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Tag Archives: Guest Authors

#GuestBloggers – Grandpappy’s Cows – Mary Deal

05 Saturday May 2018

Posted by Morgan in Guest Bloggers on BnV

≈ 2 Comments

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BnV, BooknVolume, creative writing, Guest Authors, Guest Blogger, Guest Posts, Humor, Writers, ~Morgan~

Grandpappy’s Cows  by Mary Deal

Grammy and Grandpappy had fifteen youngins of their own, so I had a mess o’ cousins. Most of the boys looked the same, with straggly dirty blonde hair and mean squinty eyes. We girls was better. We looked different from one another by our hair color and sizes of our bosoms.

Grandpappy moved lots of us to a run-down trailer park near the railroad tracks. Him and Grammy lived in a doublewide next to the meadow ’cause they kept a milk cow. As neighbors moved out, more of our kin moved in. No matter the trailers was abandoned ’cause they was old, we was a family that stuck together. Pretty soon our kin took over every useable trailer in that danged weed-infested field. The poor folk thought we was rich.

Everyone who visited asked to go see the rest of them empty trailers. I sneaked and seen ’em already and they was empty, except for some mattresses the hobos left behind. When I asked why my uncles always brought their girlfriends around to inspect those old trailers when they went out on dates, Grandpappy said, “They just want to bless our new home.” Then he’d slap his knee and bellow till his eyes watered and he started to coughin’. He never let me go see with the other people and got downright nasty when I tried. “You stay put, li’l girlie,” he said. “There’s time enough to learn about life.”

My daddy was a jack-of-all-trades and him and Grandpappy joined some of them trailers so’s you could walk from one to another without goin’ outside. When friends come over for some honky-tonkin’, those old trailers would rock and once the rotted tires exploded on one of ’em.

Effie May was my closest cousin. She was older ’n me. The boys said she was built like a cow. Sometimes when they headed off to the trailers, they said they was gonna go milk the cows. Like it was a dirty joke or somethin’. Effie May hung out with the boys a lot. She said they was her kissin’ cousins.

One day, Effie May whispered to me, “They calm my yearnins, ya’ know?”

I didn’t know. I saw her and cousin Wilma Lou, who my momma told me to stay away from, go in and out of them abandoned trailers on the other side of the park with a bunch of boys time and again. Effie May was awful smart, said she knew how to be of service to folks. She always had money. But me? I didn’t want to be nobody’s servant. Me and my momma was close. I was blonde-headed like the rest of my kin, but my hair picked up some of my momma’s red. I liked her the most, better ’n Effie May, ’cause Momma explained things to me.

As we kids was growin’ up, I guess Grandpappy thought he still had to feed the whole brood. One day after Grammy gave away the old cow that dried up, he come home with another.

“I’m tired of sittin’ around all day shaking the cream to the top of that jar just to make butter,” Grammy said.

“Well, we cain’t afford the store-bought stuff yet either,” Grandpappy said.

Johnny Jeb was one cousin always up to no good. He used to squeeze the cow’s udder so we could drink when we got thirsty while we was playin’. He’d squirt us just to be mean. We was lucky Grandpappy never knowed what the soggy stains was on our clothes and why leaves stuck in our hair ’cause sometimes after getting pushed in, we swam in the creek with our clothes on and he couldn’t tell the difference.

“You grandkids are dirtier ’n my own ever was,” he would say. “And to think you live better off today.”

Some of my aunts and uncles took a broom to their kids for coming home dirty. My momma just smiled and poured water into the old tin tub, throwed me a bar of Grammy’s lye soap, and said, “You soak good now, Darlin’.”

Grandpappy couldn’t figure out why the cow didn’t give much milk. He was attached to Bossie, his latest cow, and instead of getting rid of her, he brung home another.

Johnny Jeb loved that. He taught cousin Bobby Zeke to squirt and they had milk fights in the meadow. When the rest of us got to laughin’, we all learned to squirt.

Grandpa got a third cow just so’s he could get enough milk together for all our families every day. Anyway, between the three, they kept the weeds down real good. But it stunk some and the boys was put to scrapin’ up the cow-pies and tossin’ ’em into an empty field. Us girls stayed away from them dung fights.

Later on, when I started thinkin’ about boys, I looked in the mirror to see what they was a-winkin’ at. My bosoms finally growed like Effie May’s. My kin said I wasn’t bad looking and my hair always shined like sunlight.

“Why’d you s’pose that is?” I asked my momma one day.

“Musta’ been all that fresh cream you got in your hair when you was a kid,” she said.

I never knew she knowed. I have a right smart image of my momma now that I know she let us kids enjoy the fun we had back then. I looked at her real hard ’cause I admired her more all of a sudden. Her brassy hair was so shiny.

My daddy said I matured real nice. He always paced around lookin’ at me like I was the chunk of gold that was gonna make him rich or somethin’. I wondered if him and Momma would let me go honky-tonkin’. Effie May said she could tell me how to take care of my yearnins.

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Find this hilarious story and others among myriad explanatory articles about writing, including examples, in Write It Right – Tips for Authors – The Big Book on Amazon. Here: https://tinyurl.com/y8m7fkkr

 

*  *  *  *  *

 

Mary Deal is an Amazon best-selling and award-winning author of suspense/thrillers, a short story collection, writers’ references, and self-help. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, Artist and Photographer, and former newspaper columnist and magazine editor. She is currently writing the third story in her Sara Mason Mystery Series. A long romance novel, which is a new genre for her is presently in process for publication.

She has traveled a great deal and has a lifetime of diverse experiences, all of which remain in memory as fodder for her fiction. A native of California’s Sacramento River Delta, where some of her stories are set, she has also lived in England, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and now resides in Scottsdale, Arizona. She is also an oil painter and photographer. Her art is used to create gorgeous personal and household products from her online galleries.

Find Her Online

Her Website: https://www.marydeal.com

Amazon Author Page: https://tinyurl.com/3z8pm31

Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/o7keqf7

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/mdeal

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mary_Deal

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marydeal

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105175192934570097998

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/MaryDeal

 

Her Art Galleries

 

Mary Deal Fine Art – https://www.marydealfineart.com

Island Image Gallery – https://www.islandimagegallery.com

Mary Deal Fine Art and Photography – https://www.facebook.com/MDealArt

LocalMe – https://www.redbubble.com/people/localme

Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/1deal

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~Mary Deal~

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#GuestBloggers – The Ghost Killer Series by Margaret Millmore

01 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by Morgan in Guest Bloggers on BnV

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

BnV, BooknVolume, creative writing, Ghost Stories, Ghsots, Guest Authors, Guest Blogging, Supernatural, Writing

 There are ghosts and demons that wander among the living; they do not haunt in the traditional sense. Instead, they plague mankind with diseases and physical deformities, and once a ghost finds its victim it will haunt them for a lifetime. 

What Haunts Me (Ghost Killer Book 1)

A mild illness brought on the dreams, which triggered the suppressed memories, which in turn allowed George to see ghosts. Along with this new sight into a realm unknown to most, George also discovered he could kill the ghosts and save their victims, and his life changed from ordinary to extraordinary.

George’s confusion spurs him to call his father and inquire about these memories in the hope that he will give him a reasonable explanation. Instead his father is evasive and George suspects that he is lying—something he has never done, at least not to George. Although he still has no idea why this is happening to him, he accepts it, and by his own definition, he is a ghost killer.

His acceptance of this newfound ability becomes an obsession so powerful that he has little regard for the cause or the impossibility of it all, and that disregard is destroying his life and threatening his sanity. When his livelihood is endangered, George knows he must find out why this is happening to him. He seeks out a local paranormal expert, who briefly explains what a ghost killer is, tells him about a worldly organization called the “Watchers,” and warns him about a man, Frederick Vokkel, who has deep connections to the supernatural world, and seeks out powerful ghost killers in an effort to harness their abilities for nefarious purposes. Phil is vague, but promises to connect George with the Watchers so that he can learn more about what he has become and learn how to protect himself from his unknown enemies.

Soon after George’s meeting with Phil, he encounters Billy, a young woman with an unlikeable personality, who is the niece of his much loved grandmotherly neighbor, Justine. Through his new association with Billy, who is also a ghost killer, he discovers that there are different levels of ghosts and demons, varying from dangerous to extremely deadly, but there are also different levels of ghost killers, and George is of the most powerful.

He also discovers that his mother and Billy’s grandmother were connected; they too were powerful ghost killers. George’s mother and Billy’s grandmother, met at a school in Switzerland, a school run by none other than Frederick Vokkel. George is frustrated and confused; the coincidences are piling up and he can’t help but wonder if his decision to move to San Francisco and subsequently become Justine’s neighbor was somehow directed by the hand of fate or destiny. One thing he does know: Justine and perhaps even his father knew what he was, and until Billy’s arrival, both had kept it from him, leaving George feeling betrayed.

With the help of Phil and Billy, George is introduced to Aris, a high-ranking member of the Watchers. Aris explains George’s ancestry—he comes from a long line of powerful ghost killers, some of the most powerful ever—and like him, Billy shares a similar heritage. Aris also warns George that Frederick Vokkel has learned about a previously unknown powerful ghost killer, one that is capable of prolonging Vokkel’s life, but can also merge a powerful demon back into a human, giving the monster renewed physical form. And Aris believes that George is that ghost killer.

When Vokkel’s efforts to sway George into a meeting fail, he resorts to kidnapping George’s father, but he also uses his connections with the demons to summon a surge of ghosts that will descend on the city and cause the rapid deaths of hundreds of people. George has no choice but to do as Vokkel asks or risk not only his father’s death, but the loss of many innocent lives.

He teams up with Aris, Phil, Billy and several other ghost killers to devise a plan that will save not only his father, but also prevent the surge of ghosts from causing irreparable harm.

The Edge of the Cemetery (Ghost Killer Book 2) 

 

George has embraced his life as a ghost killer and now works alongside his new friends, Billy Wilkinson and Phil James. Together they assist the Watchers in an ongoing battle to maintain the balance between the living and the dead.

When San Francisco and the surrounding area are suddenly plagued by rogue groups of ghosts and demons, who appeared to have a leader of sorts, a seventeenth century musketeer demon, the Watchers know it isn’t random, nor was it the usual form in which ghosts and demons prefer to haunt. These monsters were also possessing their victims and forcing them to hurt others, and once the ghost killers arrived, the demons directed their human weapons on them. The question was, who was this musketeer demon and why was he directing these attacks?

As George, Billy, Phil and the Watchers investigate, they discover the seventeenth century demon is teamed up with a teenage boy, who they come to realize is a powerful ghost killer himself and more importantly, they believe he is being controlled by the demon. Their search for the teenager and his demon lead them to the discovery of an enemy from their past and a mysterious prophecy. As they decipher the true meaning of the prophecy, they uncover a plot for murderous revenge involving a secret vault containing numerous malevolent souls and a plan to return those wicked dead to human form as directed by Satan himself. Unfortunately, they also discover the true purpose of the demon musketeer’s involvement, which is to become one with the powerful teenage ghost killer, creating a monster that cannot be defeated. With the clock ticking against them, they must find the vault and destroy it before it can be opened and kill the demon and his teenage host.

What Haunts Me (Ghost Killer Book 1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GSE7E7S/

The Edge of the Cemetery (Ghost Killer Book 2) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GSE7E7S/

What Hunts Me (Ghost Killer – Book 3)

The year was 1915, Alexander Graham Bell completed the first transcontinental telephone call between New York City and San Francisco, the Ford Model-T and silent motion pictures were all the rage. Raggedy Ann, aspirin in tablet form and processed cheese, as well as the milk carton were invented. America was steadily growing in population and that population was on the move. In San Francisco, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition opened in February, an event that introduced many wonders to the United States and the world at large. The Lincoln Highway (also known as Highway 30) opened as America’s first transcontinental automobile road. In the small town of Houtzdale, Pennsylvania, a train pulled into the station with ten people on board…all but three were dead.

A hundred years later, in the attic of the large Edwardian house in San Francisco owned by the Watchers, a box is discovered, containing various documents from ghost killers dating back more than ninety years. Among those missives are letters, some photographs, and a diary dated in 1915, belonging to eighteen year old George Sinclair of Houtzdale, Pennsylvania. The letters chronicle an epic journey from Pennsylvania to San Francisco along the route of the newly opened Lincoln Highway. However, the diary also indicates something more sinister might have transpired. It contains strange drawings and nonsensical writings, but the final entry is loud and clear; George is a ghost killer and he is being hunted. Equally important, there was a good chance that 1915 George might be the key to modern-day ghost killer, George Sinclair’s, unknown paternal heritage.

George, with the help of his good friend Phil James, travels to Houtzdale, PA in search of more information on the man who bears his name, and just might be his great-grandfather. Their investigation leads them to 1915 George’s last remaining relative, only to discover she had died recently, and circumstances indicate supernatural forces were involved. As they delve deeper, they learn about a deadly 1915 train incident. Its survivors consisted of two passengers and the engineer, and although none of them could recall what transpired, the engineer was believed to be the killer and his guilt was so immense, he took his own life. The weeks and months that followed were wrought with tragedy for the small town, and illness and disease plagued the citizenry—Houtzdale was being haunted, and 1915 George Sinclair could see these ghosts and demons, and he could kill them. But more importantly, he knew who and what unleashed them—the two remaining train survivors, monsters capable of commanding the ghouls, and with great pleasure they used them to torment the sleepy Pennsylvania town. George had no choice but to kill the two survivors before they could continue their murderous rampage. He hunted one down, killed and buried it, then chased the other west, via the Lincoln Highway, and dealt him the same fate; or so he thought.

As George and Phil investigate further they discover someone else is looking into the events that took place in 1915, and more specifically young George Sinclair. They soon discover that someone is a dead ringer for one of the 1915 train survivors, who young George had admitted to killing and burying. If this person is the monster 1915 George believed him to be, Phil and George need to find him fast. Their only clues as to where and what this resurrected being wanted were in the letters and diary. George and Phil determine the monster is tracing his great-grandfather’s path west, via the Lincoln Highway, in search of his partner, who he believes 1915 George also killed and buried somewhere along the way. With each town mentioned in the letters (and visited by the monster), Phil and George discover droves of ghosts and demons, who have been tormenting these locals for a century.

When Phil is called home, Billy joins George to continue the hunt, and they find themselves embroiled in a hundred year old mystery, which grows beyond a reanimated monstrous creature. Mysterious supernatural forces are in play, and the discovery of very dangerous stones and an even more dangerous artifact propel the ghost killers into a fight for their lives.

What Haunts Me – Ghost Killer Book 1: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B019EAN2K6/

The Edge of the Cemetery – Ghost Killer Book 2: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GSE7E7S/

What Hunts Me – Ghost Killer Book 3 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BK73XDV/

Margaret Millmore lives on a quaint island in the Puget Sound, Washington with her husband and two cantankerous alarm clocks (better known as cats, who are apparently starving to death at 5 a.m. every single darn morning…).

Her first published works were flash fiction, which were featured on Bay Area artist, Kenny Mencher’s blog, The Welcome Home and Untitled – Luke N. Goode.

In 2011 she published her first full length novel, since then she’s published a three book series, another novel and her current series (via Creativia Publishing) What Haunts Me (Ghost Killer Book 1) and The Edge of the Cemetery (Ghost Killer Book 2), which was awarded the August 2016 Book of the Month award by Long and Short Reviews, and What Hunts Me (Ghost Killer Book 3), which incorporates an epic journey taken by her grandfather in 1915. The majority of her books are set in San Francisco where she lived—previous to island life—for over 26 years.

Margaret’s preferred writing genre is supernatural fiction, with the exception of her time-travel novel, The Dragonfly Door.

http://www.margaretmillmore.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Millmore/e/B005ME8QTQ

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Margaret-A-Millmore/228435017205214

Tweets by MMillmore

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5157106.Margaret_A_Millmore

http://author.to/MargaretMillmore

http://www.creativia.org/from-voracious-reader-to-successful-indie-author-california-author-margaret-millmore.html

 

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~Margaret Millmore~

 

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