#SaturdaySpotlight: William Vietinghoff

Good Morning and Welcome to the last Saturday Spotlight of Jan 2015!

Yeah, I'm finding that hard to believe too, but I'm happy to say our spotlights are filled up for quite sometime with new authors, like the one we have today, as well as old friends with new books!

Today our guest, William Vietinghoff graduated in 1953 from Northwestern University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering. At the time, the political and technology movements in the world, generated by the missile race, converged and created an opportunity for Vietinghoff, at the dawn of the space age, to join the ranks of dozens of other young engineers, pioneers in a way, learning on the job how to get a rocket engine to start and run. Over the ensuing years,  Vietinghoff participated in many rocket engine, vehicle, and missile programs: Atlas, F-1, Lance,  Peacekeeper, KEW, and X-33. The Interceptor Program grew from a collection of on-the-job incidents, with some imaginary ones thrown n. Vietinghoff, his wife, Gladys, and his two sons and daughter live in California.

About the book:

This book is written in the format of a movie script to give the readers the feeling that they are watching a dramatic motion picture, along with the corny movie clichés. Orville Pressfit, elderly aircraft mechanic, reports to a television station in Ponca City, Oklahoma where he resides that he has been abducted by space aliens the night before. News reporter Leanne Flambeau interviews him at the airfield. The broadcast terrifies the senior citizens of the community. Even though the abduction cannot be verified and the presence of aliens is denied by the authorities, the report sets off a public outcry and a chain of events that leads to the White House. Thelma Grayfield, the first woman President, is forced to authorize a contract to a major aerospace company to design and build an Interceptor to pursue the alien ships that no one believes exist.

Excerpt: 

CLOSE ON TV SCREEN

 

The screen shows Leanne standing next to Orville. She is looking at the camera with a very sober expression.

 

LEANNE:  I am here with Orville Pressfit, an aircraft mechanic at the Eagle’s Nest airport. Mister Pressfit reported to our station – exclusively – that he had been abducted by space aliens last night. Please describe for our viewers, mister Pressfit, exactly what happened.

 

Leanne turns and faces Orville. She holds the microphone near his mouth.

 

ORVILLE:  I was working here late when the alien ship came over. It was about nine p.m. and the landing strip was officially closed. I was finishing up replacing some spark plugs in that Cessna over there when this huge round dome – I guess you’d call it that – landed. Right there!

 

The TV camera moves away from Orville to show the area on the apron to which he is pointing. There is nothing to see.

 

ORVILLE (off-screen):  A hatch opened, and three aliens came out and walked up to me. They watched what I was doing for a few minutes, looked into some kind of book, and said a couple of words. It sounded like English, but I couldn’t understand. One grabbed my shoulder, pointed at the open hatch in the dome, and pulled me toward it.

 

The TV camera pans back to Leanne and Orville.

 

LEANNE:  Would you describe these creatures as small, with bulbous heads, and large, dark, ovoid eyes? You know – the appearance we’ve heard described by previous abductees.

 

ORVILLE:  Shoot! I wouldn’t call them creatures. And no, they didn’t have bulbs for heads, and they didn’t have dark avoiding eyes. They looked straight at me. They were just guys! They looked like you and me. Well, not like you.

 

BACK TO SCENE

 

Anna, Harold, Ray, and dozens of other shoppers in the department store stare up at the bank of television sets, aghast.

 

ANNA:  Oh, my God, Harold! We’ve got aliens right here in Ponca City.

Well....sounds intriguing and certainly different!  Purchase from Amazon.

Hope you enjoyed this spotlight...Next week (and next month!) we'll be coming to you from Bandera, TX so... See you then!

Take care & God Bless.
PamT

#ThursdayThoughts: #RandomRamblings

Hello,

Would say "good morning" but it's almost noon LOL! Been busy and as usual, lots going on, so today is going to be one of those random rambling days.

When I left this morning to go to the gym and swim (hey! I'm a poet and didn't know it) ;-) ... See, my mind is in a million places today... Anyway the fog was so thick it was like driving through pea soup..or maybe cream of mushroom soup...okay some kind of heavy broth... whatever, but it got me to thinking about how much of our life we spend in a fog.

Mental.
Emotional.
Spiritual.

Or all of the above. 

How often do we go through our days and nights on automatic pilot, not asleep but not really awake, and definitely not aware.

In the spiritual world, teachers such as Dr. Wayne Dyer and Eckhart Tolle talk a lot about staying in the now; being focused and aware of what's going on in and around you in any given moment.

I know, I know, easier said than done...I mean we've all got so much going on, busy from daylight to dark thirty.We get caught up in the drama of our daily lives....jobs, death, divorce, health, kids, parents, grandchildren....You get my drift. We're all going a hundred miles a minute and getting nowhere fast. And we miss out on the present-moment miracles happening all around us.

But seriously, is there some way we can accomplish all of this and still remain alert and aware of our inner man, our life's purpose?

I think one way is to stop often during the day and just ask yourself, "What am I thinking and what is going on around me, inside me?" 

Then take a moment and just listen...to your heart, to the deepest whispers of your soul.

Try it and you may find that.....

Something to think about....

Inspirational with an Edge! 

#TuesdayTreasure: Guest Post by Judith Miller

Good Morning!

I just realized this is the last Tuesday Treasure of Jan 2015...Wow! I pray your new year has started out with an abundance of blessings. Today I'm pleased to bring you another guest post from one of LitFuse Publicity authors, Ms. Judith Miller.

Judith Miller is an award-winning author whose avid research and love for history are reflected in her bestselling novels. When time permits, Judy enjoys traveling, visiting historical settings, and scrapbooking the photographs from her travel expeditions. She makes her home in Topeka, Kansas

Something I deeply treasure is connecting with family members, so I was thrilled that I would be researching the Refined by Love series in West Virginia. During my summer visits to conduct research, I was able to spend a great deal of time with my sister who lives there. Since all of the stories are set in West Virginia and my sister is a teacher who is free to travel during the summer, we were able to visit potteries, brickyards, a tile factory, and the brick mansion known as Adaland. I used Adaland as a prototype for Woodfield Mansion in The Brickmaker’s Bride. 

I’ve included a picture of Adaland that shows the docent, my sister, and my daughter standing on the front porch. On that particular trip, my daughter was working in Baltimore and drove to West Virginia to join us for the tour. In addition to finding Adaland a perfect setting for Woodfield Manor, I also learned that my niece’s great grandparents were the first couple to be married at Adaland. Her great-grandfather was the overseer at Adaland, and that’s a picture of them that I took while we were on our tour of Adaland. It hangs on the wall in the dining room. We also had the opportunity to have dinner at a restaurant that has a view of the Tygart River Valley which is the setting featured in The Brickmaker’s Bride.

During our travels to Ohio to conduct research in a pottery museum, we were able to connect with my cousin and his wife who accompanied us on one of the factory tours, and then joined us for a leisurely lunch. That time with them was also precious to me, an added blessing I treasure as a benefit of my writing ministry. 

I find it amazing how authors come up with their settings and this one sounds fabulous!

Well friends, hope you enjoyed this week's Tuesday Treasure and hope to see you later for Thursday Thoughts, Saturday Spotlight!

Until later...take care & God Bless!

PamT

#SaturdaySpotlight: Zoe M McCarthy & Calculated Risk

Good Morning and welcome to another edition of Saturday Spotlight.

It is with pleasure I bring to you a fellow Pelican Book Group Author, Zoe M McCarthy with her debut PBG title, Calculated Risk.

Zoe M. McCarthy believes the little known fact that opposites distract. Thus, she spins Christian contemporary romances entangling extreme opposites. 

Her tagline is: Distraction to Attraction, Magnetic Romances Between Opposites. 

Calculated Risk is Zoe’s debut novel. Christian Fiction Online Magazine published two of her short stories. Zoe enjoys leading workshops on the craft of writing, speaking about her faith, planning fun events for her 5 grandchildren, and exploring the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she lives with her husband, John. 

Find out more about Zoe by visiting her website. 

What happens when an analytical numbers man meets a mercurial

marketing Rep? Romance is a calculated risk.

Whoever said opposites attract was right, of course…but no one ever said what they attract.

Jilted by the latest of her father’s choices of “real men,” Cisney Baldwin rashly accepts an invitation to spend Thanksgiving weekend with a sympathetic colleague and his family. Nick LeCrone is a man too much her opposite to interest her and too mild-mannered to make her overbearing father’s “list.” Now, Cisney fears Nick wants to take advantage of her vulnerable state over the holiday. Boy, is she wrong.

Nick wants little to do with Cisney. She drives him crazy with all her sticky notes and quirks. He extended an invitation because he felt sorry for her. Now he’s stuck, and to make matters worse, his family thinks she’s his perfect match. He’ll do what he can to keep his distance, but there’s just one problem—he’s starting to believe Cisney’s magnetism is stronger than he can resist.

Excerpt:

In search of the yellow sticky with her ideas for today’s meeting, Cisney Baldwin sifted through papers on her desk. She had a choice: honor her rash commitment to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Nick LeCrone and his family, or lie and join her friends on the Colorado ski slopes.

Biting cold air and exhilarating speed might keep her mind off slime-ball Jason. And, she’d need her Richmond friends nearby to nurse her self-esteem after she told Daddy she’d lost his pick for her future.

She planted fists on her hips and stared at the papers sprinkled with yellow stickies that covered her workspace. Minutes before her meetings with Nick, she could never put her fingers on her notes. Why did this always happen?

How was she going to face him today, after he’d stood in her office doorway last week and watched her disintegrate during Jason’s dump-Cisney phone call? If only she’d stopped there, but no, she hung up and blubbered about the end of her six-month relationship and having nowhere to go for Thanksgiving.

She splayed her arms over her paper-covered desk and knocked her head on the piles. This was all Jason’s fault. Jason needed space? Right. What he needed was freedom to date that woman with a waist the size of his muscular neck.

“Hi.”

She shot erect, raking her hair from her face.

Nick stood in her doorway. He didn’t have a greasy mop of hair or wear button-down shirts two sizes too small, but he carried a calculator loaded with countless complicated functions. The joke around Marketing was that actuaries were accountants without personalities.

Sounds like a wonderfully funny & romantic read. Get your copy of Calculated Risk today!

Well friends, thanks for stopping by. Hope you're having a great weekend and you'll drop in next week for Tuesday Treasures, Thursday Thoughts and another Saturday Spotlight!

Until later... Take care & God Bless

PamT

#ThursdayThoughts: @KimHeadlee with a #RockingRomance

Nothing better to do on a  chilly, gloomy, rainy morning than curl up with a good book, so I'm excited to bring you another Rocking Romance! 

Today's guest is Kim Headlee with her book, Liberty.

Enjoy!

1. What romantic event would you like to see this year?

I would love to go on an Arctic Circle cruise with my husband in the summer, and watch the auroras envelop the sky above us. It won't happen this summer, though, LOL!

2. Name your favorite romantic tip

Calculate the number of DAYS since your wedding, first date, first kiss, first... whatever, and then surprise your partner with a night out on the town. It will utterly stump him or her as to what the special occasion is! I can't take credit for this idea, however. My husband got it from a coworker, years ago, and surprised me on the 5000th day since our wedding anniversary.

3. What Rocking romance do you find intriguing?

Arthur and Guinevere, of course. Most romances don't carry the power to shape the destiny of two nations, but theirs did--as portrayed in my series The Dragon's Dove Chronicles (Dawnflight, Morning's Journey, etc.).

4. What is your Rocking Romance flower?

I am quite partial to the Peace rose.

5. Plan one romantic evening what would you do?

Dinner at a great restaurant that doesn't have any TVs! I'm not sure that would be my husband's idea of a romantic evening, however... :-)

About Kim....

Kim Headlee lives on a farm in southwestern Virginia with her family, cats, goats, and assorted wildlife. People and creatures come and go, but the cave and the 250-year-old house ruins—the latter having been occupied as recently as the mid-twentieth century—seem to be sticking around for a while yet.

Kim is a Seattle native (when she used to live in the Metro DC area, she loved telling people she was from "the other Washington") and a direct descendent of twentieth-century Russian nobility. Her grandmother was a childhood friend of the doomed Grand Duchess Anastasia, and the romantic yet tragic story of how Lydia escaped Communist Russia with the aid of her American husband will most certainly one day fuel one of Kim's novels. Another novel in the queue will involve her husband's ancestor, the seventh-century proto-Viking king of the Swedish colony in Russia.

For the time being, however, Kim has plenty of work to do in creating her projected 8-book Arthurian series, The Dragon's Dove Chronicles, and other novels under her new imprint, Pendragon Cove Press.

YouTube video interview: http://youtu.be/DV5iKrEIROk

FOLLOW KIM:

BLOG – http://kimiversonheadlee.blogspot.com/

NEWSLETTER: mailto:info@dawnflight.com?subject=Subscription_Request

TWITTER – https://twitter.com/KimHeadlee

GOOGLE+ - https://plus.google.com/+KimHeadlee

FACEBOOK – https://www.facebook.com/KimIversonHeadlee

PINTEREST – http://www.pinterest.com/kimheadlee/

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE – http://www.amazon.com/Kim-Headlee/e/B001KE2LK2

GOODREADS – http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/845537.Kim_Headlee

LINKEDIN – http://www.linkedin.com/in/kimheadlee/

YOUTUBE CHANNEL – http://www.youtube.com/user/gyanhumara

Now about the book....

They hailed her “Liberty,” but she was free only to obey—or die.

Betrayed by her father and sold as payment of a Roman tax debt to fight in Londinium’s arena, gladiatrix-slave Rhyddes feels like a wild beast in a gilded cage. Celtic warrior blood flows in her veins, but Roman masters own her body. She clings to her vow that no man shall claim her soul, though Marcus Calpurnius Aquila, son of the Roman governor, makes her yearn for a love she believes impossible.

Groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps and trapped in a politically advantageous betrothal, Aquila prefers the purity of combat on the amphitheater sands to the sinister intrigues of imperial politics, and the raw power and athletic grace of the flame-haired Libertas to the adoring deference of Rome’s noblewomen.

When a plot to overthrow Caesar ensnares them as pawns in the dark design, Aquila must choose between the Celtic slave who has won his heart and the empire to which they both owe allegiance. Trusting no man and knowing the opposite of obedience is death, the only liberty offered to any slave, Rhyddes must embrace her arena name—and the love of a man willing to sacrifice everything to forge a future with her.

BUY LINKS

Amazon Kindle
US – UK  – CA – AU – BR – DE – ES – FR – IN – IT – JP – MX – NL –
Other E-readers
NOOK – INKTERA – ITUNES – KOBO – SCRIBD – SMASHWORDS

Paperback edition coming soon!

Social Media Links
BeeZee Books | Book of the Day | Goodreads | Latest Book Trailer |

You can watch the trailer and read excerpts of Liberty on Kim's Blog.