Two sisters, one story, & plenty of emotion, this is the recipe for Wicked Good. An excellent one at that as this novel is surprising in its quality and ability to not just grab the reader, but evoke a myriad of emotions that range from tears to hope and inspiration to a few smiles and uplifting moments along the way. Did I, the heartless reader and blogger that I am just write tears? Yes, I did and as manly as I am ,if you cannot shed a few tears as you read this novel, well then your…

-The western, what is the deal on that? Where did that come from?

At the heart of every western a man or woman faces danger, hardship, or overwhelming odds. It’s a timeless theme of courage, especially when their quest takes them into the vast unknown, where they must face the elements and other enemies head on, with little more than a horse, a gun and meager supplies. People always tell me they don’t like westerns, so I thought, why not create the type of western people…

It is hump day, Wednesday, for those of us not keeping count. The end of the week for me is just 5 short days away. Wait, then a new week starts again. I need a vacation! Our main character in the novel tried that and her work followed her. Does that mean when I get to take a few days off, some novels, digital short stories and graphic novels are going to follow me? I hope so! The beach wouldn’t be the same without them. Fortunately when work follows me on vacation, I love it and get to…

Humor comes in many different forms. Yesterday I touched on Tom Sumner’s All I Wanted Was a Haircut. His brand of humor is a bit different from BDA (I need to save keystrokes here people, so from now on through this post I am going to refer to Big Daddy Abel as BDA), all of it in good way. Besides that, I needed to lighten the mood today from my earlier post on Laurie Bowler’s Across the City Chapter Two. There is no bloodletting or vampires in BDA’s Open Mic Volume Two, hopefully that…

It has been a busy weekend here @ The Scoop. There are some amazing digital short stories out there and this is another one of them. Call Me Smitty is a three part series thus far; today’s post is on the first installment. B.R. Stateham will be my guest in The G-ZONE April 6^th @ 9am EST. I think it will be fun. What exactly is this digital short series all about, well check it out:

“From the mind of B.R. Stateham, author of Death of Young…

Is it actually Saturday? Yes, today I have it right and all has been restored to its proper order. Now if I could only figure out what to with all the body parts lying around, figuratively of course, from this digital short. Seriously, back up the truck because what goes on in these virtual pages won’t fit into a normal pickup truck. If you enjoy buckets of blood with a side order of severed limbs and vampire organs, then you have come to the right digital short story. Pull up a…

Being the smart guy I am, I needed to look up the word sublime in the dictionary. The results of that inquiry are as follows: Under verb used without an object: to convert (a solid substance) by heat into a vapor. I do this very well; ask those that are around me. I decided to read on, I figure why not I am on a roll: and as an adjective: complete, absolute, utter and haughty. The last one sounds like it is an interpretation from England. So in conclusion, to use the word sublime…

TGIF to all! Change of plans and pace a bit as I have a back log of posts and digital short stories to talk about and thus the Saturday on Friday thing and then we will still have a Saturday on Saturday thing so instead of graphic novels today we will have the digital shorts in their place if you are following me at all. Nonetheless, here is the deal to make this short and more readily understandable, basically in a nutshell and to cut to the chase: today is Graphic Novel Friday, but in its…

    As the anchor author for "Hunter" I found it to be a real rush. I read each segment as it came in and had to keep track of characters and events so as not to lose anything or anyone and then tie all of the loose ends together. I took elements of each segment and tried to expound upon them. I was being lead in a direction and had no choice but to go there.

   I learned early in my directing career that if you are going to make a choice as an actor or director it has to be a clear…

Once in a while you come across a novel that is different and unique. A novel that just doesn’t quite fit into the same square and round peg holes, doesn’t follow the formulas that the big guys set out for everybody and is so well done structurally you need to take pause and enjoy it for the gem it is. I was lucky enough to find one of them in Death of a Young Lieutenant by B.R. Stateham. I am going to get to jaw with him on April 6^th on my blogtalk show The G-ZONE and…

Back in the day I used to read a host of different serial novels: The Death Merchant, The Executioner, Nick Carter, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown ….wait I went back to far. Okay rewind it a bit and you get the idea. Someone was smart enough to go back and try to capture the feel and fun that was contained in those types of novels back in the day. Did they carry it off? What do you think? Here is what is in the virtual pages:

 From Lee Goldberg...…

What a way to start the posting week, with a scorcher. Gotta love a story that won’t let you stop reading it and the pages just keep flying. Wait, it’s Monday and we have an awesome week ahead of here at both the blog and the The G-ZONE our blogtalk radio show. Our guest lineup this week includes: Stephen Jay Schwartz today, Leona Bodie, Gayle Lynds, Sylvia Massara, and then on Friday Blake Crouch. Remember if you don’t catch them live, go to the archives and enjoy, they are there 24/7 for…

Welcome to a Sunday and the growing number of people that follow this day of posting. We have a double header for you, two novels at opposite ends of the spectrum but both provocative and worthy. The Target by Bill Bowen was an emotionally challenging read for me. Most that know me think I am challenged in many ways, but this novel made me take pause and think a bit more than others that I had read in this genre to date. Here is the synopsis and the author’s…

First, let me say thank you to Giovanni. It’s great to be here and hopefully meet some new readers!

My name’s Mark and as you can see from my own blog (http://empyricaltales.blogspot.com/), I’m only starting out as a blogger. I still have a lot to learn, despite the upcoming release of my second novel. Like my own blog, I wanted to do something different for the Scoop. I have a Theory of Firsts: the first sentence, first paragraph,…

People say that things happen for a reason.  That may be true.  But in my life things seem to happen with very little rhyme or reason. And certainly no plan.

I used to be married, kind of a lot.  If I total the years I spent married it's 21 years and not all of it was marital blech.  But I'm now happily single, so it goes without saying that for all of my marriages there have been an equal number of divorces.

During one of my divorces I discovered…

Sincerely, this is my first read of this dynamic duo. Go ahead and chuckle at my expense, I understand. Interesting plotline in Gideon’s Sword:  A family wronged and father framed by a government employee to cover his tracks as many people die heinous deaths for no reason other than the government employee’s stupidity and arrogance. Original and thought provoking, I mean the way they went about it, the narrative, not the over used and tired plotline, hahaha, gotcha. Really though, let’s…

“Brother” Giovanni gets on the board with this one. Confused, I am sure you are. You would have to read the disclaimer, (which I wrote-wink, wink), in the beginning of Open Mic to understand how I came Brother Giovanni; I am not giving that away. This is the first time I am in a published work; I am pumped and honored. FYI: BDA, as he is known to his many fans, will be on our blogtalk show twice this month. March 8^th for the roundtable discussion @ 3pm and then again by his…

White water rafting anyone?  The novel itself moves like a category five: raging, foaming, and churning all the way to the end. Hold on to the covers of this novel, the pages turn quickly, as racing through this whodunit is not an option. Beth herself will be stopping by the blog on occasion today to check comments so she can respond to them, so feel free to ask away. Enough already, what is between the covers on this one:

“The Arkansas River is the heart and soul of Salida, Colorado.…