The Anchor
by Kevin R. Doyle
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GENRE: mystery
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BLURB:
The Anchor: Jen has toiled away in television news, just waiting for a big break. And at the same time she finally gets a shot at the promotion opportunity she’s waited years for, head anchor for the nightly newscast, an unseen, shadowy man is desperate for her to notice him. When messages and well wishes don’t do the trick, her mysterious admirer intends to do anything necessary to make Jen a success and snare her attention, even if it means attacking her fiancé and killing off her competition.
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EXCERPT
“Package for you,” Aldiss said.
Jen looked down at the plain wrapped bundle lying on her desk.
“Jack do something to make up for?” her deskmate asked.
Jen puffed in exasperation and plopped into her chair.
“What hasn’t he done?” she replied.
Aldiss chuckled and bent over his computer screen.
“How long have you and I shared a desk?” she asked.
“A year or so, give or take,” Aldiss replied, looking up.
“Uh huh. And how long have I been seeing Jack?”
“That you’ve admitted to? Seems like running on a year.”
“Eleven months.”
“Close.” Her coworker turned away and went back to his work.
Jen tapped her fingers on her desk and stared at the bundle. It had a small card attached, but without raising the flap and reading it, it looked like some sort of generic message-type thing.
“And when’s the last time he’s sent me a gift at work?”
Aldiss grinned.
“What’s the package say?” he asked.
“You didn’t look?”
“Hey, bunky, I believe in privacy.”
“Some reporter you are.”
She glanced at the package again, noted that it had come from FedEx, and assumed Tammy had signed for it up at the front desk. Then she flipped the front flap on the little card open.
“Hmm.”
Aldiss glanced up from his work but didn’t say anything.
Jen snared some scissors out of her desk and cut the paper open.
“Obviously, somebody thinks my current diet’s unnecessary.”
He looked up again, his brows raised.
Jen held up a box of Russell Stover chocolates.
“Card not from him?”
Jen shook her head.
“Say who it’s from?”
She held the card up eye level.
“In appreciation of all your service to the community,” she recited.
“Doesn’t sound like a new lover.”
“I hope not. I’d like to think I’d know if I was seeing someone new.”
Aldiss furrowed his brow.
“You done any story lately that’s been big time?”
Jen half glared at him.
“Meaning?”
Aldiss spread his hands out in a placatory gesture.
“Hey, nothing personal. I’m just curious what they mean by service to the community.”
Jen glanced down at the card for a second before looking back up.
“Maybe it’s just a fancier way of saying ‘I like your work.’”
“Or maybe it’s just some creeper who’s got a thing for you. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time a hot news anchor had an admirer.”
Grinning, Jen picked a paper clip off her desk and flipped it at him.
“Far as that goes,” she snorted, “wouldn’t be the first time for me.”
Aldiss picked the clip up from where it had fallen on his desk and tossed it back her way.
“Just imagine if they end up giving you Karyn’s nighttime slot. They’ll be coming out of the woodwork.”
“Thanks,” Jen said. “I’m doing my best not to think of that.”
A Word With the Author
1.Did you always want to be an author?
Not really. I always enjoyed reading and was pretty good with words and language. When I was in elementary school, I was already reading such authors as Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. Then I got into people like Arthur C. Clarke, and I was very impressed with Clarke’s “The Star,” still my single favorite short story of all time. But I didn’t really consider writing myself until one day, at nineteen, when I got bored and started fiddling around on the family’s typewriter.
2.Tell us about the publication of your first book.
My first book was a novelette originally published in e-book form by Vagabondage Press. It came out in 2012, and a new version is now available from The Wild Rose Press. It’s interesting that it holds the rank of “first” because it’s vastly different from most of my work. Whereas I write almost exclusively in mystery and horror, it’s an example of what the original publisher called “rock fiction.”
3.Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?
While there’s a lot of good candidates, for me in the mystery field it’s Lawrence Block hands down.
4.What’s the best part of being an author? The worst?
The best would be the sheer pleasure of spending large amounts of time, in some cases up to a year or more, working on a particular narrative and being able to type that last period and know that you’ve completed something.
The worst? Probably spending all that time and effort only to have sales and readership figures more, shall we say, modest than one would hope.
5.What are you working on now?
I have a contract with Camel Press to continue the Sam Quinton series through number six. Earlier this fall all the edits and such were completed on number four, Clean Win, which is due out in March. With the completion of Clean Win, I’d somehow managed to write, start to finish, five books in three years. I took a few months downtime during which I focused only on teaching, but now with Christmas break upon us I’m ready to start working on Quinton #5, which I hope to have completed by the end of the summer. I’m retiring at the end of this school year, so my writing schedule should accelerate some.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Kevin R. Doyle’s The Anchor: Jen has toiled away in television news, just waiting for a big break. And at the same time she finally gets a shot at the promotion opportunity she’s waited years for, head anchor for the nightly newscast, an unseen, shadowy man is desperate for her to notice him. When messages and well wishes don’t do the trick, her mysterious admirer intends to do anything necessary to make Jen a success and snare her attention, even if it means attacking her fiancé and killing off her competition.
Author website: www.kevindoylefiction.com
Biography:
A high-school teacher, former college instructor, and fiction writer, Kevin R. Doyle is the author of numerous short horror stories. He’s also written three crime thrillers, The Group, When You Have to Go There, and And the Devil Walks Away, and one horror novel, The Litter. In the last few years, he’s begun working on the Sam Quinton private eye series, published by Camel Press. The first Quinton book, Squatter’s Rights, was nominated for the 2021 Shamus award for Best First PI Novel. The second book, Heel Turn, was released in March of 2021, while the third in the series, Double Frame, came out in March of 2022.
Email: kevinrossdoyle@gmail.com
Facebook address: www.facebook.com/kevindoylefiction
Amazon paperback and Kindle
Smashwords:
Smashwords – The Anchor – a book by Kevin R. Doyle
The Anchor by Kevin R. Doyle | eBook | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)
The Anchor eBook by Kevin R. Doyle - EPUB | Rakuten Kobo United States
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION
Night to Dawn Magazine and Books LLC will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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