Bio
Midwest Journal Press publishes popular new authors in most genres. Visit https://livesensical.com/book-series/fiction/ to see their latest releases.Genres
Blurbs
An entertaining, diverse set of stories with a nice hint of satire and intriguing perspectives!
This book cover and title certainly caught my attention. I love a unique mystery and this one fits the bill!
Love reading short stories and trying new authors!
I love the concept of the story. And the uniqueness of a world created out of the ordinary terrorist act. Cannot wait for others to read it.
Looking forward to reading this
What an intriguing premise!
Great to see some new short fiction!
Such a beautiful cover and amazing story!
This sounds really interesting!
This looks fun.
Free Book Giveaways
The Tunnel People by R. L. Saunders
While Marj is helping urban archaeologists, she discovers a secret map that she has to hide from the authorities.
It tells of an underground system of tunnels that cross through mazes of paths under North America, using old limestone caves and aquifers, even connecting to the old ICBM missle bases.
It had been a long and brutal war. At the end, one side was banished underground, long decades ago. If this was true, the war may not be as over as they thought.
She enlisted Rob to help her decipher this map and explore this underground world. They have to work in secret as many of their "finds" have been known to disappear, along with the discoverers.
These two lone researchers find in each other more than they expected...
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Beltway Gremlin by R. L. Saunders
Indecision has been known to kill people. In politics, it just makes fund-raising harder.
That's why we gremlins love the politicians. When they built Washington on our swamp, we got the best deal out of it.
Us and the faerie-folk.
Until then, we only had the natives and the migrant colonists to work with. Influencing their minds and helping them to live more "interesting" lives."
But when they paved over that swamp and replaced it with all sorts of statuary, and homes and lots of unelected bureaucrats, then the fun began.
It's said that the Beltway changes people. No - they are all listening to us - and changing their minds, constantly. Just to keep from going crazy...
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Cats Typing Romance by R. L. Saunders
Ever wonder how all these Romances and Academic papers get written?
Interestingly, most of these authors have pets. Cats, particularly, who like to type. Seriously. But you'll never know it. Because they get into your dreams at night and make you think you did all that typing.
Of course, this might explain some of the wild theories that come out of Universities these days, as well as the exotic Romances...
Excerpt:
F. D. C. Willard, a red tabby cross-bred house cat, was at his usual location for 3am. Typing out a new paper about helium-3 isotopes and the cosmic interrelationships of theoretical sub-orbital particles within nuclei.
Not that he was all that interested in the subject, but it was another chore of his.
The Lonely Witness by R. L. Saunders
She told the magistrate she had been abused, taken advantage of, her reputation ruined.
Or had she?
The village law said that the benefit of the doubt lay with the most vulnerable. And so women were believed when they said some male had fondled or groped or acted in a threatening manner.
For Lyla, it had happened many times. All to her shame.
The men she accused were penalized and their own reputations marked.
Simply denying it was no defense. For in every accusation Lyla presented, there was no witness to say what had happened.
Most of these men stayed far away from Lyla after that. Many left the village.
All to Lyla's benefit. Or was it?
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The Chardonnay Conspiracy by R. L. Saunders
What happens when politicians get old and can no longer be trusted?
Out of power, living on a trust fund, her philandering husband living his own life without her.
Only her dreams of one-time fame (and an often re-filled case of wine) to keep her company, and her old campaign adviser to visit now and then to help her with her biography. Trapped in her own, private, white house. A form of retirement.
But she knows they are all up to something. A conspiracy. So she quietly quits her meds. And starts conspiring back...
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The Ghost Who Loved by S. H. Marpel
Rose doesn't know why she survived the accident and everyone else was dead.
It was horrible. And she hasn't been able to cry since. Even at the graveyard where she was now.
And then she looked over a few rows and saw a guy standing in front of a grave marker of his own. He looked too sad for someone that good looking.
She came over to see if she could console him, help him somehow. His name was Tom, and he had the most amazing eyes she'd ever seen.
But something was different about him, something that haunted even her.
The War Bringeth - by C. C. Brower
When there are no more governments, other than on paper, one Corporation will rule and solve all povertey and warfare. The solution enabled people to stay "jacked in" and code 24/7, loving the opportunity.
***If the Matrix had a prequel, this would be it.***
Excerpt:
We were called to war. And all volunteers. Not for god or country but for our corporation.
The global one. The one we were all warned against. It came in the back door that had built into our culture. The China-Russia pact had founded it, and gradually its handouts and bribes co-opted all the governments until it was just the U.S. and a handful of holdouts that weren’t on board. Until they were.
Our job was simple. We coded. All day, all night. Jacked in and plugged in with all the nutrients we needed to keep us going...
The Caretaker by C. C. Brower
A Writer Recluse Places an Ad for a Caretaker and Gets More Than He Asked For
This quiet contemporary fiction has a calm romance beneath the seeming gruff exterior of a reclusive writer who wants his solitude above all else.
When a caretaker arrives who is every bit as quietly headstrong about keeping the place tidy, there have to be some adjustments...
Excerpt:
Herman Gauss found a caretaker through an ad he placed.
As a reclusive writer, he didn’t much care for what he got, but had some wishes. Since he’d never married again, the idea of having a female moving about the big empty house made him both worried and content. He had been happy to live quietly at the end of a long, dusty road, but found his cleaning habits left too much dust around.
He wanted to write, not clean house...
The Autists by J. R. Kruze
Carol and Reggie were different. They thought different. Reggie could talk "the ears off a corn stalk." He was an expert on history, like a walking Wikipedia on ancient times (if people could stand to listen to him.) Carol hardly talked, but her hugs could tell you the world. She could solve quintic polynomial equations. And a 4x4 Rubic's cube with one hand.
They were autists. "Special needs" people. Savants, kind of.
They were perfect for each other. Or maybe not. So different.
Between them, they understood the universe.
It was no small surprise that they were part of the next stage in human evolution. The one that's already here. Of course they knew it. But most of humanity didn't...
A Long Wait for Santa by C. C. Brower
The house seemed so empty now with the children all grown up and on their own. Just me and my masters. I'd always loved when Santa came, and it hadn't happened since the last child had quit living here.
But this holiday was different somehow, especially after I found that red had with the white fluffy edge on it. Maybe old Santa would be here this year...
Two Bonus Short Stories Included:
The Emperor's Scribe -
A young apprentice teaches the Emperor truths found in recording the day-to-day events of the Royal Court. What he disovered changed an empire...
When Vacation Plans Revise -
He was in the bathroom when the explosion left him alone in a plus-size emergency spacesuit. Ahead is the greatest challenge of his life - survive with the little training he'd gotten or else...
Her Eyes by J. R. Kruze
What You Don't Know CAN Hurt You.
What You Don't Remember Can Get You Killed.
He looked into her eyes - and forgot everything about himself.
He'd done something that night, but couldn't remember.
And she had left him like that. Until she returned as a Homeland Security agent to save him from two cops who wanted him for questioning.
Now on the run, in disguise, his memory wasn't returning very fast. Josh depended on this mysterious Rosa to get and keep him out of harm's way as they travelled out of L.A. and into remote backroads of Southern California.
There's something about her Josh doesn't understand, or just doesn't remember. Yet.
To solve their situation, Josh will have to recover his lost memories.
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The Lazurai by J. R. Kruze
An unintended result of a terrorist bombing a children's hospital, the Lazurai could kill a person without touching them.
The government made it worse by their experiments. All the children wanted was to feel love like any child. When they grew older, their powers increased. And they found they couldn't be stopped.
Chuck hears a rumor of one coming his way, to his remote way station on the highway. But he can't leave his wife, who's dying. So he waits. And sees the hooded Lazurai walking the long miles on a hot desert day toward him.
All he can do is wait.
What he doesn't know is that this one is different from all the rumors. And his life is going to change forever.
The Lazurai is named Rochelle. And she may be the solution to Chuck and his dying wife's problems...
The Hooman Probe by C. C. Brower
When Sue crash-lands back on Earth, she didn't know what to expect. What she found was a telepathic wolf pack, capable of reasoning and the dominant life form on the planet. They were in a fight for survival with the feral species of wolves, as well as the remnants of humankind.
In the first part of this, Sue learns to communicate and to travel with the pack as they fight and escape from the hunting ferals. In doing so, she fights alongside Tig, the hunting pack leader, to save both their lives.
What she wanted was to get back to the moon base to rescue her family. She didn't know how bad the collapse was.
But before she can get anywhere, she has to prove to the sentient wolf pack that she can be trusted. This means a "probe." Something no human has survived.
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Ghost Hunters Part One by S. H. Marpel
It started with a dream.
In it, John Earl Stark solved the problem of a ghost he met. Or did he? It was a dream, after all.
The next day he meets two women who visit his cabin, arriving out of the blue, literally. (Well, one arrived with pitched black darkness which filled his cabin and made her cough.)
These two have an offer for Stark. All he really wanted was to enjoy the small cabin and solitude so he could write his detective stories.
These ladies had another offer - to help them solve the reasons ghosts don't move on. Plenty of new inspiration for stories, decent pay, won't interrupt his writing schedule.
Of course, he could die doing it...
Death by Advertising by J. R. Kruze
I was her closest friend. But didn't know she was dead.
Until I saw the full page ad in the paper advertising her funeral. And my company ran that ad - without my knowing it.
Another mystery was in how she died. No corpse, just an urn filled with ashes that was distributed over the harbor without any witnesses. Shown by a slick video played at her funeral.
No motive. Just a disappearance. The coroner's report from an upstate, rural county stated natural causes. For a young 20-something advertising executive.
But there were no details left unaccounted for. Funeral arrangements paid for in advance. Even the police chief said it was a closed case. That didn't stop Detective Johnson from being curious...
2 Bonus Stories: "A Goddess Visits" and "Long Overdue Santa."
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The Case of Jennie Brice by Mary Roberts Rinehart
The Case of Jennie Brice is a crime novel that tells the story of a blood-stained rope and towel, and a missing tenant, Jenny Brice—all of which convince Mrs. Pittman that a murder has been committed in her boarding house. But without a body, the police say there is no case. Pittman tries to ferret out the killer by using the key to Jennie's apartment to investigate.
In this classic mystery from "American Agatha Christie" Mary Roberts Rinehart, a terrible crime unfolds amidst the worst possible circumstances-devastating flooding that has incapacitated the city of Allegheny, Pennsylvania.
In a flooded house, Mrs. Pittman has to solve a classic case using only her wits - and a key to missing tenant's apartment. This classic whodunit will leave you guessing.
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