The Maker of Worlds by David Litwack - Book Tour and Giveaway

THE MAKER OF WORLDS

David Litwack

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GENRE:  Fantasy

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If you had the chance to remake the world, what kind of world would you choose?

When tragedy strikes Lucas Mack's young life, he desperately yearns to escape its sorrow, and takes an improbable leap through the mythical maelstrom. Rather than splashing down on the far side like his neighbors, he's transported to a magical realm where he has the power to redefine not only who he is, but the world in which he resides.

As he stumbles about trying to find his way, he meets Mia, an equally troubled fellow pilgrim. With the help of a mystical guide and an aging wizard, they navigate the enchanted land while learning to control their newfound powers. Yet this realm is more complex than they expected, with seasoned sorcerers who've been corrupted by the sinister side of magic.

Limited by natural law and seduced by magic's power, they are tested as never before. Will the gift of magic bring renewed hope or drive them to the edge of the void?

Excerpt:

What now? Would one choice reward me with the new life I sought, but the alternative cause me to wander for eternity? I closed my eyes as before and wished for a signpost to mark the way, but when I opened them, nothing had changed. What to do? I pulled out my knife and tossed it into the air, intent on picking the direction its blade pointed to. In a random universe, that approach seemed as sane as any.

It pointed to the right.

When I bent to pick it up, I was distracted by a faint buzz, almost beneath the threshold of hearing. I glanced up to find a hummingbird hovering at the entrance to the chosen path.

Tired and disillusioned, I determined to get on with it, but when I attempted to proceed, the creature barred my way. I tried to dodge it three times, on the third feinting one way and lunging to the other, but it blocked me each time. Its wings flapped in a blur, its existence challenging the boundaries of human understanding. What if on the other side of this boundary lay the end of reality? Why could this not be magic? For wasn’t that its definition?

“You want me to go the other way?”

The whir of its wings slowed, becoming less frantic. It turned its back to me and started down the left path.

I followed.

AUTHOR:

The urge to write first struck at age sixteen when working on a newsletter at a youth encampment in the woods of northern Maine. It may have been the wild night when lightning flashed at sunset followed by the northern lights rippling after dark. Or maybe it was the newsletter’s editor, a girl with eyes the color of the ocean. But he was inspired to write about the blurry line between reality and the fantastic.

Using two fingers and lots of white-out, he religiously typed five pages a day  throughout college and well into his twenties. Then life intervened. He paused to raise two sons and pursue a career, in the process — and without prior plan — becoming a well-known entrepreneur in the software industry, founding several successful companies. When he found time again to daydream, the urge to write returned.

David currently lives in the Great Northwest and anywhere else that catches his fancy. He no longer limits himself to five pages a day and is thankful every keystroke for the invention of the word processor.

Website: https://davidlitwack.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/david.litwack.author

Twitter: @DavidLitwack

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/davidlitwack 

Buy links:

Amazon: https://geni.us/themakerofworlds 

Barnes & Noble: The Maker of Worlds by David Litwack | eBook | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Kobo: The Maker of Worlds eBook by David Litwack - EPUB Book | Rakuten Kobo United States

Apple: The Maker of Worlds by David Litwack (ebook) - Apple Books

Smashwords: The Maker of Worlds (smashwords.com)

GIVEAWAY

David Litwack will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

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Dungeon of Horrors by Hawk MacKinney - Book Blas and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. A randomly drawn winner will receive a $20 Amazon/BN GC. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

The bank’s newest Trust Officer Terri Stanley prepares the requested department’s internal audit. Finding puzzling inconsistencies and a jumble of misappropriations and unexplained offshore accounts, she follows protocol and immediately punches in the listed number for the Executor-Trustee, Craige Ingram.

Wealthy land owner/parttime PI Craige Ingram reaches the file back to homicide Lt. Grayson MacGerald after finishing a quick read-through of the preliminary forensic report from Coroner Fred Dinkins on the unexpected death of bank President Royce Sedgewicke. Dinkins’ meticulous autopsy findings verify that a massive apparent heart attack was not from natural causes, confirming what these longtime SEAL buddies suspected.

When Ingram gets a call from Terri Stanley, the bank’s attractive, newly-hired Trust Officer, wanting to discuss in confidence possible account irregularities discovered during her audit, he never imagines the twisted world of money and greed that would involve a psychopath’s trail of bloody body parts strewn along Ingram's river property, or that Terri and her son would disappear.

Confronted by a race against time, Ingram fears that Terri might become one more on the list of dead who crossed a twisted mind bent on thrill-kills and retribution.

Read an Excerpt

Terri had no trouble with Craige’s directions. A half hour later, she turned into Ardochy’s meandering white-graveled drive and spotted Craige waiting on the steps of Ardochy’s columned porte-cochère carriage porch. Terri thought of her father and his brushy-browed scowl at her for breaking his business rule. Once her father learned of her infatuation with a teller at his Napa Valley Bank. “Never mix business with anything else, and never on your own doorstep,” he told her. He never mentioned it again.

As her car pulled up and stopped, Craige hurried down the steps to open her door. “I see you made it.” As she stepped out, his eyes followed every turn of the shapely ankles.

“It was no problem.” Her thoughts cluttered. Feelings surfaced she’d had since that first time they’d met. Now they surged, somehow stronger, with his nearness. Terri would never have believed her good sense could be so altogether rattled, and she tried not to think about what Irene had said. In the private sanctions of her heart, Terri tried to keep her mind on why she came—it wasn’t working.

“Come on in the kitchen.” Craige held open one of the double-carriage porch doors. “I iced a fresh pitcher of tea.” He led her through the butler’s pantry into the sedate library.

“Oh my, all these marvelous books…” Terri murmured.

“It’s my favorite room in Ardochy,” Craige smiled. “All for the enjoyment of reading. Theosia left me several first editions. Sit down, make yourself comfortable.”

The soft leather chairs, Tiffany lamps, and comfy reading niches made the high ceiling expanse of shelves somehow cozy. She looked around the library with its frescos in delicate pastel blushes, intricate friezes and matching tiered chandeliers heavy with Austrian crystal drops. Without seeming out of place or time, she thought he seemed to belong to this refined, patinaed ambience of high ceilings and ornate carvings. He filled the Chippendale chair as though he belonged—male supremacy without being rawboned. Terri sat, recalling private times with her mother, of parlor rites and playing dress up that wasn’t all play-act—learning to sit, stand and walk properly; how to set an afternoon high tea, finger cakes and scones. Terri wished she hadn’t hurried her makeup that morning. Had she used too much perfume? Did he find it pleasant? She’d refreshed her lipstick before she left to come here—what if it was on her front teeth? She found herself acting like a high-school subdeb.

“If you prefer, there’s unsweetened tea.” Craige iced his glass with the tongs from the silver and crystal ice bucket.

“No,” she said. “It’s fine.” His devil-may-care rakish smile, the dark auburn reflections from his hair and the fiery golden flecks in his green eyes kept getting in the way of why she came. “With so little to go on, I’m not sure where to start,” Terri began. She tried to soothe her jitters.

“About what?” Craige asked, picking up on her nervousness.

Terri knew she was taking a risk. He could be part of it, yet some inherent trust told her different. She handed him several folders.

“Perhaps I’m overreacting.” She looked straight at Craige without wavering. “Several of the portfolios don’t quite add up. There're stocks, mutual funds, international oil, precious metals, grain futures, money markets. Some of it’s over my head.”

He jigsawed any number of reasons she might have for coming out here. Her eyes seemed to swallow the room. At least he was lost in them. He wanted her visit to be more than just business. “An audit should take care of that.”

“On that matter there’s been some foot dragging,” she replied. “Enough to leave me somewhat uncomfortable.”

It struck Craige as an odd remark for a bank officer, even more so about her own bank. He studied the bottomless eyes of this wholly female creature, and his gut feeling told him this visit wasn’t a concoction.

About the Author

Internationally acclaimed author and public speaker, Hawk MacKinney began writing mysteries for his school newspapers. Following graduation, he served in the US Navy for over 20 years. While serving as a Navy Commander, he also had a career as a full-time faculty member at several major state medical facilities. He earned two postgraduate degrees with studies in languages and history and has taught postgraduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem, Israel.

In addition to professional articles and texts on fetal and adult anatomy, Hawk has authored several novels that have received national and international recognition. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel, was nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award.

Known for his terrifying suspense and unique “Southron” dialog, Hawk has published five novels in the Moccasin Hollow Mysteries: Hidden Chamber of Death, Westobou Gold, Curse of the Ancients, Dead Gold, and Blood of the Dragonfly.

In a change of direction, Hawk has also published three books in The Cairns of Sainctuarie science fiction series: The Bleikovat Event, Volume I; The Missing Planets, Volume II; and The Inanna Phantom, Volume III.

His latest work is a series called the Moccasin Trace Mysteries. Dungeon of Horrors is the first book in the series, and the second book – Blood in the Shadows – is in development.

Website: https://www.hawkmackinneyauthor.com/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dungeon-Horrors-Hawk-MacKinney-ebook/dp/B0D6BP1Y27/ref=sr_1_1

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My SECOND Life by Yeats - Book Blast and Giveaway

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Simon Yeats is awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

We all have two lives. We only get to experience living in the second after we realize we only have just one.

I have my first real scare in life when I get attacked by a kangaroo when I am seven. My first brush with the cliff-face edge of death comes when I am 12. My dad drives the family down the dangerous Skipper’s Canyon dirt road in New Zealand in a rented minivan.

Including the occasion I am almost involved in two different plane flight crashes, in the same night, there have been at least a half dozen more occasions when I have been within a moment’s inattention of being killed.

However, none of those frightening incidents compare to what I experience after my son is abducted.

This memoir is the story of how I used the traumatic experiences of my life to give me strength to forge on during a 13 year fight to be a father to my son.

What did it take for me to get to my second life?

It took me to truly understand what fear is.

Read an Excerpt

How does a second life differ from a first? My story of reaching the second will demonstrate it perfectly for those languishing in the latter. I guarantee the perception of your life will never be the same after reading about it.

What did it take for me to get to a second life?

Was it an occasion of cheating death? Was it multiple occasions of evading the grim reaper? Was it being arrested and thrown in jail for no reason?

Perhaps a better question might be. How much do I love my child? What am I willing to go through to be in my child’s only life?

Until recently, I had never even heard of this saying by Confucius. But, when a person sees something that resonates with a chord in their heart, they feel it.

I felt it like an earthquake.

Before then, I had never given thought to who I might have ever met that I would consider was living a second life.

Yet this would seem to be our very point of being.

While there have been many occasions in my existence when I have felt like the world is against me. The true nature of life often seems a cruel device. Callous. Savagely unforgiving. And the puppeteer of fate in control of all our lives does not seem to care that we do not want it to be this way.

How many people would admit that they are suffering during their first life?

Rhetorical question.

We all are. Some more than others. But we all are.

Not surprisingly then, that humanity thrives on the ever-unfolding tragedies around us. The devastation of the tsunami in Thailand. The OJ Simpson trial. World War Two concentration camps. The collective work of The Cure and The Smiths.

If it bleeds, it leads.

This is what people want to see.

But the hordes in their first life are primarily concerned with the suffering of the mighty.

However, many of us are not mighty.

Most of us are ordinary.

And the suffering in our first life is done in silence.

About the Author:

Simon Yeats has lived nine lives, and by all estimations, is fast running out of the number he has left. His life of globetrotting the globe was not the one he expected to lead. He grew up a quiet, shy boy teased by other kids on the playgrounds for his red hair. But he developed a keen wit and sense of humor to always see the funnier side of life.

With an overwhelming love of travel, a propensity to find trouble where there was none, and being a passionate advocate of mental health, Simon’s stories will leave a reader either rolling on the floor in tears of laughter, or breathing deeply that the adventures he has led were survived.

No author has laughed longer or cried with less restraint at the travails of life.

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0CBNQLSPW/about

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@authoryeats

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authoryeats

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/My-SECOND-Life-Simon-Yeats-ebook/dp/B0CB4LCCPN/ref=sr_1_1

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