MEJ Newsletter

August 2022, v.2.7

“Good writing is like a windowpane.”

George Orwell

A destination wedding leads Henry Ike Pierce to Hawaii. He finds paradise … and a man seeking vengeance. Detective Pierce becomes the hunted.

Kindle preorder available now at Amazon for $5.99.

Detective Henry Ike Pierce joins his colleagues to celebrate a destination wedding in Hawaii. Amid beautiful scenery and new friends, paradise has its surprises. A dying man on a beach utters seemingly disjointed words that may be a warning. Henry finds himself pulled into another maelstrom, pursuing elements of Miomir Kurić’s criminal enterprise, while a man seeks revenge for his father’s death, one caused by Henry Pierce.

His responsibility for the death torments Henry. The man’s lifeless face and staring eyes haunt Henry’s dreams, and his internal turmoil imperils his colleagues and endangers his loved ones. A friend warns him that our worst memories and grief hide in the shadows of our souls. This young detective’s guilt casts a long shadow.

This Week’s Guest Author: Brenda Clark Thomas

Brenda is another of several authors I’ve met through the Central Region Oklahoma Writers or CROW.

Brenda Clark Thomas is the author of fantasy and post-apocalyptic novels and numerous short stories, primarily speculative fiction with a literary bent. The 2020 fiction runner-up of Poets and Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award, she’s currently seeking representation for a suspense/thriller featuring the NSA. She’s won many first-place prizes at writers’ conferences, and her non-fiction articles have appeared in various journals. She’s this month’s flash fiction horror finalist for Crystal Lake Publishing. The pre-release date for her newest horror novella, THE SURROGATE, is October 31st.

A native Californian, she now lives in south Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her New Yorker husband and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. In another life, she worked on top secret projects for the Army. A member of The Authors Guild, you can find her at www.brendaclarkthomas.com.

In September, she enters an intensive twelve-week writers’ workshop by The Storied Imaginarium. During the workshop, she will produce a rough short story per week with one complete, finalized short story due at the end of class. After that, she plans to work on a 20k novella that had its genesis suggested by Kevin Lucia, editor of Cemetery Dance, after he read one of her newest short stories.

Thank you, Brenda. It’s good to know you.

A father goes missing. A young mother protects her children while an assassin lurks in the darkness.

13 Stories - 13 Authors…Get your fright on.

A Gentleman from the Darkness takes place in Prague on the evening of December 13, 1968, which was an actual Friday the 13th. The reforms of the Prague Spring had been crushed that summer by the Russians and other Warsaw Pact nations. The new Czech government hunted the remaining reformists using hired henchmen like the gentleman antagonist, Karanosz Tasev.

Tasev claims to be a simple entrepreneur, which are assassinations for hire, and his forte is strangulation with orange scarves. Tasev is also an occultist, using his family’s glass company to make his specialty, orange glass cubes, each with ‘impurities’ mixed into the glass. He and his family members have a unique way of making them glow.

Although colors have different meanings in different cultures, orange is often mentioned in the occult and witchcraft as a positive color. Orange is the color of successful endings, as Tasev says in the story. In his case, a positive color for him, but not for his victims.

Kindle for $1.49, free on Kindle Unlimited, or $5.99 on Audible.

Tom Haire has a great voice and a variety of accents. Great to work with him on the audiobook. Checkout his other work on Facebook