“Tragedy is like strong acid – it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.”
~ D.H. Lawrence. b. 11 September 1885
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SPECIMEN & Other Stories
10 Sep
SPECIMEN & Other Stories by ALAN ANNAND
A six-pack sampler of short fiction by Alan Annand:
Bananarama: Reformed meat-eater embarks on a 15-day bananas-and-orange-juice diet, with surprising side effects.
The Date Square Killer: Mild-mannered hit man finds love, social justice and the meaning of life in non-random acts of murder.
River Girl: Middle-aged bureaucrat takes a detour on his morning jog that leads him to an unexpected rendezvous with Fate.
Specimen: A wealthy butterfly collector visits his twin brother, warden of a penal colony, who is building his own unique collection.
The Bassman Cometh: My night with Margaret Atwood: Hapless university graduate student in 1975 ruins famous Canadian author’s poetry reading.
The Naskapi & the U-Boat: A German U-Boat in WW2 visits northern Quebec to install a weather station, but a native family compromises their secret mission.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Specimen-Other-Stories-Alan-Annand-ebook/dp/B00THKBJ22
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/specimen-other-stories/id966756381
Barnes&Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/specimen-other-stories-alan-annand/1121209434
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/specimen-other-stories
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/518775
Book review Al-Quebeca: “Annand is a master craftsman of reader anxiety.”
9 Sep
A book review of Al-Quebeca recently appeared on the Serenity Now website, written by Val Tobin. Following is an excerpt:
For Sophie Gillette, Detective-Sergeant Homicide of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), it starts out as a routine investigation of a hit-and-run during a January snowstorm in Montreal. It ends in a terrorist plot to disable the electrical grid, behead a visiting governor, and kill thousands of hockey fans with poison gas. These two events sandwich between them a generous filling of biker wars, arms smuggling by First Nations warriors, militant student activists, drug financiers, and a rogue professor with a doctorate in chemical toxicology.
As if that weren’t enough to keep Gillette occupied, she’s recently suffered the loss of her brother to a covert military operation in Afghanistan, and her mother has turned to the bottle to assuage her grief. She also has to deal with being an attractive woman in a male-dominated work environment. As with author Alan Annand’s other novels, the lead character in his latest offering, Al-Quebeca, has more than a heaping helping of issues with which to deal.
How his detective, Sophie Gillette, follows the trail of brain matter and paint chips from the hit-and-run scene to the terrorist cell makes riveting reading. Annand is a master craftsman of reader anxiety. Much of his magic lies in his painstaking research. As with his other novels, he’s been meticulous in attention to detail, and ensuring what he writes is credible.
He also faced the challenge of writing from a female perspective. When asked about it, Annand says that he’d wanted his protagonist to “face the challenges of discrimination, physical struggle and self-doubt that made the choice of a female lead seem appropriate.” Annand succeeds in not only making Gillette a believable character, but also manages to make the reader forget she was written by a man.
All of the above make Al-Quebeca an exciting, suspenseful novel with well-rounded characters and richness of setting and plot. But what makes it particularly compelling, as well as frightening, is how plausible it all seems. In an April 2013 blog entry, Annand talks about the likelihood of something like this happening, and says, “I wrote the first draft of Al-Quebeca in 2009 and revised it several times since then. Each time it all seems even more inevitable.”
Fans of astrologer/palmist/private investigator Axel Crowe will be delighted to hear that Annand is currently writing a sequel to Scorpio Rising called Felonious Monk. He’s also rewriting his first published novel, an SF mystery set in post-apocalyptic New York, called Antenna Syndrome.
Get Al-Quebeca in Kindle or paperback at www.amazon.com/Al-Quebeca-ebook/dp/B00CHQOY8O
All other digital formats at www.smashwords.com/books/view/309140
Read the full original review at:
http://www.serenitynowgifts.com/resources/articles/al-quebeca_book_review.php
Jeannette Winterson (b. August 27): 10 Rules for Writing
27 Aug
Jeannette Winterson (b. 27 August 1959
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565464702537/
10 Rules for Writing
- Turn up for work. Discipline allows creative freedom. No discipline equals no freedom.
- Never stop when you are stuck. You may not be able to solve the problem, but turn aside and write something else. Do not stop altogether.
- Love what you do.
- Be honest with yourself. If you are no good, accept it. If the work you are doing is no good, accept it.
- Don’t hold onto poor work. If it was bad when it went in the drawer it will be just as bad when it comes out.
- Take no notice of anyone you don’t respect.
- Take no notice of anyone with a gender agenda. A lot of men still think that women lack imagination of the fiery kind.
- Be ambitious for the work and not for the reward.
- Trust your creativity.
- Enjoy this work!
Ernest Hemingway (b. July 21): “We are all apprentices…”
21 Jul
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
~ Ernest Hemingway, b. 21 July 1899
Thrillerama Extravaganza: July 17-18
17 Jul
THRILLERAMA EXTRAVAGANZA
If you love crime thrillers, this weekend (July 17-18 only) is your chance to load up on some terrific e-book bargains from among many American, British, Canadian (I’m one of them!), and Irish authors offering some of their best books for only $0.99.
See our Facebook page “Summer Reading Extravaganza!” at https://www.facebook.com/events/1006596246019368/
or follow this separate link: https://summerreadingextravaganza.wordpress.com/2015/07/12/al-quebeca-by-alan-annand-99c-on-july-17-and-18-in-the-summer-reading-extravaganza/
Thrillerama Extravaganza July 17-18th
16 Jul
THRILLERAMA EXTRAVAGANZA
If you love crime thrillers, this weekend (July 17-18 only) is your chance to load up on some terrific e-book bargains from among many American, British, Canadian (I’m one of them!), and Irish authors offering some of their best books for only $0.99.
See our Facebook page “Summer Reading Extravaganza!” at https://www.facebook.com/events/1006596246019368/
or follow this separate link: https://summerreadingextravaganza.wordpress.com/2015/07/12/al-quebeca-by-alan-annand-99c-on-july-17-and-18-in-the-summer-reading-extravaganza/
Thrillerama Extravaganza July 17-18
15 Jul![Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000031_00006]](https://sextile.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/aq-paper-100.jpg)
THRILLERAMA EXTRAVAGANZA
If you love crime thrillers, this weekend (July 17-18 only) is your chance to load up on some terrific e-book bargains from among many American, British, Canadian (I’m one of them!), and Irish authors offering some of their best books for only $0.99.
See our Facebook page “Summer Reading Extravaganza!” at https://www.facebook.com/events/1006596246019368/
or follow this separate link: https://summerreadingextravaganza.wordpress.com/2015/07/12/al-quebeca-by-alan-annand-99c-on-july-17-and-18-in-the-summer-reading-extravaganza/
Yann Martel (b. June 25): “Art is a gift: you create and then you give away.”
25 Jun
“Art is a gift: you create and then you give away. How readers receive that gift is their business. If they hate it, that’s their response to it. Others respond by liking it. Either way, that is their interaction with the book, which is no longer mine.”
~ Yann Martel, b. 25 June 1963
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Anita Loos (b. April 26): “I love high style in low company.”
26 Apr
Anita Loos (born 26 April 1889, died 18 August 1981) was an American screenwriter, playwright and author, best known for her blockbuster comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Nine Quotes:
- Fate keeps on happening.
- Memory is more indelible than ink.
- I’ve always loved high style in low company.
- It isn’t that gentlemen really prefer blondes, it’s just that we look dumber.
- A kiss on the hand may feel very, very good, but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever.
- On a plane you can pick up more and better people than on any other public conveyance since the stagecoach.
- The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of public relations. Without it, America would be grim indeed.
- There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants – more than anything else – to become rich. As long as they don’t have the money, it’ll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they’ll understand how important other things are – and have always been.
- I can never take for granted the euphoria produced by a cup of coffee. I’m grateful every day that it isn’t banned as a drug, that I don’t have to buy it from a pusher, that its cost is minimal and there’s no need to increase the intake. I can count on its stimulation 365 mornings every year. And thanks to the magic in a cup of coffee, I’m able to plunge into a whole day’s cheerful thinking.
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