Daily Archives: August 5, 2019

The Saltwater Marathon by Jonathan Chateau

The Saltwater Marathon is a page-turning sci-fi thriller about a grief-stricken man who puts his emotions aside when he finds himself trapped in a mall with strangers being pursued by a supernatural threat.

Bryan Combs made a terrible mistake. He cheated on his wife, Sirena, and fell for the seductive charms of his boss, Carmela. The adultery proved too great for Sirena to handle, so she hopped in her car and drove it into the ocean.

Her body was never recovered.

Overwhelmed with grief and guilt, Bryan buries himself at work, opting for late night shifts at the mall, often drinking himself to sleep in the back office of his once beloved job.

However, everything changes the morning they show up.

Strangers appear at his office door screaming and pleading for him to open the door because they are being pursued and desperately need somewhere to hide.

Pursued by what?

As he awakens from his drunken stupor, he begins to wonder if this some sick joke put on by Carmela? Retribution against him for ending their torrid affair?

Bryan would not be sure until he confronted these strangers.

Once he does, he soon witnesses for himself what has these people so afraid, so panicked, that he finds it impossible to stay caught in his spiral of self-loathing.

No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money by David Lough

Meticulously researched by a senior private banker now turned historian, No More Champagne reveals for the first time the full extent of the iconic British war leader’s private struggle to maintain a way of life instilled by his upbringing and expected of his public position.

Lough uses Churchill’s own most private records, many never researched before, to chronicle his family’s chronic shortage of money, his own extravagance and his recurring losses from gambling or trading in shares and currencies. Churchill tried to keep himself afloat by borrowing to the hilt, putting off bills and writing ‘all over the place’; when all else failed, he had to ask family or friends to come to the rescue. Yet within five years he had taken advantage of his worldwide celebrity to transform his private fortunes with the same ruthlessness as he waged war, reaching 1945 with today’s equivalent of £3 million in the bank. His lucrative war memoirs were still to come.

Throughout the story, Lough highlights the threads of risk, energy, persuasion, and sheer willpower to survive that link Churchill’s private and public lives. He shows how constant money pressures often tempted him to short-circuit the ethical standards expected of public figures in his day before usually pulling back to put duty first-except where the taxman was involved.

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane

According to sixteen-year-old Zander Osborne, nowhere is an actual place–and she’s just fine there. But her parents insist that she get out of her head–and her home state–and attend Camp Padua, a summer camp for at-risk teens.

Zander does not fit in–or so she thinks. She has only one word for her fellow campers: crazy. In fact, the whole camp population exists somewhere between disaster and diagnosis. There’s her cabinmate Cassie, a self-described manic-depressive-bipolar-anorexic. Grover Cleveland (yes, like the president), a cute but confrontational boy who expects to be schizophrenic someday, odds being what they are. And Bek, a charmingly confounding pathological liar.

But amid group “share-apy” sessions and forbidden late-night outings, unlikely friendships form, and as the Michigan summer heats up, the four teens begin to reveal their tragic secrets. Zander finds herself inextricably drawn to Grover’s earnest charms, and she begins to wonder if she could be happy. But first she must come completely unraveled to have any hope of putting herself back together again.

Tears of a Heartby Chase Blackwood

Delve into an award-winning fantasy novel described as “epic,” “beautiful,” and “reminiscent of Rothfuss’ work.”

***Now updated. Read the unabridged version as it was originally intended, with more action, dialogue, and depth.***

This coming-of-age tale was inspired by Patrick Rothfuss, and a lifetime of struggle…

The clock is ticking as the world descends into darkness.

He’s been called the Scourge of Bodig, the Bane of Verold, but most know him as the Kan Savasci. He’s one of the most feared men alive. Chaos and war have followed him like an angry shadow. The one problem, as the world faces the wrath of forgotten gods, Kan Savasci is nowhere to be found.

The annalist, a man trained in the ancient arts of the arkein, has been tasked to uncover the whereabouts of the Kan Savasci at any cost. In order to find the man, one must unmask the depths of his reclusive history.

Liamby Ali Parker

We're finally waking up from the nightmare.

The Lost Breeds have been through Hell and back, and finally, life is slowing down.

In the stillness, I realize that something is missing.

All the other guys in the MC have women in their corner to kiss their wounds and help them heal.

It's my damn turn.

I see her on a busy New York City street and know without a doubt–she's the one.

She's everything a man like me dreams of.

But she's out of my league.

Wayyyy out of it.

A billionaire by birth.

Lucky for her, I'm willing to be whatever she needs, what keeps her up late at night and drags her from sleep with yearning.

This girl has no clue what's about to hit her.

Me. Full force with the desire to be deeply connected and fully devoted for the first time ever.

Things are changing too fast to keep up.

She'll be my rock when it all falls apart.

And she doesn't even know me yet.