Randall’s Ramblings, April 19, 2019

First of all, I’d like to tip my hat to all those in the medical profession, first responders, and everyone involved in making life as normal as possible for the rest of us. THANK YOU!

I’d also like to extend a special note of appreciation to ninety-nine-year-old British Army Captain Tom Moore. He set out a couple of weeks ago to cover 100 laps of his back yard (garden) in the hopes of raising £1,000 for the National Health Service.  He’s raised a staggering amount–at last check, the total is approaching £25.5 million! Well done, Captain Tom!

The weather hasn’t been too bad this week, except a bit chilly when the wind blows. We’ve taken advantage of the weather to do some much-needed pruning. One of the areas we hadn’t tackled yet since moving into the house was the clematis climbers, some of which are fifteen feet or so off the ground.  Armed with pruning sheers and attacking the myriad strands as if it was a jigsaw puzzle, most of the dead material has been removed. It’ll still take another day or so to get rid of the rest of the old stuff and tie the new/newer shoots into place. It’ll look fantastic when they’re in bloom!

So, who was born on this date in history? Let’s find out who in the writing world was born on April 19th. (Compliments of http://www.onthisday.com/today/birthdays):

Jacques Lelong, French bibliographer; Francisco Albergati Capacelli, Italian writer and playwright; David Ricardo, English economist (On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation); Louis Amédée Achard, French novelist (The Cloak and Dagger); Edward Vermeulen, Flemish writer; Ricardo Bacchelli, Italian playwright and poet (La Ronda); Richard Hughes, English writer (Fiction as Truth); Walter Stewart, Canadian writer and journalist; and Steven H. Silver, American sci-fi editor.

Colombian Betrayal’s online book tour is still ongoing until the end of the month, sponsored by Bewitching Book Tours. Why not stop by and learn a bit more about me?

https://www.bewitchingbooktours.biz/2020/04/now-on-tour-colombian-betrayal-by.html

My novel continues to participate in two Bookfunnel. If you’re interested in checking them out and perhaps finding new authors to read, here’s the schedule. The links won’t be active until the first day of each giveaway. I’d greatly you forward these to anyone you think might be interested.

April 7th-30th:

https://dashboard.bookfunnel.com/bundles/board/a3k53rc4a2

April 11th-26th:

https://books.bookfunnel.com/2nd-quarter-mystery/tvyvcj2sx6

 

As of January 26th, Carnage in Singapore became a semi-finalist in the 2019 Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBAs) in their Global Thrillers category. With the coronavirus outbreak, the completion of the 2019 competition has been delayed.  Chanticleer just announced a new level in the competition has been added. The judges requested a new level of achievement to be added to the rounds to acknowledge the entries that they deemed should receive a high level of recognition.

The 2019 CIBA Finalists for each division will be announced over the next few weeks. The CIBA First Place Category Winners, Division Grand Prize Winners, and Overall Grand Prize Winner will be determined from the CIBA Finalists and announced on September 5, 2020 at the CIBA Banquet and Ceremony scheduled for Sept. 5, 2020 during CAC20.

Once I know how Carnage in Singapore fared in the finalist round against the other twelve novels in the Global Thrillers category, I’ll share the information.

My Work in Progress

When I’m not working on marketing/promoting Colombian Betrayal, or working on my newsletter,  I’m continuing to move forward with my next novel, Xavier Sear: Angola. This week, chapter sixteen posted to the two online subscription writing sites I use. Although only posted for a short time, Angola has now received 175 chapter reviews, an increase of fifteen in the past week. As always, plenty of good advice from my faithful reviewers to provide as good a story for you as possible.

I’ll provide another snippet next time.

 

 

Books I’m Reading

I recently finished reading Lion on Fire by Ted Galdi. This is an exciting thriller and shows how things can go wrong despite the best of intentions. College grad Brian, a clean-cut man who tries to help his younger brother out of a jam. Before long, Brian’s up to his ears in trouble as he runs into the Russian mafia. Will he be able to hold them off long enough to help his brother, or will the plan he’s worked out with his friend Dusty result in a bitter end?

Ted’s created a superb plot with realistic characters. Through in a twist here and there and you’ll be burning the proverbial midnight oil as you continue turning the pages as you’ll want to find out what happens next. This is the first of Ted’s books I’ve read, and it 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.

© Copyright 2020 Randall Krzak. All rights reserved