Random Excerpt: MUSIC and the winner of the giveaway

Scroll down for winner of the giveaway!

The Battle is O'er is now available for pre-order in print!
The Battle is O'er is now available for pre-order on Kindle! 

Congratulations to Dan Blum, whose book The Feet Say Run has been optioned for movie rights!

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This past two weeks have, once again been quite busy. I have a number of piano and flute students preparing for the Music Teachers' Association's exams, a series of graded tests both in theory and playing, and also for the finals in the annual Piano Contest. It's an exciting time, and also a lot of record-keeping and prep time in making sure they're well-prepared and have all they need.

Last weekend was Mars Con. I had never attended any of the conventions (ComiCon, MiniCon, Convergence, etc), but at the behest of my friend and fellow author (The Wrath of Brotherhood) Ozgur K. Sahin, I took the plunge, unsure what to expect.

I really enjoyed the weekend! As a science fiction convention, our hall was routinely filled with Dr. Who's Tardis moving down the aisle, the robot dog from Battlestar Galactica (at least, it looked like that dog), a lot of steam punk and personages from various eras, and dahleks.

I was not assimilated. In fact, I'm honored to say, the dahlek was assimilated...into the World of the Blue Bells Chronicles!

I was also honored to be on some panels with really talented authors! Ozgur, Ivery Kirk, and I shared the All Questions panel, and the Indie Author Buffet panel. I think the highlight of that reading--bringing quite a laugh from audience and his fellow panelists alike--was Ozgur's excerpt in which a prisoner strangles the captain in charge of the prison, only gradually realizing the two soldiers patiently watching him are doing nothing to stop him.

"Did you see," asks one soldier, "how he strangled the captain before we could stop him?"

"There was nothing we could have done," the other sadly agrees.

I guess they didn't like the captain any more than the prisoners did!

I also really enjoyed Ivery's reading. In truth, I had no clue what to expect from a book about two women using their time travel machine...to sleep with historical figures! Time Bangers is a comedy and part of what makes comedy is nailing the foibles of humanity. To put it nicely...

In her reading, Beth, a single mother, is dealing with a pre-school director who is appalled with her child...for reacting to being hit on the head with a large, heavy toy by another child. She captured it very well! (Oh, School District Who Shall Not Be Named....)

I was honored to be on a third panel (What are you Writing?) with Roy C. Booth, prolific writer/screenwriter/playwright extraordinaire, and G. David Nordley. It was very inspiring to hear them talk and to learn a bit about their paths as writers and all they have accomplished!

I found the attendees and other vendors very friendly--thanks Jessie and Anna for a fun and rather unexpected evening! And thank you Edward Ness for inviting me up to Krushenko's after-con party!  Thank you, too, to the people who kept the 11th floor room well-supplied with a variety of food! I enjoyed looking in on the room parties, meeting Klingons, and trying Harry Potter's butter beer.

All in all, it was a great experience, and I plan to attend more conventions with my books. Thank you, Ozgur, for roping me in and getting me moving on this, and thanks to all who were there!

And now, today's excerpt, based on the twitter hashtag #FridayKiss, whose theme today is MUSIC. Have I got music in my book or what? I could post half the 5-book trilogy with such a prompt!

For those new to the blog, The Blue Bells Chronicles is a tale of time travel, mystery and miracles, romance...and redemption. In this, the fifth and final book of the story, Christina of 14th Century Scotland begins a letter--one she intends never to send, but we know how Murphy has been alive and well for centuries now--to Shawn, in the 21st Century:

Christina seated herself, quill in hand, undipped, listening. The smell of ink and vellum came to her, and the music drifting across the courtyard carried her back to so many days in Niall’s solar, with Shawn in the window ledge, his favorite place, the sun catching glints of gold in his hair, plucking out melodies on a lute, or dancing around with a recorder, playing something he called jazz.

Take the A Train.

She smiled, still trying to match the light and happy sound of the song with the smoke-belching, roaring behemoths Niall had told her of, or the dangerous streets Shawn had described in the town called Harlem. These months—nearly years now—hadn’t lessened the way she missed him.

AND NOW...DRUM ROLLLLLL...THE WINNER
of the Robert the Bruce stained glass window cling....

MOLLY D! I'm sending out an e-mail. Contact me and I'll get it in the mail!

READ MORE ABOUT DAN:

~ Dan Blum Speaks on The Feet Say Run ~ Dan's Interview Part Two ~ Dan's Interview Part Three ~

~ Dan Blum is Featured in Psychology Today ~ In the Museum, a poem by Dan Blum ~

The Battle is O'er: Coming March 23, 2018

Start from the beginning: Prelude One Prelude Two Prelude Three
Prelude Four Prelude Five Prelude Six Prelude Seven Prelude Eight Prelude Nine
Chapter 1.2

When is The Battle is O'er coming out?  READ HERE.

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For other posts with excerpts from the series:

Dan Blum
Tempo Rubato by Brendan Carrol
Beethoven in Love by Howard Jay Smith
or other posts under the MUSIC label

For more on my books, click the images below: