My Review of William Kilpack's Pale Face

 

I really enjoy my association with the up-and-coming shakers and movers of the publishing business. William Kilpack III is just such a person. I highly recommend networking with him if you can keep up. Here's my review of his novel Pale Face:
Pale Face by William Kilpack was absolutely fascinating. I can see why it has won so many awards. To start with, the book gives whole new meaning to the Native American phrase ‘pale face.’ The lead character is Hector, a Navaho Indian living on the Navaho Reservation. Hector has an ‘accident’ and is catastrophically injured and should have died instantly. But he doesn’t die!! He is miraculously ‘repaired’ and healed in an incredibly short period of time. Thus, the story unfolds. Pale Face is, in part, sci-fi. But I found it to be so much more. It’s a deep diving character study of Hector that almost borders on mysticism, Navaho mysticism. Kilpack’s writing style was mesmerizing in the depth to which he presented Hector. For me, five stars for both William Kilpack and for Pale Face. Jeff Bailey, author if the conspiracy thriller Not On My Watch.

For more on William Kilpack III check out his home page or follow him on Amazon, FaceBook, Twitter, GoodReads, and LinkedIn.

For more on Jeff Bailey, check out his web page or follow him on Amazon, GoodReads or his LinkedIn Blog.

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The Entertainer Newspaper Review of The Defect by Jeff Bailey.

 

HEADLINE: Nuclear thriller based on terrorist attacks that didn’t make the headlines

The Defect by Jeff Bailey, Deer Hawk Publications

By Laura Kostad

A terrorist group has infiltrated the staff of Desert Canyons Nuclear Power Station (NPS) in Southern California, with the intention of triggering a total, catastrophic meltdown. Little does Operations Shift Supervisor, Brian Sing, know, but it will be up to him to coordinate the entire plant in anti-terrorist efforts as warning lights signal reactor failure.

Recurrent anomalies in the security access reporting system have irked Lenell Spector as Desert Canyons prepares for a routine refueling outage. The system’s reports have been logging personnel without the proper clearance accessing certain doors, some of whom aren’t even assigned to the Desert Canyons facility.

Her concerns are generally dismissed, however, as the reader begins to glimpse the strategic terrorist infiltration at work—their plan already in motion to destabilize the plant. The only person who takes Lenell seriously is Brian, who is attracted to her.

Character histories unfold on the page as Brian, Lenell, and other supporting characters go about their everyday lives as NPS employees. A rare richness in character depth is employed in The Defect that is not often encountered in other suspense thrillers of this genre. Readers will be refreshed in having the opportunity to get to know relatable, everyday characters that manage spectacular feats of heroism when their know-how and ingenuity are put to the ultimate test in preventing certain destruction.

A retired senior member of the science and engineering staff at PNNL, with almost fifty years’ experience in nuclear-related technologies, Murrieta, California author, Jeff Bailey, is well-equipped to take readers deep into the belly of a nuclear power station and a subversive plot to undermine it.

Bailey said that The Defect is based on two real-life events: The Three Mile Island NPS nuclear accident, and the little-known, 2013 Watts Bar NPS attack in Tennessee, which was perpetrated by a lone gunman.

Technical detail isn’t taken for granted in the midst of the plot’s riveting suspense. “My book had to undergo a security clearance with the Department of Energy before publication,” Bailey said. As the story builds momentum, and the Middle Eastern terrorist group rehearses their intricate plot, readers receive an intimate, inside look at the everyday inner workings and operations of the plant, and how one small defect can either be exploited by villains, or alternatively save the day.

Readers will also appreciate Bailey’s treatment of the Middle Eastern terrorist group that’s organizing the attack. All too often, genre fiction writers and screenwriters show the public faceless, single-minded terrorist characters that perpetuate harmful stereotypes of Middle Eastern culture. Bailey departed from this norm and really took the time to flesh out the individual members of the terrorist group, going so far as to paint a detailed picture of their personal background and what led them to their roles in the events of The Defect.

Readers certainly won’t sympathize or empathize with how these characters have chosen to deal with their past, but we can respect them as individuals who have suffered—as fellow people like ourselves—and not just a stigmatized enemy, as contemporary, reductionist political rhetoric often suggests.

The Defect is available in paperback through local bookstores, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. The Kindle E-book is available at through Amazon online.

Mr. Bailey's second book Not On My Watch is also available in paperback through Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. The Kindle E-book is also available through Amazon online. Bailey already has 12 more stories planned for future installments in his nuclear thriller series.

For more on Laura Kostad, go to her Wordpress Home Page or follow her on Amazon, LinkedIn, and at  the Tri-Cities Journal of Business.

For more on Jeff Bailey, check out his web page or follow him on Amazon, GoodReads or his LinkedIn Blog.

 

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The Back Story for October 32nd by Larry Rodness

 

Meeting and talking to people is one of the aspects of writing I like best. So many good great people. So many good stories. I was talking to Larry Rodness a few weeks ago and he told me this back story for October 32nd. I had him write it down for me, 'I’d written “October 32” after visiting the small country village of Elora, Ontario during their annual Halloween festival. It features giant paper monsters coming out of buildings, carnival games, and treats in their town square. I originally wrote it [October 32nd] as a screenplay and several years later turned it into a novel. But I needed a way into the story. Because I had experience in the funeral insurance business I created the main character, Alexander Malefant, who comes to town on a sale- call on Halloween eve and bears witness to all the children in the town going missing while Trick or Treating. The story spun out from there.' Excellent. When you read October 32nd, it's not so much a horror story as one might guess, but a story of redemption. And when you're emersed in the small New England town on All Hollows Eve, imagine that Larry Rodness himself is in the crowd of revelers, right over there next to the old, dilapidated school house. A Hloloween Back Story.

For more on Larry Rodness,  check out his web page, or follow him on Amazon or FaceBook.  

For more on Jeff Bailey, check out his web page or follow him on Amazon, GoodReads or his LinkedIn Blog.

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The Back Story for Not On MY Watch by Jeff Bailey

 

Much of Not On My Watch is fictionalized from my recollection of my Army posting to the Ft. Sill, OK. Special Weapons Depot when I was 20, just a kid. I was a small player on a large crew that maintained and repaired our nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. Lake Lawtonka is real and was a recreational hot spot for the G.I.s.  When I started writing Not On My Watch, I knew the story thread and what I wanted to write but didn’t want to use myself as the lead character as I had in previous books. As would happen, my oldest granddaughter was in the middle of her training to be an Aviation Rescue Firefighter in the Marine Corp., perfect.  Now, to be honest, most of her training took place in Texas rather than Oklahoma, so I exercised a little literary license.  Once I opted to use her for the inspiration of the female protagonist, everything fell into place, the book just sort of wrote itself. All I had to do was ask myself, ‘what would my granddaughter do in this situation?’ By the time I finished Not On My Watch, LCpl Bailey, my muse, was serving in Japan as an Aviation Rescue Firefighter.

For more on Jeff Bailey, check out my web page or follow me on Amazon,  GoodReads or his LinkedIn Blog.

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The Back Story for Author Chris Smith and His Traditional Westerns

 

 I've been reading some of Chris Smith's westerns, lately. I'm a big fan of the American 'Oater' ever since the Lone Ranger, Hop-Along Cassidy, Bonanza, and Gunsmoke. Smith's westerns are excellent considering that he's from South Africa. I forget right now what we were talking about, but he related a great story about his early days as a writer. I quote, 'During my early days as a writer I didn't plan my stories out as well as I should have and I wrote my character into a corner. I had to rope in my twin brother for some help and there we were, two grown men, shooting at each other with imaginary guns at work as we recreated the scene.' Laugh out loud just doesn't cover it. I'm not going to be able to read my next Chris Smith western with visualizing these two grown men jumping off the divan, hiding behind the room divider shouting, 'pow, pow, bang, bang, I got you.' I like this Back Story. Jeff Bailey. 

For more on Chris Smith, follow him on Facebook, Amazon, GoodReads or his LinkedIn Blog.

For more on Jeff Bailey, check out his web page or follow him on Amazon,  GoodReads or his LinkedIn Blog.

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Australian Adventure Writer Kez Wickham St George - The Back Story

 

I’ve been working lately with Australian adventure writer, Kez Wickham St. George. We had been talking about cross marketing between the U.S. and Australia. Kez creates her stories from her real-life adventures and explorations in the Australian Outback. My kind of research. Kez told me the most engaging story, I have to paraphrase some of it because, like any good writer, she told a lot of story. It seems that after the peak of Covid passed, several families headed out into the remotest of the Outback for a caravan trip. As luck would have it, they developed an oil leak in the Jeep, lots of acrid smoke, and had to layover in a ‘caravan bay’ for a couple of days.

I quote, ‘This night one woman caught my eye, she looked familiar, yet I did not know her, she was from Cairns and traveling to NSW. I introduced myself, she asked me about my accent, “I’m a Kiwi (New Zealander)” she informed her family had married into the Maori people. My ears twitched, as also to have ties to a Maori family, I asked her for names of where they were? When she said the name of my hometown, so many memories filling my mind, now the attention of the entire gang around the fire pit was engaged. As this woman said names, times and places, the air around me went still, the family she was talking about were my next-door neighbors for ten years [back in New Zealand]. She told me that her sister married into this family. Meant to be?  What struck me was what a small world we live in, I’m sitting around a campfire in Western Australia in a tiny county shire Dandaragan she knows a family I once knew in a small fishing village Ngunguru in Northland New Zealand, different countries the Pacific Ocean plus many thousands of kilometers between us, wow….. The story continues in the Camp fire trilogy beginning with Metal Mermaid.’

As you read one one of Kez’s adventure stories, maybe even Metal Mermaid, and when the main characters are in an isolated ‘public layover’, imagine that those two ladies at the next campfire are reminiscing about their families back in New Zealand…. because now you know Kez's Back Story.

For more on Kez Wickham St. George, Go to her Home Page, or follow her on Amazon, GoodReads, or on her LinkedIn blog.

For more on Jeff Bailey, go to his Home Page, or follow him on Amazon, GoorReads, or on his LinkedIn blog.

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My First Review of Not On My Watch From SPAIN

 

Every now and again I find a little nugget that just tickles me to the bone. This review is one of those moments. It's a review of my thriller Not On My Watch from anonymous reader from Spain. This is my first review from Spain - SPAIN. I don't have any network contacts in Spain that I'm aware of and the submitter elected to remain anonymous. Just a serendipitous, pleasant little moment. SPAIN this morning.

See the full review: