I am super excited to share my blog space with an author who is new to me. Mike Torreano is a Wild Rose Press author and has an intriguing new book release to tell you about!
Take it away, Mike!
What inspired this story?
A Score to Settle is set on the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail in 1870 New Mexico Territory. I was drawn to this locale by the iconic western series, Lonesome Dove. Author Larry McMurtry used an incident in Lonesome Dove that paralleled something that actually happened on Goodnight-Loving. On an 1866 cattle drive, Oliver Loving was shot by Comanches near Fort Sumner, NMT. After he died, his partner, Charles Goodnight, carried out Loving’s last wish by wagoning him back home to Texas. To me, this is one of the Old West’s most famous legends and I decided to weave a story around it. Hence, A Score to Settle, which also features a strong romantic element throughout.
Excerpt:
Late afternoon rays warmed Rose as Kip built a sputtering fire. Her shivering quieted and feeling returned to her face. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
Kip grinned as he fed scattered wet kindling into the laboring fire. “Didn’t have a choice. Del would skin me if I didn’t.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
A nod. “There’s somethin’ about him. I don’t make friends easy and Del don’t seem to either, but we took to each other right off. He’s about as levelheaded as they come.”
“Yes he is and so are you.”
“Don’t know about that, but I never had a good friend. Don’t know if it was me or them. Del strikes me the same way.” Kip gathered some larger pieces and the fire popped as it went to work on damp wood. “And I know how much he cottons to you. Hard to miss the glint in his eye when he’s with you.”
Her heart jumped. “Does he say that?”
“Doesn’t have to. Easy to see.”
“Tell me about him, Kip. Tell me about Del. You’re like two peas in a pod. I don’t know much of anything, except for the misery he’s carrying.”
Book Blurb:
Broken after his family is murdered, rancher Del Lawson signs on to a cattle drive along the Goodnight Loving trail in 1870, unaware he’s still in danger. When he falls for a pretty Army nurse, the killers target her.
If he’s to recover from his grief and build a new life, Del must set out on a gritty hunt for the men who are hunting him.
Meanwhile, Del’s mother, Maybelle, doesn’t know her son survived that murderous night. When she discovers the gold the killers are after, she uses the treasure in an elaborate masquerade to take the murderers down.
Will mother and son’s plans reap justice-or destroy what’s left of the Lawson clan?
About the Author:
Mike Torreano has a military background and is a student of history and the American West. He fell in love with Zane Grey’s descriptions of the Painted Desert in the fifth grade, when his teacher made her students read a book and write a report every week.
Mike recently had a short story set during the Yukon gold rush days published in an anthology, and he’s written for magazines and small newspapers. An experienced editor, he’s taught University English and Journalism. He’s a member of Colorado Springs Fiction Writers, Pikes Peak Writers, The Historical Novel Society, and Western Writers of America. He brings his readers back in time with him as he recreates western life in the late 19th century.
Today, I welcome Steven Neil to my blogsite to tell you about his latest book.
And, there are Giveaways!!
Steven is giving away (3) Signed Paperback copies of “THE MEREST LOSS.” For your chance to win, be sure to leave him a comment below.
Take it away, Steven!
A story of love and political intrigue, set
against the backdrop of the English hunting shires and the streets of Victorian
London and post-revolutionary Paris.
Character
Studies
I always draft character studies of my main
characters and keep them close when I am writing. The more detail the better
and the more likely it is that continuity errors can be avoided. Here are some
extracts for three characters in my 19th century historical romance
novel The Merest Loss.
Harriet
Howard b. 1823
Harriet is born
Elizabeth Ann Harryet. She is the daughter of Joseph Gawan Harryet, self styled
Squire but actually a boot maker and son of a Brighton hotel owner. Joseph
Harryet inherits wealth when his father dies and the hotel is sold.
Elizabeth has a private education and is
coached to achieve her father’s ambition for her that she should enter society
and marry well.
The young Elizabeth is beautiful,
capricious, and precocious. She has a touch of arrogance about her. Whilst
disguised as a boy, aged thirteen she has an encounter with a livery yard owner
and attempts to secure a hunter hireling from him:
‘Well find me something else and be quick
about it. I am Squire Harryet’s son and he wishes me to hunt in his place. We
are guests of the Duke and I am keeping him waiting. And you sir are keeping me
waiting.’
As she becomes a young woman she retains
her flamboyance but adds charm and humility to her personality. She is a
talented mimic and has a wicked sense of humour. She has ambitions to be an actress.
When she meets Jem Mason she is infatuated
with him and runs away to live with him in London when she is still only
fifteen.
She is the heroine.
Jem
Mason b. 1816
Jem Mason is born
in Stilton, Cambridgeshire and is the son of John Mason; horse dealer to the
gentry and very wealthy as a consequence.
Jem is educated at Huntingdon Grammar
School and later given private tuition. He is a talented rider from a young age
and destined to become a successful jockey.
Jem is handsome, elegant, well-dressed,
slim, tall, gifted and athletic. He is also witty, smart, charming, and
charismatic and has an easy, confident manner.
He smokes cigars and drinks champagne. He
likes the opera, ballet and the theatre.
One story told about him is that when
walking the steeplechase course at Stratford, in company with other jockeys,
they come to two options: a five-bar gate and a bullfinch (a tall birch hedge
which is jumped through rather than over). One of the jockeys asks Jem whether
he would have the fence or the gate.
‘I’ll be hanged if I am going to scratch
my face. I’m going to the opera tonight. I shall have the gate, forty miles an
hour, and defy any man in England to follow me’
The Sporting Life described him as ‘a
lath-like elegant figure, beautiful seat and hands and a very quick eye.’
When Jem and Harriet (then Elizabeth) meet
they are immediately attracted to each other.
Major
Francis Mountjoy Martin b. 1808
Francis Mountjoy
Martin is the son of Charles Fuller Martin, former Sherriff of Calcutta who was
by all accounts a rather eccentric character. Francis and his brother are
reputedly the sons of an Indian mother.
Francis is public school and Eton educated
and becomes a Guards officer. He is the perfect gentleman. He is stiff, polite
and very correct. He is tall, chivalrous and well-spoken. He is also quite shy
in company and can speak with a stammer. He is artistic and also a musician and
plays the violin
In the novel he is an operational officer
in the British Secret Service. He works for Nicholas Sly, Head of Espionage,
French Operations.
He is Harriet’s cover story and she lives
under his ‘guardianship’ in London. It is believed that he is the father of
Harriet’s son. It is ambiguous whether Harriet and Francis have a relationship
or whether it is a business arrangement.
He apparently provides a home and a trust fund for Harriet as he is not free to marry. This lends credibility to her wealth. In reality the money is provided by the British Government which is grooming Harriet to seduce Louis Napoleon.
He acts as a sympathetic mentor to Harriet as the novel develops.
Follow Steven Neil onhttps://twitter.com/stevenneil12for information on how to purchase the paperback through an independent bookseller in the UK.
Bio
Steven has a BSc in
Economics from the London School of Economics, a BA in English Literature and
Creative Writing from the Open University and an MA in Creative Writing from
Oxford Brookes University. He has been a bookmaker’s clerk, bloodstock agent, racehorse
breeder and management consultant amongst other professions in his varied
career. He is married and lives in rural Northamptonshire, England. The Merest
Loss is his debut novel.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE. Thanks for supporting this author and his work!
Clayton Brandt
stood just behind the glass doors of the Ministry of International Trade and
Industry building waiting for a let-up in the storm that pummeled the hot Tokyo
pavement. Wisps of vapor rose into the air as the rain hit the warm ground.
He searched the eight-lane
boulevard in front of the MITI building for an empty taxi. He knew it could be a
long wait before an empty cab came down Sakurada-Dori. Thousands of bureaucrats
glutted Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki district, and whenever it rained, it seemed like
all of them wanted a taxi.
“Son of a
bitch!” he said, his words echoing through the lobby. Two middle-aged
Japanese bureaucrats standing nearby looked over at the tall foreigner. They understood
that English phrase.
Clayton grinned. “Ame-ga
futte imasu,” he said.
The two men looked
at one another and then back at Clayton as if to say: “Yes, we can see it is raining. But is that any excuse for such a
rude public outburst?”
Clayton sighed, opened
his umbrella, and stepped out into the downpour. He turned right and hurried through
the governmental heartland of Japan, maneuvering his 6-foot, 3-inch frame through
the crowded sidewalk glutted with black and gray umbrellas. Sometimes the edge
of an umbrella held by a much shorter Japanese man or woman slashed at his throat
or slapped against his face. Whenever it rained, and the umbrellas came out,
Clayton always felt Gulliveresque—like a giant trapped in a forest of
undulating toadstools.
He looked up at the
leaden April sky. The rain had drenched Tokyo for the past four days, covering
the ground with a pink and white patina of delicate sakura blossoms. A slow
rumble of thunder curled between the squat granite structures of Kasumigaseki.
Clayton looked at his watch. It was four-thirty and the evening traffic was already
crawling. He had hoped to get his story written and filed by six o’clock, but
the briefing about Japan’s angry reaction to Washington’s decision to bar the U.S.
government’s purchase of Japanese supercomputers had taken longer than usual.
The sky rumbled
again, and bolts of lightning streaked overhead. A taxi pulled up outside the
Ministry of Health and Welfare and was disgorging three Japanese bureaucrats in
dark blue suits. Clayton closed his umbrella and dashed for the cab splashing
through rivulets of water as he ran. The three men had barely climbed out
before Clayton bolted past them and into the rear seat. He gave the driver his destination,
closed his eyes, and rested his head on the seat back as the taxi inched its way
back into the gridlock.
Every so often, his
eyes opened just long enough to take in the somber Tokyo landscape. The perpetually
gray skies of Tokyo didn’t do his already sepulchral spirit any good. In fact, very
little seemed to buoy his disposition these days. He couldn’t help it. He felt depressed
and probably a bit too sorry for himself. A few hours before the MITI briefing,
he had suffered through another of those telephone “chats” with Max,
the foreign editor of Global News Service in London about expenses and the need
to cut back on costs.
“O.K., O.K. Max,”
Clayton had sighed bleakly into the phone. “I get the picture.”
The exchange ended
with Max suggesting that Clayton not be such a “cowboy.” A “cowboy?”
Why? Just because he was from Oxford, Kansas and not Oxford, England? It wasn’t
easy working for a bunch of Brits when you sounded more like Garth Brooks than
Sir Laurence Olivier. But he knew what Max meant.
Clayton was an
iconoclast in a profession that increasingly rewarded conformity rather than
individualism. Newspapers today all looked alike, loaded with the same
predictable stories about the same predictable events. It was rubber-stamp
journalism practiced by rubber-stamp editors who worked for rubber-stamp publishers
who worked for boards of directors who wanted twenty percent operating profit
margins above all else—quality journalism be damned.
He went over the notes he had hurriedly scribbled
during the MITI briefing, searching for the lead of his story. His pen
scratched heavy lines under the words “ill-conceived” and
“studying our response.” Then he stuffed the notebook back into his bag.
“It’s over,” Clayton thought to himself as he watched the snarl of cars
and trucks crawl along Uchibori-Dori through Kokyo-Gaien, the large plaza that
fronted the walled Imperial Palace. It was as if today he had been forced
finally to confront the inevitable mortality of his professional career; or at
least of his particular brand of journalism. He was writing the same boring
stories over and over again. Where was the challenge? The sense of
accomplishment?
Clayton exhaled and
gazed out the taxi window at the striated, ashen facades of drenched buildings.
They reminded him of the mascara-smudged faces of women weeping at a rainy graveside.
He closed his eyes
and nudged his mind away from the depressing Tokyo landscape. Soon it was obediently
shuffling through old images of another, more beguiling Asia. It was an Asia of
genial evenings spent beneath traveler palms; of graceful, colonial-era hotels
in Singapore and Malaysia with their chalky plaster facades and their broad
verandahs peppered with rattan settees and peacock chairs; of slowly turning
teakwood paddle fans that moved the heavy night air with just enough authority
to create a light breeze, but not enough to obliterate the sweet scent of
evening jasmine. THAT was the Asia he missed; the Orient of the past.
Yes, it was ending.
Clayton could feel it. It had been a good run . . . A good career. But now the
journey was ending, like a train that had roared through the night and was now
pulling into its last station. How many times had he almost gotten off only to
be lured back on by the promise of what lay ahead at the next stop? How many
times had he been disappointed by that decision? How many times had he been
rewarded? At first, the rewards outweighed the disappointments, but in recent
years, as he had grown older, the regrets seemed to have gained a definite
edge.
For one thing, the
passengers kept changing. And the conductors. And the engineers. But what did
he expect? Wasn’t that the way the world worked? What was it that Tennyson had written:
“The old order changeth, yielding
place to new?”
Clayton shuddered. Was
he the old order? Should he be yielding? Was he burned out?
Maybe he was becoming
the old order, Clayton thought. But he wasn’t burned out just yet. And if there
was any yielding to do, he wanted it on his own terms. The trouble was, the
gulf of time between his past glories and the imminence of the callow, computer
savvy handlers in the home office who controlled his destiny was becoming
almost unbridgeable.
Most of his career
predated cell phones and computers. For the computer literates at Global, his life’s
work might as well be stored on some remote database. As it was, he existed
only in yellowing newspaper clips, aging telexes, and letters of commendation
that were kept in his personal file back in London. And nobody bothered to look
at that stuff anymore.
It made no
difference, Clayton thought. In the mutable, evanescent province that modern
journalism had become, it was ancient history. Hell, HE was ancient history. He
was like a piece of old journalistic parchment—readable, but, unlike a
computer, much less utilitarian.
What Clayton needed
was another journalistic rush . . . A story he could get hold of and play like
a newly discovered Mozart piano concerto. He needed something . . . Not to
satisfy the yuppies back at Global, but to give him a reason to get back on the
train and to leave the station again.
The taxi slewed to
a stop like a wooden bathhouse sandal skidding
along a wet tile floor. Clayton looked up. They were in front of the Kawabata
Building.
“Kawabata Biru,
desu,” the driver announced.
Clayton fumbled in his
pocket, handed the driver a one thousand yen note, and waited for his change.
Then he bolted through the swirling Tokyo rain and put his shoulder against the
massive glass and steel doors of the Kawabata Building. Unlike most of Tokyo’s
modern structures, the Kawabata Building didn’t have sleek automatic glass
doors that hissed serpent-like and opened automatically at the approach of a
human being. It was a pre-war relic—an architectural throw-back with cracked
marble floors and a fading art deco interior that had somehow survived the
allied bombings.
The building’s
deteriorating facade, which was the color of dead autumn leaves, seemed to
glower at the world—like the rumpled brow of an angry old man. But the tumble-down
building had an undeniable individuality in a country that too often prized
sameness, and that was the reason Clayton liked it and had refused an offer to
move into one of the new glass and steel “smart buildings” that
soared over Tokyo’s Otemachi district.
He paused to talk
for a moment with the old woman who operated the small grocery and newsstand tucked
away in the corner of the lobby. From his many conversations with her, Clayton had
learned that the old woman had operated her little concession since 1938 and
knew the building’s history better than anybody.
She smiled as
Clayton’s towering frame bent toward her in one of those peculiar half bows
that Japanese make when they are in a hurry. Japanese could do it with a
certain grace; but not Clayton. When this big foreigner bowed, he always looked
like he was on the verge of crashing to the ground like a gingko tree struck by
lightning. Nevertheless, she liked this gaijin. Ordinarily, she merely tolerated
foreigners, but this one had a solitary charm. He was big, but not threatening;
assertive, but not arrogant.
“So, Oba-san, Genki
datta?” Clayton asked, combining the Japanese honorific for “grandmother” with
the less formal interrogative for “how are you?”
“Genki-yo,”
the old woman replied. Clayton picked up a package of Pocky chocolates and placed a one hundred yen coin in the old
woman’s hand.
“Sayonara,” Clayton
said as he turned and scuttled toward the bank of elevators.
“Sonna ni
hatarakanai ho ga ii desu!” the old woman called after him.
Clayton smiled and
nodded over his shoulder. The old woman was right. He was working too hard, and
where was it getting him? Back on a train to oblivion?
“Oh, get over it,” Clayton thought as the elevator door closed. “You’ve got a story to write. Feel sorry for
yourself AFTER you make your friggin’ deadline! Besides, what else do you know
how to do, you old hack! Burning out is not an option.”
The End
Thank you for supporting this member along the WATCH “RWISA” WRITE Showcase Tourtoday! We ask that if you have enjoyed this member’s writing, please visit their Author Page on the RWISA site, where you can find more of their writing, along with their contact and social media links, if they’ve turned you into a fan.
We ask that you also check out their books in the RWISA or RRBC catalogs. Thanks, again, for your support and we hope that you will follow each member along this amazing tour of talent! Don’t forget to click the link below to learn more about this author:
I am thrilled to introduce you to an award-winning author and his trilogy, The Billy Battles books!
Dealing With the Dreaded Rejection Letter
If there is one thing most authors have in common, besides the sheer agony
that sometimes accompanies the writing process, it is the dreaded Rejection
Letter from an agent or publisher.
I don’t know who got this one from Harlequin, but it had to be devastating
to the person receiving it.
I have received a few rejection letters–though none like the one from
Harlequin.
Most authors–even wildly successful authors–have also received their share
of rejection missives.
Don’t believe me?
Just take a look at this list of rejection letters that were sent by
publishers and agents to world-renowned, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning
authors. It is simply part of the creative process, and you need to keep moving
ahead–just as these authors did.
—“The American public is not interested in China,” a publisher
wrote Pearl S. Buck. Her book The Good Earth becomes
the best-selling US novel two years running in 1931/32, and wins The Pulitzer Prize in the
process.
—Alex Haley writes
for eight years and receives 200 consecutive rejections from publishers and
agents. His novel Roots becomes a publishing
sensation, selling 1.5 million copies in its first seven months of release, and
going on to sell 8 million.
—“He hasn’t got a future as a writer,”a
publisher opines. Publication of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold leads
to its author, John le Carré,
having one of the most distinguished careers in literary history.
—“Hopelessly bogged down and unreadable,” a publisher tells
Ursula K. Le Guin in a 1968 rejection letter. She was not deterred, and her
book The Left Hand of Darkness goes on to become just the
first of her many best-sellers and is now regularly voted as the second best
fantasy novel of all time, next to The Lord of the Rings.
—The Christopher Little
Literary Agency receives 12 publishing rejections in a row for their
new client, until the eight-year-old daughter of a Bloomsbury editor demands to read
the rest of the book. The editor agrees to publish but advises the writer to
get a day job since she has little chance of making money in children’s books. Harry
Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone byJ.K. Rowlingspawns
a series where the last four novels consecutively set records as the
fastest-selling books in history, on both sides of the Atlantic, with combined
sales of 450 million.
—“It is so badly written,” a publisher tells this author.
Dan Brown is not discouraged, however, and tries Doubleday where his book makes
an impression. The Da Vinci Code eventually sells 80
million copies.
—“Too different from other juvenile (books) on the market to warrant
its selling,” says a rejection letter sent to Dr. Seuss. His books
have racked up $300 million in sales, and he is now the 9th best-selling
fiction author of all time.
See what I mean?
Editors, agents, first readers who dig through the publisher’s slush
pile–all are quite capable of making bone-headed decisions about other
people’s work. And they do it all the time.
So if you have a stack of rejection letters sitting on your desk or stuffed
into a file cabinet, don’t despair. You are not alone.
What you should do, instead of becoming despondent and inconsolable, is read
those rejection letters carefully and look for the constructive criticism in
them.
In most cases, you will find some–though as one publisher told an author
many years ago: “This manuscript should be buried under a pile of
rocks and forgotten for the next thousand years.” (That book
went to become a bestseller and was even made into a movie. Its name: Lolita.)
Phrases like that can be a bit disheartening–even to
the most thick-skinned scribbler. So far I have not received anything
quite so venomous…though I have had my go-rounds with a few agents and
editors who couldn’t see the value of what I was working on.
Now that I am writing fiction rather than nonfiction, I am finding that I no
longer care what an agent or publisher may think of my work. I find that
especially satisfying when I can see that customers on Amazon, Barnes &
Noble and Goodreads like my book and are giving it mostly 5-stars with a
handful of 4-star ratings.
That tells me that I must be doing something right.
The key is believing in yourself and the story you are telling. You will
NEVER please everybody. There will always be those who don’t understand or just
don’t like your book or books. That’s life.
But it is critical that you DO NOT stop believing in what you are writing.
Does that mean you should ignore valid and constructive criticism?
No, it does not. If somebody has taken the time to tell you what is wrong
with your book or why he or she didn’t like it, you should also take the time
to consider that criticism and learn from it.
It doesn’t mean you should give up, stop writing and walk away from your
computer. Writing is a skill that cannot be taught–at least not in the same
way one learns calculus or biology.
It must be learned. And we learn to recognize good writing by reading.
Then we learn how to write by writing, writing, writing–even if the writing
we do is terrible, with way too many adjectives in place of strong action verbs
or way too many compound-complex sentences that give readers migraines as they
slog through page-long paragraphs.
Reading should be fun–not a chore. And only you, the writer, can dictate
that.
So if a rejection letter says your prose is ponderous and pretentious, or
your story is tedious and byzantine, you might want to take a hard, critical
look at what you have written.
And after doing that if you still disagree with the author of that rejection
letter, then by all means, plow ahead. You may be right and that agent or
editor may be wide of the mark.
Time and book sales will tell.D
Ronald E. Yates is
an award winning author of historical fiction and action/adventure novels,
including the popular and highly-acclaimed Finding Billy Battles trilogy.
His extraordinarily accurate books have captivated fans around the world who
applaud his ability to blend fact and fiction.
Ron is a former foreign correspondent
for the Chicago Tribune and Professor Emeritus of Journalism
at the University of Illinois where he was also the Dean of the College of
Media. His award-winning book, “The Improbable Journeys of Billy
Battles,” is the second in his Finding Billy Battles trilogy
of novels and was published in June 2016. The first book in the trilogy, “Finding
Billy Battles,” was published in 2014. Book #3 of the trilogy (The
Lost Years of Billy Battles) was published in June 2018.
As a professional journalist, Ron lived
and worked in Japan, Southeast Asia, and both Central and South America where
he covered several history-making events including the fall of South Vietnam
and Cambodia; the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing; and wars and
revolutions in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Nicaragua, El Salvador and
Guatemala, among other places. His work resulted in multiple journalism awards,
including three Pulitzer nominations and awards from the Society of
Professional Journalists and the Inter-American Press Association, to name a
few.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE.
Lastly, Ron is a member of the best book club ever – RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB {#RRBC}! If you’re looking for amazing support as an author, or if you simply love books, JOIN US! We’d love to have you!
It is my privilege and pleasure to help shine the spotlight on an incredibly supportive RRBC and RWISA author, Mary Adler. Today, she shares her thoughts on telling stories about real characters who lived and died. I’ll let her explain.
TELLING THEIR STORIES
When I am bogged down writing, when I can’t
think of any words, let alone the right words—whatever they may be—I persist no
matter how much I would like to quit. The driving force that propels me to sit
in the chair day after day, to hit the keys even when I know I will scrap the
hard-won scenes, is my need to bring to life the reality of forgotten people.
Don’t get me wrong. My first purpose when writing a mystery is to
entertain, to surprise, to take the reader on a trip to another time and place
and community. But the reason I write
the Oliver Wright series is because I want my readers to know what it was
really like to live in America during World War II, to hear the stories of the
people who lived then.
When I was full of doubt while writing my first
Oliver Wright and Harley mystery, my friend Steve, who is psychic, encouraged
me. For more than one good and
sufficient reason I believe he truly does communicate with the other side. (But that is a story for another
time.) He told me that they wanted
me to tell their story.
I assumed my relatives, Italians who had been
discriminated during World War II, were clamoring to have their story told, but
I was wrong.
Steve told me he saw a group of soldiers
holding rifles, some standing, some kneeling. It was the soldiers who wanted me to tell
their story, to try to make people understand what it was like to surrounded by
death, to watch their friends die day after day after day, and not have time to
mourn.
Steve’s vision prompted me to write this passage
in In the Shadow of Lies.
Oliver, a homicide detective on medical leave
from the Marines, is back home and remembering what happened on Guam.
I was back in Pt. Richmond, but Guam was only as far away as the
next night’s sleep. It wasn’t the memory of fighting, of being wounded, that
tortured me. It was the memory of walking away from the endless graves, from
the rifles stuck bayonet-down in freshly turned dirt. My men had buried too
many friends, friends who had died beside them, sometimes quickly, sometimes so
slowly they had begged their buddies to finish them off.
Then the living
had moved on—on to more killing. The war allowed no time to mourn, to
grieve, to honor the death of a man they might have loved as deeply as they
would ever love anyone. They moved on, they fought, they buried more men, they
moved on — and no one could see they were drowning in unshed tears.
I had hidden my
face when the hospital plane taxied down the runway on Guam. The medics
expected me to be grateful that I was leaving the fighting, but grief filled my
heart. I was leaving behind friends willing to sacrifice their own lives for
each other and for their dogs. It was why they fought. Forget the pretty
speeches about preserving democracy and freedom—they died for each other,
killing and being killed to end the endless killing.
I can’t know if I have honored the soldiers in
my friend’s vision in the way they wanted, but I believe they sent Oliver’s
thoughts to me to share with my readers. I did my best.
Mary Adler was an
attorney and dean at CWRU School of Medicine. She escaped the ivory tower for
the much gentler world of World War II and the adventures of homicide detective
Oliver Wright and his German shepherd, Harley. She lives with her family in
Sebastopol, California, where she creates garden habitats for birds and bees
and butterflies. She is active in dog rescue and does canine scent work with
her brilliant dogs — the brains of the team — and loves all things Italian.
RRBC and RWISA author, Ron Yates has just released the third and final book of his Billy Battles series and I am honored to host him here today!
Where in the world is Billy Battles?
As Book Three of the Finding Billy Battles trilogy begins we know where Billy is. He is in Chicago with his wife, the former Baroness Katharina von Schreiber living a sedate and comfortable life after years of adventure and tragedy. That changes with a single telephone call that yanks Billy and Katharina back into a life of turmoil and peril.
Persuaded by a powerful old friend to go undercover for the U.S. government the two find themselves in Mexico during the height of the violent 1910-1920 revolution. There they encounter assorted German spies, Mexican revolutionaries, devious political operatives, and other malefactors. Caught in the middle of the 1914 American invasion of Veracruz, they must find a way out while keeping their real identities secret.
After managing to extract themselves from danger, disaster strikes. It is a tragedy Billy is all too familiar with and one that will send him plummeting into a painful abyss of despair and agony. Consequently, Billy vanishes leaving family and friends to wonder what happened to him. Where is he? Is he dead or alive? What provoked his disappearance? In Book 3 of the Finding Billy Battles Trilogy, those questions are answered, and the mystery behind Billy’s disappearance is finally revealed.
The Finding Billy Battles series tells the story of a man who is born in 1860 and who dies in 1960. In between William Fitzroy Raglan Battles lives an improbable and staggering life of adventure, peril, transgression, and redemption. Then, Billy (that’s what his friends call him) mysteriously disappears. For several years his family has no idea where he is or what he is doing.
Finally, with his life coming to an end, Billy resurfaces in an old soldiers’ home in Leavenworth, Kansas. It is there when he is 98 that he meets his 12-year-old great-grandson and bequeaths his journals and his other property to him — though he is not to receive them until he is much older.
Years later, the great-grandson reads the journals and fashions a three-volume trilogy that tells of his great-grandfather’s audacious life in the old west, as well as his journeys to the Far East of the 1890s—including French Indochina and The Philippines—and finally, in the early 20th century, to Europe and Latin America where his adventures and predicaments continue. Trouble and tragedy dog Billy his entire life. In each book of the trilogy, we witness Billy’s ability to handle setbacks and misfortune as well as his successes and relationships.
Each chapter in the trilogy blends historical fact with fiction. The chapters are meticulously researched down to the last detail so readers not only find themselves immersed in a compelling story, but are exposed to historical events and real people that make the worlds of the late 19th and early 20th centuries come alive.
Before writing the Finding Billy Battles series, I spent some 27 years as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. During that time I lived and worked in Asia and Latin America, including most of the places in which my books are set. Therefore, descriptions of cities such as Saigon, Singapore, Manila, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Veracruz, etc. are based on my personal experiences and observations.
During that time, I covered several wars, revolutions, and popular uprisings which greatly aided in the descriptions of conflict that arise occasionally in the trilogy.
My purpose in writing the series was to tell a compelling story that, while fiction, is grounded in accurate historical fact. As such, I was careful to use the vernacular of the time and to describe places and events as they were in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
There is no great literary message in the books, other than to demonstrate that many people in the past lived remarkable lives filled with adventure, sadness, struggle, joy, and love just as today. They were not, as so often portrayed in the pallid black and white photographs of the time, stiff, lifeless figures without vivacity and depth.
The Finding Billy Battles series is targeted at readers who enjoy historical fiction topped off with a generous helping of action and adventure. It takes readers to an earlier time devoid of the relentless intrusion of today’s prevailing technology.
People who lived during Billy’s prime were not dominated by and yoked to technology the way so many of us are today. It was a time when the notions of “honor,” “fidelity,” and “duty” were guiding principles in most people’s lives. People were less harried and stressed and more disposed to stop and smell the flowers than their 21st-century counterparts.
If there is one message my books have it is this: Reading a book is a lot like life; you live it one page at a time.
Ronald E. Yates is an award-winning author of historical fiction and action/adventure novels, including the popular and award-winning Finding Billy Battles trilogy. His extraordinarily accurate books have captivated fans the world over who applaud his ability to blend fact and fiction.
Ron is a former award-winning foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and Professor Emeritus of Journalism at the University of Illinois where he was also the Dean of the College of Media.
His book, “The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles,” is the second in his Finding Billy Battles trilogy of novels and was published in June 2016. It has won multiple awards, including the 2017 KCT International Literary Award, the 2017 John E. Weaver Excellent Reads Award for Historical Fiction, the 2016 New Apple Literary Award in the Action/Adventure category and First Place in the 2016 Chanticleer International Book Awards in the Literary Category. It was also a finalist for the United Kingdom’s Diamond Book Award. The first book in the trilogy, “Finding Billy Battles,” was published in 2014 and was a Kansas Book Festival Selection and a finalist for a Chanticleer Laramie Award. Book 3 of the trilogy (The Lost Years of Billy Battles) was published June 6, 2018.
Ron has been a presenting author at the Kansas Book Festival and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, among other venues. He is also the author of The Kikkoman Chronicles: A Global Company with A Japanese Soul, published by McGraw-Hill. Other books include Aboard the Tokyo Express: A Foreign Correspondent’s Journey through Japan, a collection of columns translated into Japanese, as well as three journalism textbooks: The Journalist’s Handbook, International Reporting and Foreign Correspondents, and Business and Financial Reporting in a Global Economy.
Before leaving the world of professional journalism where he toiled 25 years, Ron lived and worked in Japan, Southeast Asia, and both Central and South America where he covered several history-making events including the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia; the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing; and wars and revolutions in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, among other places.
Ron’s work as a war correspondent resulted in several awards, including the Inter-American Press Association’s Tom Wallace Award for coverage of Central and South America; the Peter Lisagor Award from the Society of Professional Journalists; three Edward Scott Beck Awards for International Reporting, and three Pulitzer nominations.
He lives in Murrieta, California and is a proud graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas.
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