Thursday, September 7, 2017
Virtual Book Tour: Beach Space by Lee DuCote @RABTBookTours
Fictional Humor
Date Published: August 15th 2017
Publisher: Grave Distractions Publications
When seniors normally settle into Cedar Branch Retirement Community they begin a simpler and slower pace of living. Not this group! With Jack Goslin, Karl and Betty Rutherfurd, and the Stevens Sisters nothing is simple or slower after moving into the number one retirement community in the south. With the neighboring resort battling over the beach property our eccentric group of seniors avenge war on the uptight and controlling manager of the resort. And after CBC gives the green light for residents to have private golf carts, well things just get even crazier for Derrick St. Clair.
From the new exotic fitness instructor, to Violet’s secret winery, Jack’s pimped out golf cart, and a host of other new issues for the director, CBC continues to gain popularity as the most interesting retirement community in the south. If you are looking for a place to retire, settle down, or witness bizarre fiascos stop by Cedar Branch, who knows – you just might make it home!
Excerpt:
Cedar
Branch had a long-standing rule about BBQ grills on the balconies of The Tower
apartments, a rule created by an incident five years prior to Jack Goslin
moving in. On the sixth floor facing the
tranquil emerald gulf, a retired couple was enjoying the evening cooking
chicken on a newly acquired stainless steel grill. The gentleman opened the lid to inspect the
meat, and their curious two-year-old Persian cat leaped on the grill, catching
the hair of its tail on fire. At the
same time the cat suddenly combusted, the lady opened the door to the balcony,
allowing the fire ball to run inside, catching the curtains, couch, a vase of
silk flowers, and unpaid tax documents on the table on fire. After an hour of extinguishing the flames,
the couple was left with ruined furniture, burnt chicken, unreadable taxes, and
a bald cat—thus generating almost instantly the “No BBQ grill” rule.
In
the midst of a welcome cool front, though, the residents of CBC were out
enjoying an evening without the brutal heat that the South was so notorious for
developing. On the fifth floor of the
Tower apartments, Karl lifted the top off the grill to inspect the filets
wrapped with bacon slowly cooking on Jack’s new grill. Picking up a pair of cooking tongs, he gently
lifted one of the pieces of meat and examined the bottom. “You keep opening the top, they’ll never get
done,” Jack said, walking back out on his balcony with a refilled glass of
bourbon.
“Your fire is too hot!
They’re gonna burn,” Karl groaned.
“If you’re looking, then you’re not cooking! The fire is fine.”
Karl mumbled a few words, then made it over to the
rocking chair he had claimed weeks earlier when Jack moved in. The sound of the construction work from below
started to die down as the time neared 6:00 p.m. and quitting time. Jack leaned over the railing and watched a
few young men roll up a couple of orange extension cords while others locked
down their tool boxes and work areas.
Pulling his attention back to the grill, he saw Karl lifting the lid
again.
“You are as nosey as the Stevens Sisters.”
Karl closed the lid with an indignant “I am not! Your fire is too hot.” Pouting, he made his
way back to his rocking chair.
Jack sat down next to him. “You are like the wife I never
had,” he chuckled while taking a sip from his 1792 Ridgemont Reserve bourbon.
“Huh. You drink
too damn much to be married to me,” Karl said under his breath.
“I’d drink more if we were married,” Jack answered even
more quietly.
“What?” Karl asked.
“Nothing.”
A commotion broke out under their balcony, causing both
men to exit their chairs and lean over the railing in time to see half a dozen
construction workers standing below the third balcony with arms outstretched to
catch the cold beer cans being tossed down.
The Stevens Sisters had moved from one side of the apartments to the
other, giving them a front row to the Gulf of Mexico. “Hey, Rutherfurd!” Violet looked up, yelling
at the two older men, “you on fire up there, or did you finally decide to burn
that painting you made last week?”
Karl rolled his eyes. “Good Lord! It’s like Mardi Gras meets redneck central
around here!”
The
six construction workers cheered and waved to the Stevens Sisters as they made
their way to their trucks with half-a-dozen cold beers. Beyond the construction and across the
highway, the waves crashed on the white sandy beaches of southern Alabama,
occupied at this end of the day by only a few people taking their strolls and
awaiting the sunset.
“Hey Goslin! You
want a beer?” Violet shouted up toward the two men.
“Just poured a glass,” Jack held out his bourbon. “Do you want some Mardi Gras beads?” he
shouted back, looking at Karl and adding to his earlier comment.
“Hell, yea!” Violet shouted back and grabbed the bottom
of her shirt to pull up, knowing what it meant to ask for beads on a parade
route during Mardi Gras.
June grabbed her hand, “Violet, nobody wants to see your
girls. Jack probably doesn’t have any
beads.”
“Yea, you’re probably right. Plus who am I kidding—there’s no way in hell
they would be able to see the girls from above me, they’ve been hanging around
my waist for 15 years!” Violet walked back into their apartment.
The men settled back in the rocking chairs awaiting the
filets and an evening that promised a colorful sunset. “Well, I’ll hand it to those workers; they
finished the bridge in record time,” Jack said, pointing at the new bridge that
crossed the highway from CBC to the beach.
“It’s only one lane.
And now that we can have golf carts, it’s just going to cause a traffic
jam to get to and from the beach!” Karl griped.
“Are you and Betty going to buy that four-seater?” Jack
asked.
“Now why in the hell would I buy a four-seater golf
cart? I’m not running a taxi service.”
“In case I need a ride.”
“Drive your own damn golf cart.”
Jack laughed at his comment as a strong knock came from
his door. “Betty?” Jack asked.
“No, she’s down at the art center with Kat.”
Jack walked through his apartment and set his glass down
on the counter top before opening the door. “Jack, you know the rules,” Derrick
said, leaning on the door frame as Jack opened the door.
“I’ve got you a steak on the grill, had them flown in
from New York,” Jack replied, stepping out of the way to allow Derrick to walk
in.
“Cooking me a steak is not going to undo the rules.”
“Maybe for tonight; I’ll get rid of it tomorrow.”
Derrick followed Jack to the balcony, adding a “Hello,
Mr. Rutherfurd.”
“Have you bought that girl a ring yet?” Jack asked.
“Not yet.”
Something caught Jack’s eyes beyond the conversation, and
as he focused on what was flying from the Tower Apartments, a loud explosion
echoed from below, and the object flying out from the building disappeared in
an orange dust cloud. Karl spit out his
drink. “Good Lord, what in the hell was that?”
A voice shouted from below them, “Pull!”
The three men witnessed another clay target leave the
Stevens sisters’ balcony, followed by another explosion from the shotgun barrel
following its clay target. People on the
beach ran for cover, a man riding his bicycle ran into a sign, and a flock of
sea gulls scattered for their lives. “Pull!” Violet shouted again, followed by
another shotgun blast.
“Keep my steak warm—I’ll be right back,” Derrick said,
dashing out of Jack’s apartment on his way to the third floor.
“I swear, those damn hillbillies will be the death of
us!” Karl grumbled, holding his chest.
About the Author
Lee DuCote has traveled the world researching cultures, people, and historical accounts to help create his stories. A native to Louisiana, he writes to give hope and encouragement to others, as well as to entertain and spark the imagination. Lee lives in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas with his wife and family and is the author of seven novels including Camp 80 that earned him an international book award.
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Week Blitz + #Giveaway: In the Beginning by BCE @bceauthor @RABTBookTours
Sci Fi/Space Opera
Date Published: Sept 5th 2017
The origins of Judeo-Christian religion and mythology come together in this mature science fiction page-turner.
To combat overpopulation on the planet Orion, the government releases a birth control virus to keep women from becoming pregnant. Only the brightest and most attractive of their species are allowed to mate. But the virus rages out of control, killing both mother and child. Attempts to develop a cure fail. They only have one option left: search other worlds for advanced societies that may be able to help.
The two most intelligent minds on Orion—and former best friends—Lucifer and Zues band together to search for a secret planet. When they finally arrive, they are greeted with unexplainable death and destruction. This planet is not the answer. Something doesn’t add up. They discover an extra unknown planet in the solar system.
The new planet is covered in lush land masses and bodies of water. Different species of hominids run—and mate—freely. Fire-breathing dragons guard the land. Lucifer is determined to figure out who or what created this planet. He thinks it just might be the key to saving Orion and the Orionites.
Excerpt
Hippolyta cleared the launch tube and dived down into the planete’s atmosphere. It only took her a few seconds to begin to get a full view of the alien planete. She had heard the rumors that this planete wasn’t actually a planete—that it was artificial or something like that. Sure looks real to me, she thought as she made her approach. The closer she got to the actual planete itself, the more amazed she became.
This place is huge, and it’s gorgeous. It’s perfect. No pollution, no buildings, nothing covering up its inherent natural beauty. It is too perfect; maybe this place isn’t real after all. It’s too good to be true, too beautiful to have just happened by chance.
She found herself completely mesmerized by the incredible landscapes, gigantic bodies of sparkling blue water, and enormous amounts of vegetation existing all over this untouched planete. Then as if out of nowhere, she saw it. Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! It was one of the gigantic flying beasts that were supposedly capable of breathing fire or something like that. She had been briefed on their existence. She had even been shown pictographs, but she quickly realized that until this very moment, when she was seeing one of the great beasts with her own eyes, she hadn’t really believed it.
She brought her Vimana to a complete stop and hovered in midair, not moving at all. She knew that she was in no real danger. Her Vimana was cloaked, and the miniature arc-core power source that Vimanas used was completely silent. Flight operations of Vimanas in general were completely silent. There was no exhaust or propulsion system to speak of. Vimanas moved air and space around them; they didn’t actually move through air and space, although it seemed as if they did.
“What a majestic creature! Hera, help me!” she heard herself say. Hera was Hippolyta’s grandmother. She was the greatest female warrior in Orionite history. So great, in fact, that the Orionite government deemed her worthy of deification. Hippolyta knew that it was disrespectful to say her grandmother’s name aloud since she had been made a deity, but when she was alone, where no one else could hear her, she often did. It just made her feel better.
For a few moments, she sat there completely still, in wonderment of the sheer power and grace that the creature possessed, and then said to herself, “I am going to have to go in for a closer look at this magnificent beast.” Hippolyta moved her Vimana slowly toward the creature. She was able to match its speed and came up along the side of the winged beast.
It looks like it has armor plating on its chest and head. I’d like to see it shoot some fire out of its mouth, as Mikael said it could, she thought.
Then suddenly the beast flipped end over end and turned toward her ship. Hippolyta brought the Vimana to a complete stop and didn’t move a muscle. She was holding her breath, she realized. It appeared as if the creature were looking directly at her. What the fuck? There was no way this thing could know that she was here. She was completely cloaked and completely silent. And that was when it came.
Hippolyta got her wish as a gigantic superhot blue-and-white ball of fire shot out from the creature’s mouth and totally enveloped her Vimana. “Fuck!” Hippolyta screamed as her Vimana began to plummet toward the surface of the planete. She attempted to regain control of the craft, but her flight systems were not responding. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the craft began to come back online, and she was able to reestablish control of the ship.
“Holy fuck! How did that thing see me? Must have some kind of infrared vision or some bullshit like that. That’s fucked up!” she said as she evened out her flight path. She got on the horn and spoke into her comm unit. “Olympus actual, this is Sergeant Hippolyta requesting immediate assistance. My ship has been damaged, and I may not be able to make it back into orbit.” She waited for a reply for one second, two seconds, three. “Olympus actual, please respond and advise.”
There was no answer.
“Oh, this is seriously fucking great. Fireball must have fried my communications array. Shit!” She continued on her flight path and tried to decide what to do. She’d probably be able to make it back to the Olympus; she just didn’t know how much damage the ship had endured. Then she saw, or rather sensed, a very large shadow looming over her. She looked up and saw the same creature directly overhead.
“Mikael said these things never left their own territory! Well, that was a total fucking lie! Mikael, fucking dumb-ass son of a bitch, give me good intel before you send me out on a mission! I am so going to kill that motherfucker when I get back! How the fuck is this thing tracking me?”
And then the shadow grew larger. She looked up and saw the great beast descending on her, producing a brilliant stream of blue-and-white flame from its mouth. She put the Vimana into a dead drop and pushed it to its top speed. See ya, you son of a bitch, she thought as she escaped her pursuer. She had started to approach a landmass to the southwest of where they were setting up the Atlantis base when she saw the creature again; it was right on her tail. The beast was matching her speed. She couldn’t believe it. That’s not possible, she thought, and then she saw the flame coming toward her again; this thing was not going away.
She dropped the Vimana down to an even lower altitude and began to follow the path of a wide winding body of water. She was using this winding river like a highway. She had grown desperate to escape the flying menace, but she still couldn’t keep herself from marveling at the incredible beauty and splendor of the untouched waterway that she was using to help navigate her flight path. Then even at this low altitude, she felt the shadow of the creature creep over her Vimana once again.
I’ve got to get the hell out of here, she thought. She didn’t know where to go; she needed a place to hide. The shadow grew larger as the beast began to descend upon her ship. She saw a clearing to the north of the jungle. There, right there. She flew her Vimana through the clearing and a little way into the jungle itself, where it would be under the cover of some large trees.
She didn’t know if this would work. Her Vimana was already cloaked, but it felt better than being out in the open, waiting to be burned alive and eaten. She sat there holding her breath for ten, twenty, thirty minutes, waiting for the blue-and-white flame to cook her where she sat, but fortunately it never came. After she got herself together and after many more failed attempts at contacting the Olympus, Hippolyta decided that it was time to try to make it back to the mother ship, but for some reason, she just couldn’t bring herself to go. Maybe it was fear of encountering the giant flying reptile again, or maybe it was something else. She had been entranced by the beauty of the surrounding jungle the entire time that she had been hiding from her tormentor. She decided that she was going to get out of her Vimana and take a look around.
Just for a few minutes, she thought. The beauty of this place was pulling her toward it; she could feel it. Sergeant Hippolyta popped her cockpit and was the first Orionite person to ever set foot on Terra Firma. She stomped on the ground. Felt like ground to her, but the grass was so green; the skies were so clear. It was familiar but different. It was better…much better. She was nervous about it, but she decided to remove her flight helmet as well. Mikael had said that the air was breathable. Let’s find out, she thought. She removed her helmet and held her breath for a very long time. Then in one big gasp, she sucked the alien air into her lungs.
“Great Hera!” she said to herself as the clean, oxygen-rich, alien air hit her lungs. This is magnificent; this is intoxicating! I feel incredible! Her head felt light; she was initially a little woozy. She had never experienced such raw, untouched, and unpolluted air as this. It was truly a beautiful experience. She lay down in the soft green grass and just soaked in the beauty of the place for a long time. She felt at peace; she felt happy. She felt, maybe for the first time in her life, that she was at home. After spending some time lying in the grass and soaking in the astron rays, Hippolyta sat up and looked around. The jungle was gorgeous. She wanted to go see what was back there, and so she did.
She walked through the jungle and again marveled at its untouched beauty—the plants, flowers, trees all so complete and untouched by the hand of man. She came around a turn, and that was when she saw them. There were hominids up in front of her. “Oh shit!” she whispered to herself as she ducked down behind a rock formation. They didn’t see her.
Thank Hera, she thought. She spied on the hominid creatures for quite a while. They were completely naked and without shame. They were bathing themselves and one another, she noticed, in what must have been a hot spring of some kind. There was a small waterfall up over their heads. The water was clear and beautiful; she could see their forms clearly. They were beautiful, magnificent specimens. They were much taller than the other hominid species she had seen in the pictographs; they were almost as tall as she was.
They don’t have any pictographs of these hominids up on the Olympus, she thought. Their skin, eyes, and hair were so dark. Their bodies were so muscular, their thighs and buttocks so strong, their breasts so firm and full. Sergeant Hippolyta felt something begin to stir down deep between her thighs, a feeling she had never felt before. What the hell is that? she wondered. She shifted on the rock that she was sitting on, but no matter which way she tried to sit, she could never get comfortable. She continued to spy on the hominids bathing in the hot spring.
They’re all female, she suddenly realized. There wasn’t a male among them, and she slowly began to understand that she liked that. Her breathing began to get heavy, and she began to perspire in the heat of the jungle. She began to tug and pull at her flight suit; her skin felt flushed. Other parts of her body began to feel flushed as well. Certain parts of her body began to swell and ache that had never swollen or ached before in her entire existence.
Then as if she were having an out-of-body experience, Sergeant Hippolyta removed her flight suit and her undergarments and stood up on the rock that she had been hiding behind. She stood completely naked for all these gorgeous female alien hominids to see. She wanted them to see her. She knew that she should be embarrassed by her swollen genitalia that could easily be seen through the clear pubic hair that all Orionite women possessed, but for some reason, she was not. She stood tall and proud and naked.
The hominids in the hot spring did see her. They did not seem afraid, however. They seemed curious. Hippolyta slowly stepped off of the rock face and made her way down toward the all-female tribe and then slowly entered the water. It was warm and inviting; it felt so good as the water rose up above her thighs and began to make contact with her swollen and aching clitoris. The alien females began to slowly move toward Hippolyta; they still seemed unafraid. They began to stroke her clear hair. They looked into Hippolyta’s large blue eyes; they explored her face, her nose, her ears, her mouth, her lips, and her neck. Then they began to explore other parts of Hippolyta’s anatomy.
That was the first and last mission that Sergeant Hippolyta ever flew for the Olympus arc vessel. She was never heard from again.
About the Author
About the Author
BCE is originally from parts unknown and currently resides in areas of the planet yet to be explored. His favorite pastime is reading old encyclopedias while eating Peanut M&M’s. He does believe that the warehouse depicted at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark actually exists. He has only one goal left in his life that he wishes to accomplish: to live long enough to see the aliens return so he may look over at his beautiful wife in her nursing-home bed and say, “I told you so.”
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Twitter: @bceauthor
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PROMO Blitz: The Lighthouse Keeper by Lily Night @RABTBookTours
Cozy Mystery
Date Published: June 2017
A few months in a rented beach cottage in Peron Cove seems like the perfect respite for artist Laura to create her next series of paintings. However, hidden behind the idyllic seaside town and its quirky inhabitants lies a dark secret from the past which refuses to remain hidden any longer.
About the Author
Lily Night is a Western Australian author who enjoys travel, gaming and photography.
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