It’s been forever since I posted- so many things have been happening that blogging wasn’t the top of priorities. I’m about to tell you why and am so sorry to share this news.
Brittany and John (soon to be ex-husband) are wanted for embezzlement, identity theft, and animal cruelty. While I was in Illinois for Service Dog training (I’m a 100 percent disabled vet), she broke into my bank account with John’s help and stole all my personal/banking/medical information and cleared it out, cleaned out my house of anything she could haul (down to towels and my tool set), trashed it, took my car/house/PO Box keys to strand me, and left the dogs to die. The poor animals actually gnawed opened some cans of dog food they found in my room- and this was after Britt stole 5 cases of food and bags, and closed the pantry door so they couldn’t even get to the biscuits. No water, toilet bowls dry- The dogs they left- one blind by dehydration, fell down the stairs- and the other one starved. The birds were without food or water, locked in cages filled with mold, and the house was loaded with maggots, flies, and feces. The police are estimating about ten days of abandonment, and weeks (probably when I left) of neglect.
These girls were retired service dogs and gave their lives and love to everyone. How could anyone be so cruel? More so, how could John have encouraged it? I didn’t want to post the more graphic pictures- but its so much worse than you can imagine.
I arrived home a week early (Friday) after receiving a nasty text from John filled with the most absurd accusations (all formed by Brittany). My house was vandalized and I discovered that Brittany’s been pocketing all the excess money since MAY. I should’ve known she was psychotic after she attacked all my author friends on FB years ago, and that she was using my identity to speak in my behalf- but this? And John? She made him dependent on her, lied to him and he went along with it. I’m beyond stunned.
Who does these things and why? I gave Brittany a home after she was abused by her ex. I gave her a car, clothes, food- everything. She was a daughter to me- this is how kindness is repaid. As for John- he’s old, frail and senile, and I believe she’s abusing him too, but he made the choice to go along with her. This isn’t the man I knew and loved.
The cops are useless… thank God for the humane society and mail fraud- they are pursing these criminals for animal cruelty and identity theft.
I am still as stunned as so many of you probably are. I never saw this coming- although (as wife #5), I should have seen that John, as a ‘failed’ musician, was using me for his upkeep until he could find someone else. I loved him with all my heart, trusted him with my life, gave him all of me– and to discover this betrayal is beyond my ability to comprehend.
For the second time since the liable and lies of 2016, I questioned where the humane was in humanity. I found it, this time, through my community here in Oregon and on FB, The Central Coast Humane Society, and a single deputy in Animal Control who is pursuing this case to the maximum.
I know times are tight, but if there’s any way you can help, I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.
Anyone who is in contact with John- PLEASE be careful. He’s controlled by Brittany now- and NOTHING she says is truth (I have hundreds of text messages and photographs to prove everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie). They will be asking for money and he (after she dumps him because he no longer can get into my disability account), will be looking for wife #6.
Thank all of you and please pray for the animals and me.
BHR is hosting tons of absolutely amazing authors whose books will blow you away. Please feel free to check them out and spread the word- and don’t forget to leave reviews. Those are the warm fuzzies we get when we know our readers have embraced our hearts!
Big Cranky: Fall Into Darkness
by James Pyne
Genre: Dark Mythological Fantasy, Action
Forget everything you think you know about myths and legends, James Pyne’s Big Cranky connects them all in an epic web of deceitful betrayal, love, and loyalty. A capricious tale of gods, showing human quirks are not only wasted on the mortals. A tale of many deities treading lightly around a superior as the world begins.
James Pyne hails from Nova Scotia, Canada, and has been a scribe for the Universe much of his life. He’s a firm believer in being able to write in every genre, to make his world building and characters hopefuly come out genuine. No matter what he writes it will have some form of darkness, nothing is pure light in any worlds James creates and rumor has it, his surviving characters are plotting his demise. When it comes to his past time, much of it is spent learning the craft, but he does enjoy gardening and playfully tormenting those he loves. When he’s not writing, or working his day job, he’s traveling. The Andalusia region of Spain the last place that tolerated him.
Favorite authors: John Gardner (Grendel, Sunlight Dialogues). Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov). Clive Barker (Imajica, Weaveworld, Books of Blood). Terry Pratchett (Good Omens, Bad Omens). J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings). And all the scribes who carried on the tradition of myths throughout the ages.
BHR is hosting tons of absolutely amazing authors whose books will blow you away. Please feel free to check them out and spread the word- and don’t forget to leave reviews. Those are the warm fuzzies we get when we know our readers have embraced our hearts!
Collapse
Dark Days Book 1
by Mark Lukens
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Horror
It started with rumors of a plague that turned people into flesh-eating predators. The governments of the world and the media tried to suppress it, but little by little the truth got out. The economy had been in a freefall, banks closed, protests turned into riots, people began hoarding and panicking. And then on a Friday morning, the collapse came.
After the government office where Ray Daniels works shuts down, he just wants to get home to his wife and kids. On his arduous journey home, Ray gets a call from Craig, his supervisor, inviting him and his family to his home where the answers to the collapse and the Ripper Plague are waiting for him, but the phone call breaks up and Ray only hears the word Avalon.
When Ray gets home to his family, the TV stations have been replaced with a loop of the President of the United States declaring martial law. The electricity and water are shut off soon after that. They hole up in their bedroom for the night – they have no weapons, little food, and no information about why everything collapsed so quickly.
After Ray’s neighbor, Helen, holds a secret meeting to try to fight back against martial law, she asks Ray to help her blind daughter Emma, promising that Emma can help him and his family find the way to Avalon. But what is Avalon, and what does Emma know about it?
Hours later, after soldiers in gas masks take Helen away, Ray has no choice but to flee with his family. Society has crumbled within the last twenty-four hours. Hordes of flesh-eating infected are loose on the streets. The police and military are doing their best to fight back, but they are losing the battle now. The collapse is here, and Ray wants the answers that Craig has, but he must keep his family alive first.
Josh Hooper has always been a screw-up. He’s done his share of jail time and has battled drugs and alcohol throughout his life. But since moving to Pittsburgh with his sister, Josh has gotten clean and turned his life around . . . just in time for the apocalypse.
As society begins to collapse on a Friday morning, Josh drives into the city to get some lifesaving medications for his nephew. When he tries to avoid the mass of panicked people and gridlocked traffic downtown, Josh is arrested, beaten, and detained.
Josh and some of the other uninfected are taken to a FEMA camp miles outside the city as the Ripper Plague continues to spread. They are taken to the camp for their protection, but Josh soon realizes that the camp is not what it seems to be . . . he believes terrible things may be happening there. Not only does he need to get back to his sister and nephew, but he needs to escape the evil brewing in the camp.
At night, while making his plans to escape, Josh dreams of a beautiful blind woman who calls to him, inviting him to head south to join her and others. And there’s someone else in his dreams, a man in the shadows with eyes that shine in the darkness, an evil man who will try to stop Josh and the others. But Josh can’t worry about people he sees in his dreams, people that he convinces himself aren’t real, because even though the chances of his sister and nephew being alive and uninfected are dwindling, he has to try to get to them.
Luke is not a nice man. He’s not a good person. But he’s a fighter . . . a survivor. A former MMA fighter who was sent to prison for attempted murder, Luke is accepted into a crime family run by Vincent, and during his years there he’s trained in weapons and the art of delivering pain.
When civilization collapses, Luke is sent to protect Vincent’s brother and his family. Luke finds the family slaughtered and the brother responsible, already infected by the Ripper Plague. After killing the brother, Luke knows he needs to flee the city. But with martial law declared and Vincent vowing revenge, sending the assassin who trained Luke after him, Luke’s chances of getting out of the city don’t look very good.
But Luke won’t give up, and with help from a woman who’s nearly as skilled and deadly as he is, Luke finds himself heading out of the city, on a new path, a journey south. In his dreams, Luke has seen a beautiful blind woman calling him south to be with her and the others. But there’s someone else in his dreams, a shadowy man of pure evil who is amassing an army to collect and control all the food and dwindling resources left behind. Not only will Luke and Wilma have to contend with the hordes of rippers on their journey, but they will have to run right through the shadowy man’s dark army.
Ray, Emma, and Mike are on their way to Doug’s cabin in the woods, their hope of refuge, when they drive into a trap in a small mountain town in West Virginia, a trap set by the Dark Angels, a gang controlled by the shadowy man they’ve seen in their dreams, the man who calls himself the Dragon.
Just when things are bleakest, Josh helps save Ray and the others. Josh is shocked when he sees Emma, the woman he’s seen in his dreams, the woman who has helped him along the way. And Josh has also seen Ray and Mike in his dreams. And he’s seen Luke and others. He knows that they are all meant to be together . . . if they can survive.
Miles away, Luke has made his way south from the Camp, but he gets trapped in the small town of Heaven, West Virginia, hunkered down in a building, the place surrounded by Dark Angels. But Luke has weapons and ammo to hold them off for a little while. A Dark Angel calls out to Luke on a megaphone, trying to convince him to surrender and promising that he has a surprise coming for him.
After a nearly-deadly encounter with a horde of rippers, Ray drives Josh, Emma, and Mike right into the battle in Heaven, West Virginia. And soon they are banded together with Luke. But now they are trapped together, making plans to escape, as the surprise the Dark Angels have promised comes into town.
Will they make it to their refuge, the cabin in the mountains? And if they do, is the refuge truly the safe place they’ve been dreaming of . . . or is it even more dangerous?
Kate Crawford’s world was shattered when the Collapse came. It seemed like one moment she was a university professor of Anthropology, and the next moment she was hiding in her home from the Ripper Plague, tortured by nightmares of a shadowy man with shining eyes. And then the Dark Angels came to her neighborhood, marking front doors and searching homes – she had no choice but to leave.
She planned to travel west, back to her hometown in the mountains of North Carolina, back to an oppressive family she vowed never to return to . . . but she has nowhere else to turn now.
Before she can even make it out of the city, she’s stuck on the roof of a building with a possible madman, the streets below overrun with tens of thousands of rippers. But she knows she needs to get out of the city, because the blind woman in her dreams tells her to head west, telling her that there are others like her, that they will all be together . . . they just need to find each other first.
Ray, Mike, Emma, Luke, and Josh think they’ve found their refuge at the West Virginia cabin, but it all falls apart when Luke finds tracks in the snow at the edge of the woods. Someone has been watching them. A ripper? A Dark Angel? Someone else? Soon they find their stalker, a young woman, but is she who she says she is? Can they believe her story?
To the south, in North Carolina, Lisey brings a horde of rippers to Kate’s parents’ home where Kate, Brooke, Petra, and Max are holed up. They don’t have time to pack their truck as they try to get away from the mob of rippers. But even if they get away, they don’t realize that something is waiting for them in the shadows of the woods just down the street.
Each group faces its own challenges, yet they are getting closer and closer to coming together. They need to be strong because the Dragon and his evil forces have ramped up their game, herding them where he wants them, ready for the final attack.
Mark Lukens has been writing since the second grade when his teacher called his parents in for a conference because the ghost story he’d written had her a little concerned.
Since then he’s had several stories published and four screenplays optioned by producers in Hollywood. He is the author of many bestselling books including: Ancient Enemy, Sightings, Devil’s Island, The Exorcist’s Apprentice, Followed, and more. He is a member of The Horror Writers Association.
He grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida. But after many travels and adventures, he settled down near Tampa, Florida with his wonderful wife and son … and a stray cat they adopted.
He loves to hear from readers! He can be found on Facebook at Mark Lukens Books, on Twitter @marklukensbooks, and you can follow his blog at www.marklukensbooks.wordpress.com. He can be reached by e-mail at mark@marklukensbooks.com.
BHR is hosting tons of absolutely amazing authors whose books will blow you away. Please feel free to check them out and spread the word- and don’t forget to leave reviews. Those are the warm fuzzies we get when we know our readers have embraced our hearts!
Lights Out
Bringer of Chaos: How Six Became Six
by Kayelle Allen
Genre: Science Fiction
Join the Ghost Corps, they said. You’ll live forever, they said. You’ll save mankind, they said. They didn’t say that to do it, first he had to die. When Tornahdo signs on the dotted line, he puts his life into the steady hands of the mighty Ghost Corps. Three grisly deaths and three agonizing resurrections later, he’s assigned duty on the space station Enderium Six. He’s facing his most dangerous mission yet, the very reason the corps exists. Do they expect him to win? Fat chance. Tornahdo and his team are already dead and this mission is codenamed “Lights Out.” No, there’s more to this than he can see. To discover the truth, he must face an unbeatable, unkillable enemy, and this time–somehow–find a way to keep himself alive…
Tornahdo is facing his most dangerous mission, the very reason Ghost Corps exists. He must take out the king responsible for every war between humans and Ultras since the origin of the Ultra bloodline. If he succeeds, the war is over. If he doesn’t, the Ultras will rule mankind for another thousand years…
I’m Science Fiction author Kayelle Allen. I did a tour in the US Navy, where I climbed around airplanes fixing black boxes that helped pilots find their way home. I wrote my first novel at 18 but to this day, it’s hidden under my bed, where (trust me) it will remain. Gems from it, however, launched several series in my galaxy-wide universe of stories. From childhood, I was the victim of an overactive imagination and inherited the Irish gift of gab from my mother. From my father, I got a healthy respect for mechanical things. Small wonder I write Science Fiction and Fantasy peopled with misbehaving robots, mythic heroes, role playing immortal gamers, and warriors who purr.
I’m a member of RomVets, a group of military and former military women who write romance. In 2014, I was awarded an honorary lifetime membership to the OutlantaCon Science Fiction Convention for support of the convention since its debut. I founded Marketing for Romance Writers (more about them below), and today it has over 7k members. I also lead a writer’s group in my community. Now that I’m retired, I stay busier than ever. I’ve been married so long I’m tenured.
I am a graphic artist as a hobby. Most of the art and banners on this site and in my social media were created by me, including my logo. I have a great design team that I also work with, commissioning special pieces. Check out their pages. Jamin (Volgraza) and Livius (Nano-Core) have huge amounts of talent. I am also privileged to work with a cosplayer who portrays my immortal king, Pietas. Take a moment to check out Nik Nitsvetov’s amazing work.
