I am a lifelong swimmer and sometimes writer. For years I swam in the basement of the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco. With all the time to think in the pool, every flip-turn at the wall was a bit like turning the page of a new idea or inspiration. But once I’d surface, something […] The post What inspires an award-winning tale? appeared first on indieBRAG ..read more

Backpacking in the Kalmiopsis would be challenging for anyone—but visually impaired Kal Spencer isn’t one to shy away from difficulties. When her father, Will, proposes a dad-daughter backpacking adventure, young Kal is all in. She’s hiked before, and she knows how to follow a companion by sounds. Her mother, Joss, reluctantly agrees. After waiting for […] The post Fire in the Cascades! appeared first on indieBRAG ..read more

This is the story of a city, a city that is now in ruins and lies five kilometres outside of Cordoba in Spain: MADINAT AL ZAHRA.  The story is set in the 10th century, a time when southern Spain was under the rule of the Moors.  The ruler, Caliph Al Rahman III was rich, powerful […] The post From Ruins to a Shining City! appeared first on indieBRAG ..read more

Your Book Cover by S.L.Dwyer Great! You’ve written a wonderful book. The story flowed onto the pages and your characters have become your best friends. Now what? Write the blurb—ugh, and synopsis. Not the most fun, but necessary. Blame the industry for those hateful necessities. So we come to the first thing a reader sees when looking for a new book. Your cover. Yup, first with the eyes, then with the words. There are millions of beautiful book covers that your book will fight with for space on the shelves or on the internet. So what makes a great book cover? Some will say it’s the color that ..read more

      The Blurb By S.L. Dwyer   The blurb for your book is the most dreaded word once you’ve typed “The End”. We sit and stare at the screen, or paper, wondering how do we even begin to condense a three or four hundred page book into two or three paragraphs. Yet, the blurb is the first thing a reader goes to when deciding if they want to purchase a book. The reader has to be pulled into the idea of the story, make them want to see how it unfolds with a limited amount of words. This isn’t a synopsis that gives away the entire story, including the ending. It is a concise, pa ..read more

In J.R. Ridgley’s 16Wheeler, main character Carrie Marshall recently a widow, recently without a job and recently adrift in what was an orderly and planned life, takes off spontaneously to visit her grandchildren. She doesn’t check the weather and is stranded in a freezing snow storm, hearing her dead husband’s voice berating her judgment, as he so often did in life—her dead cell phone, lack of food and emergency supplies. Trucker John Graham, a widower with grown children, is constantly on the road to escape his life after his beloved wife died of cancer. His life is in his rig, the cab wit ..read more

        “Had Anna been allowed to choose, she’d have become a professional time-traveller. No luck there, so instead she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests; history and writing.” (annabelfrage.com) Like his Grandmother Alex before him, Duncan Melville finds himself on a crossroads during a terrible thunderstorm. Instead of falling backwards 300 years as she did, he falls forward in time, from 1716 to 2016, landing like his grandmother, at the feet (well, actually in front of a modern automobile driven by Erin Barnes!) of a person destined to be i ..read more

Tecumseh A Panther Crosses Over by Sam Foster This regretful piece of American history is told by Sam Foster in A Panther Crosses Over, a fast-paced exciting historical novel. For years and years, our children were taught that this encounter, the Battle of Tippecanoe, tore the Indian Confederacy apart, allied the Indians with the British, and opened the northeast for the settlement of America pushing the Indians into Canada. America needed land for the new settlers.  All of this is true. But why did it happen?  Better yet, why did it have to happen? In this day and age, it is ..read more

“A Herbsife on a mule may go where warriors cannot – she may see what warriors cannot and see and hear what warriors cannon hear.” A Swarming of Bees  From Fact to Fiction In A Swarming of Bees author Theresa Tomlinson writes about what Abbess Hild, ruling over Whitby’s Monastery, has to do when her community is attacked by the plague and the resulting panic. The term “plague” can still cause people to flinch, if only for a moment. Thankfully, we can now vaccinate against it in people in areas where the plague threatens, treat it in people with symptoms and prophylactically at ..read more

FROM FACT TO FICTION 18 Wheeler By J. F. Ridgley Ever wonder if love can be sweeter on an 18-Wheeler This mature romance is set on John’s 18-wheeler when he discovers a cute but helpless driver in her broken-down car on the Salt Flats of Utah. Carrie was dead either way,..freezing in her car or getting into a complete stranger’s semi that pulled in behind her car. So, she climbs into John’s rig, only to have her life take a unexpected right turn. Join John and Carrie’s journeys that crosses America and offers them a chance for a new romance and dreams. 18 Wheeler by JF Ridgley is about ..read more