Book Spotlight: A Human Element by Donna Galanti



A Human Element Excerpt

 

Ben held Laura on the rocky beach and traced her face as her eyes remained closed. He put a finger to her throat and felt her heart racing. Fire poured off her, pulsing like heat waves shimmering on hot asphalt baking in a summer sun. He tried not to look at the swell of her breasts pushing up from the lavender lace that embraced her sweet points. And so he concentrated on her face, trying to make sense of what happened.

Ben hadn’t meant to come to the lake so early, but he had tossed and turned the night before. A monster chased him in his dreams. He couldn’t see his face though. Laura ran with him and he knew the monster would kill them both. He had to save her. But the thing that chased them grew closer and closer. Then he woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. All he could think of was Laura. He felt as if his whole life had been leading up to meeting her. Like fate. He wished he had answers to all the questions he had about her, but he could wait if it meant he could spend more time with her. And so he came to the lake before the sun came up to take his mind off her. He had to find something in these woods to give him answers about his parents’ death, or peace at least. He intended to search every part of it. He had all the time in the world.

He had traced the shoreline and headed through the trees toward the fenced-in area when he heard crashing noises. He followed the noise and pushed through the brush to get to the lake. There stood Laura, waving like a wild conductor as sticks and rocks sailed through the air before her in a cloud of chaos. She was so beautiful, standing there like a goddess as her hair blew around her. Her body shone with sweat and her muscles rippled as she conducted the air. Once again, he was mesmerized. Who was this girl?

And now here he held her to him in stillness and peace. He wondered who she had been screaming to just before she fainted. He had so many questions to ask her. His troubles and past faded in the background as he tried to understand this woman he just met yesterday.

“Laura.”

Her eyes fluttered and then opened to stare right at him.

“Ben.” She struggled to get up and he helped her. She swayed once and he gripped her arm to steady her. She stared at him and then looked at the piles of rock and wood strewn about from her violent show. “Oh my God.”

“You’re okay.” He held onto her arm.

She wouldn’t look at him and moved away, bending down to pick up her turtleneck trapped under rocks. She tugged it out and turning away from him, quickly pulled it over her head.

“What just happened here?”

“I did that. I can make things move.” Laura sat down on a flat boulder nearby.

“Like telekinesis?”

“Yes, some call it psychokinesis.”

“You can really move objects with your mind? But how?”

“I don’t know how. I’ve been able to do it his since I was a child. That . . . and other things.”

Ben moved closer to her and stood over her. He looked at her turtleneck, remembering what she looked like with it off. She gazed up at him, her large eyes sad. She looked tired, but he had so many questions. He sat down on the boulder with her and took her hand. It was slim and pale next to his large, tan hand. She rubbed his thumb over and over in a smooth movement, staring off in the distance. He felt a jolt inside as her fingers moved over his.

“I’m listening,” Ben said softly. “If you want to tell me more.”

“I can heal people too.”

He touched her hair and turned her face toward him. “You’re amazing.”

“More like cursed.” Laura shivered from the cool breeze coming off the lake. Ben reached over and picked up her sweater that was twisted on the ground and put it around her shoulders.

“Perhaps cursed, but also amazing.”

“I saved my mother’s life once and my friend, Mr. B, but I couldn’t save my other friends.” Laura’s eyes welled with tears and one trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away. “They died in horrible ways all because of me.”

Ben squeezed her hand, not understanding, but knowing whatever she had been through in her past was worse than what he had been through. They were two tormented souls.

Laura looked into Ben’s eyes and tilted her head as if to make up her mind. “Why are you here?”

He wasn’t expecting that question and shrugged. “I don’t know anymore. I came here to find some answers. But now I met you and not by chance, I think.” He looked out over the lake. It was a perfect autumn day with the sun shining on the water and geese flying overhead. The kind of idyllic day ordinary couples had hikes and picnics on. This wasn’t such a day.

“I think we were meant to meet to help one another, don’t you?”

“I think so too. We may not know how yet, but I think we will soon.”

“Then, can I trust you?”

He looked at her for a long moment. “You can trust me, Laura.”

She stood up then and tied her sweater around her shoulders. She walked to the shoreline and turned back to look at Ben with her hands on her hips. “Then I have a lot to tell you.”

 

A Human Element        
Donna Galanti
 
Genre: Paranormal Suspense
 
Publisher: Echelon Press
 
ISBN: 978-1590808764
ASIN: B007IIIZUO
 
Number of pages: 310
Word Count: 103,000
 
BN   Amazon    Smashwords

Book Description:

One by one, Laura Armstrong’s friends and adoptive family members are being murdered, and despite her unique healing powers, she can do nothing to stop it. The savage killer haunts her dreams, tormenting her with the promise that she is next.

Determined to find the killer, she follows her visions to the site of a crashed meteorite–her hometown. There, she meets Ben Fieldstone, who seeks answers about his parents’ death the night the meteorite struck. In a race to stop a mad man, they unravel a frightening secret that binds them together. But the killer’s desire to destroy Laura face-to-face leads to a showdown that puts Laura and Ben’s emotional relationship and Laura’s pure spirit to the test. With the killer closing in, Laura discovers her destiny is linked to his and she has two choices–redeem him or kill him.

About the Author:
 
Donna Galanti is an International Thriller Writers Debut Author of the paranormal suspense novel A HUMAN ELEMENT. She’s lived from England as a child to Hawaii as a U.S. Navy photographer. If she couldn’t write she would bike, hike, and kayak every day. Donna lives with her family in an old farmhouse in PA with lots of nooks, fireplaces, and stinkbugs but sadly no ghosts.
 
Website/blog: http://blog.donnagalanti.com/wp/
 
 
 
 
 


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Perseverance: A Zombie Tale by James Lacey

  

It is close at hand… 

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain:

let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: 
for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;

A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness,

as the morning spread upon the mountains:
 a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.


A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth:

the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; 
yea, and nothing shall escape them.

Joel 2:1-3

 

When it happened I was excited – at first. I was a fan of the movies, the books, the games…all of it. So when those first reports came on the television and hit the net I was probably the most excited person on the planet. I mean, you always wonder “what if” when you see it in films, but then to have it actually happen, it really gets you going. That is, until they’re banging on your front door. Or the door of someone you really, truly care about. Someone you love.

That is when the excitement fades to fear. The fear can turn to horror. But right before that there is a brief moment where human instinct takes over and you choose to either fight or run. You don’t think, you just act. That is how I’m still alive. And it is probably why she is dead.

My story is not a happy one. It is not about heroics or unity or the fight to persevere. It is the story of survival. The only thing a person could really do during the crisis. It is the story of trying to protect someone you love and failing. It is a story of love, friendship and ultimately death. I’m not holding back. I am going to tell you everything. For some, this story will be harder to read then it was to write. For others, it won’t. Either way, this is my story. This is my account of the zombie apocalypse.

 

I was trying to be reassuring and bring my students back to the mood they were in before we stopped to eat, which not many were doing. But I knew there was something big going on.

I could hear the words “bioterrorism,” “widespread” and “thousands dead.” I could hear people talking about countries all over the world. CNN had this gorgeous new anchor,

Rebecca Mailey and I had a sort of boyhood crush on her. I was 29 and still entitled to fantasize about celebrities. So when she was the one who sent a chill down my spine, I thought it was sort of ironic and could not help but laugh. I’ll never forget the colorless look on her face when she uttered, “We are now getting scattered reports of incidents here in the United States.”

I never finished booting up my laptop. My instincts told me to get everyone out of the rest area and back on the bus. It was a quiet on the way home. I told everyone to call their parents and let them know that they were okay and would be home soon. As we boarded the bus two police cruisers went speeding in the opposite direction, sirens blaring. It was unnerving, given what we just heard. The rest of the ride home was dead quiet.

“It’s happening everywhere.”


“What is?”


“This…thing. People are dying. Riots happening everywhere. They said that there are drugs in the water supply that makes you want to hurt others. Then they said it wasn’t drugs, but a massive psychological event caused by a solar flare or something. Another guy said it’s been happening for a few weeks, but until now the government had it bottled up. And then…”

“Keith.” I had to stop him. The talking heads on TV had him all turned around.

“Yeah?”

“Take a breath. Clearly they don’t really know what is happening. So the question remains. Now, what do you know for sure? What do they know for certain? Think simple, Keith.”

“I don’t know. People are killing each other, I guess. They haven’t really said why or how, just that it’s happening.”

That part bothered me. If it were a terrorist event, then someone would be taking credit by now. If it were a disaster, then they would know the cause. Not knowing information…that is when I became hooked. That is when it became…interesting.

I looked up at the clock on the microwave. It was almost 10 AM. I really slept in late. I went and checked my cell phone. Seven missed calls? I realized then that I still had the phone on silent from the tournament. One call from Keith’s mom. Two from my parents? That was odd. Four from Ashley. Damn…I had promised to go over early this morning. She’s probably pissed right now. I went back into the bedroom and turned the TV on as I checked my voicemail.

“Hi, it’s Keith’s Mom. Sorry I’m home so late. Thanks for watching him.”

All over the country people are fighting against…

“It’s mom. Calling to see if you’re okay. Call me back.”

Military response is beginning to organize…

“I need you! Now! Please hurry! Call me back!”

We have confirmed video reports of…

“Why aren’t you answering?! Oh good…I hope…call me back…”

Rising from the dead and attacking…

“They’re outside! Help me! I need you! I need to hear your voice!”

All over the world people are coming back from the dead and killing others.

“I love you…Mom! Look out!” There’s a crash of glass on the phone.

Stay indoors. Lock your doors. Board up your windows. Do not go outside.

No words on the last message…just another crash and the sound of a scream.

 

I was paralyzed.


The phone fell from my hand.

 

 

Perseverance: A Zombie Tale
James Lacey
 
Publisher: 23 House Publishing
Pages: 324
 
Genre: Horror
 
Book Description
 
It didn’t happen the way it was supposed to…
 
I am a teacher. At least, I was before it all happened, before I was forced to survive. I taught social studies at the high school. I was also the coach of the school’s successful debate team. It was a cold Saturday in January when I heard the first rumor of trouble…
 
You know, pop culture had defined the zombie apocalypse time and time again, all coming from the minds of horror writers, film producers, and video game designers. Who knew that when it really happened, it wouldn’t be anything like they all predicted. Oh sure, the dead reanimated, and they were certainly hungry for living flesh…but what were the mysterious red-eyes, zombies that moved faster than their stumbling counterparts and seemed to not only communicate, but to exert some kind of control over the others.
 
 
“James Lacey takes the classic zombie story that we all know and love, and then twists it off into the new directions and unexplored territory. Perseverance is fresh, exciting, and edge-of-the-seat spell-binding.”
 
– Samantha Murphy, 13 Nights of Blood: Legends of the Vampire


 
About the Author:
 
James Lacey lives in the Pocono Mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania.  When not writing, he works with disabled adults and children as a paraprofessional and Special Olympics coach.  James also enjoys hiking, camping and watching football.
 
http://www.jameslacey.net/
 
 
 
 

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Book Spotlight: Life After The Undead by Pembroke Sinclair

CHAPTER 1 

I will never understand peoples’ fascination with the apocalypse. Why would you waste so much time and energy worrying about something you can’t change? Besides, most of the time, it never comes to fruition anyway. Remember Y2K? What a hullabaloo that was. People were so afraid computers were going to fail and throw society back into the Dark Ages that they were stockpiling supplies and moving into the wilderness so they could get away from technology. Why would they move to the wilderness? If technology was going to fail, wouldn’t they be just as safe in a city? I guess they were afraid when technology failed, everyone would go crazy and start killing each other. Either way, it didn’t happen. I wonder how those people felt afterward.

Then, there was the whole 2012 scare. This one was supposedly based on ancient prediction, so you know it was reliable. Are you kidding? Even the Mayans didn’t believe their own ancestors‟ “vision.” What happened was there had been a tablet that had the Mayan calendar carved into it. The end was broken and faded, so no one knew what it said. Our culture, being the pessimistic lot that we are, automatically assumed it was an end-of-the-world warning. But, again, nothing happened on December 21, 2012. Christmas came and went, and I think everyone, everywhere, even the skeptics, had a little something more to be thankful for. Life went on as usual, and all those doomsayers faded into obscurity.

The day the world did end was pretty nondescript. By that I mean there was no nuclear explosion or asteroid or monumental natural disaster. There weren’t even any horseman or plagues to announce the end was coming. The world ended fairly quietly. I couldn’t even give you a date because it happened at different times depending on where you were. It was never predicted, and I’m sure a scenario that no one even considered. Who really thinks the dead are going to rise from the grave and destroy the majority of the population? No one but Hollywood, and we all know those are just movies. But that is exactly what happened. Those of us that survived were left wide-eyed, mouth agape, trying to figure out what to do next.

There were a few who were able to pull their heads out and organize those left behind. They made sure the populace had food, shelter, and protection. They were saviors, the United States’ heroes. Life wouldn’t have gone on without them, and it was pretty difficult those first few years after the zompocalypse.

Sometimes it’s difficult for me to remember what life was like before the rise of the undead. I was a teenager, though I hesitate to say normal. I wasn’t deformed or anything, but my classmates thought I was strange. I had a fascination with the dark, the macabre, but I wasn’t a Goth or Emo. I read books and magazines about serial killers. I didn’t idolize them or want to be like them—hell no—but I was fascinated with how evil and black a human’s soul could get.

I wanted to be a psychologist and work with the criminally insane, maybe figure out why they did what they did. Apparently, when you’re 15, your friends think you’re weird if you have desires to help someone other than yourself. While they were worried about becoming popular and getting the right boyfriend, I was trying to figure out how to make society better.

Of course, those dreams will never come true. Society doesn’t exist. Everything I once held dear is gone. I lost my parents to the horde, like a lot of kids. Unlike some of the others, mine weren’t taken by surprise or in some freak accident; they were taken because of their own stupidity. Some days I miss them a lot, but others I believe they got what they deserved. I might sound callous and uncaring, but what about them? Why would they abandon their 15 year old daughter? It used to keep me up at night, trying to find the answer to that question, but I’ve given up asking it. No reason wasting time on things that could’ve or should’ve been.

As I stare out the passenger side window of the semi, I’m reminded how bleak the future has become. The truck rolls down a once heavily traveled highway that has been reduced to a cracked trail. Gas stations and towns dotting the landscape have been abandoned and are crumpling into the weeds that are taking them over. There are a few areas that still resemble pre-zombie destruction, and these are the military outposts set up along the road, used for protection and refueling. I use the term “military” loosely because there is no formal military anymore. It’s a rag-tag group of men and women who were lucky enough to get guns. I chuckle to myself. It’s been two years since I was last out in the world, and a lot has changed since then. I still remember the day the zombies attacked. It’s as clear as if it happened yesterday.

 
Life After the Undead
Pembroke Sinclair
 
Genre:  YA Horror
Publisher:  eTreasures Publishing
 
ISBN:  ISBN-10: 1937809013
ISBN-13: 978-1937809010
 
Number of pages:  356
 
Cover Artist:  Jerrod Brown
 
 
Amazon    Etreasures      Barnes and Noble
 
Book Description: 
 
The world has come to an end. It doesn’t go out with a bang, or even a whimper. It goes out in an orgy of blood and the dead rising from their graves to feast on living flesh. As democracy crumples and the world melts into anarchy, five families in the U.S. rise to protect the survivors.
 
The undead hate a humid environment, so they are migrating westward to escape its deteriorating effects. The survivors are constructing a wall in North Platte to keep the zombie threat to the west, while tyranny rules among the humans to the east.
 
Capable but naïve Krista is 15 when the first attacks occur, and she loses her family and barely escapes with her life. She makes her way to the wall and begins a new life. But, as the undead threat grows and dictators brainwash those she cares about, Krista must fight not only to survive but also to defend everything she holds dear—her country, her freedom, and ultimately those she loves.
 
 
 
About the Author
 
Pembroke Sinclair has had several short stories published.  Her story, “Sohei,” was named one of the Best Stories of 2008 by The Cynic Online Magazine.  She has novellas and a short story collection available from Musa Publishing and eTreasures Publishing.  Her two novels, Coming from Nowhere (adult, sci fi) and Life After the Undead (YA, horror), are available from eTreasures Publishing, as well as Death to the Undead (YA, sequel to Life After the Undead), which is forthcoming.  Life After the Undead was a Top Ten Finisher in the Preditors and Editors Reader’s Poll in the YA category and the cover art category.
 
As Jessica Robinson, from March 2008 to January 2011, she wrote scientific articles for Western Farmer-Stockman.  Her nonfiction book, Life Lessons from Slasher Films, is available from Scarecrow Publishing (an imprint of Rowman and Littlefield).
 
Jessica/Pembroke received her Master’s in English, and she is a freelance content editor for Musa Publishing, as well as a former content and line editor for eTreasures Publishing.
 
 

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pembroke.sinclair

 

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