Randall’s Ramblings, September 15, 2019

We’ve been puppy sitting since Friday morning. First time Frankie has been with us overtime. He’s done well considering he’s only four months old.  Two of our cats have been venturing closer and closer, but the others are still very wary of this bundle of energy bouncing through the house.

Frankie’s just has his breakfast after a quick trip to the back yard/garden. He’s worrying one of my slippers just now, so I’ll need to get him out for soon his first excursion of the day.

We’ve had intermittent rain throughout the week, making work on a drainage project a bit problematic but hopefully the forecast of decent weather (no rain) for the next week will allow me to get things wrapped up.

So who was born on this date in history? Let’s find out who in the writing world was born on September 15th. (Compliments of http://www.onthisday.com/today/birthdays):

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, French writer of maxims and memoirs; James Fenimore Cooper, 1st major American novelist (Last of Mohicans); Willem Josephus van Zeggelen, Dutch author; Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian and political writer; Frank E Gannett, newspaper publisher (Gannett); Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Indian novelist; Agatha Christie, English crime writer (Murder on the Orient Express); Claude McKaye, Jamaica/American author (Songs of Jamaica, Banjo); John J Slauerhoff, Dutch ship’s doctor/writer/poet (El Dorado); Gerd Gaiser, German writer (Ship in the Mountain); Richard Baerlein, racing writer; Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentine writer; Breyten Breytenbach, South African poet/painter; Norman [Richard] Spinrad, American sci-fi author (Child of Fortune); Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, American sci-fi author (Hotel Transylvania); Howard Waldrop, American sci-fi author; Jim Curtiss, American writer; Sophie Dahl, English model and author; and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian writer (Half of a Yellow Sun).

Was anyone familiar to you? There’s three names which stand out for me: James Fenimore Cooper, Frank E. Gannett, and Agatha Christie. Whether you recognize anyone on the list or not, if today’s your special day I hope you have a great one and many more to follow!

News About My Published Work

Carnage in Singapore received the following five-star review this past week:

The action in this novel never lets up, and it’s made all the better by fully developed and believable characters. One of the strongest openings I’ve ever read. It pulls you to read farther, and you’ll be happy you did. You gotta love a character named Evelyn Evinrude, leader of the good guys, a group named Bedlam Charlie vice Alpha.

Evelyn and her team rush to defeat the terrorists, who have headquartered themselves in the nation of Singapore. They have already kidnapped the ambassadors of the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. To show their horribly serious intent, the terrorists have amputated a finger digit from each of the ambassadors and threaten to remove more body parts if their demands aren’t met.

You think you know where it’s all going when the plot twists and does backflips. “Page-turner” may be a cliché, but there is no way to describe this book without those words.

This book will pull you far into the night. I read it in one sitting, and I’m hoping for the sequel. Five stars for a fabulous job well done!

My Work in Progress

Writing continued on A Cartel’s Revenge this week with the completion of chapter twenty-nine. As always, it’s now posted to the two subscription writing sites I use. The chapter review count continues to increase, now standing at 394, an increase of twenty in the past week. As always, plenty of good advice to help me improve my writing.

With Frankie getting more excited, so it’s best I skip the weekly snippet before he wrecks something. Watch for a longer snippet next time.

Books I’m Reading

I recently finished reading Zach’s Gold by Frank Kelso. It’s been awhile since I’ve read this type of novel and I’m glad I did. Frank created an interesting plot with larger-than-life characters, particularly Zach.  Follow his exploits as he hunts for gold, helps others to form a consolidated mining corporation to fight off claim jumpers, with any apparent need to be compensated, just doing what he thinks is right.

A real page turner and fans of Westerns will truly enjoy this story. This is the first novel I’ve read written by Frank and won’t be the last!

This brings us to a close for another week. I hope you found something of interest or at least useful for your own writing. If you have any suggestions for a topic you’d like to read about, please let me know. Until the next time, thank you for reading.