NUMBER 77
Are you aware that my mind is still in “Houston.” Yeah, yeah! I know, you will eventually get tired of me talking about it, but I'm going to do doing something about it. I’m flying back in a few months to just hang out and be a tourist again. Now, don’t get me wrong, I miss my home DC, but since my kid is off and running, and it’s just me and the dog, Tommy Pickles (Yeah, my daughter was going thru her Rugrat phase), I need to do something, anything, to move forward.
You raise your kids and then, what!!! I hear everyone telling me, ‘girl, it’s your time to kick ass and go do what you want to do.” But, I get a little lost because I know I want to work in a library or bookstore, but the economy is getting in the way. I know the world of books is evolving and changing. You hear more and more authors are publishing their books in e-format. That’s a good thing and I will continue to promote it, but there are still so many people who are out there who do not know you, the author, nor your book in any format.
I see myself standing on corners, restaurants, concerts, baby showers, man showers, my job (where ever that may be), talking about and pushing your book in their face. I got to do that. I just got too! It’s in my blood, my heart, my soul, my feet and the top of my head. It got to get these people straight. Your books are more than a phase. It does not matter if it's hardback, paperback, e-format, j-format or any alphabetic format, they need your books. They need to keep reading and buying your books. They need you!!!!
Let me tell you about a serious, serious sister who writes “murder,” and she reminds me of Agatha Christie and John Grishman, only she’s black and beautiful and a literary heavyweight mystery writer.
Mrs. PAMELA SAMUELS-YOUNG. I met Mrs. Young in Houston and talked and talked my head off. I was so in awe of her and her writing, I thought I was going to burst!! I have always read and re-read her mysteries. You think you know the killer, but you don’t know, just as Agatha Christie writes, Mrs. Young writes "murder most foul" and you don’t know a damn thing until it hits you and it hits you hard. Here are her books and of course I got every single one. I’m taking my copies to the National Book Conference in Atlanta to have her autographed them. Man, I’m loving these book conferences!!!
MURDER ON THE DOWN LOW - $3.99 - - - A high-profile lawsuit erupts into chaos, revealing its place in a larger spree of violence in this scandalous tale of lust, lies, and vengeance. A brazen gunman is targeting prominent African American men on the streets of Los Angeles, and police are completely baffled. At the same time, savvy big-firm attorney Vernetta Henderson and her outrageous sidekick, Special, lead the charge for revenge against a man whose deceit caused his fiance's death. For Special, hauling the man into court and suing him for wrongful death just isn’t good enough. While she exacts her own brand of justice, a shocking revelation connects the contentious lawsuit and the puzzling murders.
BUYING TIME - $3.99 - - - Waverly Sloan is a down-on-his-luck lawyer. But just when he's about to hit rock bottom, he stumbles upon a business with the potential to solve all of his problems. In Waverly's new line of work, he comes to the aid of people in desperate need of cash. But there's a catch. His clients must be terminally ill and willing to sign over rights to their life insurance policies before they can collect a dime. Waverly then finds investors eager to advance them thousands of dollars—including a hefty broker's fee for himself—in exchange for a significant return on their investment once the clients take their last breath. The stakes get higher when Waverly brokers the policy of the cancer-stricken wife of Lawrence Erickson, a high-powered lawyer who's bucking to become the next U.S. Attorney General. When Waverly's clients start dying sooner than they should, both Waverly and Erickson, who has some skeletons of his own to hide, are unwittingly drawn into a perilous web of greed, blackmail and murder.
IN FIRM PURSUIT - $8.49 - - - After winning a multimillion-dollar verdict in a race-discrimination case, Vernetta Henderson's career is on the rise. Weeks away from a coveted partnership, she takes on the defense of a major corporation in what appears to be an open-and-shut sexual harassment case. But Vernetta discovers the case isn't what it seems. After passing up a chance to settle, events place the entire case--and her future--in jeopardy.
It's bad enough working with a pretentious associate with her own agenda. Now Vernetta is up against the smooth-talking litigator she once beat at trial. Just when she needs her husband most, he finds himself in a compromising position that could destroy their marriage. As revelations about the case emerge, Vernetta uncovers a conspiracy of corporate greed, deceit and violence that will touch many lives. With her private and professional lives spiraling out of control, Vernetta is about to discover what really matters--and how far she'll go to protect the ones she loves.
EVERY REASONABLE DOUBT - $8.49 - - - Determined to become the first African-American partner at one of L.A.'s most prestigious law firms, attorney Vernetta
Coping with the pressures of defending a high-profile case proves challenging, and as the case starts to garner media attention, Vernetta has no choice but to spend more time in the office. Vernetta's new husband, Jefferson, unwittingly adds more stress. He's anxious to start a family, a venture she isn't ready to undertake. As Vernetta's professional life dangerously intrudes on her personal life, she soon comes to realize that providing her client with the best defense could come at a very high price.
JAMES W. LEWIS - A HARD MAN IS GOOD TO FIND - $3.99 - - - Another author I had the pleasure to meet, Mr. Lewis. I tired to assist him in selling this book and his other, SELLOUT - $.99 cents, (I will talk about that later when I get my autographed book in the mail from the author) but no success. As I told you, there were not enough buyers but more authors. Hopefully, at the National Book Conference in Atlanta they will have more buyers than authors.
I read this book in two days and I laughed so hard after reading the first ten pages and didn't stop laughing until the end. I kept making comments on face book like, “Who gets their hair done at “El Cajon.” Is that a Mexican drug cartel for black women’s hair? Who created “dial-a-dick,” and when did “no soap, no deodorant, no toothpaste become harmful chemicals,!!! Boy, your but stinks. These are some of the crazy stuff women go thru while “dating,” as I call then, “hard headed knuckleheads.” I'm sure some men have run into the same type of women, sick, I say, just sick!!
Michelle, single, beautiful, and black is looking for Mr. Right, well who isn’t? She meets some of the most craziest, ding dong men I have never run into and hope I don’t. One don’t use “soap,” one is a true freak, which even scared the daylights out of me, and one just huff and puff, but no action, if you know what I mean.
Michelle goes thru these dating tribulations and finally meets an intelligent, good looking Black man who reads, Daryl Jackson. And let me give you a quote from this good looking black man, “I love to read,” he said, grunting. Especially black fiction, believe it or not. I probably read more than I watch TV. I try to read a new black author every month.”
Where in the HELL is he??? Where in the hell is he!! Must I continue with this dramatic arts class call “dating.” Why Me!!! (Oh, that's me talking and I'm asking, where is he!!!. I think I'm still asking!!)
After weeks of dating, dinner, traveling and everything else a woman likes, Daryl and her have not done “the thing that we do,” and she is tripping with demented and deranged ideas in her head as to what’s wrong with the guy. She confronts Daryl and gets the Biggest and I mean the Biggest surprised of her life. I mean big!!!!!
Got to stick on one for Black History Year.
ROBERT GREER - THE DEVIL’S HATBAND: A NOVEL (CJ FLOYD MYSTERY SERIES) - $13.95 Paperback - - - If you like murder mysteries, because I surely love them, and you like CSI Miami, New York or what ever other city TV is going to create, meet CJ Floyd, a black Denver bail bondsman and bounty hunter. He’s got a few adventures you will enjoy. It’s not Walter Mosley, but it’s pretty close.
CJ Floyd, a black Denver bail bondsman and sometime bounty hunter. Hired by a couple of corporate troubleshooters, CJ searches for the missing daughter of a black federal judge, figuring that his clients are less interested in Brenda Mathison than in some documents they say she stole. Brenda is a leader of PlanetFirst, a gang of animal rights fanatics who've been tormenting some ranchers. The group's ranks also include two hard cases who share Brenda's bed at various times, and who have in their possession a new killer virus that could effectively wipe out the cattle population. By the time CJ arrives at Brenda's rural cabin, she's dead on the floor, wearing a barbed-wire necklace. CJ's subsequent investigation is as much a ritual of revenge as it is a battle for controlling rights to the virus. Greer packs in a few too many subplots (a slow romance with a woman at a diner; a feud with a Denver gangster), and he reiterates too often what we already know: that a black man like CJ knows justice isn't blind. But his narrative is taut and the characters?the tough CJ and others?are intriguing. Though Greer could easily have jettisoned a hundred pages and still retain a slick-functioning mystery, his first work, for all its excesses, leaves a reader hungry for more.
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