STORIES FROM THE UNDERGROUND

Writing is a solitary profession. I write usually early in the morning when the dew still wets the lawn and the birds are bursting with song. It’s a creative time for me and I can pound out at least a thousand words before the business of the day pulls me away. Being solitary is just fine on the creative side, but when it comes to the business part of publishing, being solitary is a huge deficit. Getting the word out about a book is overwhelming and challenging. Over a million books are published every year. Trying to get noticed amidst the crowd is daunting. I have been fortunate recently to align myself with a group known as the Underground Authors.

We are a diverse group. Some of us write mysteries, others pen horror or fantasy, while another author writes fiction with a spiritual bent. Despite our writing differences, we have banded together to support each other through cross-promotion. Whenever any of us publishes a new book, each of us in the group will read it, review it, and share the book with our friends and readers. We are also geographically diverse. Most of our group are boot-scootin’ Texans, but one of us lives in Canada, another in Florida, and I’m near Seattle, WA. We come from all walks of life. I work for the Federal Government, one member is a psychologist who counsels victims of work place violence, and several are retired. Recently on a ZOOM call, we decided, hey, we’re all talented authors, why don’t we write a book together? And so began the saga of our anthology BEYOND THE SEA, Stories From The Underground.

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These twelve short stories run the gamut from murder mystery (I’ll bet you can guess who wrote that one) to inspirational to apocalyptic. My contribution is Moonlight Swim. There are other fine stories like Hemingway’s Boat, The Diving Bits, Stranded, I’d Rather Drown, Regi Vitam, The Perfect Future, The Boat, The Girl In The Turquoise Bikini, Making Waves, Roses for Grant, and the Encounter.

If any of these stories sound intriguing to you, I’ll give away a free paperback copy of Beyond The Sea to the first person who emails me at KellyMarshall@KellyMarshallBooks.com and requests a copy. I will contact you for your snail-mail address. We had tons of fun writing these stories and hope you will read and enjoy our book.

Here’s the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Sea-Underground-Charles-Breakfield-ebook/dp/B093DRG1ZK

LOVE’S ENIGMA

Charles Breakfield and Rox Burkey are coauthors of the award-winning Enigma Books series. The books are steeped in the complexity of the tech world while intrigue and devious plots swirl around the main characters.

Charles Breakfield calls technology the new weapon of choice. You only have to look at today’s headlines to see that China and Russia are stealing our information through hacking of secure government websites to interfering with our election process. I was a personal victim of the Chinese-sponsored hacking of the Office Of Personnel Management in April of 2015. I still work for the federal government and foreign thieves stole money from my PayPal account while my KellyMarshallBooks.com website was also compromised. Hundreds of bogus emails were sent out allegedly from me. Godaddy helped to staunch the bleeding, but I certainly felt violated. An identity protection company warned me that my personal information was now on the “dark web” and that I will always be vulnerable. So Charles Breakfield is correct. Whether you are the President or a pauper, our personal information is under attack by villians from around the world.

Breakfield and Burkey are fellow authors and I was invited to read a short story they had written-also in the Enigma Series called Love’s Enigma. The main characters are Buzz and Zara, talented and capable computer programmers who work closely together and fall deeply in love. Buzz is committed and wants more, but Zara is evasive. She is a passionate beautiful Russian who loves where they are in their relationship, but she is eternally resistant to permanence.  She alludes to a deep, dark secret she dare not reveal.The couple relocate to the Caribbean to teach their programming expertise to students who will follow in their footsteps. Buzz is hoping the romantic locale will nudge Zara in the right direction. Since it is a short story, I will say no more, except to say buy the story to find out the dramatic ending.

Now that I have been introduced to this award-winning duo of techno-thrillers, I am going to dive further into their Enigma Series. If I’ve intrigued you enough, here’s a link to their website on all things Enigma: https://www.enigmanbookseries.com

Soon, I will introduce you to LOST SIDE OF AN ORPHAN’S MOON by one of my all-time favorite authors, Caleb Pirtle III. An author of 80 plus books, he a master of thriller fiction and will keep you reading deep into the night.

Happy reading!