Dina Rae's Write Stuff: March 2020

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

A New Vineyard by Audrey Lero

Christian, Fiction

Date Published: October 21, 2019

Publisher: Clay Bridges Press

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A New Vineyard is an invitation for you to taste and see that the land of Israel is good. Whether or not you have trekked to the Promised Land, this tall tale on a high place will put you in the middle of the action. Follow characters Aaron and Ruth Lipkin through the vineyards of Israel as they break new ground and establish a city under the most impossible of circumstances. Merging ancient biblical mysteries with modern-day political pressures, this story bridges the gap between religious differences and allows you to immerse yourself in the heart of the Middle East. Whether you drink wine or simply appreciate viticulture for its cultural roots, there is a place for you to find yourself in this narrative. Will you kick off your shoes and take a stroll through the vineyard in the cool of the day?

About the Author

Audrey Lero is a world traveler who enjoys exploring cultures and meeting the people who create them. Israel, and its vineyards, is one of her favorite destinations. Using her gift of connecting people to the resources they need, she bridges cultural divides, inviting people to look past their differences to serve a common goal. Audrey is a graduate of Texas A&M University where she studied accounting and finance. She works professionally in the wine and real estate industries as an entrepreneur with friends and family. Audrey enjoys writing from her Dallas, Texas home. She also writes and performs sketch comedy while spending as much time as possible outdoors.

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Monday, March 30, 2020

VBT-Stuggle Bus by Josh Wood

Parenting, Christian, Non-Fiction

Publisher: Lucid Books

'The Struggle Bus: The Van. The Myth. The Legend.' is designed to take you, dear reader, on a ride with the Wood family in the van that became an Internet sensation.

This one-of-a-kind literary adventure you are about to embark on is about more than a viral van. It’s about managing the wonderful chaos of a family of 11. It’s about parenting. It’s about marriage. It’s about success. It’s about failure. It’s about faith. It’s about fun. It’s about a van becoming a metaphor for life as it is given a fun-filled beatdown for the ages. As you roll along with the Wood family, you just might feel driven to:

• connect a little more with the God who made you.

• give yourself a little more grace when you fail.

• smile and laugh a little more—both at the Wood family’s expense and your own.

Hop in, buckle up, hold your nose, laugh, and join the Wood family to explore one of life’s fundamental truths: the struggle is real.

About the Author

Josh Wood is a native of Amarillo, Texas. He and his wife, Careese, are graduates of Texas A&M University (Gig ’em). Josh went on to obtain his MBA from Baylor University (Sic ’em). Newly wedded Josh and Careese made a number of definitive statements regarding their future, including the following classics: “We’ll never move back to Amarillo.” “We’ll have three or four kids. Those kids will never throw fits in Walmart.” “We’ll never home school our children.” “Home churches are weird.”

They live in Amarillo. They have nine kids. They home school. They are part of a home church. They’ve wiped numerous tears off the Walmart floor. Their hobbies include raising children and trying to avoid definitive statements about their future.

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Friday, March 27, 2020

VBT Presents: Gender Queer by Allan D. Hunter

Non-Fiction / Memoir / LGBTQ Coming-of-Age / Coming-out Story

Release Date: 3/16/2020

Publisher: Sunstone Press

Derek is a girl. He wasn't one of the boys as a kid. He admired, befriended, and socialized with the girls and always knew he was one of them, despite being male. That wasn't always accepted or understood, but he didn't care--he knew who he was. Now he's a teenager and boys and girls are flirting and dating and his identity has become a lot more complicated: he's attracted to the girls. The other girls. The female ones. This is Derek's story, the story of a different kind of male hero--a genderqueer person's tale. It follows Derek from his debut as an eighth grader in Los Alamos, New Mexico until his unorthodox coming out at the age of twenty-one on the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque. This century's first decade saw many LGBT centers and services rebranding themselves as LGBTQ. The ''Q'' in LGBTQ is a new addition. It represents other forms of ''queer'' in an inclusive wave-of-the hand toward folks claiming to vary from conventional gender and orientation, such as genderqueer people. People who are affirmatively tolerant on gay, lesbian and transgender issues still ask ''Why do we need to add another letter to the acronym? Isn't anyone who isn't mainstream already covered by 'gay' or 'lesbian' or 'bisexual' or 'trans'? I'm all in favor of people having the right to call themselves whatever they want, but seriously, do we need this term?'' Derek's tale testifies to the real-life relevance of that ''Q.'' This is a genderqueer story before genderqueer was trending.

About the Author

Allan Hunter grew up partly in Valdosta GA and partly in Los Alamos NM and first attempted to come out as genderqueer in 1980, an endeavor made difficult by the fact that there was no such term for it in 1980. He has used many words and phrases over the intervening years, including "sissy" and "coed feminist" and "straightbackwards", but currently identifies as a "gender invert" which is a subtype of genderqueer, and colloquially refers to himself as a "male girl".

He has lived in the greater New York City / Long Island region since 1984. He came to the area in order to major in women's studies and to discuss gender and related topics, and is the author of "Same Door, Different Closet: A Heterosexual Sissy's Coming-Out Party" (published in the academic journal FEMINISM and PSYCHOLOGY in 1992).

"Same Door Different Closet" was reprinted twice in subsequent anthologies (Fem & Psych's own special reader HETEROSEXUALITY in 1993, and Heasley & Crane's SEXUAL LIVES: A READER ON THE THEORIES AND REALITIES OF HUMAN SEXUALITIES, McGraw-Hill 2002). A second theory paper, "The Feminist Perspective in (and/or On) the Field of Sociology" was made available for credited distribution and was included in a compendium, READINGS IN FEMINIST THEORY, Ed. S. M. Channa, Cosmo Publications.

GenderQueer is his first serious attempt to write for the market outside of the academic journal environment.

He is active in local and regional organizations where he speaks to small groups about gender issues. He has addressed college women's studies groups, alternative-lifestyle social groups, and given talks at LGBT centers.

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Monday, March 23, 2020

VBT Presents: Everyday Enchantments by Maria DeBlassie

New Age, Inspirational Non-Fiction

Date Published: October 26, 2018

Publisher: Moon Books

Winner of the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award in the New Age Category for 2018!

Finalist for the Body Mind Spirit Book Awards in the New Age Category for 2018

Official Selection for the New Apple Book Award for the New Age/Mind-Body-Spirit Category for 2018

Finalist for the National Indie Excellence Award in the Body Mind Spirit Category for 2018 Spellbinding meditations on conjuring your own bliss.

Everyday Enchantments is a love letter to the magic of everyday life, the sweet moments and the profound that we often overlook in our hurry to get from one place to the next. What if we had the power to unplug from our daily hustle and bustle and conjure a more profound way of living rooted in natural mysticism?

We do. All it takes is the whispered wish for more everyday enchantment breathed onto a dandelion head. This collection of essays reminds us to escape into the ordinary, find beauty in a simple cup of tea or rereading a beloved novel—and joyfully let our world turn upside down when synchronicity strikes in the form of wrong turns down forgotten lanes and unexpected midnight conversations with the moon.

This book is a study in what it means to live deliciously, joyfully, and magically. And it’s an invitation to conjure your own bliss—-because let’s face it: we could all use a little more magic in our lives.

About the Author

Maria DeBlassie, Ph.D. is a native New Mexican mestiza blogger, award-winning writer, and educator living in the Land of Enchantment. Her blogging life started as a year-long journey to write her back into happy, healthy, and whole through daily posts about life’s simple pleasures, everyday magic, and radical self-care. That year-long experiment turned into a lifestyle, a book, a press—and her ongoing blog, Enchantment Learning & Living. She is forever looking for magic in her life and somehow always finding more than she thought was there. Find out more about Maria and conjuring everyday magic at www.mariadeblassie.com.

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Saturday, March 21, 2020

VBT-Once in a Black Moon by D. Lieber

Paranormal/Fantasy Time-Travel Romance

Date Published: March 3, 2020

Publisher: Ink & Magick

Chicago journalist Erin Nichols isn’t about to give up when she’s fired for writing an exposé. But when a combination of murder, magic, and celestial events transports her through time and space to 1900 western Canada, city hall corruption becomes the least of her worries.

But the past isn’t any safer. Awaking to learn she may be the victim of some unknown crime, Erin takes shelter with the local Mountie—the picture of upright Canadian fortitude. As tragedy stalks the nearby First Nation reserve, Erin learns from a Romanian mystic that magic is dying, and the fae are turning to their darker natures to survive.

While the reserved and sexy Mountie helps her navigate a time in which she doesn’t belong, the mysterious and seductive conjurer helps her try to find a way home. As they alight feelings and desires Erin never knew she was capable of, she begins to wonder where she truly belongs.

About the Author

D. writes stories she wants to read. Her love of the worlds of fiction led her to earn a Bachelor’s in English from Wright State University.

When she isn’t reading or writing, she’s probably hiking, crafting, watching anime, Korean television, Bollywood, or old movies. She may also be getting her geek on while planning her next steampunk cosplay with friends.

She lives in Wisconsin with her husband (John) and cats (Yin and Nox).

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Saturday, March 14, 2020

VBT Presents: El Gringo by Edmond Salus

Fiction

Date Published: January 2018

Sonny Galas is an only child being raised by his mother-a widow---and the loving help of his grandfather, also widowed. Living in a Santa Monica apartment complex owned by 'Grandpa' all is well and average for this close-knit family until a certain French family come into the picture, in need of a place to rent. They soon show their colors in various ways, topping it off by slapping a suit on their patient, kind landlord. Sonny's family sees no better option than selling their only asset-the apartments-and getting far away from their Lawyer-packing tenants. Far, as in 'leaving the country', and this is where their true adventure begins. South of the border becomes their new home.

From their journey through third-world narrow roads, small towns where no English is spoken, to long, hot unending desert roads and through humid coastal towns they continue toward their big city destination, Guadalajara, where their life begins and they encounter everything and everyone from kind helpers to con-artists and crazies and from strangers to good friends, both Mexican and American. From young boy to teenager, as the years pass, Sonny sees it all: his family's ups and downs, the country's ups and downs with its own political third-world corruption, and his own transformation from a simple boy in a new country to a growing youth, fully fluent in Spanish; a devilish yet fun-loving teenager now with roots firmly planted and sprouting happily in his new home, his new country. From the adventures and joys of boyhood with his friends and pals to the wild days through grade school, junior high and high school with the opportunities given him as a bi-lingual kid to living through the set-backs that could trouble any family-Mexican or American-even scare of the faint of heart, he takes it all in; after all, now he's Mexican. The fiestas, the friends, the awesome busy modern streets of Guadalajara in the early Seventies to the early Eighties, Guadalajara, the country's capital of Mariachis.

Edmond Salus

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Wednesday, March 11, 2020

VBT-Venom! by Thomas Burns

Mystery

Publisher: Tekrighter, LLC

Date Published: 1 March, 2020

A spooky mansion in the Georgia mountains with an outrageous cast of characters. Spiders, snakes, meth-heads and serial killers, oh my! Venom! ain’t your average gothic mystery, folks.

But who would expect it to be when Natalie McMasters is involved? She’s fallen madly in love with two people—her wife, Lupe, and Danny, her partner at the 3M Detective Agency. Rather than choose one of them as her life partner, she’s decided to have them both, and roped them into a relationship retreat in rural Georgia to learn how to live as a polyamorous family.

But Nattie finds more than she bargained for in the sleepy town of Greypeak. A methamphetamine operation. A snake-handling preacher. A retired FBI agent hunting a serial killer. And a charismatic psychologist who just might have his own agenda for his clients.

Nattie ultimately finds herself in the most dangerous situation she’s ever faced, which may well solve her relationship problems by costing her life. Is this really the last book in the Natalie McMasters series?

About the Author

Thomas A. Burns, Jr. is the author of the Natalie McMasters Mysteries. He was born and grew up in New Jersey, attended Xavier High School in Manhattan, earned B.S degrees in Zoology and Microbiology at Michigan State University and a M.S. in Microbiology at North Carolina State University. He currently resides in Wendell, North Carolina. As a kid, Tom started reading mysteries with the Hardy Boys, Ken Holt and Rick Brant, and graduated to the classic stories by authors such as A. Conan Doyle, Dorothy Sayers, John Dickson Carr, Erle Stanley Gardner and Rex Stout, to name a few. Tom has written fiction as a hobby all of his life, starting with Man from U.N.C.L.E. stories in marble-backed copybooks in grade school. He built a career as technical, science and medical writer and editor for nearly thirty years in industry and government. Now that he's truly on his own as a novelist, he's excited to publish his own mystery series, as well as to contribute stories about his second most favorite detective to the MX anthology of New Sherlock Holmes Stories.

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Saturday, March 7, 2020

VBT Presents: The Lost Train by Seth Crossman

Action Adventure Thriller

Date Published: 2/20/20

Publisher: Golden Acorn Press

A former MP, Will Stattin, is called to Europe to investigate the theft of several paintings. He learns that the paintings are part of a series of nine pieces of art, all with a clue that ultimately leads to a train that disappeared from Konigsberg, Germany in late 1944 full of gold, art, and priceless artifacts. He quickly learns that he is not the only one after the paintings. Now it is a race across Europe to find the paintings and the lost train with the help of the beautiful and savvy museum agent, Giovanna Rossi, before the hunt turns even more deadly than it already has.

About the Author

Seth Crossman is a minister, speaker, and writer who lives in Upstate New York. His own adventures have taken him across the globe and stirred his desire to write fast-paced, provocative thrillers that keep readers turning the page. He has three boys that he wants to inspire with a sense of adventure and courage to overcome whatever obstacles get in their way.

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Friday, March 6, 2020

VBT Presents: The Wingless Angel by Fabrice Wilfong

Dark Fantasy

Date Published: 2/22/20

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

The Wingless Angel

Ex-Army Medic, Silton, has had a rough go of late. Soon after being discharged from the military his wife suffered a tragic accident, then slipped into a coma and died. Now alone, drinking fills his days, and restless sleep plagues his nights.

He feels that God is finished with him, that he has no purpose in life, so he ends it all.

He falls. Naked and confused, he falls.

Silton awakens on a taught expanse of warm Skin Land. Acrid air stings his lungs, tiny hairs jut up like grass under his feet, and the pale blue eye of Heaven stares down on him.

In the distance he hears a scream, and as he bounds towards it, finds a fetid swamp of others who have fallen, sinking into the soupy flesh. Quick to his training Silton pulls a woman out of the mess, only to find her legs ravaged with breaks. Using his medical skills and the flesh around him, he binds her injuries, easing her pain.

Far off in the distance, on their huge moving home called the Sled, a group of demons set off on a journey out into the Skin Land to harvest those lucky enough to survive the fall. Those like Silton.

Silton drags his newfound friend to a distant shelter of bone as they share the reflections of life that have brought them here. With each step the mystery of this place unfolds revealing its true beauty, and its terrifying reality.

As the demons draw near, and the pale blue eye of Heaven watches above, it becomes clear that God is not finished with Silton. God has a new purpose for him, a purpose for him in Hell.

“Sin follows the sinner, it does not lead them.”

About the Author

Fabrice Wilfong has been writing fiction since he was 15 years old. His works have consistently leaned towards the dark side of human experience, where he uses characters and philosophy to challenge our shared interpretations of life.

For most of his professional career Fabrice has been in the Healthcare Industry where he’s learned to love human anatomy and the systems of the body. He feels the body remains a frontier that we are all forced to explore with little understanding of how things will unfold.

His works consistently push the reader to a deeper knowledge of themselves both mentally and physically, while daring into the fantastical and bizarre.

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