Apocalyptic 7-Salvations’ Cry is a story of battles between God’s earthly warriors and malevolent forces. The Divine Scriptures guide A7’s missions, as they must learn how to count on each other and put their hope and trust in God. In a system morally bankrupt in 2043, a former government assassin learns who she is in Christ and leads a team to unearth a key organization who presumes they’re descendants of fallen angels. They accept orders from a mysterious leader who can read minds. While chaos breaks out between the team, only their faith will carry them from mission to mission to stop the Apollyon. The Apocalyptic 7 comes together to block the Apollyon from creating a world built of chaos. During the missions, they learn Black Rain, a vigilante group, craves to dispose of the Apollyon for good. A7 must stop them both, before God consumes the cities in the Middle East, as He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in generations past. Through evidence and acceptance, they prepare for battle, which is their only hope for survival in this life and into eternity.
About the Author
Arnita—Nita Nae was born and raised and still lives in Los Angeles, where she accepted Christ at 24. Received a Bachelor’s in Business Management in 2002 and 2007, a Master’s in Justice Administration. Arnita is a 28-year veteran of Social Service Administration, Management and Auditing. The passion to write started in High School and in her early twenties, having vivid dreams; Amethyst in Love and Detective Brenda Sayers: Mercy Undercover (unpublished were born). There were many dreams that followed, which spawned other books, such as Unconditional Counsel (Christian Faith Publishing, 2020). Apocalyptic 7—Salvation’s Cry, birthed from a dream during her writing mentioned in Unconditional Counsel. Four more books have since followed, The Ghosts of Slavery’s Dance, Unconditional Counsel Too: Unbroken, and Apocalyptic 8—The Cry of Heavens Army), The Container, and co-authorship for Embrace the Dawn: To Live Again—Margo Leonard (my mother-unpublished).
Chance Sterling launches a pool cleaning business over the summer. Join
Chance as he looks for new customers, discovers how much to charge them,
takes on a business partner, recruits an employee, deals with difficult
clients, and figures out how to make a profit. He has twelve weeks to reach
his goal. Will he make it? Only if he takes some chances.
KidVenture stories are business adventures where kids figure out how to
market their company, understand risk, and negotiate. Each chapter ends with
a challenge, including business decisions, ethical dilemmas and
interpersonal conflict for young readers to wrestle with. As the story
progresses, the characters track revenue, costs, profit margin, and other
key metrics which are explained in simple, fun ways that tie into the
story.
About the Author
I wrote my first KidVenture book after years of making up stories to teach
my kids about business and economics. Whenever they'd ask how something
works or why things were a certain way, I would say, "Let's pretend you
have a business that sells..." and off we'd go. What would start as a
simple hypothetical to explain a concept would become an adventure spanning
several days as my kids would come back with new questions which would spawn
more plot twists. Rather than give them quick answers, I tried to create
cliffhangers to get them to really think through an idea and make the
experience as interactive as possible.
I try to bring that same spirit of fun, curiosity and challenge to each
KidVenture book. That’s why every chapter ends with a dilemma and a
set of questions. KidVenture books are fun for kids to read alone, and even
more fun to read together and discuss. There are plenty of books where kids
learn about being doctors and astronauts and firefighters. There are hardly
any where they learn what it’s like to run small business. KidVenture
is different. The companies the kids start are modest and simple, but the
themes are serious and important.
I’m an entrepreneur who has started a half dozen or so businesses and
have had my share of failures. My dad was an entrepreneur and as a kid I
used to love asking him about his business and learning the ins and outs of
what to do and not do. Mistakes make the best stories — and the best
lessons. I wanted to write a business book that was realistic, where you get
to see the characters stumble and wander and reset, the way entrepreneurs do
in real life. Unlike most books and movies where business is portrayed as
easy, where all you need is one good idea and the desire to be successful,
the characters in KidVenture find that every day brings new problems to
solve.
Antiquities expert Annalisse Drury and tycoon Alec Zavos revel in a love
affair peppered with treasure hunting, grand adventure, and the occasional
dead body.
It’s autumn when Alec arranges a getaway from them to visit is
mother’s birthplace in Bari, Italy—a no-drama vacation to
transfer his car company to a rival. But before they can depart New York,
murder makes its familiar reappearance.
Accompanied by detective friend Bill Drake, Annalisse and Alec find
themselves embroiled in a behind-closed-doors conspiracy that threatens the
reputation and legacy of Alec’s late father—linking him to the
Mafia. An ancient rosary propels Annalisse down crooked paths to expose the
truth as they uncover answers none of them are prepared for.
Interview
What is the hardest part of writing
your books?
The most
difficult part of laying out my mysteries is layering the Red Herrings so that
the reader is kept guessing who the villain truly is throughout the story. Great
care is taken to set out mind traps not only for the book in hand, but for
future books. Not every element is wrapped up by the book’s ending. It’s fun to
keep some of the smaller questions open to answer later in a future book!
What songs are most played on your
Ipod?
Since I write
in complete silence, playing music doesn’t enter into my daily writing routine.
The exception would be if I’m trying to get into a scene and music of that
country would help the words to flow. When writing about Italy, for example, I
have listened to Italian café music or singers from the 60s era who were
Italian, like Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra. Both entertainer’s music played
throughout our home, while growing up. I don’t own an I-Pod, but instead listen
to satellite radio, Spotify, music stations from Direct TV or Bose CDs.
Do you have critique partners or beta
readers?
Yes, and yes.
I have used both, but learned to limit the number of readers for my manuscripts.
Too many readers can make you crazy! Writing is subjective, as is editing.
Every reader likes what they like and will gladly give their opinions. It’s
best to find critique partners who have a similar mind to your own. This
weeding out can take time, but you will be happy that you are careful about
your manuscript readers or early book ARC Team. My latest book release skipped
the critique phase with beta readers and instead, I went with what my
developmental editor had to say about the first draft of Scattered Legacy. The
book made it to press faster this way.
What book are you reading now?
At any one
time I typically have more than one book started because my research points me
in that direction. I read fiction for pleasure and non-fiction for research
since my books generally have some realistic history in each installment. The hardbound
book on the coffee table currently is, The Last Thing He Told Me by
Laura Dave. I’m about to begin another paperback from a local writer I truly
enjoy, called, The Detail by Dana Wayne. Whenever I can promote local Texas
writers, I’m there!
How did you start your writing career?
Purely by
accident. My husband and I raise sheep and have helped families with their 4H
projects while we were community leaders for a club in Bakersfield, CA. One of
the parents suggested that I write a book on raising sheep since there was
little available on the subject. I took the dare, wrote and published a silly memoir/raising
sheep book, (no longer in print) and got the bug to write fiction. Heaven help
me. I had no idea what I had jumped headlong into… and 8 years later, my first
work of fiction Stolen Obsession made it into print. Thankfully, I’m
getting my series books out faster these days with about one or two a year, if
I publish a children’s book in the mix. I enjoy writing children’s books as
well. Mia and Nattie: One Great Team is about the true story of our bottle
lamb we raised in the laundry room.
Book Four in
the Annalisse Series will take a jog to another continent. Annalisse will head
to the island nation of New Zealand. Specifically, a sheep station located on the
South Island. There, she will meet up with a character from a previous book and
get pulled into yet another murder mystery. The book is currently in the outline
stages, and if all goes well, I’ll be writing that book beginning January,
2022.
About the Author
Marlene M. Bell is an award-winning writer and acclaimed artist as well as
a photographer. Her sheep landscapes grace the covers of Sheep!, The
Shepherd, Ranch & Rural Living, and Sheep Industry News, to name a
few.
Marlene and her husband, Gregg, reside in beautiful East Texas on a wooded
ranch with their dreadfully spoiled horned Dorset sheep, a large Maremma
guard dog named Tia, along with Hollywood, Leo, and Squeaks, the cats that
believe they rule the household—and do.
It's the summer of 2013 and 15-year-old Ivy Scattergood has traveled with
her family to their vacation home in Maine. The Scattergoods are a blended,
mixed-race family with old Philadelphia area Quaker roots. Ivy loves the Red
Sox, one single music group at a time (this year it's Johnnyswim), helping
make dinner every night, and this guy in Maine named Bailey Cooper. Ivy also
has no interest in makeup, heels, dresses, and most of the basic assumptions
people make about what it means to be a teenage girl ― but don't call her a
Tomboy, at least to her face. Then her cousin Robert from San Diego (also
15) comes to visit -- as a beautiful, glamorous young woman who has re-named
herself Rita Gomez.Thus begins a summer where Ivy's worldview will expand,
where she will discover new layers to herself and those around her, and
where stepping forward into the unknown will emerge as a bold
adventure.
Interview
What is the hardest part of writing
your books?
Revising stories to a manageable size. Agh! I’m one of those
authors who tends to cut 600-page drafts down to 400 pages (or less) over way
too many “final drafts.” Eliminating juicy sub-plots can be pretty painful.
What songs are most played on your
Ipod?
I listen to a lot of old movie soundtracks and new jazz
these days. Song wise, though, there’s no question that the Johnnyswim anthem
for independent-minded people, “Diamonds,” is at the top of the list of most
played songs every year. So is the Fleetwood Mac song, “Go Your Own Way.” Both were
big inspirations for characters in Old Music for New People.
Do you have critique partners or beta
readers?
I show first drafts of most of my work to my wife. She’s got
a great sense of whether I’ve got an A-side project going or a flip side. I also
have an online pen pal editor friend who lives in Colorado. I trust her to give
me a solid opinion once I feel like I have the main kinks and jumbles revised
out of things.
What book are you reading now?
I finished Klara and the Sun (by British author and
Nobel prize laureate Kazuo Ishiguro) last week. Now I’m reading Tony Doerr’s
new and utterly entrancing novel Cloud Cuckoo Land. If ever a book could
be considered a paradise for readers, this one is it.
How did you start your writing career?
After college I knew two things: 1) I could finally read anything
and everything I wanted on my own time; 2) it was time to try to get published.
I mailed out poems, essays, short stories, articles – whatever – to dozens of
publications those first few years. I got back nothing but rejections. Somehow,
though, I didn’t give up, and finally had a story published on technology
education in a magazine called Rain Journal. I have been publishing work
ever since (but getting back far, far, far more rejections than acceptances,
which is the story for all writers, even once you get a novel accepted).
I’m in the middle of revisions and edits for a science
fiction thriller called Sound Effect Infinity. It’s about the mysteries
of music and telepathy. I’m also working on pulling together a short story
collection called People and Animals with Nowhere to Go. If all goes well,
those books should be showing up in stores by late 2022 or early 2023.
About the Author
A part-time professional freelance writer since he published his first
article on appropriate technology education with RAIN: Journal in 1985,
David Biddle has published work with the likes of Harvard Business Review,
BioCycle, Huffington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, GetUnderground,
Resource Recycling, BuzzWorm, Talking Writing, etc. He was also a
contributing editor to InBusiness (the 2nd best sustainability publication
of all-time) for over a decade.
A lush historical adventure that's equal parts Gothic horror as it is tale of lost love, The Gift: Eleanor is the first in an exhilarating new trilogy that takes you from Titanic to the trenches of WWI, and Honduran shipwrecks to ancient crypts in the heart of London.
The North Atlantic, 14 April 1912. Amid the chaos of the sinking Titanic, a young Eleanor Annenberg meets the eyes of a stranger and is immediately captivated. As the ship buckles around them, she follows him down into the hold and finds him leaning over an open sarcophagus, surrounded by mutilated bodies. She catches but a glimpse of what lies within before she’s sucked into a maelstrom of freezing brine and half-devoured corpses.
Elle is pulled out of the water, but the stranger – and the secrets she stumbled upon – are lost. Unintentionally, however, he leaves her a gift; one so compelling that Elle embarks on a journey that pulls her into a world of ancient evils, vicious hunters and human prey to find the man who saved her that fateful night. From trench warfare at Cape Helles in 1915 to a shipwreck in the tropical shallows off the Honduran coast, from a lost mine beneath the towering Externsteine in a Germany on the verge of war to the gothic crypts of Highgate Cemetery in London, Elle gets closer to a truth she has sought for most of her life. But at what cost? Gifts, after all, are seldom free.
An immersive gothic story spanning decades, The Gift is a compelling read that weaves the supernatural of Dracula with the adventure of Indiana Jones.
About the Author
R A WILLIAMS lives by the Mediterranean with his wife and their one-year-old boy. The Gift was born in Sherman Oaks, California, sussed out in Pimlico, England, and relocated on the Costa Brava, Spain, where Williams writes to this day amidst twelve cats who pay him never no mind. Previously in fashion, Williams has dressed A-listers across the globe. In his spare time, he enjoys painting miniatures and dioramas with an emphasis on pre-World War Two Europe and Pacific Rim. You can find him on socials @rawilliams_author
Publisher: Boutique of Quality Books (BQB Publishing)
April 1979: Ken Verrier and his wife, Sam, return to Liberia to buy diamonds. They did not return to get caught up in a rice riot and a coup d'etat. But that's what happens. Ken witnesses and unwittingly participates in a period of Liberia's tumultuous yet poorly documented history---the overthrow of the Tolbert presidency and ultimately the end of the Americo-Liberian one hundred thirty-three years of political and social dominance.
THE DUNG BEETLES OF LIBERIA
2019 Grand Prize Winner - Red City Review
Based on the remarkable true account of a young American who landed in Liberia in 1961.
The blend of fictional action and nonfiction social inspection is simply exquisite, and are strengths that set this story apart from many other ficitonal pieces sporting African settings. - D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review
NOTHING COULD HAVE PREPARED HIM FOR THE EVENTS HE WAS ABOUT TO EXPERIENCE. Ken Verrier quickly realizes the moment he arrives in Liberia that he is in a place where he understand very little of what is considered normal, where the dignity of life has little meaning, and where he can trust no one.
It's 1961 and young Ken Verrier is experiencing the turbulence of Ishmael and the guilt of his brother's death. His sudden decision to drop out of college and deal with his demons shocks his family, his friends, and especially his girlfriend, soon to have been his fiancee. His destination: Liberia---the richest country in Africa both in monetary wealth and natural resources.
Author Daniel Meier describes Ken Verrier's many escapades, spanning from horrifying to whimsical, with engaging and fast-moving narrative that ultimately describe a society upon which the wealthy are feeding and in which the poor are being buried.
It's a novel that will stay with you long after the last word has been read.
A retired Aviation Safety Inspector for the FAA, Daniel V. Meier, Jr. has always had a passion for writing. During his college years, he studied History at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW) and American Literature at The University of Maryland Graduate School. In 1980 he published an action/thriller with Leisure Books under the pen name of Vince Daniels.
Dan also worked briefly for the Washington Business Journal as a journalist and has been a contributing writer/editor for several aviation magazines. In addition to BLOOD BEFORE DAWN, he is the author of its prequel, the award-winning historical novel, THE DUNG BEETLES OF LIBERIA, as well as 2 other highly acclaimed novels published by Boutique of Quality Books (BQB Publishing).
Publisher: Boutique of Quality Books (BQB Publishing)
April 1979: Ken Verrier and his wife, Sam, return to Liberia to buy
diamonds. They did not return to get caught up in a rice riot and a coup
d'etat. But that's what happens. Ken witnesses and unwittingly participates
in a period of Liberia's tumultuous yet poorly documented history---the
overthrow of the Tolbert presidency and ultimately the end of the
Americo-Liberian one hundred thirty-three years of political and social
dominance.
2019 Grand Prize Winner - Red City Review
Based on the remarkable true account of a young American who landed in
Liberia in 1961.
The blend of fictional action and nonfiction social inspection is simply
exquisite, and are strengths that set this story apart from many other
ficitonal pieces sporting African settings. - D. Donovan, Midwest Book
Review
NOTHING COULD HAVE PREPARED HIM FOR THE EVENTS HE WAS ABOUT TO EXPERIENCE.
Ken Verrier quickly realizes the moment he arrives in Liberia that he is in
a place where he understand very little of what is considered normal, where
the dignity of life has little meaning, and where he can trust no one.
It's 1961 and young Ken Verrier is experiencing the turbulence of Ishmael
and the guilt of his brother's death. His sudden decision to drop out of
college and deal with his demons shocks his family, his friends, and
especially his girlfriend, soon to have been his fiancee. His destination:
Liberia---the richest country in Africa both in monetary wealth and natural
resources.
Author Daniel Meier describes Ken Verrier's many escapades, spanning from
horrifying to whimsical, with engaging and fast-moving narrative that
ultimately describe a society upon which the wealthy are feeding and in
which the poor are being buried.
It's a novel that will stay with you long after the last word has been
read.
I
find that getting started with a plan for the entire book is a challenge. I’d
like to say that I write an outline and follow it throughout the book. But I often don’t. I begin with an
idea—stimulated by something in the human condition—and it develops from there.
Recently I have been using a white board where I draw a timeline and use different
color markers. Each color represents a different character. I seems to work quite
well as I can see the whole outline at a glance.
What songs
are most played on your Ipod?
Astrud
Gilberto, Stan Getz, Houston Person, Diana Krall
Do you
have critique partners or beta readers?
Absolutely.
I will give an early reader a copy of the second or third draft, expecting a major
rewrite.
What book
are you reading now?
The Graves
Are Not Yet Full by Bill Berkley
The
Reporter by Mark Paul Smith
Winter
King, Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn
A History
of the Jews by Paul Johnson
How did
you start your writing career?
I have
always enjoyed writing and throughout my school years was encouraged to do so.
My major at the University of North Carolina Wilmington was History which honed
my writing style to be descriptive, but to the point. Some have called it
journalistic. I started submitting my work in the
college literary magazine and later I worked briefly as a journalist for The
Washington Business Journal. In 1980, Leisure Books published a mystery/
thriller that I wrote under the ‘nom de plume’ Vince Daniels.
After i retired, many years later I wanted to get back to writing, I started
writing THE DUNG BEETLES OF LIBERIA, A Novel Based on True Events. It was a lot
of fun to write as it is based on the adventures of a friend of mine who spent
8 years in 1960’s Liberia as a transport pilot.
It became a great success, so I continued writing.
Since then,
I have released 3 more books: NO BIRDS SING HERE (March 2021) BLOODROOT (August
2021) and now this December, BLOOD BEFORE DAWN, Book 2 of the Dung Beetles of
Liberia Series, which addresses the coup d’état by Sergeant Doe. A very bloody
affair.
I have
just given my latest manuscript, GUIDANCE TO DEATH, to my early reader to get
it ready for submission. It is a murder mystery that takes place in DC during
the 1980’s. I’m also working on TO KNOW GOOD AND EVIL which will be the Book 3 of
the Dung Beetles series. That will be covering the Charles Taylor revolution and
the child soldiers.
About the Author
A retired Aviation Safety Inspector for the FAA, Daniel V. Meier, Jr. has
always had a passion for writing. During his college years, he studied
History at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW) and American
Literature at The University of Maryland Graduate School. In 1980 he
published an action/thriller with Leisure Books under the pen name of Vince
Daniels.
Dan also worked briefly for the Washington Business Journal as a journalist
and has been a contributing writer/editor for several aviation magazines. In
addition to BLOOD BEFORE DAWN, he is the author of its prequel, the
award-winning historical novel, THE DUNG BEETLES OF LIBERIA, as well as 2
other highly acclaimed novels published by Boutique of Quality Books (BQB
Publishing).
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