Quote Of The Week Chinua Achebe

Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.
Chinua Achebe

Tempting Thursday Excerpts Over The Edge

"Brant Evans has Cedar Pines under his very heavy policeman's thumb. His wife Janna controls the town's social and political levers with her money. The two of them work hard to ruin the lives of anyone they don't like, or anyone who crosses them. Maggie Allen is caught up in their web of hate. Brant has special plans for Maggie, plans that include arrest, imprisonment, and ruin." -Wanda Keesey, Reviewer

Excerpt

Maggie Allen stood behind the counter eyeing the customers beginning to fill the booths. She grabbed her order pad and a pencil. A familiar couple seated themselves in her station. Inwardly, she seethed with anger as she watched them, but outwardly, she was bright and cheerful. She hated having to put on a false front, but knew it was a requisite of the job to treat all of her customers with friendliness, even those she couldn't stomach. 

"Hi, Brant. Janna," she said in the cheeriest voice she could muster. She flipped the order pad to a clean page. "What can I get you two?" 

"Coffee. Hon?" The man nodded toward the beautiful petite blond at his side. 

"The same." She smiled at Maggie. "Did you hear about our new house?" 

Maggie looked into her sparkling baby blue eyes. "Yes, I hear it's quite a showplace." She forced a tight smile. She'd give anything to be called away from their table instead of enduring their phony attempts at friendliness. They were up to something. That she was sure of. 

Quote Of The Week William Strunk, Jr.

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
William Strunk, Jr.

Tempting Thursday Excerpts The Stalker

Nothing or no one can stop him as he makes his way from Pittsburgh to Boston in search of the only woman who ever cared about him.
 
Jeremy Talbot is a lonely, troubled young man whose only friends are the demon voices he hears in his mind. His obsession with a young woman named Rebecca Walker leads him on a murderous rampage; he tries in vain to win her love and prove that the demons are wrong when they taunt him, declaring that she doesn't care for him.

 Excerpt

He watched from the window, the same streaked window from which he watched every morning. He'd been watching her for ten long years. He licked his lips in anticipation; his heart thudded irregularly in his chest just like it did every time he knew he would be seeing her. He moved the curtain slightly to get a better view.

Quote Of The Week Goodman Ace

The best cure for hypochondria is to forget about your body and get interested in someone else's.
Goodman Ace

Tempting Thursday Excerpts Silent Dreams

Blaine Kirsten unwittingly gets pulled into a prostitution ring when her best friend, Kami Matthews, introduces her to Josh Barnes. When Blaine refuses to become a part of his operation, she faces brutal consequences.

Detectives Jane Adams and Casey Jorgan are assigned to the case. Almost immediately, Casey finds herself unable to separate her personal emotions from this case, which jeopardizes her career.

 Excerpt

Kami Matthews gazed out of the grimy window watching the day slowly fade into dusk. She turned her blonde head and glanced at the clock on the stained wall. "Wow!" she exclaimed. "I didn't realize it was so late! I've got to get out of here." She gave her friend a quick hug. "Don't worry," she said brightly. "Everything will work out. You'll see. Be thankful that nothing worse happened."

"I guess so," Blaine Kirsten mumbled, staring down at her faded jeans. "I wish you could stay a little longer, though." She raised her eyes to Kami's "Please?" she pleaded. "I ... I don't want to be alone. I'm scared, Kami. Please stay for just another hour." She twisted her hands together. 

Quote Of The Week Henry David Thoreau

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

Henry David Thoreau

Happy Fourth of July!

Quotes For July 4^th

 This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.  ~Elmer Davis

Let freedom never perish in your hands.  ~Joseph Addison

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Liberty is the breath of life to nations.  ~George Bernard Shaw

Where liberty dwells, there is my country.  ~Benjamin Franklin

It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism.  ~J. Horace McFarland

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.  ~William Faulkner

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.  ~Abraham Lincoln

And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
~Lee Greenwood

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.  ~William J. Clinton

Quote Of The Week Benjamin Franklin

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Benjamin Franklin