Nicholas Deitch is here to tell us about Death and Life in the City of Dreams, literary fiction.
There's also a great giveaway.
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Literary Fiction
Date Published: April 16th
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Jaded city planner Townsend Meadows looks out across Evermore Valley
with the ghost of his dead friend by his side. “Do you ever
wonder,” Fen asks, “what this city will look like five hundred
years from now?”
Their city is teetering on the brink of collapse, and the mayor’s answer
is a gleaming new auto mall at the valley’s edge. For Townsend,
it’s the death of everything a city should be. Struggling to regain his
passion and forced to choose between compliance and conviction, he must risk
his career to fight for a more hopeful and verdant future.
From an
architect’s vision at the dawn of the twentieth century, to a
rancher’s dynasty scarred by violence and greed, to a city
founder’s hidden message of hope, this story about the rise, fall, and
reawakening of an American city reaches far beyond the present. A timely,
sweeping novel of memory, corruption, and resilience, Death and Life in the
City of Dreams asks, “What legacy will we choose to leave for our
children?”
About the Author
Nicholas Deitch is a writer, architect, and advocate for social justice whose
fiction explores the intersection of cities, history, and human resilience.
His passion for storytelling began when a colleague recognized the emotional
depth of his nonfiction work. Since then, he has honed his craft, publishing
short stories in Litro Magazine, Club Plum, and Santa Barbara Literary
Journal. His short story “Grace Eternal” won Best Fiction at the
Santa Barbara Writers Conference (2019).
Death and Life in the City of Dreams, his debut novel, is deeply influenced by
his experiences in nonprofit leadership and the design of inclusive
communities and urban places.
Originally from Los Angeles, he now lives in Ventura, California, with his
wife and creative partner Diana.
The
romance between Patty Jo Lovelace and David Buckley Jr. is an unlikely one. He’s
a star student; she’s the class dud. He’s programmed for success; she plans to
drop out of school, work at the local greasy spoon. But recognizing her natural
intelligence and love of books, David begs her to aim higher—education can take
her out of her milieu.
Patty Jo listens to no one. With
another way of seeing the world, she has to find her own way,
even if that means making terrible mistakes. Besides, she has a secret: she can
read plays, memorize the lines, become someone else in a different life.
In this story that spans fifty years, the themes are social class, the search for identity, and
finding personal courage.
Blurb:
A passion for books creates a lasting bond between
teenage Patty Jo and David, but small-town prejudice and social differences
doom their romance.
After a summer of reading and falling in love,
David heads for university, foreign adventure, and a dazzling career; Patty Jo marries slick, over-confident Don Ried.
Yet plans can go horribly wrong. The victim of her
violent husband, Patty Jo abandons her home and children to live on the streets
of Toronto. David, a high-ranking executive in Paris, is dismayed by the superficiality of
corporate success.
Forty years later, Patty Jo and David meet again.
Both have defied society; both have fulfilled their dreams. And what if first
love was the right one after all, and destiny has the last word?
Excerpt
from Words for Patty Jo
She can be any
sort of person, copy the confident young women who are coffeehouse customers,
mimic the audacious ones she sees on the streets. She sometimes follows unusual
people for whole blocks, learns their gestures, conjures up the snappy repartee
she wants them to have.
Why, she hasn’t
had this much fun in her whole life. Men? They don’t know what’s real. They
have no idea that deep inside there’s the stupid Patty Jo. The stupid failure
who has run away from home, abandoned her kids, left her husband. What would
they think if they knew?
She teaches
herself not to care. If she’s sometimes frightened, wonders what the future
will bring, she pushes down the thoughts, walks on in the sexy way she has
perfected, the way that makes men look with lust and turns their women sour.
PRAISE FOR WORDS FOR PATTY JO:
In this compelling and wonderfully written story, Jill Arlene Culiner
fearlessly challenges romantic illusions to reveal the true components of
lasting love as mutual honesty, respect, compassion and steadfastness. It's a
must read.Penny Lynn Cookson, Arts and
culture writer
The
characters are authentic, and portrayed with remarkable sensitivity. The
writing is beautiful, highly effective, yet remarkably subtle. Roso Creation
This is a love story spanning decades but it is also about the
paths we take in life, the people who influence our growth, the highs and lows,
and the strength of the human spirit. It is also a reminder that we should
never stop dreaming, loving or striving to find our right place in the world.I have no hesitation in
recommending this beautifully written story. Sally Cronin, Smorgasbord Magazine
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Writer, artist, and teller of tall tales, Jill (J.) Arlene
Culiner, was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of
Europe on foot, has lived on the Great Hungarian Plain, in a Bavarian castle, a
Turkish cave dwelling, and a haunted house on the English moors. She now
resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village where she protects
spiders, snakes, and weeds. She delights in hearing any nasty, funny,
ridiculous, or romantic story, and when she can’t uncover gossip, she makes it
up.
She has won the Tanenbaum Prize in Canadian Jewish History,
the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, was shortlisted for the
Foreword Magazine Prize, and twice for the Page Turner Awards.
Andrea Jones is here to tell us about Hook & Jill, The Hook & Jill saga book 1, literary fiction.
Read on for details...
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Literary Fiction
In celebration of Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19th – We
present Hook & Jill, Book One of the The Hook & Jill Saga
An ageless fable grows up...
Wendy Darling learns. What appears to be good may prove otherwise, and what
seems to be evil…is irresistible. In this startling new vision of a
cultural classic, Wendy intends to live happily ever after with Peter Pan. But
Time, like this tale, behaves in a most unsettling way.
As Wendy mothers the Lost Boys in Neverland, they thrive on adventure. She
struggles to keep her boys safe from the Island’s many hazards, but she
finds a more subtle threat encroaching from an unexpected quarter.…The
children are growing up, and only Peter knows the punishment.
Yet in the inky edges of the Island, the tales Wendy tells to the Lost Boys
come true. Captain Hook is real, and even the Wonderful Boy can’t defend
his Wendy against this menace. Hook is a master manipulator, devising
vengeance for his maiming. Insidious and seductive, Hook has his reasons for
tempting Wendy to grow up. Revenge is only the first.
Deepening the characters so artfully sketched by J.M. Barrie, Hook & Jill
reveals the dark side of innocence at which Barrie hinted in the figure of
Peter Pan. It brings alive a daring Wendy who asks questions and seeks truth;
it delves into the man, Hook, the iconic villain. Striding from fairy-tale and
thrusting into reality, Captain Hook becomes a frightening force indeed.
About the Author
Andrea Jones is the author of the Hook & Jill Saga, an award-winning
series of Neverland novels for adult readers.
Jones graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she
studied Oral Interpretation of Literature, with a Literature Minor. In her
career in television production, she worked for CBS and PBS affiliates, and
corporate studios, also performing as on-camera and voice-over talent.
Jones is an editor of the Reginetta Press Classics Restoration program, which
seeks to preserve the integrity of beloved old manuscripts before they are
lost to time. The first project in the program is Peter and Wendy: The
Restored Text. In tribute to J.M. Barrie, Jones corrected alterations made by
modern publishers, returning Barrie’s timeless tale to its exact 1911
first edition text. This book is the basis of the Hook & Jill Saga, and
Jones remains true to J.M. Barrie’s vision of his Neverland and its
inhabitants.
Andrea Jones is known around the world as Capitana Red-Hand of the web-based
pirate brotherhood, Under the Black Flag. She is also a member of the pirate
re-enaction troupe, the Brethren of the Great Lakes. Her home port is near
Chicago.
Maureen Aitken is here to tell us about The Patron Saint of Lost Girls, literary fiction, short story collection.
Read on for details...
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Literary Fiction / Short Story Collection
Date Published: 09-16-2025
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
In 1970s and '80s Detroit, the city wrestles with an unending economic
downturn, increasing violence, and white exodus to the suburbs. Amid all of
this is twentysomething Mary who is just trying to grapple with her identity
in a world filled with uncertainty.
In this collection of linked stories, we follow Mary as she seeks to cope with
and withstand hardship and confront her fears of exploitation, abuse, and
death. Along the way, she delves into the complex yet nurturing relationships
with her family and friends who teach her to love better, live fuller, and
question power. The Patron Saint of Lost Girls presents an unflinching tale of
life in the late twentieth-century postindustrial Midwest.
Excerpt
“AUGUST, WHEN the cicadas burned and the lawnmowers sounded like
industrial bees, we couldn’t stop. In the bedroom, on the couch, on the
floor. Afterward we would lie there, reading the paper or letting the
television taunt us like a car salesman. Paul would wiggle his toes against
mine, and we’d look at one another for a long time. His face was like a
catcher’s mitt, warm and beaten. He reminded me of one of those boys who
had moved away when I was little, but Paul had returned a man.”
-“This is Art”
About the Author
Maureen Aitken’s short-story collection, The Patron Saint of Lost
Girls, received a Kirkus star, the Nilsen Prize, and the Foreword Review INDIE
Gold Prize for General Fiction. It will be reissued in September, 2025 by
Wayne State University Press. Her stories have earned a Minnesota State Arts
Board’s Artist Initiative Grant, a Loft Mentor Award, an award from
Ireland’s Fish Short Story Prize, and two Pushcart Prize nominations. It
was also nominated for a Minnesota Book Award. Her stories have been published
in Prairie Schooner and New Letters, among others. This is her second story
featured in The Missouri Review’s Blast section.
George Ochoa is here to tell us about Stranger Still, literary fiction, thriller.
There's also a great giveaway.
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Stranger Still
George Ochoa
Publication date: August 19th 2025
Genres: Adult, Literary Fiction, Thriller
Paul Inster, a brilliant, insane Columbia college student majoring in English with an undisclosed minor in knives, is in love with graduate student, Tracy Iridio. Seeing her in the library every day, he mistakenly believes she is in love with him and that she is a goddess, Teresa. In fact, the two have never met, and she does not know who he is. When, for the first time, he sees her with her boyfriend, classical history professor Larry Post, Paul sets out to destroy Larry via a campaign of terror. As the campaign mounts, Larry, mystified, tries to figure out who is attacking him and why. Through a series of surprises and confusions, the campaign escalates to murder.
Stranger Still is both a thriller and a literary novel, combining suspense and violence with rich language, webs of cultural allusions, and themes of love and madness.
Teresa and I often made love, though never in the flesh. To this day the psychiatrists will scrutinize such a statement as if it meant something other than what it plainly says, as if it were the telltale boil of some rare mental pox that might explain the blood spills photographed by the police. But these doctors do not understand love, optics, metaphysics, error, or even good taste. As far as flesh went, I never touched or even talked to Teresa, not until our moral decline had already begun. Before then, seeing the chaste tables that divided us in the Columbia library less than a decade ago, in the middle years of the 1990s, you might have thought Teresa and I were strangers, that she didn’t know I was alive.
I first saw her early in my junior year, a new female sitting several tables away in the Burgess-Carpenter reading room on the fourth floor of Butler Library. She seemed at first like any other of the pretty women on campus whom I liked to ogle and who regarded me as if I were invisible. But the more I stared at her, the more she particularly interested me. A pile of books rested near her elbow on the blond pine table, her head bent with rapt attention over her open book. Hazy September sunlight from the tall windows bathed her small breasts in her magenta top, made the white skin of her forearms glow. Her dark-brown hair was long and luxuriant, her neck long, her face shaped like that of a Raphael Madonna. But what captured me most were her eyes—large, sad eyes, ringed with mauve circles as if she hadn’t slept well. Why was she sad? Was there something I could do to make her happier?
We sat like that for a long time, she near the east end of a table in the back, never noticing me, while I shot frequent glances at her from near the west end of the second table from the door. About twenty feet diagonally divided us, too far for me to discern her eye color, though I tried. Finally, she got up, gathering her books into a white canvas tote bag and walking toward the door. As her gangly frame passed me, I gave her eyes a good look and saw they were hazel, flickering elusively under their long lashes from green to brown to gold.
The thought of her big, sad, long-lashed hazel eyes kept me happy for the rest of my day at Columbia. Even when I boarded the downtown Number One train, the first of the three trains that every evening buried me back in Jamaica, Queens, I was still thinking of those eyes. But an hour and fifteen minutes in the subways will discourage anyone. By the time I left the second leg, the D train, for the final and longest leg, the F, my thoughts were turning dark. The train was crowded with smelly, loam-colored laborers imported from faraway continents, and me just one of the horde.
Most students at Columbia boarded, but because my family was poorer than that of the standard Ivy Leaguer, I was a commuter. Combined with my natural tendency toward solitude, this meant I had no friends either on campus or anywhere else. I longed to make contact with someone, anyone, but did not know how. Sometimes I just wanted to pet them—the young secretary sitting before me on the subway in vinyl jacket and glittery eyeliner—to touch her shoulder, her pulsing throat, and say, “I am here. I am lonely. Help me.” Sometimes I wanted to hit them—the goon in the Yankees cap. When I felt particularly desperate, I wanted to stab them. I had knives that would have fit that purpose, but I never took them out of the house.
Author Bio:
George Ochoa’s first novel is the thriller Stranger Still. In addition, he has written or cowritten thirty-five nonfiction books, including The Book of Answers, The Writer’s Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe, The American Film Institute Desk Reference, and Deformed and Destructive Beings: The Purpose of Horror Films. His short fiction has been published in North American Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Eunoia Review, Bangalore Review, and elsewhere. He is also the author of published poems and essays.
Mark Nistor is here to tell us about Surviving Karma, The Karma Series Book 2, literary fiction, mystery.
Read on for details...
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The Karma Series, Book 2
Literary Fiction, Mystery
Date Published: November 9, 2024
Officer Bella Streit's abduction has yet to make headlines. Her captor once
again humiliates police by nabbing Captain Stark's protective detail from
the precinct parking lot. Her predecessor, the third officer taken, adds to
the comedic nature of embarrassing the police. Taken from the scene of an
accident, Officer Tauron Sandoval's handling reflects the lengths at which
Pin will go to feed his hunger. Now with Bella secured, Pin no longer
needing Tauron leaves her to a fast moving hourglass of life. Her minimal
sands flow as two other officers succumb.
Pin seeks revenge through torturing those he deems as old police.
Detectives Rix and Jain work the case. They find a roadmap offering clues to
the serial killer's endgame. The roadmap given to them by informants.
However, unknown by the detectives is Pin also has informants feeding him
information. Double agent informants play their roles as if trained spies.
Both parties question the loyalties while traversing to the ultimate
showdown.
Surviving Karma will require finding the common ingredient to their
sandwiches of life.
Well, Mark’s just a guy who made a life-changing promise.
Mark prides himself on being a family man, entrepreneur and now, author.
Trained to be a certified logistics professional, Mark got a certificate in
video and television production. Script writing class helped expand a love
for transforming ideas into stories. One of those first scripts would become
a first novel, Challenging Karma.
The published author experience has always placed high on a list of
dreams.
Mark’s late mother would be the one to give the push needed to make
the dream a reality. After reading a first draft; she offered encouragement
toward finishing a yet to be named story. The self-published Karma series is
how he is keeping a promise to her.
