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Sunday, May 26, 2019

The Resistance Series by Tracy Lawson


Counteract
Resistance
Series Book 1
by
Tracy Lawson


Genre:
YA Dystopian Adventure

Who
do you trust when your world unravels and everything you believed is
a lie?


For
the past fifteen years, The Office of Civilian Safety and Defense has
guarded the public against the rampant threat of terrorism. Teenagers
Tommy and Careen have never known life without Civilian Restrictions.
For them, there's no social media. No one is allowed to gather in
public places or attend concerts or sporting events. Only a small,
select group of adults have driving privileges, but it's a small
price to pay for safety.

Now
a new, more deadly, terrorist threat looms: airborne chemical weapons
that can be activated without warning. The OCSD is ready with an
antidote to counteract the effects of the toxins. Three drops a day
is all it takes. It's a small price to pay for health.

The
day the disaster sirens signal the dreaded attack, Tommy shares his
last dose with Careen, even though doing so might hasten his death.
It's a small price to pay for a friend.Follow Tommy and Careen as
they uncover a web of lies and deceit reaching to the highest levels
of the United States government and join an underground resistance
group that's determined to expose the truth.

"Counteract
is a novel for our times, but with a decidedly different plot twist.
Most dystopian thrillers focus on the devastating consequences of the
unleashed virus or poison on society, community, and the individual.
They become character studies of the protagonists and
antagonists.

"Tracy
Lawson's novel asks an even more disturbing question--what if the
real culprit was someone or something we trusted? I thought The
Hunger Games might be the Millennial generation's version of George
Orwell's 1984. Now, I think Counteract and the Resistance Series are
more primed to take that spot."--SR Staley, author of St. Nic,
Inc., and the Tortuga Bay series.


















Resist
Resistance
Series Book 2

"I
loved the first book in this series so much that I jumped right into
the second one to continue the adventure. The Resistance Series is
another great YA dystopian adventure that combines elements of
thriller, romance, dystopian, and much more to create a well-rounded
story that is sure to appeal to many readers - it definitely has my
attention."--TFL Reader, top 500 Amazon Reviewer


Knowledge
comes with a price.

Tommy
and Careen no longer believe the Office of Civilian Safety and
Defense's miracle antidote can protect them from a terrorist's
chemical weapons. After accidentally discovering the antidote's real
purpose,they've join the fight to undermine the OCSD's bid for total
control of the population.

Being
part of the Resistance brings with it a whole new set of challenges.
Not everyone working for change proves trustworthy, and plans to
spark a revolution go awry with consequences far beyond anything they
bargained for.

Tommy
and Careen's differing viewpoints threaten to drive a wedge between
them, and their budding relationship is tested as their destinies
move toward an inevitable confrontation with the forces that
terrorize the nation.

Where
does love fit in when you're trying to start a
revolution?

"Dystopian
YA literature needs more writers like Tracy Lawson! Lawson's lean
writing style and idea-driven dialogue reminded me of the novels of
Ayn Rand, particularly Anthem, but Resist is much faster paced and
holds your attention from the beginning.

"Resist
picks up right where the first book, Counteract, leaves off, and
readers are thrown immediately into the action. I also loved the way
Lawson doesn't give her characters the easy way out--they are forced
to make decisions and suffer the consequences. These are real people
that anchor the story, even if the setting is not." --SR Staley,
author of St. Nic, Inc. and the Tortuga Bay series











Ignite
Resistance
Series Book 3

The
Greatest Risk Is To Take No Risk At All.


Nationwide
food shortages have sparked civil unrest, and the Office of Civilian
Safety and Defense’s hold on the people is slipping. The
Resistance’s efforts to hasten the OCSD’s demise have resulted in
disaster, with Tommy Bailey and Careen Catecher taking the blame for
the ill-fated mission in OP-439.

Both
teens struggle to survive the circumstances that force them into the
national spotlight—and this time, they’re on opposite sides. On
the run and exiled from the Resistance members in BG-098, Tommy makes
his way to a Resistance safe house in the capital.

The
OCSD is preparing to monitor all under-eighteens with the Cerberean
Link, a device that protects them against hunger and sickness and can
even locate them if they’re lost. Tommy’s now living in close
quarters with Atari, an operative who has been assigned to sabotage
the Link. But does Atari plan to use it for his own
purposes?

Through
it all, Tommy refuses to believe Careen’s loyalties have shifted
away from the Resistance, and he’s willing to assume any risk to
reconnect with her. Will they be able to trust each other when it
matters most?












Revolt
Resistance
Series Book 4

The
Explosive Conclusion to the Award-Winning Resistance Series


To
Deny Freedom is to Deny the Human Spirit.

Fugitive
Resistance fighter Tommy Bailey has come out of hiding to help rescue
Careen Catecher from the clutches of the Office of Civilian Safety
and Defense, where she’s been held and interrogated for information
about the rebel group. The OCSD is poised to launch the Cerberean
Link, a security device that will put all minors under constant
surveillance under the guise of protecting them. 

Fearful
that OCSD director Madalyn Davies’s bid for control won’t stop
there, the Resistance puts its own plan in motion to sabotage the
Link and oust Madalyn from the directorship. Just when everything
seems leveraged in the Resistance’s favor, treachery, lies, and
long-held secrets threaten to derail it all.

Will
even a life together on the run be impossible for Tommy and Careen?
Or will the Resistance’s efforts convince the public to put their
fears aside and demand freedom?








Spark
Careen's
Prequel to the Resistance Series

"What
was our heroine Careen Catecher like BEFORE she became a firebrand
for the Resistance? Well, she was just a normal teenage girl trying
to survive college in the totalitarian state of Tracy Lawson's
creation." --review by Patrick Hodges


"Careen
is a believable, strong female protagonist who, having survived a
harrowing terrorist attack, is now trying to survive [college] in a
new 'Quadrant' where she can't seem to fit in." --review by
Candace Williams


A
strong heroine is made, not born.

Though
Careen Catecher survived a terrorist attack when she was nine, her
childhood ended on that awful day. Now, nine years later, she’s
ready for her life to truly begin.

A
full scholarship to a prestigious university far from her beleaguered
home quadrant seems like a dream come true, but when she arrives on
campus, she’s perceived as a charity case, despite grades and test
scores that prove she’s the academic equal of the best students
there.

Careen
knows she’s tough enough to survive just about anything, but
fitting in with her acquisitive peers—at least on the surface—is
necessary if she’s going to leave the past behind and claim the
stable future she craves.

But
her past won’t stay buried. She’s only been at school for a few
weeks when a cryptic message from an unlikely friend raises questions
that may put her in danger all over again.

Check
out this novella-length prequel to the award-winning Resistance
Series, “a promising new YA series about a totalitarian America.” 





**Perma-Free
on Amazon!!**







Tracy
Lawson knew she wanted to be a writer from the time she could read.
In the first grade, she authored sixty-seven contact-paper bound
books through her school's Young Authors program. Though that pace
proved impossible to maintain, she always intended to be a real
author one day. 


While
working toward her Bachelor's degree in Communication at Ohio
University, she studied creative writing with the late Daniel Keyes,
author of Flowers for Algernon. After short stints as a media buyer
and an investigative analyst, she settled into a 20-year career in
the performing arts, teaching tap dancing in Columbus, Ohio, and
choreographing musicals. Though her creative energies were focused on
dance, she never lost her desire to write, and has a non-fiction book
to her credit: Fips, Bots, Doggeries, and More, (McDonald &
Woodward, 2012).

Tracy's
love for writing Young Adult fiction is sparked by all the wonderful
teens in her life, including her daughter Keri, a college student.
Counteract is Tracy's first novel.








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the tour HERE
for exclusive content and a giveaway!













Shantallow by Cara Martin


Shantallow
Cara Martin
Published by: Cormorant Books
Publication date: May 26th 2019
Genres: Horror, Young Adult

Tanvi isn’t the girl of Misha’s dreams; she’s the girl from his nightmares. She has appeared in his chilling dreams before he even meets her; when he DOES meet her, he falls for her.

Their relationship turns stormy, bordering on abusive, and takes a dramatic turn when they are held captive by a group hoping to extract money from Tanvi’s wealthy family.

But there is something more sinister at work, and the kidnappers and their victims find themselves struggling for survival as a supernatural force from Misha’s nightmares makes itself known in the real world.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble

EXCERPT:

Keion came in his cab when I texted him, like an indie 911. He shook his head at me as I dove into the front seat next to him. “I’ve never seen you in this sorry ass state,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” I told him.

“Yeah, you do.”

“Yeah, I do,” I admitted. I’d walked too far out on the ice and realized it could crack under my feet. “But not now, okay? I need to get home.”

Keion nodded as we pulled away from the curb. “I can see that, all right.”

I leaned my head back against the headrest and shut my eyes; I’d downed too many shots to keep them open. Sleep curved its velvety black wings eagerly around me. I didn’t fight it.

In some other place, Tanvi stared at me with eyes like a starless night sky. “Shantallow,” she said, her cheeks slick with blood and her lips not moving. “Run.” My shirt was torn at the elbow. It flapped as I ran, my ribs twitching underneath my skin, clawing me from the inside.

“We should have reached a road by now,” Tanvi said. Misery bent her voice, like a branch drooping under the weight of too much snow. “How can there be no road?”

I jolted myself free from sleep. Keion’s eyes were on the road ahead. “Shantallow,” he hissed. “We shall all be changed.” Sharp fingernails scraped violently against the passenger side of the car. Keion grinned maniacally, his teeth broken and gray. Only he wasn’t Keion anymore. My father was at the wheel. Soil spilled from his mouth. Chunks of his skull were missing, the glare from a passing car illuminating the clumps of raw, uneven flesh left in their place.

“Hey, hey!” a voice called. “Wake up, Misha.” A car horn blared. It sliced through my fear, hurling me back to the world. My head knocked back against the headrest, Keion’s right hand closed firmly around my arm. “Whoa. You were having a night terror or something. I couldn’t wake you up. You damn scared me.” He promptly released his hold, his right hand joining his left on the wheel.

“I’m okay,” I said unconvincingly. “Must’ve been all the beer.”

We were back in Balsam, a couple of blocks from my house. Keion sighed through his teeth, his concerned eyes worse than any lecture. Thirty seconds later we veered onto my street. About six houses down from mine a guy with his hood up sat on a neighbor’s steps, hunched against the wind. He cocked his head in my direction as I exited the car, like we knew each other.

Keion called after me, “Be good, Misha. Call me if you want to talk.”

I was as shaky as hell, freezing on the inside. The dream had been so real that I easily might have thrown myself from the car to escape it. One of my hands flew instinctively up in the air to wave off Keion, my feet pausing until the cab was gone and then padding me over to the neighbor’s front yard like they had their own ideas about what was supposed to happen next.

“Thought that was you,” the guy said from the stoop. He tugged his hoodie down, revealing a familiar face.



Author Bio:

Cara Martin is the author of several acclaimed novels for young people published under the name C. K. Kelly Martin. Her most recent novel, Stricken, was released in 2017. A graduate of the Film Studies program at York University, Cara has lived in the Greater Toronto Area and Dublin, Ireland. Within the space of 3500 miles she’s worked a collection of quirky jobs at multiple pubs and video stores, an electricity company, a division of the Irish post office, a London toyshop, and an advertising analytics company. She’s also been an image editor for a dot-com startup that didn’t survive the 90s, and a credit note clerk for Canada's largest national distributor of General Merchandise. Cara currently resides in Ottawa, Ontario with her husband and is still afraid of the Child Catcher from the film adaptation of CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG.

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram


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Bruised by Stacy Gail

Title: Bruised
Series: Brody Brothers
Author: Stacy Gail
Genre: Contemporary Standalone Romance
Release Date: May 23, 2019


“You’re coming with me.”

When Killian Brody showed up at Dallas Faircloth’s work with news that her half-brother might die without her help, she never expected the oldest and sexiest Brody to freaking kidnap her to ensure her cooperation. 

The scandalous affair between Dallas’s mother and Killian’s father made everything inside Dallas revolt at the Brody name. It was because of a Brody that her life had been left in ruins at the age of eight, and she’d had to rebuild all on her own. She hated the Brodys. Which was too bad, really. Killian Brody was take-charge, arrogant and so damn sexy she would have climbed him like a tree if it weren’t for that last name of his.

Her weak-willed mother had proven to her that the men in the Brody family were as addictive as any drug, and Dallas didn’t want to get hooked. But when Killian turns his sights on her and makes her believe she’s his greatest weakness, she has a choice—play it safe, or dive in headfirst and risk falling in love with a Brody man.

85,000 words
***This standalone contemporary romance contains multiple sex scenes. Also contains an impulsive Alpha, a spicy heroine, a felonious kidnapping that may or may not count, and one teeny little spanking. No cheating, no love triangles, no cliffhangers. HEA guaranteed. Due to adult language and sexual content, this book is not intended for people under the age of eighteen***







  



A competitive figure skater from the age of eight, Stacy Gail wrote stories between events to pass the time. By fourteen, she told her parents she was either going to be a skating coach who was also a romance writer, or a romance writer who was also a skating pro. Now with a day job of playing on the ice with her students, and writing everything from PNR and cyberpunk to contemporary romance at night, both dreams have come true.





HOSTED BY:


Chasing Quetzalcoatl to the American Dream by Garret Godwin




 photo Chasing Quetzalcoatl to the American Dream_zpsgjocjmp8.jpg


War,
Fiction
Publisher:
Xlibris



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Set
in the Southwest, this is a story of soul evolution - the story of a soldier
who came back from Vietnam and knew he had to adapt to a rapidly changing
world.  The story chronicles his
transformation from a soldier to a man of God, but for him the process of
change was not always kind.  Making his
journey more difficult is the fact that he comes from a mixture of two
cultures, Native American (Navajo) and white.
He encounters people who are further along the path in their soul
evolution than he is, along with incredible obstacles to his education and
business endeavors.  But most
importantly, he must learn to reconcile his warrior nature with God's plan for
him.



About
the Author

 photo Chasing Quetzalcoatl to the American Dream Author_zpsex82whwf.jpg


Garret
Godwin received his BA in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and
his MA in English literature from Temple University in Philadelphia.  He was the Robert Sterling Clark scholar in
classics at St. John's College in Sante Fe, New Mexico, and he holds an MBA
from the University of Pittsburgh.  He is
the author of True Philadelphia Stories (aa collection of short stories and
essays)< three novels - "Chasing Quetzalcoatl TO The American Dream:,
:Down and Out in Philadelphia and New York:, and "Through THe Dark Looking
Glass" and an anthology of poetry, "As You Sow".  He lives in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.



Contact
Link




Purchase
Links

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Saturday, May 25, 2019

The Last Van Gogh by Will Ottinger




 photo The Last Van Gogh_zpswyriu8vb.jpg


Mystery,
Thriller
Date
Published:
March 2019
Publisher:
Black Rose Writing



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"The
Last Van Gogh" received the 2019 Maxy Award for Best Mystery-Detective
Novel



A
brilliant and troubled artist. A lost masterpiece. The desperate search for the
truth.

An
unknown Van Gogh painting disappears from France at the outbreak of World War
Two. A notorious con man later claims he smuggled the immense painting to the
U.S. where it is never seen again. Ninety years later, his two sons, Adam and
Wesley Barrow, discover letters that supposedly confirm the painting's
existence, now valued at $250 million if it exists.

Dogged
by a dysfunctional childhood and skeptical of his father's tale, Adam at first
dismisses the old letters.

The
painting's possible existence also attracts the attention of three unscrupulous
collectors, all  former associates of
his  father, one of whom engages a
professional killer to find the painting.

Doubtful
of its existence, Adam teams with Katya Veranova, a beautiful KGB defector and
ex-assassin, as they travel to Holland, Paris, California, and New York on a
desperate mission, forming an intimate but tenuous bond. Tracked by the unseen
contract killer and threatened at every turn, Adam and Kat face increasing
danger in their quest to find the last Van Gogh.





Excerpt

Chapter
Four

            The ambulance bearing Wes disappeared around
the corner onto Wells Street, siren moaning as traffic pulled to the curb to
let Chicago’s latest casualty pass. They’d removed Vasily’s body after a flurry
of police photographs, Chicago’s finest dispersing the gawkers. The storm
whipped gray curtains of rain off Lake Michigan, washing blood from the
sidewalk as I surveyed the damage.

            Red
and blue strobes atop the remaining police cars illuminated my gallery like a
roadside strip club. Inside the shattered window, a desecrated painting hung
askew on the nearest wall, its frame splintered, the canvas holed by bullets.
Beneath the destroyed Expressionist nude, crumbled wallboard fragments littered
my proud new carpet. None of it mattered so long as Wes was alive.

             I
raised my coat collar and retreated beneath the awning followed by a bored
Chicago police sergeant, glass crunching under our shoes. The cop was a street
veteran down to a scarred chin and wary expression, his belly encroaching on
his belt buckle. He removed his brimmed hat and brushed rainwater from the
clear plastic covering, wiping the checkered band with a thick thumb before he
tugged it back on with a street-weary sigh.

            “Looks like you and your brother
dodged a bullet,” he said with a caustic half-smile. Discomfited by my
expression, he said, “Well, he didn’t actually dodge it. The EMT’s said the
bullet nicked the back of his calf without finding bone. Some blood loss but no
permanent damage.”

            “I’ve got to call his wife,” I
said.

            “Sure, in a minute. First, you
wanna tell me what happened?”

            Across the rain-slicked street, the
space sat empty where the Lincoln had waited for us. “We walked out and someone
started shooting from a car parked across the street.”

            The cop contemplated my shattered
window. “I don’t figure the boys from the projects, but you never know about
those crazy bastards.” 

            I shook my head, recalling the
tinted window sliding down. Maybe a loan shark fed up with Wes’s late payments?
“The car was a black stretch Lincoln, the kind limo owners drive.”

            The cop took a cheap spiral
notebook from his yellow raincoat and made a note. “But it could be gang
bangers the projects. They like to cruise the streets at night,” he said. “Lot
of random shootings. The worst call themselves the Deuce’s Disciples.” He
kicked at the glass rubble around our feet. “I think tonight probably was a
screw-up. Mistaken identity or drug deal gone bad.”

            I
didn’t say so but the cop’s reasoning didn’t feel right, a bunch of brainless
bangers shooting up an art gallery from a limousine. Glad to be out of the
rain, the cop made another note and took on the jaded expression of
investigating endless mayhem. Another Saturday night shooting and one more
bewildered citizen he was supposed to protect.

           “The
dead guy,” he asked. “Customer?”      

           “One
of my artists.” I almost told him about Vasily’s uncle and decided against it.
The police would find out soon enough, and a whole new avenue of investigation
would begin, including my association with Viktor Krushenko. I didn’t want to
think about it.

            The sergeant closed the notebook.
“The detectives will want to talk with you tomorrow.” He frowned at the rain
blowing through my broken window. “Lousy fucking weather. Better get something
over that hole. We’ll keep a man here until you leave,”

            He ambled back to the circus parade
of flashing lights and I went inside, wondering where in hell I’d find someone
to board up a window on Saturday night. I’d lugged the exposed paintings to the
work area, too disheartened to touch the ruined painting. I thought about Viktor
and knew I should call him, but I put it off. Viktor would know about the
attack soon enough and I tried not to think about what might follow. Vasily was
dead and that would bring repercussions for someone. Possibly me.

            I called Barbara and got her calmed
down after a few minutes, explaining Wes was basically okay. She kept asking me
why Wes had been shot but I had no answer. I gave her the name of the hospital
where they’d taken him and said I’d meet her there. Hanging up, I stared at the
jagged hole where my front window once existed. I waved to the cop stationed at
the door and went to my office. Thumbing my iPhone for repair companies I
located one open 24/7. The answering service claimed they’d be on their way
within the hour and I almost believed the voice. Bundled in a raincoat I walked
outside and told the patrolman to go home, that I’d wait until the hole was
boarded up.

            I
pulled up a chair by the front door as the adrenaline ebbed, watching cars slow
to ogle the destruction. Gusts of rain gleefully destroyed my new carpet and I
tried not to calculate replacement cost, wondering if my insurance covered
gunfire. To my surprise a panel truck arrived half an hour later. Two workmen
hammered up plywood sheeting, the rough wooden patch blighting the front of my
beautiful gallery.

            Not
owning a car in a city where parking was a mixture of fate and voodoo, I called
Uber to take me to the hospital. During the ride, it occurred to me the
gunshots had been oddly muffled. I hadn’t told the cop, but the recollection
increased my uneasiness. Why would underage gangsters or a shyster bother with
a silencer?


                                                           ***


            Wes had been discharged by the time
I reached the hospital. A young black intern assured me the injury wasn’t
serious enough to keep him overnight. In the midst of usual Saturday night
mayhem and need for beds, they’d bound the wound and released him with a supply
of pain killers.

            It was still raining as I called
Uber again and headed for Wes’s apartment. Barbara let me in and I found Wes
with a glass in his hand, leg propped on an ottoman, his smile vacant.

            “Hey, this Vicodin is great stuff,”
he said as if he’d discovered the solution to world peace.

Barbara
sat on the arm of his chair and shook her head at me with less than fawning
eyes. She inclined her head at the glass in his hand.

            “Water,” she informed me.

            Maybe the shooting would prove a
respite for him. Provide an enforced vacation from his favorite lounges and
liquor stores. Barbara sure as hell wasn’t going to let him mix painkillers
with booze. I pulled up a straight-backed chair from the dining room and tried
to smile.

            “You okay?” I asked.

            “Is Vasily dead?”

            I nodded.

            “Damn. He seemed like a great guy.”

“He
was.”

            Wes shifted his weight and winced.
I looked around. The apartment was sparser than I remembered, and Barbara
appeared five years older. She was a lean woman who never worried about her
weight, a great wife to Wes but not my biggest fan. She believed I enabled him
with loans and bail money, short term solutions to his deeper issues. But what
was I supposed to do? Leave him to the mercy of the drunk tank? She loved him
in her own patient way that allowed me to look beyond her faults, mainly her dislike
of me.

             She
hovered over Wes, curly auburn hair and blouse still damp from the rain, her
face wet with tears. “This is quite a night,” she snapped, her voice trembling
as she brushed away a limp strand of hair. “Our home gets broken into, then you
call to tell me Wes has been shot.”

            “You got robbed?” was all I could
think to say.

            “Never imagined the art business
was this violent,” Wes laughed, his eyes swimming with the Vicodin. “Russian
gangsters and artists murdered in the street.”

            “You sure you’re alright?”

            He held up the glass of water. “I’m
fine, but I never needed a drink more in my life. What the hell happened?”

            “The cops aren’t sure.”

            “Great location you picked, Adam”
Barbara said over her shoulder as she strode to the kitchen. “A trendy
neighborhood. You serve Sneaky Pete wine at your gala last night?”

            “C’mon, Barbara,” Wes croaked.

            I resented her criticism. I hadn’t
envisioned a shooting gallery when I selected the location. “You’re clear on
the other side of town and you got robbed,” I reminded her, although the sparse
apartment didn’t appear a likely target.

            “We need to talk about what
happened,” Wes said.

            “I’ll talk with detectives
tomorrow. The cop told me...”

            “Not about the shooting,” Wes said.
“The break-in.”

            “Wes,” Barbara called from the
kitchen, “don’t start again.”

            “He needs to know.”

            “Know what?” I asked.

            Barbara sat on Wes’s chair arm
again and lightly ran her fingers through his hair. “He’s not making a lot of
sense, what with the pills and all,” she said. “Something about a Van Gogh
painting your father claimed to have owned.”

            “He told me about that, but what am
I missing here?”

            “The letters are gone,” Wes said.
“We checked but they’re not here. Nothing else was taken.”

            “You sure the letters were here?”

            “I changed clothes before I came to
the gallery. They were in my jacket.” He looked on the verge of bursting into
tears. “Our one link to the painting.”

            “You’re sure they were stolen.”

            “I’m a recovering drunk, not a
moron,” Wes snapped, slumping back in the chair as the pills worked their
magic.

            Barbara shot me a warning look that
hovered between ‘help me’ and ‘get the hell out of here.’ It was obvious they’d
fought a war over a fictional masterpiece that would solve their problems.

            Wes bent forward and winced.
“Dammit, Barbara, it’s real.”

            She searched his haggard face, her
own reflecting defeat fostered by years of disappointment. She started to reply
but looked away.

            “Okay, I’ll agree our old man was
crazy,” Wes admitted, “but he had no reason to lie to us. No money in lying. If
he owned a forgery, why didn’t he pawn it off on somebody years ago? God knows
he always needed money.”

            “This is crazy,” Barbara said.
“What about us? You’re putting this fantasy before everything we’re trying to
do. You’re in no shape to traipse after some painting. In case you haven’t
noticed, we’re almost broke. Where do you think we’ll find money to search for
your Eldorado? You have a portfolio or bank account I don’t know about?”

            “Maybe we can find a backer.” Wes
insisted. I’d heard the same desperation when he discovered a liquor bottle was
empty. He looked up at me. “What about your gangster friend?”

            “Viktor Krushenko is not my
friend.”

            “He was Vasily’s uncle. He could
help us.”

            “Wes, do you have any idea who
these people are? Where their money comes from? It’s possible Viktor was trying
to get rid of me after our argument. The bastard’s crazy, you saw that. You
heard how unhappy he was about the split Vasily was getting. Maybe he meant the
shooting as an object lesson to me and he screwed up. Either way, he won’t be a
happy Boy Scout when he finds out Vasily’s dead.”

            “We need to find a way,” Wes said,
his optimism bolstered by the pain killers.

            Barbara turned away again and I was
out of arguments. Our dead father was ripping our lives apart yet again, his
sons lost in his dysfunctional shadow.

About
the Author

 photo The Last Van Gogh Author Will Ottinger_zpscedmoyas.jpg


Will
Ottinger spent his early life in Savannah, Georgia. A graduate of Emory
University with a BA in history, he is also a graduate of Northwestern Graduate
Trust School in Chicago.

His
first novel, A Season for Ravens, published in 2014, was named by Reader Views
as one of its top-three Historical Fiction works of 2014-2015.  The second novel, The Savannah Betrayals, was
published in March, 2018.  His third
novel, The Last Van Gogh, was released in March, 2019 by Black Rose Writing.
Windrow and Greene Publishers in Great Britain earlier published his
non-fiction work on the art of historical miniatures, an art form in which he
gained international recognition as a Grand Master painter.  He authored a magazine column for seven
years, trained and lectured extensively in the financial field, wrote articles
for trust and investment publications, and has spoken to large and small
audiences. He served as president of Scribbler's Ink, a Houston writers’ group.

Former
founder and owner of a wealth management training/consulting firm, he and his
wife also owned an art gallery in downtown Chicago. Both are inveterate fly
fishermen and now live in Atlanta Georgia.


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