Marble City - Passionate About Writing #ASMSG

They've been busy again over at Marble City Publishing and this year's anthology, Edge of Passion, has just been released in e-book and paperback. Yours truly has a story in there - Heirloom - and the anthology makes very good reading. Some really strong stories from this year's competition winners and stunning guest pieces from Booker-nominated Jim Williams, Emmy-nominated John Goldsmith and other Marble City guest authors.

An anthology of twenty-one crime, mystery, suspense and romance stories from nineteen authors, including Emmy-nominated John Goldsmith and Booker-nominated Jim Williams.

This global collection of short stories from 400 to 7000 words covers everything from crime fiction to romantic suspense and historical mystery.

Authors: John Goldsmith, Jim Williams, Jeremy Hinchliff, John Holland, Gerry McCullough, Alexandar Altman, R.A. Barnes, Maura Barrett, Eileen Condon, Mary Healy, Susan Howe, Damon King, Mary Mitchell, Jeanne O’Dwyer, Michael Rumsey, Valerie Ryan, Dennis Thompson, Catherine Tynan and T. West.

Edge of Passion is available on Amazon

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair!

St Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenny

The other weekend we climbed up the round tower of St Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny, Ireland. My ten-year-old son and I. We had different objectives in mind. His was to view the city streets from above and check out the accuracy of maps he has been drawing since last summer. Mine was a periodical reminder that I don't like heights.

Here's the mandatory tourist stuff - constructed in the mid-9th century , 100 feet 30 metres high, built as a place of refuge during Viking raids, one of only two round towers in the country open to the public to climb.

Rapunzel springs to mind when I think of this tower and the nearby one at the Rock of Cashel (which Rapunzel may still live in, who knows, it isn't accessible to the public).

Rock of Cashel

When we returned home we read the photocopied leaflet from St Canice's. The foundations of that 100 foot tower are ... two feet deep. 60 centimeters. Originally built on top of fresh graves, the tower has stood for a millennium with foundations shallower than my house.

It set me thinking. The tower only leans two feet off true vertical. That might not be due to subsidence in the shallow foundation - it might be a limitation in 9th century building technology. Its walls are a couple of feet thick. Solid granite blocks set on top of each other. Little or no sign of renovation. This isn't a structure plastered together on the inside with modern concrete. The tower is built with a durable integrity.

As authors we believe in our writing. Building blocks are required to reach the sky, to stretch up above the street and gain a view of the city. We worry about our foundations - the validity of our concepts, our ideas. We use our materials - the skills which are our mortar, the plot which is our granite. Social media is our scaffolding (presumably those Dark Ages Viking-avoiders used scaffolding). Those who have confidence raise themselves up and charge for entry. Here endeth the metaphor.

This was first posted by yours truly on Authors Electric 26th April 2014

Getting Out of Dodge Before It's Too Late! #ASMSG

My second Ger Mayes crime novel, Getting Out of Dodge, is featuring over at the Authors Electric Christmas Sale from 25 - 28 December. Hop on over and grab some truly great books for 99c / 99p. They also have a review site.

Here's the first chapter of Getting Out of Dodge to whet your appetite:

Chapter 1 - A walk in the park

The sky is heavy. Dark purple clouds reflect on the lake’s rippling surface. Here and there an aquamarine gap opens in the sky – maybe a portal to the troposphere? I could do with someone beaming me up there, right now.

‘Look, Ma, look!’ A small boy at the far edge of the water points at a drake terrorising all the other ducks, wings beating as it chases.

The mother pulls her son back by the hand, trying to keep him away from the edge as he hurls chunks of bread at the uninterested, overfed recipients. Two swans glide through the ducks and seagulls swoop in for the spoils.

Plastic wheels on tarmac and a rush of air. A youth on rollerblades flies past the bench where I’m sitting. He moves like a speed-skater but looks like a thief, woolly hat down tight under a hoodie.

‘Fecker!’ shouts another mother as the youth swerves deftly around her pushchair.

Ah, the serene beauty of suburban Dublin.

‘You okay, mister?’ she asks.

I look up. She can’t be long out of school. She’s talking to me but I have no words to share.

‘Jesus! What’s happened to yer face?’

My hand goes to my cheek. My face, my whole body, is sore to the touch. I must look a sight, it was quite a beating.

She shakes her head and walks on.

‘Feckers, the lot of them. Feckers,’ she mutters to the world.

Sean Walsh Park contains everything I hate about this country. I should have left two weeks ago, with the first taste of freedom. Now look.

Across the lake a youngish man in a tracksuit walks cockily, phone to his ear and a beer bottle in one hand. He downs the last of the beer and hurls the bottle into the bushes. Then he switches off the phone and slips it into his jacket pocket.

The little boy feeding the birds turns and runs into the man’s arms. I’m too far away to hear what the mother says but, from the body language, it’s where have you been or who were you talking to. The man ignores her and runs to the water’s edge with the boy. They look across the lake and see me watching, so I turn my head.

I don’t know how I got here, but here I am. It has something to do with this thing between my legs. Everything to do with it.

A breeze picks up and rustles the plastic bag at my feet. I look into the wind and see lads loitering at the far entrance to the park. Even at this distance they look foreign. Something about their trousers. They’re the Romanians. Friends or enemies, I’m not sure. Is this their doing? It could be, doesn’t matter now.

The bag rustles again. I have no idea how I came to be here, can’t remember. I don’t deserve it. This time I tried to do the right thing. My intentions were good.

A shout makes it upwind from the mother with the pushchair. Two uniformed guards struggle past her at the other entrance. A man in a dark jacket follows and then the wiry, brown-suited figure of Detective Inspector Andy McAuliffe. I can smell his cigarettes in my memory.

Andy, I should have taken your advice and got the hell out of Dodge.

Before they reach me I have to know what’s between my legs. But I think I already know and so does Andy, somehow.

The bag is oozing something onto the tarmac. Clear fluid with traces of pink. I open the top of the bag with both hands and my favourite fragrance wafts out. When a woman wears that, it means she’s mine. The scorching sun, sea and sand of the Mediterranean, as the ad says, with a hint of butcher’s shop.

I put my hand inside and let my fingertips touch, then stroke. Her hair is soft and fair. I always loved her hair.

Getting Out of Dodge available on Amazon

Want to win a new Kindle? Marble City Publishing is giving away a Kindle Paperwhite plus leather cover in a free draw, visit their site to enter:http://www.marblecitypublishing.com

Miss This at Your Peril #ASMSG

My first crime fiction novel, Peril, is on 99c / 77p sale today and featured at Kindle Books and Tips.

39 reviews on Amazon.com, here are a few samples of what readers say:

"My goodness, I enjoyed this. It had it all, drama, mystery, love gone bad."

"Love the twists and turns"

"A darned good read."

"Serious crime thriller yes, but only on one level; Peril by Ruby Barnes is so much more."

"It kept me turning the pages right up to the satisfying and appropriate conclusion."

"A train wreck you can't help watching through the cracks in your fingers."

"Shifty and shady ... one thing leads to another until it comes tumbling down around him."

"A walking invitation to vice and good-natured corruption."

"Tense, suspenseful read - the fast-paced story of a philandering jerk."

"The importance of being honest."

"It's a story of a drunk, nothing more. There are better stories about drunks." (well, not everybody likes everything!)

Peril by R.A. Barnes

Want to win a new Kindle? Marble City Publishing is giving away a Kindle Paperwhite plus leather cover in a free draw, visit their site to enter: http://www.marblecitypublishing.com

Beats you down and builds you back up #bookreview

Ruby reviews Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff

Here's another case of the contrary reader. Mrs R's book club chose Once Were Warriors as their book of the month and, despite it being only 198 pages, Mrs R baulked at the serious-looking cover and hesitated to get stuck in. So, rising to the unspoken challenge, I grabbed the paperback and ran off to my kennel with it, growling whenever anyone came near.

This isn't a new release - it was first published in New Zealand in 1990 and was made into a film, apparently - but was a hit at the time. I didn't research the author's background, like I usually do. I just ran headlong into the story. Looking now at the acknowledgements in the front of the book, the author thanks his editor, Richard King, for agreeing to forgo the conventions. He sure did that.

The narrative style is like a stream of consciousness, from varying viewpoints and delivered third person. That editorial flexibility allows extensive use of slang, profanity and grammatical deviations. This is deep third person, a voice that puts the reader on the shoulder of the alternate narrators without having to live inside their heads. And that's a good thing because being on the shoulders of Jake, Beth, Grace and Nig Heke is something that can be difficult to bear at times. No criticism of the writing there, just a nod to the gravity of the story.

Over a quarter of a century has passed since Alan Duff first wrote Once Were Warriors but the curses of the human condition are as real today as they were then, perhaps more so. Duff describes a long-term unemployed, geographically isolated, poorly educated, disenfranchised, underprivileged and alcohol addicted underclass in New Zealand. A once proud warrior race whose sense of identity has faded to become characterized by such icons as rugby players and an opera singer. Unless you've lived a life of complete privilege (as do the Traumbert family in this book), you will recognize the elements of despair: low self-esteem from poor education and exploited minimum wage labour, frustrations taken out on friends, family and acquaintances; job insecurity perpetuated by alcohol-fueled absenteeism; escape offered by substance abuse; bread-line poverty that spirals down into inescapable debt; gang culture that respects mindless violence and destroys family life. Now you really want to read it!

This short novel is an irresistible train wreck of a story. The author speaks from personal experience, being half Maori and half Pakeha. There is a glimmer of hope. Read Once Were Warriors, recognise the frailties of the human race, thank your lucky stars for what you have and see the positive in everyone. I'm not going to describe the plot but all I will say is I don't think Jake did it. It was Dooly.

If you've enjoyed this review then follow Ruby on Twitter and Goodreads and sign up to Ruby's News for a free e-book.

Speak No Evil - Sensory Perception for Readers and Writers

There's now a regular slot for yours truly on the 26th of each month at Authors Electric. Hop on over and find out why this author will never get the Wise Monkey badge.