the association's Writing Competition in 2015
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In case you missed them last week, these latest releases a secon week. A Fox with Earrings by Loyd Little and Black Indian, Red Heart (White Justice) by Frederick H. Savage are out now in paperback and will soon be available for Kindle.
In A Fox with Earrings, Nolan Chastain is
three months into a consuming affair with Cass Tolley, a woman he’s
known and been fascinated with for more than a decade. It is not the
sort of thing Nolan is used to. Frankly, he’s a little reserved and
formal. Divorced two years ago, Nolan owns a small but upscale real
estate firm in Augusta.After the first day of showing million dollar homes to a recently retired Air Force general and his wife, Nolan arrives at Cass’s home to find police cars and blue lights―Cass has been shot and killed. Clues are sparse. No sign of breaking and entering or of a struggle. Ty Marion, chief of detectives and a college friend of Nolan’s questions him.
Going into the house, they pass a stuffed fox that Cass had picked up from the taxidermist two days earlier. For fun, she and Nolan had pinned a pair of her mother’s earrings on the fox. The police suspect Nolan, and he realizes he must discover the actual killer before the scandal taints his business and the police charge him with murder.
Loyd Little is a
graduate of the University of North Carolina and has taught creative
writing at UNC-Chapel Hill and the North Carolina community college system.
He was an editor/managing editor of four newspapers in North and South Carolina. He has lectured at various literary events and has critiqued novels and short stories for the North Carolina Writers Network for more than 20 years.His published novels include Parthian Shot (Viking/Ivy, 1975), winner of the 1976 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction and a Playboy Book-of-the-Month selection; In the Village of the Man (Viking-Penguin, 1977), Smokehouse Jam, (Available Press, a division of Ballantine Books, 1989), and Roll On Sugaree (Author House, 2013). He has also published several short stories and the nonfiction Fragile Islands of Memories, a picture book about the Hre Montagnards around Gia Vuc, a Special Forces camp where he served in 1965.
You can learn more about Loyd and his writing at his website.
The novel is a no-holds-barred account of the events that led up to the Indian war of 1862 and the largest mass execution in US history. Not for the fainthearted, this historically engaging work of fiction is told with a series of cliff hanger chapter endings and a "can’t put it down" storyline.
Black Indian, Red Heart (White Justice) was a first-place winner in the Florida Writers Association's 2014 Royal Palm Literary Awards.
Frederick H. Savage is an award-winning Wyoming author who has written works that deal with child abuse and neglect, children’s issues, traditional poetry, Western themes, and the Vietnam War. His stories were recognized by Wyoming Writers Inc. in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009 and by the National Writers Inc. in 2007.Frederick is a veteran who served proudly in the Vietnam War with the US Army Airborne Infantry. You can learn more about his awards and writing at his website.
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
The book had received more than 40 reviews on Amazon.
In Something Like a Dream, a gringo expatriate on the Mexican west coast, Cotton Waters is known to his cantina buddies as "Algo"—Something in Spanish. Algo is an ex-political activist and beach bum. In Nayarit fishing villages, he scrounges his lazy living and a little beer money out of the Puerto Vallarta tourist trade as a hustler of a Mexican Riviera lost-and-found—helping some people get lost and finding others—if the price is right or the cause is worth it. In the summer of '82 the worthy cause is Corina Springfield, possibly the most beautiful woman Cotton Waters has ever seen.
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Healer was a third-place winner in the Public Safety Writers Association's 2015 Writing Competition. The novel tells the story of sixteen-year-old Billy Anderson, whose short life has been full of daunting challenges. A birth defect and the death of his parents force him to live with his Aunt Staci.
That situation becomes untenable for Billy and he chooses to live on the street. One day things change dramatically when Billy receives the “Gift of Healing.” Not only does Billy’s own life take a dramatic turn, but his new gift also affects those around him. Is this gift a blessing or a curse? UPCOMING
In the novel, threatening telephone calls and strange cars with dark-tinted windows plague artist/teacher Farrah Ferand. Recovering from the tragic loss of her mother, Farrah is trying to adapt to the life of a small-town art teacher when she encounters Dirk Lawrence, a mysterious stranger. Her attraction to him is immediate and electric until Farrah discovers Dirk is part of the Lawrence and Pendesky investment firm that led to her mother's downfall a few years earlier.
Farrah's
not-too-perfect dating relationship with Tom Douglas, the town favorite
football coach, worsens. An unexpected encounter leads to dates with
Dirk and his help with the construction of a dream art studio in her
rented house. But trouble looms with Tom who believes he and Farrah are
engaged, and the entire town appears to be drawn in. Haunting dreams and
lost memories overwhelm Farrah as she creates paintings for a
one-person art show. Will shadows of the past ruin all hope for Farrah
and Dirk?
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Mother Rabbit is a collaborative memoir about Alyce Bonura, a woman like so many others in the 1960s, caught between living according to traditional societal mores and pursuing the promises of the feminist movement. Alyce’s stint as a Bunny Mother is set during a particularly turbulent era when even such a secluded environment as the Playboy Club is affected by the Vietnam War, the Apollo I tragedy, and back-alley abortions.
Her
story pays tribute to the women who had the courage to break free from
the oppressive standards of the day while also dealing with the
universal dilemmas of single mothers including abuse, financial crises,
the special difficulties of parenthood and the quest for
self-fulfillment.
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Nicholas Checker will be at Dragon's Egg Studio in Ledyard, Connecticut, to present his novels Druids and Scratch at a holiday bazaar on Saturday, December 5, from 2 to 5 p.m. The books will be available at a discount for holiday shoppers.Nicholas is also promoting Small Business Saturday and wants readers to know that both of his novels are available in the following shops in southeastern Connecticut: Bank Square Books (Mystic), The Book Barn (Niantic), Book Trader Etc. (Groton), and the Slater Memorial Museum (Norwich).
Scratch is a chilling tale of loyalty, friendship, and courage – set in the mysterious world of feral cats. It also contains reflections of how cultures too often misread and mistrust one another, leading to ends that might have been avoided. White Saja, a renowned tomcat of the wild woodlands, returns to his old haunts to rescue his onetime clan from a gruesome fate. It leads him on a fearful quest into the brooding Dark Woods where he and a reluctant rival must seek the aid of a dread creature whose very name has long invoked terror in them all. Enter the pages of Scratch and discover unrelenting adventure!
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In Springville, follow Route 190 to where the road splits off to Balch Park Rd. The Big White Barn is right there.
Then, on Thursday, December 10, at 6 p.m., she'll be speaking to the new Sisters in Crime group in Bakersfield at Lorene’s Coffee Shop in Bakersfield, California.
Her topic will be what it takes to write nearly 40 books.
Marilyn's Rocky Bluff P.D. mystery series contains 11 books, the latest of which is Violent Departures in which college student Veronica Randall, disappears from her car in her own driveway, everyone in the Rocky Bluff P.D. is looking for her. Detective Milligan and family move into a house that may be haunted. Officer Butler is assigned to train a new hire and faces several major challenges.
BLOG CORRAL
You can read Lorna's reflections here.
READERS & WRITERS RESPOND
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