Calling all writers and readers!

Showcase your favorite book—or at least page 69 of it—here!

Turn to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like that page, buy the book.

That was Marshall McLuhan’s advice anyway. Over the next few Wednesdays, I invite readers to submit their own or other works (pg. 69 only of course!) via the Contact Form here.

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The Hardest Ride by Gordon L. Rottman

Genre: Western

Page 69 Excerpt (Hartwood Publishing, 2013)

The Texas-Mexico border, the winter of 1886—The Great Die Up. A raw rift separates Mexicans and Anglos. A loner cowpoke and a mute Mexican girl fight man and nature to reunite.Out of work cowpoke Bud Eugen comes across Marta, a mute sixteen-year old Mexican girl whose family has been killed by Indians. Bud reluctantly takes her along, even though he’s never had to accommodate another person in his simple life. He’s unable to find anyone willing to take her. In spite of his prejudices, Bud grows to like the spunky girl (and her excellent cooking).Eventually, they both find work on a border ranch. Here, the relationship between the girl and the young cowboy hesitantly grows. But banditos raid the ranch, kidnapping the rancher’s daughters and Marta. Bud, with twelve other men, pursue the banditos into the most desolate reaches of Mexico. Ambushes and battles with banditos, Rurales, and traitors are constant, and the brutal weather is as much a threat as the man-made perils. Life and death choices are made at every turn as one side gains the advantage, then the other.

The rancher’s daughters are rescued, and the exhausted party turns back. But Bud presses on alone, against insurmountable odds – determined to fulfill an unspoken promise to Marta.

Pg. 69:  Bud takes on temporary work at a hotel, far beneath a cowboy’s dignity and gradually finds there is more Marta than he expected.

Gordon Rottman lives outside of Houston, Texas, served in the Army for 26 years in a number of “exciting” units, and wrote war games for Green Berets for 11 years. He’s written over 120 military history books, but his interests have turned to adventurous young adult novels—influenced by a bunch of audacious kids, Westerns owing to his experiences on his wife’s family’s ranch in Mexico, and historical fiction focusing on how people really lived and thought—history does not need to be boring. His first Western novel is The Hardest Ride to be followed by more.

One day Mrs. Moran said if I shot some quail and jackrabbits, she’d pay me. It was a nice change from mucking out the stable twice a day. When I saddled after breakfast, Marta was right there. She climbed up on a nail keg, hoisting her saddle onto the sorrel. I said, “You get back inside.” I’d learned she could understand my meaning…when she saw fit. She crossed her arms and glared at me, tapping a sandal atop the keg. I could see there wasn’t no point in arguing.

All we had to do was walk through the grass outside town and plenty of them old mule-ear jacks and quail were scart up. It was easy shooting. Marta was toting a feedsack, and it was full in no time. She pointed at the shotgun and thumped her chest.

“You wanna shoot this thing?” The girl was sure full of surprises. “Well, hell, why not? I gotta see this, you getting knocked on your scrawny butt.”

Taking the gun, she arched an eyebrow like she was saying, “Watch this.”

She loaded and cocked a hammer like she knew what she was doing, I guess from watching me. I’d noticed she’d watch real close when someone was doing something. She looked funny trying to heft that long-barreled cannon up.

“Well, fine. Now pull it hard into your shoulder ’cause it’s going to kick like a mule.” I shoved it hard into her showing what I meant. Then I thought that was ignorant to say since she don’t know what I said, and she knew about a mule’s kick.

She nodded and tramped forward a-hunting. I stayed right behind her not wanting her to swing that cannon around all a sudden. A quail lit out fifty feet away, and she blew that bird clean out of the air before it cleared the sage tops. And she was still standing.

“Well, I be thumped.”

She was mighty proud of what was left of that bird. She glanced at me out the corners of her eyes. She might as well have said, “Stuff that in your tobacco pouch.”

Then I remembered the shot shells where her family been murdered. Her pa must of had a shotgun.

Coming back, I ran into a greasy-beard cowpuncher in front of the hotel and asked him if his outfit were hiring. He sounded funny because his lip was slit open up to his nose and never healed proper. “We ain’t hirin’ no hotel-chore boy nurse-maidin’ a Mex.”

Guess I’d not be working that spread. “Thank you, friend,” I said.

Sounds good? Get your copy of The Hardest Ride here. Paperback, eBook, Audio

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Bayou Des Enfants by Lynn Lorenz

Genre: Paranormal Gay Romance

 

Page 69 To be released: November 25, 2014

It’s been nearly a year since Scott and Ted set up house together in St. Jerome. Life is good. Ted is trying to get his PI business off the ground with the occasional job and still painting for the gallery. Scott is alpha of the pack and sheriff of St. Jerome.But Scott’s mother, Darlene Dupree, is not content. She wants grandkids and she wants them now. Taking matters into her own hands, Maman, as Scott and Ted call her, works her magic in the middle of the night next to the bayou.Before Scott and Ted know it, they’re saddled with two boys. Which wouldn’t be so bad, if someone in the pack would take them in. But no one steps forward to claim them and Scott and Ted are left with a terrible choice, take in the kids themselves or give them up to CPS, where the boys can’t hide what they are – werewolves.

It’s the wrong time and the wrong kids. But the first rule of the pack is to protect the pack and there is no other choice to make.

Pg. 69

“My dad died long before I really had a chance to get into trouble. And truthfully, I’m not sure how he’d take this.” Scott spread his hands to indicate him and Ted. “I’m not sure if he’d even speak to me if he knew.”

“Does that bother you?”

“That he would cut me out of his life for claiming my mate, whether or not that person was a man? Yeah. But I’ll never know.”

“So give him the benefit of the doubt. Believe he would have still stood up at the pack meeting and backed you.”

“Sure. Okay.” Scott grinned.

The front door opened. Billy and Peter entered. “Hey, guys!”

“Hey! You here for moral support?” Ted asked.

“Of course. Figured if we formed a united front, it would give people pause. They can’t claim we’re all pedophiles, can they?” Peter grinned and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Look who’s right behind us!”

Bobby came in with his mate, Mark, who carried a container with four coffees. “Thought you guys might need some stimulation of the caffeinated type.” He handed them out to Scott and Ted. Mark took one, and Bobby snagged the last one. “Sorry, Billy. Peter. Didn’t think you’d be here.” Then he tossed a bag of creamers, sugars, and those little wooden stirrers on one of the chairs.

“No problem.” Billy waved him off. “Peter’s trying to wean me off the caffeine in the evenings.”

“He sleeps better.” Peter rubbed Billy’s arm.

Scott took in the affectionate touch. To him, Billy was the alpha, Peter the mate. Whoa. Maybe Ted was right. He was placing heterosexual roles on gay men. Familiar roles to make their relationships more…acceptable. Was that screwed up or what?

Did Peter fuck Billy? Scott’s face warmed. He should not be thinking about his deputy and his mate’s sex life. He glanced over at Bobby.

 

Lynn has been writing all her life, but only recently for publication. She writes a variety of genres besides historicals, including police procedurals, fantasy, paranormal, and contemporary romantic comedy, but enjoys reading suspense and detective stories most of all and wishes more cops would fall in love between their pages.

Born in New Orleans, she has a strong affinity for the South, pralines and po’boys. She’s never met food she didn’t like, but finds it hard to beat the food she grew up with and constantly craves from N’awlins. Going back occasionally to visit her father who still lives there, her car is often laden with epicurean delights such as Hubig Pies, Barqs in the bottle, Central Groceries’ muffalattas and Gambino’s pastries.

Graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, Lynn is also an artist whose still lifes, life studies, and landscapes are done in acrylic, watercolors, pencil, and pastels. She loves getting away for a week at a time just to paint outdoors.

She has a real job that keeps her busy nine-to-five, but in her spare time she finds it hard to stay away from writing. It keeps her off the streets and out of the bars.

Lynn has two incredible kids, a supportive husband of twenty plus years, and a black lab/Aussie sheep dog mix. She’s lived in Katy, Texas, since 1999, where she discovered her love of all things Texan and cowboy, like big hair, boots, and blue jeans. Yeehaw! You can contact Lynn at http://lynnlorenz.com/

 Sounds good? Get your pre-order info for Bayou Des Enfants here.

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