Passions Uncovered: Los Jefes Del Mundo     Author: Carmalisa Ford Release Date: December 2023 Description:   Passions Uncovered: Los Jefes Del Mundo is a romance mystery from author Carmalisa Ford.   This book continues the story of The Love He's Always Wanted first. Vince has a serious obsession with Bianca's best friend. The more he hangs out with Destiny, the more his feelings for her come to a head. Plus, he learns Destiny is keeping a secret from Bianca. One that will shock his best friend. What is it that secret, you ask? Will Vince ever...

FANTASY  

      Hastings Street: Boulevard of Blues     Author: Theo Czuk Release Date: December 2023 Description:   The ’20s are roaring. Jazz is igniting the speakeasies. Prohibition is spawning gangs and the industrial revolution is aflame with union wars! America is caught between the forces of progression and digression. And the neighborhood of The Black Bottom was ground zero for Detroit’s contribution to this mêlée.   It all comes to an apex as our hero, Kaleb Kierka, digs himself out of the amnesia of a violent beating. And the more he digs, the more he uncovers his personal unsavory history....

      Ironblood     Author: Mord McGhee Release Date: November 2023 Description:   IRONBLOOD is a historical saga exploring the raw and complicated story of America’s industrial legacy, which gives voice to humanity’s worst fears yet displays our greatest hopes. A story told through the eyes of characters from various cultures and countries after the American Civil War, pitted against one another amidst the rise of steelmaking empires.   Pearl, a recently freed slaves formerly living on the run. Earl, who falls in love with her at first sight. Hans, a recent immigrant from Germany, with a murderous...

      Beneath the Hazel Crown     Author: Anna Kirkup Release Date: November 2023 Description:   ‘She wouldn’t let her friends turn into murderers. Wouldn’t let them do what she had done.’   The comfort of returning to her human home is only temporary for 17 year old Elara Anderson. With barely enough time to come to terms with her new reality, a summons from Forneus has her catapulted back into the witchy world of Felicia. A grand tour to display the new ‘darling’ of the Council means gowns and jewellery galore… and a kidnapping.   Twisted corruption...

a) Don’t use dead language - Toni Morrison     b) Use concrete imagery when you write about large, abstract themes - Wislawa Szymborska     c) Work stories out in your head when you can’t write - Alice Munro     d) Read and draw on wide influences but don’t cram your work with others’ ideas - Wole Soyinka     e) Make people believe in your story first and foremost - Gabriel Garcia Marquez     f) Don’t focus on the end goal excessively as you write - John Steinbeck     g) Make sure you write regularly...

  Characters are the heartbeat of almost every story. They generally have two different purposes in a narrative: to be human enough for your readers or audience to identify with them and to contribute to the meaning or message intended by the author. Coming up with characters is as simple as looking to our subject matter and asking ourselves who might be expected to be involved. But that only creates the expected characters -predictable and uninteresting. Making these characters intriguing, unusual, and memorable is a different task altogether.     Look at the subject matter and see what characters could...

  1. Chose a time and location   People often feel like writing at different times of the day. It's an observable fact that many are not in the enviable position of choosing their preferred writing hours. Some good advice is to organise your day around the hours that you prefer to write in. Whether that is within the early hours of the morning or in the middle of the night. Inspiration can appear at different times depending on the passions of the writer. The best time to select is when you feel most energetic and the creative mood sets...

Explanations are a particularly unnecessary style of telling. It’s likely that you know by now that both showing and telling are necessary in fiction. But explanations are often the kind of telling that should instead be shown. Or even worse, they might be telling that has already been shown but is being told as well.   If you’ve shown the reason a character does something—typically in reaction to another event—then you don’t also have to tell why the character did it. The showing is sufficient. Readers will catch on. And if they see that you’re explaining as well, they will notice. They’ll notice you, the author,...

    “Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.” William S. Burroughs   “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Stephen King   “Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life.” Hunter S. Thompson   “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” Samuel Johnson...