Counting on Trust

Counting on Trust, Audio Book

by Mary Ferguson Powers 

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GENRE: Mystery/Suspense

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BLURB:

In this suspense-charged, touching novel, Counting on Trust, information is stolen from a U.S. genetic engineering company (Omniprotein) by an employee promised payment by a Chinese general who wants to profit from selling the company’s technologies in the military region of China he commands.

• To force quick payment the thief attacks fellow employees and threatens to continue until his money arrives. Will his next targets be: young lovers, computer geek Gabriel and gorgeous biologist Selena, who are discovering loving sex while trying to overcome post-traumatic effects of Selena’s girlhood rape.

• Company president, Eleanor, who’s determined to keep some privacy and intimacy although her job’s high profile and her husband, Charley, has just had prostate cancer surgery.

• Venture capitalist, John, who plans to duplicate Omniprotein’s facility in China and reunite with his ex-wife, fashion designer Ziyi, who returned to Shanghai after their only child died.

The personal stories of these couples explore how privacy, intimacy and trust are changing in our social-media age. They paint a compelling portrait of our time.

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EXCERPT

Excerpt – Bad Day - https://www.facebook.com/countingontrust/videos/2207571426229974/

A Word With the Author

1.     Did you always want to be an author?

I think yes, but I became really interested in writing novels during my academic career when I came to see it as a way to highlight important issues of our time in a fictional story format. I have been writing for over 15 years, since before my retirement from faculty life. 

2.     Tell us about the publication of your first book.

I published my first novel Each Unique and Fascinating in 2012. This takes place in the Pacific Northwest and involve themes of love and coming of age intermixed with eco-activism. The writing was fun, but when it came time to publish the book, there were so many things to learn about the publishing process and details to plan out. It was also a little scary, having your work out there and wondering  how others would react to it. It was definitely an adventure! But I had a s lot of support from my husband and family, as well as great people who helped me through the publishing and marketing process. In the end, it was a very satisfying experience. 

3.     Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

Although my latest novel was nominally a thriller, it was really more about relatonships – as are my previous two books. In that sense, I would have to say my favorite author  and biggest inspiration for writing is Jane Austen. I appreciate the way she deconstructed relationships and the social norms around relationships, romance and marriage in her day. She had the courage to interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry in her time, especially as regards things such as the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security. 

My latest book follows three couples of different ages and backgrounds, each struggling with issues of trust. I wanted to draw a good picture of how easily trust can be broken and how difficult it can be to restore that trust.

4.     What's the best part of being an author? The worst?

The best part of being an author for me is creating the characters. Like many writers, my characters are built up from an amalgam of people I have known at different points in my life. I like to mix and match physical traits, personality, temperament, and behavioral quirks. Often I will exaggerate these a bit to provide more depth and interest for my readers. Then I like to give each character a backstory that provides a rationale for their behavior. Lastly, I decide how they would probably interact with each other based on all that, and make adjustments.  I like to think of it as being a chef: you might have a recipe of sorts, but the real fun and creativity comes with experimenting and tweaking until it you get something that feels right.

The most difficult part of being an author for me is marketing and promoting a work. It requires a completely different mindset and always feels a little foreign to me But it is an important part of being an author these days.

5.     What are you working on now?

I’m currently taking a break from my writing due to the recent, sudden death of my husband of 54 years. Before this happened, I had been sketching out a few ideas for the next book. But those will have to wait for a while.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Themes of novels by M. Ferguson Powers reflect the author’s varied interests, including preservation of the natural world and its creatures; 

Challenges of building and maintaining loving relationships in a culture with decreasing respect for personal boundaries and privacy

Influences of globalization on world events and how the U. S. and other nations relate to one another

Public policy issues such as controlling the military-industrial-political complex and requiring the health care industry to be more respectful of its clients

The need for cooperation across governments, cultures, and societies to address global challenges such as climate change

Developments in business and university administration and management

Powers has taught microbiology, headed a university office of research, served as executive director of two university-business partnership programs, and co-authored two books on university administration. She has a bachelor of science degree in bacteriology from The Pennsylvania State University, a master’s in experimental psychology from George Mason University, and a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. 

She lives on an island near Seattle with husband David R. Powers and their two shelties. Her first novel, Each Unique and Fascinating, about a bullied young girl whose father has gone to war, was published in 2012.  OrcaSpeak, a novel of relationships and suspense, was published in 2013, and its prequel, Counting on Trust, was published in 2017.

Website: http://www.mfergusonpowers.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Counting-on-Trust-452725141841646/

Buy Links for audio book:

https://bookmate.com/audiobooks/m9qwmqtu

https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9780985794668

https://www.downpour.com/counting-on-trust?sp=349165

https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/audiobook/counting-on-trust

https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?page=1&q=counting+on+trust&scope=everything&type=direct

https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/counting-on-trust/399403

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

A randomly drawn commenter via Rafflecopter will receive a digital and an audio copy of the book.

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Finding Lisa

Finding Lisa

by Sigrid Macdonald  

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GENRE:   Mystery/women's fiction

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BLURB:

Finding Lisa is a character driven story about a quirky Canadian woman named Tara who is about to turn 40. She dreads the thought. Everything is going wrong in her life from her stale marriage to her boring job to her hopeless crush on a 24-year-old guy. The only thing right in Tara's life is her best friend Lisa who has just confided that she is pregnant and the baby does not belong to her partner Ryan, who has a history of domestic violence. Then Lisa disappears and the search is on to find her.

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EXCERPT:

All the carts were taken at the supermarket on Tuesday. I found one off to the side of the vegetable aisle. It had a defective wheel, which resulted in me almost overturning a display of cantaloupes. The cart was also enormous. No doubt this was a deliberate ploy on the part of the supermarket to encourage excess shopping.  

"I feel as though I'm driving a school bus," I announced to the frail, pale orange-haired woman to my left, who was squeezing the small, unappetizing looking cantaloupes.  

She smiled faintly and nodded. I wondered how she had the strength to push the heavy cart through the long aisles of the grocery store at her age. 

"Mum, I'll go with you to one of those Women against Rape meetings if you want?"  Devon said to my astonishment, his voice rising at the end of his sentence. "There’s only one condition. You have to watch 8 Mile with me."

"8 Mile? Isn’t that the movie based on the book by Stephen King?"

"Nah, you’re thinking about The Green Mile," Devon replied. "8 Mile is the story of a rapper in Detroit. It's based on the life of Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers. Eminem even stars in it," he said with increasing enthusiasm. 

"I think it’ll give you a better idea of where he's coming from. You know, you're always talking about these girls who've been, like, abused and what horrible lives they've had. You even feel bad about boys who were taken advantage of by priests or their hockey coaches. So why don't you have any sympathy for Marshall? His mother was abusive. She was mean to him, and she did drugs! Also, she, like, gave him something called Munchkins syndrome," Devon added uncertainly.

"Munchausen syndrome?” I asked, trying to picture the tough guy with the tattoos and bad attitude as a small child with a manipulative and controlling mother.

"Yeah, that sounds right. She made him feel sick when he was totally healthy. And, Mum, I know you would respect the way Em felt about his little brother, Nathan. He, like, didn't wanna leave him alone in the house with his mother when he finally split from Detroit. He's also really keen about his daughter, Hailie Jade. He talks about her all the time in his songs and on TV."

I pushed the buttons on the radio. The Steve Miller band was singing, "Time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future." I had a sense of motion. The car was moving forward, and with every traffic light I passed, I was moving farther away from Lisa and our routine evenings at the ByTowne Theatre. The rest of us were going ahead, and Lisa had been left behind. I wanted to go back, not just to last Thursday night, but to my university days, so I could live my life all over again. 

I wanted to be sixteen or twenty-six again, making decisions based on what I knew now. So many lost opportunities. How had I managed to completely screw up my life? I'd done everything wrong except that I hadn't become a street prostitute or a serial murderer. Too late for the former—who would want me? But there was still time for the latter.  


Author Interview:

1.Did you always want to be an author?

Actually, I wanted to be a doctor like my dad when I was very young, but I loved reading so much that I thought I would make a better writer than physician. Also, I hated the sight of blood and needles!

2.Tell us about the publication of your first book.

In 1981, I was hit head-on by a drunk driver and nearly killed. I spent three weeks in intensive care, three and a half months in orthopedics, and it took me more than a year and a half to relearn to walk. Years later, most of the bones that I had broken that involved joints, like my hips or knees, wore out, and I was in my 40s when I required a total hip replacement. This was not exactly on my fun list of things to do, but replacing that worn-out joint was very effective and returned my mobility. My nephew recommended that I blog about my experience, and the blog morphed into a book called Getting Hip, which described my experience, and tips on how to recover safely and quickly from hip surgery. I also interviewed nine other people around the globe about their experiences in case mine was atypical. I sold tens of thousands of copies of that book, and I was very proud of it. One of the things I liked best about the book was the fact that my nephew, only 16 at the time, designed the book cover.

3.Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

Oh my gosh, where would I even begin? I don't think I have a fave in the mystery genre, but I do love John Grisham, Stephen King, Harlan Coben, Lisa Gardner, Catherine Steadman, and, of course, Gillian Flynn.

4.What's the best part of being an author? The worst?

The best part is that I get to spend my time doing something that I adore. The worst part is the solitude because I can get wrapped up for hours in what I'm doing and not realize that I haven't connected with a live being for days.

5.What are you working on now?

Right now, I'm just doing my day job. I am the owner of an editing company called Book Magic, so I spend my days proofreading, copyediting, and evaluating manuscripts, some of which are excellent. Some of my favorite manuscripts are memoirs. I especially love memoirs that are candid; some people have led fascinating lives, and no matter how different one experience is from the other, we all share universal themes of wanting to be loved and accepted and to belong.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Originally from New Jersey, Sigrid Macdonald lived for almost thirty years in Ottawa, Ontario, and currently resides in Weston, Florida. She has been a freelance writer for years. Her works have appeared in The Globe and Mail newspaper; the Women's Freedom Network Newsletter; the American magazine Justice Denied; The Toastmaster; and the Anxiety Disorders Association of Ontario Newsletter. Her first book, Getting Hip: Recovery from a Total Hip Replacement, was published in 2004. Her second book, Be Your Own Editor, followed in 2010. Although Finding Lisais written in first person, Macdonald only resembles her character in the sense that she once had a neurotic fixation on her hair, and she has always been called by the wrong name; instead of being called Sigrid, people have called her Susan, Sharon, Astrid, Ingrid and, her personal favorite, Siri.

Macdonald is a social activist who has spent decades working on the seemingly disparate issues of women's rights and wrongful convictions; she has worked at the Women's Center at Ramapo College of New Jersey and Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, and was a member of AIDWYC, The Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted. She owns an editing company called Book Magic. Sigrid is a public speaker and a member of Mothers against Drunk Driving, Ottawa Independent Writers, the American Association of University Women, and the Editors' Association of Canada. Visit her website at http://bookmagic.ca/ or friend her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sigridmac.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Lisa-Sigrid-MacDonald/dp/1590952510/

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/finding-lisa-sigrid-macdonald/1132691210

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

Sigrid Macdonald will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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Murder at Eagle's Nest

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Pat Duggan will be awarding a $10 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Murder at Eagle's Nest is a gentle mystery novel set in a peaceful vacation resort in Apalachicola on Florida's Forgotten Coast. The area is still reeling after Hurricane Michael made landfall only thirty-five miles to the west, on Mexico Beach. It uncovers fraud, driven by greed and arrogance. However, everything changes when a body is discovered. The police detective brought in from Tallahassee, quickly enlists the help of two women staying at the resort, who have unusual insight. They ultimately uncover critical evidence, which unmasks the perpetrator.

Read an Excerpt

Esther invited them inside and turned to the waiting Randy and Freddy. Angelo stepped forward to make the introductions, “Good morning, thank you for meeting with us. I am Angelo Rossi, I think you know Bernice Brown the Treasurer, and this is Hazel Davies the newest owner at Eagle’s Nest. “He turned to Hazel and said, “This is Freddy Beaner,” who nodded in acknowledgement, “And I am assuming you are Randy Jacket.”

Randy stepped forward, “Yes of course, please, everyone, take a seat.” Ignoring any niceties, he turned to Angelo and said, “I understand you had asked to see us regarding the financial statements. I realize a condo association is a little different from other businesses, because it has to operate under Florida State law as a non-profit organization, but we will try to help you understand what is going on. Which expenses are you concerned about?”

Angelo did not appreciate being talked down to by Randy, but he swallowed hard and held his Italian temper, at least for the moment. He explained, “Let me give you a little background first. I own and operate a multi-million dollar business back home and Hazel here, was an auditor for a prestigious accounting firm back in Seattle before she retired.” He paused to let this piece of information sink in. Randy looked a little startled and Freddy, swallowed hard. Angelo continued, “Hazel and I looked at the financial statements, such as they are, yesterday. We had two sets of accounts, one provided to Bernice by Esther each month, and one to me from you, Freddy. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that a comparison of the monthly figures revealed that they were totally different!”

Earlier, Hazel, Angelo and Bernice had discussed their strategy for the meeting. As Bernice had already raised questions in the past and had basically been ‘blown off,’ as unreasonable or unnecessary, they were already prepared for confrontation. They had decided not to lay all their cards on the table initially, in case it shut down even the pretense of cooperation. Instead they hoped to obtain more information.

Randy’s response was predictably defensive, “Impossible, you must have made a mistake.”

About the Author:

Originally from Manchester, England but moved to the U.S. over 30 years ago. I have an accounting background in both countries. Several years ago, I discovered an interest in writing. My two previous books, Finding God in an RV and The Power Within, document my spiritual journey. However, as a longtime lover of murder mysteries, with a passion to follow plots and figure out the perpetrator, it was time for a new direction. I decided to ‘try my hand’ at weaving my own story, and true to my character, I had to tie up all the loose ends. Murder at Eagles Nest is my first mystery novel, and I am already working on the next mystery for my amateur detectives, Hazel and Anna, to solve.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/writesstoriesrealandimagined

Buy the book at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Eagles-Nest-Pat-Duggan/dp/1711002771/ref=sr_1_1

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The Wrong Kind

The Wrong Kind

by Austin S. Camacho

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GENRE: Mystery

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BLURB:

A distraught woman hires private investigator Hannibal Jones to track down her daughter who has run away, trying to escape the homeless shelter life her mother has come to accept. When Hannibal finds Connie Blanco she is entwined in a gang war and somehow connected to a murder. The corpse is barely cold before a second murder follows and Hannibal finds himself entangled in a complex plot revolving around stolen drugs…but who is the mastermind of this twisted scheme?

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EXCERPT:

As Chico’s foot hit the first step he noticed Sophia for the first time. Just as his eyes met hers, Hannibal’s right foot thumped into Chico’s chest, slamming him back into the man whose jacket said he was Dave. Then Hannibal leaped from the porch, smashing his right fist across Billy’s jaw. A side stamp dislocated Jimmy’s right knee. Dave swung past Chico and clipped Hannibal’s cheek. Sophia gasped at the flesh-on-flesh sound of the blow.

Hannibal blocked the follow-up punch and snapped two crisp jabs into Dave’s face, staggering him into the tree growing up out of the sidewalk. Chico tried to slip past Hannibal, still driving for the door.

“Not tonight,” Hannibal said through clenched teeth. Sophia didn’t think Chico ever even saw the three punches, left-left-right that put him on his back, barely conscious. 

With no standing attackers, Hannibal stepped back up onto the porch. “That was fun, but now I’m running out of patience with you boys.” Hannibal reached inside his suit coat, under his right arm, and pulled out a pistol. He pointed its muzzle down at Chico’s face.

“There is nothing lower than a man who beats his woman, although anybody helping him is mighty close. I’d beat your asses some more, just for fun, but I don’t feel like answering questions at a hospital. Now, all of y’all, drag your sorry asses out of here. And if I ever hear you came back here, or if you tell anybody where this shelter is, I will hunt you down and end you.

A Word With the Author:

1.Did you always want to be an author?

I think I always wanted to be a storyteller. I love stories, and grew up surrounded by people who related even common events in a way that built suspense, sorted the characters into hero and villain roles, and had a strong payoff at the end. So I always wanted to do THAT, but I was in college before I realized that I wanted thousands of people to hear my stories – which meant becoming an author and being published.

2.Tell us about the publication of your first book.

After submitting manuscripts to just about every publisher I could find I decided to try it myself, to see if anyone wanted to read my work. In 1999 a company called Infinity was publishing through a brand new idea called Print on Demand so I put my first book out through this inexpensive self-publishing option.  Two years (and a published novel) later I met the publisher of Echelon Press at Book Expo America. She was impressed by my efforts to market my books and liked the books themselves, so Echelon became my publisher.

3.Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

That’s a challenging question. My all time favorite mystery author is Raymond Chandler. His spectacular yet understated prose is just about as good as writing gets. I believe the best contemporary mystery writer is Dennis Lehane. Gone Baby Gone was the book that blew me away, but he has 9 or 10 other great novels out there. However, the “best” writer isn’t necessarily my favorite. The mystery writer whose work I most enjoy reading is Reed Farrel Coleman. With prose that’s almost poetry, no one has ever come so close to the flavor of Chandler’s work. It is a sheer joy to read him.

4.What's the best part of being an author? The worst?

The best part of being an author is creating good prose. Nothing beats the joy I feel when it all works, the story comes together, the characters fit perfectly, and the story flows perfectly to a powerhouse finish. That’s why we do it – to tell a good story, and to tell it well. The worst part is surely the marketing aspect. Writing a novel is hard work, but writing a synopsis is just painful. Begging booksellers to carry your work, or let you sit in their store for a couple hours is degrading, mostly because the quality of your work doesn’t enter into that conversation at all. All that sells your books takes you away from the creative process you love.

5.What are you working on now?

My next novel of course.  There will certainly be more Hannibal Jones novels but, I’m taking a break from my private eye. My current work in progress is a novel about a character I created for a short story – Skye, an African American female professional assassin in Washington DC. She lives in the same universe as Hannibal Jones and in the still-forming manuscript she meets some of the minor characters In Hannibal’s  books. In the book she gets hired to kill a crime boss who is trying to pull the gangs in DC together into one cartel. It will be more thriller than mystery, but my readers will still like it.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Austin S. Camacho is the author of seven novels about Washington DC-based private eye Hannibal Jones, five in the Stark and O’Brien international adventure-thriller series, and the detective novel, Beyond Blue. His short stories have been featured in several anthologies including Dying in a Winter Wonderland – an Independent Mystery Booksellers Association Top Ten Bestseller for 2008. He is featured in the Edgar nominated African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study by Frankie Y. Bailey. Camacho is also editorial director for Intrigue Publishing, a Maryland small press.

https://www.facebook.com/austin.camacho.author/

https://www.amazon.com/Wrong-Kind-Hannibal-Jones-Mystery/dp/1940758971/

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

Austin S. Camacho will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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Steel Force

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Geoffrey Saign will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Serve justice. Discover a secret. Find his daughter. Repay betrayal.
Jack Steel trains for the impossible, and it looks like it found him.

On a black op to neutralize terrorists, elite specialist Steel puts honor and integrity ahead of orders when he spares a monk. He just never expected his decision to put crosshairs on his back.

Hunted by a twisted killer, a vengeful billionaire, and the highest levels of government, Steel races to discover who’s behind a conspiracy that will decide the fate of two countries—and why one monk is the key to it all.

Aching from a missing daughter, Steel finds it easy to fall for Christie, a beautiful counter-terrorism analyst who offers to help. But he isn’t sure he can trust anyone.

To have a chance at love and a new life, and to serve justice, Steel just needs to stay one step ahead of a bullet…

***** 

Revenge. Love. Family.
To protect their families, Jack Steel and Christie Thorton must become assassins.

Deadly Blackhood Ops specialist Jack Steel has moved on from his bloody past, but his past won’t let him go. He has it all; his partner Christie, his daughter Rachel, a protection agency he’s proud of, and his head on straight.

But it’s all torn apart when a madman blackmails him and Christy. Their skills are pushed to the limit as they are forced to become assassins to save those they love. The Mexican cartel, terrorists, and people from Steel’s past force them into a non-stop fight that they can’t walk away from.

To protect his country, and everyone important to him, Steel will be forced to trust the very people he swore to kill.

And he might have to walk away from those he loves…

Read an Excerpt from Book 1: Steel Force

The sounds became louder. Christie resisted the urge to sit up. Eighteen inches long, the stunbrella gave her a four-foot reach. But since the rocks rose a foot and a half above her, even if the man stood a foot away from them she might not be able to angle her arm to strike him.

A whimper was trapped in her throat. She didn’t want to die like this. In the middle of the woods, cold, wet, dirty. Injured like a sick animal. Not even knowing why. All alone.

The noise stopped.

She sensed he was close. From her earlier glimpse she guessed five-foot-eight, one-seventy pounds, mid-forties. Small for a Hawaiian. He might be easy to knock down.

Her choice was to either sit up and try to strike him or remain motionless for him to come closer. Unable to guess which was better, she didn’t move. Her lips twisted when the man’s dark-skinned face appeared above the rocks near her feet. Too far from her motionless arm. As he looked down at her, the barrel of his gun swung into view.

About the Author:

Award-winning author Geoffrey Saign has spent many years studying kung fu and sailed all over the South Pacific and Caribbean. He uses that experience and sense of adventure to write the Jack Steel and Alex Sight thriller action series.

Geoff loves to sail big boats, hike, and cook—and he infuses all his writing with his passion for nature. As a swimmer he considers himself fortunate to live in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, Minnesota. See what he’s up to at his website.

Website: http://geoffreysaign.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/geoffreysaign
FB: https://www.facebook.com/JackSteelBooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/755980.Geoffrey_Saign

Sign up for the newsletter to receive a free copy of STEEL TRUST: https://geoffreysaign.net/newsletter-free-steel-trust

AMAZON STEEL FORCE Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Steel-Force-Action-Mystery-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07V52VYSY/ref=sr_1_1 -- on sale during the week of the tour for $0.99

Amazon STEEL ASSASSIN Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Steel-Assassin-Action-Mystery-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07YZV5BWK/ref=sr_1_1 -- on sale during the week of the tour for $2.99

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Article 15

Article 15

by M.T. Bass

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GENRE:   Mystery

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BLURB:

“She was one in a million…and the day I met her I should have bought a lottery ticket instead.”

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Griffith Crowe, the "fixer" for a Chicago law firm, falls for his current assignment, Helena Nicholson, the beautiful heir of a Tech Sector venture capitalist who perished in a helicopter crash leaving her half a billion dollars, a Learjet 31, and unsavory suspicions about her father's death. As he investigates, the ex-Navy SEAL crosses swords with Helena’s step-brother, the Pentagon’s Highlands Forum, and an All-Star bad guy somebody has hired to stop him. When Griff finds himself on the wrong side of an arrest warrant he wonders: Is he a player or being played?


Lawyers and Lovers and Guns…Oh, my!

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EXCERPT:

She was one in a million…and the day I met her I should have bought a lottery ticket instead.

Blonde, slim and well-built, of course, her eyes were darkly blue which, when unsheathed from behind her Jackie Ohhs, glinted like gun metal at twilight.

I noticed when we first met.

I ignored it after the first time we made love.

I caught it again as she testified against me.

I suppose, I’ll just never learn.

A Word With the Author:

Did you always want to be an author?

Not really. I mean not for a long while anyway.  You know, when I was a kid I was too busy being a kid, riding my bike, playing sandlot baseball and exploring the woods at the very fringes of suburbia—all unsupervised I’ll have you know—to see myself on a dust jacket. I’d fantasize about being a football hero or race car driver or a rockstar, maybe. Even when I got to college and moved into the English Department, I was really angling to be a better songwriter, working mainly in verse. Finally, when I was parked out in Colorado I had an idea for a book that I put to paper. Then another. And another. I suppose at that point I started seeing myself as an “author.” Maybe.  But it wasn’t until I had started scribbling things down and actually having a book to sell. Like William Faulkner says, “Don’t be ‘a writer.’ Be writing.”

Tell us about the publication of your first book.

When I moved back to Ohio from Colorado I had three and a half completed novels. By that time I had collected enough rejection slips to wallpaper a decent size family room—and not just from any old publishing houses. I was turned down by all the best and some of the not so best. Then eBooks were invented and I got one of the very first Sony Readers. Soon after, I found out about Smashwords and thought, “Hmmm, this could work out for me.” I did some serious study of the book covers of my favorite authors, like Kurt Vonnegut, Carl Hiaasen and Joseph Heller; figured out what I wanted, then pulled the trigger and sent My Brother’s Keeper out into the world. Shortly after that I published Crossroads—which, by the way, is the very first novel with a soundtrack. I had labored for a while at the phone company supervising the Text Editing Center for prepping their manuals for print, so I was familiar with typesetting. Making the move to print wasn’t such a big deal for me and I got My Brother’s Keeper into paperback with IngramSpark. Then I just kept piling up more and more words into more and more books.

Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in?

One of the huge benefits of eBooks is that I was able to get back into my old habit of reading two or three books at the same time without putting a serious strain my my back muscles from carrying around bricks of paper. So, I went from a trickle of books to a steady stream and I’ve read so many great novels by some amazing authors like William Conescu, Jay Spencer Green, Caihm McDonnell, and Christopher Moore. But the guy I keep coming back to is Carl Hiaasen. To me, Tourist Season is just the best. And whenever a new one comes out from him, I’m there.

What's the best part of being an author? The worst?

First of all, there just is no worst part about being a writer.  You get to make it all up. And if it’s not right, well then, come on, you just make up more stuff.  The best part is always ripping open the box from IngramSpark and holding the finished product in print. I don’t care that hundreds or thousands of eBooks get bought for every print book I sell. There’s something about having your book in print that is simply magic.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a novel called Jungleland. Remember that first book of mine, My Brother’s Keeper?  It’s the long, long, long planned sequel. I always intended Hawk to be kind of an airport gigolo, who wanders aimlessly around from airport to airport having different flying adventures along the way. Needless to say, I got distracted by shiny things all literary and such, but I’ve finally gotten back to it. At the end of the first book he goes to Alaska to start a bush pilot operation. But I wrote Somethin’ for Nothin’ which has a similar kind of theme, so I skipped ahead to the 1960s where he finds himself in Congo, fighting in their civil war with the CIA, their Bay of Pigs leftover pilots and Mad Mike’s South African mercenaries.  Did I mention there’s a woman involved, too? There always is, isn’t there. 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

M.T. Bass is a scribbler of fiction who holds fast to the notion that while victors may get to write history, novelists get to write/right reality. He lives, writes, flies and makes music in Mudcat Falls, USA.

Born in Athens, Ohio, M.T. Bass grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, majoring in English and Philosophy, then worked in the private sector (where they expect “results”) mainly in the Aerospace & Defense manufacturing market. During those years, Bass continued to write fiction. He is the author of eight novels: My Brother’s Keeper, Crossroads, In the Black, Somethin’ for Nothin’, Murder by Munchausen, The Darknet (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #2), The Invisible Mind (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #3) and Article 15. His writing spans various genres, including Mystery, Adventure, Romance, Black Comedy and TechnoThrillers. A Commercial Pilot and Certified Flight Instructor, airplanes and pilots are featured in many of his stories. Bass currently lives on the shores of Lake Erie near Lorain, Ohio.

M.T. Bass Author Links

Website:  https://www.mtbass.net

Blog:  https://www.owl-works.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/owlworks/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Owlworks

Amazon Author Page:  http://www.amazon.com/author/mtbass

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5270962.M_T_Bass

Article 15 Purchase Links

Author Web Site Info Page: https://mtbassauthor.wordpress.com/scribblings/article-15-griffith-crowe-1/

Amazon:  TBA July 24, 2019

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/article-15-a-griffith-crowe-adventure/id1444570485?mt=11

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/article-15-mt-bass/1129939582?ean=2940155886839

Kobo:  TBA

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/908763

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:

M.T. Bass will be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway