Welcome to TRB Lounge. Today, I’d like to welcome author M. Price who’ll be sharing an excerpt from his latest release Please Feel Bad I’m Dead.

About the Book

You can find Please Feel Bad I’m Dead here:
Amazon | Goodreads | Barnes & Noble

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Excerpt

Intro to Insanity

Jumpin’ Christ, this is too much work. How do people even get these things loaded?

I’m on nine, but there’s still room for seven more. What? How? Who’s this strong? It’s—ya know, it’s not even about strength, it’s dexterity—but how do others have this dexterity? They’re strong, yeah, but they can’t be that good with their hands. And why do I even care? I only need one. Guess it’s just unrealistic, uh, something standards.

And my thumbs! Already swollen up to shit now. What’s really stupid is people would see this and be like, “Oh, what a loser, he can’t even load it all the way, what a scrawny whi—” —ya know, it’s not always about strength—just not as practiced as others may be in this field and that’s nothing to hold against me. I’m certainly trying something new and isn’t that what everyone wants? What they keep telling me to do? Whatever.

Durkheim posits that neurasthenia has no definite correlation to suicide. Jhaegar Holdburn posits that Durkheim’s a rustic country asshole who doesn’t know anything about me and I’m gonna do whatever I want. Stupid sociology, telling me how to think. Or psychology. Phycology. Something. They’re all the same. Bunch of old white people (which I’m definitely not, by the way).

Oh, my jumpi—forget it. We’re sticking with nine. I don’t have time for this, it’s all just a waste—they’re not gonna check it anyway. Nobody but me has standards in the first place and if they’re all gonna be degenerates, I may as well be, too.

But yeah, I set the gun (pistol?) on my desk. My nerves assault me as I do. What if I miss? I should’ve got the shotgun—I mean, it’ll be Visa’s problem, not mine. Sigh. I never think. This website I saw (name forgotten already) listed all the best (best) ways to (I gotta stop using parenthesis) kill yourself and they listed shotguns with a 99% success rate (“success” and I sure feel bad for that remaining 1%). Gun/pistol was set at I think number three right after cyanide, but it’s like, who has cyanide? And I feel it’s more classical or something this way with a gun/pistol. I’m a man of aesthetics.

I’m just afraid I’ll jerk my head at the last moment and shoot my face off. Or shoot below my brain and just sever my eye connector things—orbiter deals. Or shoot myself in the forehead and hit the wrong lobe. According to that website, it’s actually a lot more difficult than it may initially appear. I really should’ve got the shotgun, but it’s fine. It’s all fine.

Whatever. Step two: Music. I turn on my radio cuz I’m also a rustic country asshole and still own one and put in The Sleepy Jackson’s Personality (One Was a Spider, One Was a Bird). It’s my favorite album and the second track, “Devil in my Yard,” is one of my favorite songs and should queue up by the time I’ve completed the other steps. Their album title also has parenthesis. Double also: I enjoy, “You Won’t Bring People Down in My Town,” but it’s farther down the track list. I was gonna use it in a movie I never made—it was for the part when Mico’s at the dance with all the girls and he dances with all of them in turn during the “na na bu dah” parts but he doesn’t really feel it until the big “na na bu dah” part comes in while Luke’s like—ya know? I’d use the real lyrics, but I’m sure they’d sue my corpse—fine me while I’m in Hell or something—but then the right girl comes on to dance with him even though she’s not actually real and all the lights switch to a new color and they dance and as they dance the camera does this neat thing where it changes the central filmic lens and the girl then becomes the main character of the movie to help illustrate the man having a sexual identity crisis and longing to be a woman but then he dies and like I said she’s the main character until of course she dies and he’s reborn out of her dead body. It was a pretty wild movie. “How Was I Supposed to Know?” is also a great song, but it’s the last one.

Step three: Use the bathroom.

Step four: The Note. One must (wait, isn’t THIS the note?) be careful creating The Note as this’ll be the final messa—well, I’m just trying to get out of a going to a party tonight. Is this worth it at the moment?

Shut up! Yes, yes it is—I was gonna do it anyway, it’s just a convenient coincidence. But The Note, or lack thereof, is important cuz it’s your last chance to blame others—or leave an extreme, yet ambiguous, trail of breadcrumbs about your death to forev—

—A dog just took a shit outside. Is that alright? And she just left! Pick up after your dog, people live here!

Benny’s back of course. Squirrely little squirrel asshole. Always mocking me.

“Dear Benny: Fuck you.”

No, that won’t work. All wrong. How could I put “Dear” in my note? Do I really hold anyone dear? Not really. But what else would I put? Do I have to put anything? “Devil in My Yard” is playing so I don’t have time to lollygag.

Ya know, I’ll put “Deer” instead. The detectives won’t understand cuz Benny’s a squirrel. We’re doing it.

Alright, “Deer…”

…

…

I fucking hate writing. Waste of time—goofy I even have to do this. I rather say nothing, but then people’ll call me selfish. Need a drink of water.

I get said water from the bathroom sink like a real American. An unfortunate side effect of this is that I see myself in the mirror. I’m, uh, six even, hundred eighty pounds of muscle cuz I’m in basketball. Yeah. I’m smokin’. And I’m black…I mean, Black. Well, brown (Brown). Definitely not white. Never white. I’m a woman, too. Latin-American is offensive to me, just letting you know. I’m Chilean Second Generation.

The “Welcome to Chili’s” meme gets stuck in my head. Great. This is what I wanted to think about right now.

“Deer: I hope you’re all doing fine. As you can see by the body in this room: I am not fine.”

Ehh, I can’t use that. That’s stealing from George Carlin…well, the whole idea of this note is stealing from George Carlin, but they won’t know. They don’t listen. I’ll use it and they’ll never see. And if they did, they wouldn’t care. Maybe they like him, too? Maybe it’d make them admire me, they’d find in me a kindred spirit. Plus, what are they gonna do, write me up? I’m dead.

“Deer: I hope you’re all doing fine. As you can see by the body in this room: I am not fine. I’m penning you this notice regarding my death in hopes of bringing to light my decisions (not that you could ever hope to understand HahHahHahHahHah). Luke Steele’s an underrated singer who—”

—Piss! My thoughts interrupted my writing again! Gotta start over. Do I have enough paper for this? Oh well, I’ll quick get this thought out before I write again: Luke Steele, the main singer guy, has his other band, Empire of the Sun, right? They rushed their third album, like SO hard. That kind of stuff disappoints people. You get these expectations and

This is my fault

Shut up! It’s fine. Just get the note, get the note, get the note, get the—

—I sneeze. I have a cold, I guess. It’s not ideal, but it’ll have to do. We all make the best of our situations. See? I’m always told I’m not very positive. Clearly wrong. I am quite positive (double meaning!).

When one leaves behind a suicide note, the detective people take it in and examine it to see if I was murdered. Nirvana fans still think Cobain was murdered—not all Nirvana fans, I understand this, just some—but he wasn’t murdered. Kurt definitely killed himself. I wonder if it’s better that he did? The whole message they were giving wouldn’t have really worked with a band of forty-year-olds…and at least he knew commercialization with appeal to a larger audience ultimately kills true art…or maybe he wanted to die. Doesn’t matter thinking about it now, he’s dead and—

—He used a shotgun! I should’ve got the shotgun!

Christine Chubbuck lived for like fifteen hours after she shot herself. I don’t want that, that’s nuts! She severed the eye thingy—the orbiter!—she shot too low. I won’t make that mistake. Have to learn from others. Thanks Christine, for all you did for us. Is it alright if I call you “Christine?”

I ditch the note. Simply not practical. I’ve been writing (attempting) for a time now, so long in fact I’m actually approaching, “You Won’t Bring People Down in My Town.” This is either an unforeseen boon, a, uh, or—people always wanna do things in threes. There’s actually only one in this situation. You won’t see a false second and third from me. Terrorists don’t win this time.

But yeah, people’ll just have to deal with it. They don’t care anyway. I reset the album back to the beginning. I take my gun/pistol off my desk, slip into bed, a

I’m sorry

Jhaegar! Stop! Just do it already!

I prime or whatever-it-is the gun/pistol. Harder than it looks. Daniel Craig just snaps it back like a badass. It’s more of a strained yank for me. I always wanted to make a James Bond movie cuz I have an old ex-friend who loved James Bond and I know he’d go nuts. He ruins my friendship, I ruin his movie. It’s the least I could do.

I sneeze again. Man, this cold. Suddenly, I get the impression I’m a Manchurian candidate. What? What even is that? Does that relate to my cold?

“Devil in My Yard” comes on. Now’s my chance. I decide to leave a mental suicide note. Wait, weren’t there more steps? Never mind. “Deer everyone: it’s my life and I love it, I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask, uh…I won’t ever ask…or tell, I guess.” It’s alright to copy that, people too busy playing Bioshock instead.

I hold the barrel underneath my chin. Sigh, too unreliable…I hold it to my temples. The eye thingies! I raise it higher. I don’t know how much is right! I try my forehead! It’s hard to aim this way! Do I have sufficient finger strength?! Finger dexterity?!?!

Luke’s almost done! Piss on it all, I hold the gun/pistol back underneath my chin and pull the—

—I sneeze.

***

I wake up in the hospital.

Piss…

Or maybe it’s just a hospital-like Heaven or Hell? Whether this is worse or better, I cannot yet determine.

If Charlie Kaufman directed this scene from my life and/or death, the lights would be flickering and there’d be cockroaches everywhere. That’s called Expressionism, ya know? Expressionist filmmaking. Not about how something is, but how something feels. But Kaufman didn’t direct this, some dime a dozen studio “Filmmaker” did. And no, I’m not gonna attack Marvel right now (though I should). Rather, I must investigate.

My mystery finds itself quickly solved. I discover several thick bandages covering my right ear—this is the same moment I realize I can no longer hear anything out of my right ear.

I sigh.

***

I sigh just a bit harder as I sneak back inside my house. God knows what would happen if my Mom saw this. The Doctor told me she’d (cuz not all doctors are men mind you!) let me off with a warning which I found rather strange. An attendant at the door then told me to, “Please come visit us again!” Real, real strange.

Some blood trickles past my bandages. A soft pang (right word?) in my heart gives me a tad of insight into what it must be like being a woman. At least maybe? I’m a woman sometimes—but not at the moment, so my prior knowledge is null. I wipe the trickle with a store brand facial tissue and remind myself to never wear white again and then chastise myself for reminding me now cuz it won’t really matter unless I remind myself at the next instance I’ll be pressured to wear white. No barnyard weddings in the coming weeks I can think of so I should be fine. I can’t stand those barnyard girls. Quirky culture’s dead.

I get a drink of water and, well, you know me, it leads me to the bathroom sink and I see my new reflection. These bandages put a damper on my appearance. Jumpin’ Christ, they’re gonna call me “Hijab Holdburn” now. I take off the bandages.

I see my NEW new look.

I put the bandages back on.

“Hijab Holdburn” isn’t that bad. Maybe it’ll make people think I’m Middle Eastern? But Middle Eastern is the one that hasn’t really risen up the social tiers yet, they’re still kinda open season. Not like Black. Black is set. Black is good to go. Is there a Black sounding nickname I could get from this? I only see Middle Eastern or Latinx—Latino—Latin—La—whatever. I don’t know, I just have to stop being white.

The “Suicide Checklist” I keep on my wall mocks me (it’s the several items already crossed out). Jumping off the roof just hurt my legs and apparently I have a preternatural immunity to sleeping pills, et cetera, et cetera. I grab a pen and cross out, “Fucking shoot yourself.” You got me this time, Life, but next time I swear I’ll win. This pride dissipates as there’s nothing left on my list to try.

I recall that party is still on tonight and I, quite well alive, must attend.

Super sigh. I regret not putting all sixteen bullets in the clip. That probably would’ve added the required weight to stop the gun from jerking so hard.

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About The Author

If you are an author and wish to be featured as our guest or if you are a publicist and want to get your author featured on TRB, then please get in touch directly by e-mail at thereadingbud@gmail.com

Welcome to TRB Lounge. Today, I’d like to welcome author Kathy Martone who’ll be sharing an excerpt from her latest release Victorian Songlight: The Birthings Of Magic & Mystery.

About the Book

You can find Victorian Songlight here:
Amazon | Goodreads | Barnes & Nobel

Excerpt

Chapter 1

It is a cool winter evening in mid-January, and the moon is full, casting her alabaster veil over the tiny house nestled among the forest of trees deep within the Ozark Mountains of northwestern Arkansas. The three-room cabin is home to Hank and Jane, a newly married couple in their twenties. Where Hank is dark haired, rail thin, and movie-star handsome, his wife is an auburn-haired beauty with big, green eyes. Jane is nine months pregnant with their first child and frequently troubled with the anxiety of a first-time mom.

“O-o-oh I wish this baby would get on with it!” Jane complains to her husband, who is engrossed in the newspaper he holds in front of his face. “Honey, would you hand me my knitting needles?” she asks as she awkwardly deposits her very large bottom into the antique rocking chair. Silently Hank tosses her the pointed plastic tools, letting the ball of yarn unravel across the room behind them. “Ha-a-ank! Can’t you please just hand me the yarn too? I can’t exactly do
much without it, ya know.”

Hank begrudgingly stands up and slaps the newspaper onto the yellow-and-red plaid couch while bending over to retrieve the pesky fabric sphere. Handing Jane the desired object, he ambles over to the record player, a wedding present from his parents, and moves the needle up and over the black plastic disk already in place. As he gently drops the tip of the pin onto the shiny grooves, the silky melody of Frank Sinatra’s voice fills the room with its soothing refrain:

I look at you and suddenly
Something in your eyes I see
Soon begins bewitching me
It’s that old devil moon
That you stole from the skies
It’s that old devil moon in your eyes

Blinds me with love
Blinds me with love

Closing his eyes as he sways to the music, Hank doesn’t notice his wife’s grimace of pain and her back-arching exit from the chair. “Hank!” she yells. “I think this is it! Better call Jessie and get me a towel. I think my water just broke.”

Instantly Hank snaps to attention, his eyes wide open with concern. “Of course, my darling. Of course. Let’s get you into the bedroom first.”

One hour later, Jane is lying drenched in sweat in their double bed, waiting for the midwife to arrive. Tearfully she clenches Hank’s right hand in a viselike grip, causing him to wince in pain. “Honey, stop! You’re hurting me,” he says as he gets up to answer the knock at the front door. “Hope this is Jessie,” he mumbles. “Don’t think I can deal with this much longer.”

Hank hurries into the living room and jerks open the door, relieved to see Jessie standing there with her thirteen-year-old daughter, Winnie. “Black as the Ace of Spades, the both of them,” he mumbles under his breath.

“Sorry, Mistah. What was dat you jus said?” Jessie asks. “I couldna unnerstan a word dat you jes spoke.”

“Never you mind, Jessie. Just please get into that bedroom and take care of Jane, will ya?”

Jessie nods her head and bobbles her round, short body across the living room, pulling her daughter along with her. “Jessie, is that you?” Jane calls from the bowels of the birthing room.

“Yes ma’am,” Jessie replies. “’Tis Jessie fer sure come to hep you, Miss Jane.” Jessie enters the small room and looks around before moving to the bed and taking Jane’s hand in hers. “It’s goin’ to be okay, Missie,” she whispers.

Minutes later, Jane’s high-pitched screech causes Hank to stop dead in his tracks just outside the bedroom door. “Holy shit,” Hank snorts. “This is more than I bargained for.” Taking a deep breath, he cracks open the door and cautiously peeks inside the semi-dark room. Jessie has her back to him as she peers between his wife’s spreadopen legs on the bed. “Everything okay?” Hank whispers.

Jessie turns around slowly and escorts him out of the room, ordering him to boil some water. Once she thinks he is out of sight, she shakes her head and makes the sign of the cross over her forehead. “Poor thang,” she mutters to herself. “This ain’t goin’ to be no easy birth, no way.” Looking out the window at the moon scudded with bluish-colored dark clouds, she brings her hand to her mouth. “Oh my, my!” she utters between her fingers. “We in fer a long night, sure ‘nuf!”

Lying peacefully in their bed the next morning, Hank and Jane can’t stop smiling at their baby daughter sound asleep between them. “She’s such a pretty thing, Hank, isn’t she?” Jane gushes to her husband. Hank nods in silent, blissful agreement. “But, sweetheart, did you notice this ugly, red birthmark on the back of her neck?”

Hank gently turns the infant over onto his arm and there he sees it—a dark red mark in the shape of a crescent moon, of all things. “What the hell?” Hank mouths silently to his wife.

A knock at the front door startles them both, and Hank places his precious child back in her mother’s arms to go see who could be bothering them so early in the day. Hank’s scowl turns to a bright smile when he sees Jessie standing before him. “Oh, goodness, Jessie! I almost forgot about you. Come on in and have a seat. Jane’s resting with the baby and besides, I want to have a chat with you, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure ‘nuf, Hank,” Jessie replies as she sits in the rocking chair. “What name did you give dat little one?” she asks as she sways back and forth.

“Kate,” Hank responds. “We named her Kate, after my mother. She looks like a Kate, don’t you think?”

Jessie smiles and nods her head, clearly enjoying the soothing motion of the rocker. “Kate’s a might purty name, sure ‘nuf, Mistah Hank.”

“Oh, Jessie. I almost forgot. Here’s your money—well earned, I must say!” Hank hands her a wad of dollar bills. “Now then, about our chat.”

Jessie comes to a halting stop in the rocker and takes the payment, placing the money in the front pocket of her red calico dress. Then placing both hands on her knees and staring right at Jane’s husband, she says, “Yessir. What you wanna talk ‘bout?”

Hank clears his throat and stammers. “Well, uh, gosh, Jessie, um, I’m not sure how to bring this up. But well, geesh, I was watching how you reacted to that moon outside the bedroom window last night. Something upset you, didn’t it?” Coughing into his fist, Hank continues. “And on top of that, why Jane and I saw that awful red birthmark on the back of our baby’s neck. We want to know what you make of that too!”

For several long minutes, Jessie sits stone quiet in the chair just staring at Hank. Finally she stands up, never taking her eyes off his, folds her arms, and says, “Thought you didn’t b’lieve in my dealins in dat dere magic, Mistah Hank. I ‘member you tellin’ me lossa times never to bring any o’ dat nonsense into yore house, ‘member? You called it nonsense, ‘member?”

“Yes. Yes, I remember, Jessie,” Hank says, waving his right hand in a gesture of dismissal. “You know me. I’m always spouting off saying things I don’t really mean. Now can we please talk? I really am interested in what you have to say, okay? Please, Jessie. This is my daughter we’re talking about here!”

“Okay, Mistah Hank, if you be sure den.” Jessie speaks slowly, holding her breath as she resumes her seat in the rocking chair and begins to swing back and forth, back and forth, her eyes closed and her hands placed solemnly on her knees. After what seems like an eternity to Hank, she exhales loudly, opens her eyes, and says, “Dat chile o’ yorn, Mistah Hank, is mighty gifted, being she was born on da night o’ da Devil Moon. Dat birthmark, as you call it, is da mark of dat light in da night sky. She goin’ to be quite a magician but her life also goin’ to be harder dan most. Quite distressin’, actually, poor thang.” Jessie looks down at her hands and shakes her head slowly.

“Devil moons, they give an’ they take, Mistah Hank,” she continues. “Tragic.” Jessie’s expression turns even more decidedly downcast. “Mos’ likely she gonna feel like she don’t b’long nowhere. Shapeshifter she be, scarin’ folks as Miss Kate won’t never appear same ways twice.” Taking a deep breath, she finishes, “Now da givin’ part of da lady in da night sky. Da givin’ part is a spirit man, Mistah Hank. A spirit man who goin’ to love Miss Kate like none udder. A spirit man wit’ big ole yeller eyes.”

Standing up and wiping her hands on the front of her dress, the black-skinned sorceress speaks her final words. “And lastly, Mistah Hank, yor preshus chile, she gonna ‘member lots o’ da happenins in her early livin’, mark my words. She even gonna ‘member this here night wit’ dat moon. Oh, she won’t know dat what she ‘members but she’ll ‘member jus da same. Good day to ya and thanks fer the cash,” she says, patting her front dress pocket. “You take good care now, ya hear? You and da missus, you take good care.” And Jessie the shamaness turns on her heel and exits the house, leaving Hank feeling dumbfounded.

“Aw, shit—what a bunch of nonsense!” Hank exclaims quietly.

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About The Author

You can find author Kathy here:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Email

If you are an author and wish to be featured as our guest or if you are a publicist and want to get your author featured on TRB, then please get in touch directly by e-mail at thereadingbud@gmail.com

Welcome to TRB Lounge. Today, I’d like to welcome author Teri M. Brown who’ll be sharing an excerpt from her latest release Sunflowers Below The Snow.

About the Book

You can find Sunflowers Beneath The Snow here:
Author Website | Amazon | Atmosphere Press | Goodreads

Excerpt

Chapter 1: 1973

Lyaksandro was aware of just three things. The slit of sun sneaking through the hurriedly closed curtains in an otherwise claustrophobic room. The air sucking into his lungs only to escape again in uneven gasps. And the unsympathetic, unyielding metal pressed against his temple awaiting his decision.

How had he gone from a simple man – Lyaksandro Hadeon Rosomakha – a university employee, a son, a father, and a husband – to a man facing a decision at the end of a gun? What had pulled him into a life littered with secret meetings, men with no names, and information passed in the hours between darkness and dawn?

Undoubtedly, the state police would slap an informant label on his forehead despite the mundane activities he was called upon to perform. His treachery was not the kind to find its way into the banned spy novels still wending their way through the eager hands of boys wanting to prove they were men. No, rather than the high-tension, clandestine meetings of books and movies, he merely passed along innocuous information on loose pages of lined notebook paper carefully taken from the university library that employed him.

Sometimes he was asked to provide a list of those visiting the library on any given day. Other times, he would be asked to provide the names of those who checked out certain books or inquired about specific topics. He’d even been asked to photocopy pages from manuals. He didn’t know what they were looking for. The link between a man named Bodashka Kravets and an interest in 4^th century Ukrainian history, for example, was never explained. Nor did he truly know who was asking. His place in the resistance machinery was minor at best, and deadly at worst.  

In this moment, though not for the first time, he wondered if the information was actually worth dying for. He was simply a small gear in a huge network of informants. Yet, despite the inconsequential nature of the information he passed, he understood, if caught, he was unlikely to survive. Informants – spies – regardless of their importance, were not tolerated. At best, he might face permanent imprisonment in a psychiatric facility. At worst, he would be killed and unceremoniously dumped into the nearest ravine, never to be heard from again.

The cold metal pressed more urgently against his skull. Would he die here? The choice was his to make and his to live with or die from. Would he say yes? No? Beg for a different option, like a small child hoping to get a treat for lunch rather than carrots and beets?

Pictures from his life flashed into view, each one an arrow pointing toward the path leading him to this place, this time, this decision. Although he had no memory of his father choosing a strong name for a strong son, his naming had become a personal folktale with Lyaksandro as the hero. His father would hold his young son in his thick arms, smelling of sweat and freshly cut wood, explaining each part of his name in considerable detail.

“You, my son, are no ordinary boy, and you have been born into extraordinary times. I’ve given you a name to guide you – to show you what you are meant to be. You are Lyaksandro Hadeon Rosomakha.

“Lyaksandro. Defender of man. A protector and guardian of mankind. 

“Hadeon. Warrior. But not merely any kind of warrior – impetuous warrior. I want you to be willing to complete your mission without concern for the consequences as you seek after your cause.   

“Rosomakha. Wolverine. Ferocious and wild, yet intelligent. Connected to family. Willing to be alone but longing to be part of a community – preferably like-minded souls longing for something better in life.”

By the time he entered school, he recognized who he was and what kind of man he would become. His name said it all. 

A name, however, wasn’t enough fuel to propel someone forward if they weren’t willing to go. He was one Lyaksandro among many, and to his knowledge, they were all waking in their homes this morning while he drew in, what had the potential to be, his remaining breaths. 

Although he had been born under communist reign, his father never let the stories of the Ukraine he experienced as a boy die. In the same way he could recite the story of his name, Lyaksandro could narrate the stories of his home as it had once been before communism and the USSR. The community traditions, the dances, and the songs, even the acres and acres of sunflower fields fading into the horizon.

“Ah, the bechornytsi.” This word would sigh from his father’s lips turned upward into the closest thing Lyaksandro would ever see to a smile. “Once the crops were gathered and put up for the long winter to come, all the young people from the village would gather in a sparse building in the center of town erected specifically for occasions like these. 

“Such singing and dancing, Leki! Young men performing the Gopack, alternating between standing and squatting while energetically flinging their legs and feet toward the giggling young women who shyly observed in hopes of being chosen from the crowd for more personal attention. Older women embroidering along the edge of the makeshift dance floor, keeping time with their feet. Older men telling tall tales and laughing too loudly at their rude jokes, secretly wishing they still had the ability to dance at the end of a long day to titillate the ladies. 

“And the food. Oh, Lyaksandro, you have never seen such food. Varenyky, borscht, golubci, salo, papukhy. Everyone ate and talked and laughed long into the night. I met your mama at a celebration such as this.”

In spite of never witnessing the glory for himself, he missed it with a fierceness as immeasurable as his father’s – a man who died trying to gain back what had been forcefully taken away.

During the Shelest regime, Lyaksandro believed everything his father wanted for his beloved Ukraine was happening. He believed perhaps his father’s death had not been in vain. Novelists, artists, and film directors created their art with few restrictions. Ukrainian pride – something quite apart from Party loyalty – flourished. Lyaksandro had found, courted, and married Ivanna, and the two of them had a darling daughter. What more did a man need to be content? 

Except he had ignored the signs and pretended all was right with the world. He was blinded by the Politburo’s permissiveness and flattery and was unable, or unwilling, to see the truth, until, without fanfare, and more importantly, with very little protest, years’ worth of literature was ripped from the shelves. Any art deemed anti-Soviet or nationalist was burned. Dissidents, once tolerated with a mild slap of the hand, were incarcerated in corrective labor camps – ispravitelno-trudovye lageria, or insane asylums. 

Then, one fateful day changed the course of his life and brought him here, a man on his knees, at a fork in the road which would change the trajectory of his life. He realized he could no longer be a bleating sheep, following along with a timid “as you wish” while the Party elite dined on stuffed pheasant. He could no longer tolerate a gradual reformation of society, when all around him, those he loved suffered.

Despite his mother’s heroic efforts to keep him from taking up his father’s sword, Lyaksandro would do no less – could do no less. It was for this cause he found himself with a choice to live or die.

His name. His father. His love. His country. Each played a part that landed him in a dark alley – was it just last night? – instead of lying next to his wife of 12 years under a hand-stitched quilt, her soap-scented hair swirled on a pillow they shared. The pretense that all was well in his beloved country was over. This realization led him to seek out those who were actively making changes, while others only whispered about them, furtively looking around for Party finks. Ultimately, he had agreed to collect information to pass on to unknown carriers to squash communism and bring back the Ukraine his father had taught him to long for. 

Last night had been the culmination of two long years’ worth of effort. For months, he had been providing information through coded sentences in the still of the night, each time acutely aware that this could be the last time – each time lying to himself that this would be the last time. And yet, he ventured into various alleyways throughout the city on scheduled nights, again and again, delivering bits of information to further the cause despite these promises he made to himself while lurking in alleys in which he didn’t belong.

Three hours ago, maybe four, he had been standing in a pitch-black alley, fear wrapping itself around Lyaksandro like a jaded lover’s arms ready to administer another round of arsenic in the wine. Had he somehow known he would end up here, like this? His skin pricked on the back of his neck again, precisely as it had then, the small hairs standing at attention. He recalled the small sound, a distance away that had caused his breath to halt in his throat, fearing any sound might give him away. He had flattened himself against the doorway and listened intently, once again hearing the small but deafening noise. 

Such a minuscule sound would have been swallowed up in the bustle of the day, but there, in the inky darkness, it became ominous and menacing. Though he had willed it to be his contact, his sense of foreboding suggested otherwise. Never had he heard the approach before. In fact, he was often disconcerted at how swiftly and silently the contact arrived, asking for a light before Lyaksandro fully comprehended someone was at hand.

The sound, like soft scraping of metal against stone, happened again. Then again. More regularly. And closer. 

Lyaksandro carried no weapon, and though he was officially a spy, he had no training. Until this very moment, he had never considered what he would do if things didn’t go as planned. Nonetheless, some instinct, or perhaps the hand of God, had him drop to his haunches, seconds before a bit of brick where his head had been moments earlier burst into fragments and rained shards into his hair.

Whether he yelled out or not, he did not know, but it wouldn’t have mattered either way. A cacophony of noise instantaneously erupted in the once-silent night. Men’s voices mixed with explosions and the tinkling sound of broken glass. Running footsteps. The squeal of tires. And then silence again.

This could not be happening. He wanted to help his country, to provide a place for his wife and child to thrive. Nothing more. Certainly not this. He wanted only to be home with his wife and child, and tears flooded his eyes as he crouched against the wall, immobilized by fear.

Before he comprehended what was happening, someone grabbed Lyaksandro under the arm and hauled him to his feet. He threw his arms wildly toward the hand that gripped him, desperate to get away. He wasn’t a spy. He was merely a man. “Please, please. I don’t know what you want. I…” But before he uttered another word, a man in perfect Ukrainian said, “Come. Now. Quickly. We don’t have much time. They followed you here, hoping to catch two birds with one stone, but ended up with nothing to show for their night’s adventure, eh? Are you hurt? No? Come.”

One foot quickly followed the other as the man, carefully concealed under a cap and scarf, weaved in and out of streets and alleys, bringing him to a fourth-floor flat in a run-down, nondescript building. He threw some clothes in Lyaksandro’s direction. “Change. Quickly. No! Don’t use the light. Hand me your things.” Then, they were off again, this time, more slowly but not without purpose. Two more times, they ducked into buildings, changed clothes, and emerged again, the final time as others were beginning their morning routines. 

Lyaksandro realized with a joyful clarity that, unlike his father, he had lived. His joy, however, was fleeting as the man who saved his life said, “Here. Enter here.” As they moved inside, he gave Lyaksandro specific directions which seemed foreign and impossible to understand, consonants and vowels hobbled together but providing no meaning. “Sit here, in this chair so I can cut and dye your hair. We procurred documents for you. We will have you in London by this time tomorrow.”

“But…” Lyaksandro sat down heavily in the proffered chair, his mind reeling as he tried to take in the events over the past hour. Leaving his beloved Ukraine? Everything he did was to save this country, not leave it. And his family? What would Yevtsye think about leaving her homeland with a child in tow? It would make no sense to her. He needed to speak to her, to help her understand. “What about Ivanna? Yevtsye? When will they arrive? Where are their papers? They will be so frightened, so confused. I must explain everything to them.”

The man’s hand reached out and held Lyaksandro’s shoulder. “мій друг, my friend, the deal is for you. You, alone.”

Lyaksandro jerked away, wild eyes darting around the room. He would never leave his wife and child. They were the reason he did what he did. They were the reason for the risks he took. Without them, the midnight rendezvous made no sense. With a mixture of panic and resolve, he shouted, “No! No! They go, or I stay.”

Bending at the waist, bringing his face level with Lyaksandro’s, the nameless man who had saved his life hours before whispered slowly, as if speaking to a small child. “No. It is too late for ultimatums. We cannot get your wife and daughter. Your home is under surveillance. They watched you leave tonight. They followed you to the alley. They wanted to kill you. Your wife and daughter…they are…it is hard to say…where they might be?”

A wild, animal-like guttural groan escaped from Lyaksandro’s throat. His beautiful Ivanna. His beautiful Yevtsye. He had killed them. He regarded his hands, realizing they were capable of both stroking his wife’s cheek and effectively signing her death certificate. Had they started trembling in the alley, or only as he became aware of his new role as executor?  

More urgently, the man said, “Now. You must go now. We cannot permit you fall into your government’s hands. Doing so would cause far too many problems for us. Get up. Now.”

Mere seconds had passed. The man shifted his stance to stare directly into Lyaksandro’s eyes, the two men merely a gun-length apart. “Are you going? Or are you dying here?”

Twenty-four hours later, a shattered man, stripped of his Ukrainian name and his family, landed at Heathrow.

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About The Author

Learn more at www.terimbrown.com

If you are an author and wish to be featured as our guest or if you are a publicist and want to get your author featured on TRB, then please get in touch directly by e-mail at thereadingbud@gmail.com

Welcome to TRB Lounge. Today, I’d like to welcome author Valeri Stanoevich who’ll be sharing an excerpt from her latest release Fancy Shop, a collection of short stories.

About the Book

You can find this book on:
Amazon | Google Play Store | Barnes & Noble | Pinterest | Goodreads | Book Bub

Excerpt

THE GREASY RAIN

Nobody remembers when the greasy rain started. It’s considered to be a meteorological phenomenon. (Its drops leave stinking spots.) People of means use grease-protected cars and an appliance like a tunnel, through which they reach their shelters. The government provided the rest of the population with remaindered wetsuits, but due to their negligence they soon became completely greasy. 

In the evening, the city becomes quiet. From the streets, through the lashing rain, from time to time wails of desperation or hatred can be heard. For example: ‘White worms!’, ‘Shit!’, and so on. 

They say that there was a valley over which snow kept falling eternally. Those who reached it, would sink into the drifts. The cold would numb their bodies. The wind would stop their breathing. And there, a moment before they froze, with the last breath of air they accepted freedom. The freedom to be pure. 

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About The Author

If you are an author and wish to be featured as our guest or if you are a publicist and want to get your author featured on TRB, then please get in touch directly by e-mail at thereadingbud@gmail.com

Welcome to TRB Lounge. Today, I’d like to welcome author Philip Brunetti who’ll be sharing an excerpt from his latest release Newer Testaments.

About the Book

You can find this book on:
Amazon(.com) | Amazon(.in) | Goodreads | Atmosphere Press | BookShop | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

“In the tradition of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son, Brunetti’s wondrously wandering writing is taut and cryptic, vivid and hallucinatory, rendering an irony-laden, aberrant odyssey for his impossibly likable protagonist.”

-Franco D’Alessandro, playwright & poet, Roman Nights, Stranger Love, and Everything Is Something Else

Excerpt

Three

1.

I thought I was living in a French New Wave film. I had faked my own death. I’d spent my life carrying pens. There were these days. Each thing had its place. But there was never the right thing or place. Or rarely. I went on moaning. They strung me up like a dead Jaws tiger-shark on a hook. But everyone knew I was a fake. I’d lived inside my wallet. Folded up. This doesn’t mean I’d known money. Mostly we were left to pray by the curtains. My sister with her tail in her lap.

2.

They had spoken of vestibules. The house was collapsing around them. I didn’t even know their names. But they were standing there like in a box. An elderly couple. They appeared naked. They were holding each other by the waist. They both had gray hair and pubic hair. It mixed with the dust. The house was being demolished around them for some reason. And for some reason they were naked in the dust. I was off in the bushes somewhere like a secret photographer. A faux paparazzo. But I never clicked a picture. The image of their fall from grace was their own.

3.

We’d picnic in winter. Sometimes in the park under the nether-Whitestone Bridge. I couldn’t remember why I was dying (I wasn’t) but as a kid I had the feeling that I was. I went to get lost in the woods. My sister was behind me. She was getting ready to play a trick. She’d sneak around and jump out on the trail and scare me. I’d throw up my arms and scream. I was timid. Then she’d report me for my timidity. I had to be the man but I wasn’t this kind of man. I hadn’t been invented yet. I was on trial. And all the juries were out still. Maybe it was coming to disaster. But I’d never let out a sound.

4.

In the interim I read Leaves of Grass. I crossed and crisscrossed America. I had a fool’s wanderlust but found nothing inspiring. The Walmarts were a cancer. They’d eaten up the towns. I was on my knees in Chicago—Lake Michigan bound. I fell at the Great Lake seaside. The pillars of tenements behind me. The black children playing in the sand. I took a fiery shot of bourbon. It’d been warmed up in the heat of the van. My partners in crime were misfits. We were men on the run. 

5.

We planted infant trees in the garden. We went on planting infant trees. I didn’t know what I was doing but I could follow directions. So I followed them. The woman was like a little drill sergeant. She told me what I could and couldn’t do. I was given a spade and trowel. I had loose wrists and turned the earth. It was slipping from my senses. All the meanings I’d once meant.

‘We’re going nowhere now,’ I said to the woman.

‘That’s why you’re here,’ she rejoined.

I said nothing else. Later I’d show up with a watering can. I was playing with seeds. I didn’t know any better. The ground would open up too. There’d be a big crack in the earth, a hole fissuring. We’d have to go under the trees and roots even. All of the sprigs and dreams busted. But there was some truth in the ground.

‘How deep?’ I asked.

‘Keep going,’ she said.

We were six feet underground. 

6.

The Jesus Girl never had a hold on me. I’d buried her like an ant in the carpet. But I could see her still—shining in my eyes. I had wanted to be something. There was this fusion—bad and good, masc and fem, life and death. In truth I couldn’t go through that atrocity. I kept quiet. I was a small man in a big world. The word on the street was there was no word on the street…I’d expected more…or different. I was a man waiting at a vending machine without change. Dark stormy clouds were gathering. I felt weak. In a few hours bad things would happen. It was just a matter of time.

7.

I had to become him but could never become him. It was easier to put the fig back on the tree. Take some other bite. 

I didn’t know anything about grace. But it’d been threatened into me so I eventually grew curious. I talked to Simon. His black eyes burning—he harped on the Book of Revelation. He wrote his 8^th Grade interpretation of it. The English teacher gave him an A+. It’s a sacred cosmogony. Simon never said that. But it came to that in the report. Even the end of the world was beautiful.

8.

Tiring at dusk. But getting more awake too. And never remembering my name. Never having a proper name in the least bit. Being nameless even with a name. That’s how it mattered then.

We’d go out in the snow. There were 27 inches, nether-New York’s biggest blizzard in years. I had my pants tucked into rust-colored boots. My father put plastic bags over my doubled socks so my feet would slip through, stay dry. Then he tucked in my pants, meticulously, mercilessly. All in the name of love.

We exited from the garage door—into a landscape of pure snow. My older sister led the way. My father kicked me in the ass and I got moving. Each leg lift, each leg plant and I got buried to my thighs. The wind blasts froze my snots to my face. There was no turning back. This was the tundra of youth…we’d keep marching delinquently across the virgin snow.

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About The Author

If you are an author and wish to be featured as our guest or if you are a publicist and want to get your author featured on TRB, then please get in touch directly by e-mail at thereadingbud@gmail.com

Welcome to TRB Lounge. Today, I’d like to welcome author Laricea Ioana Roman-Halliday for sharing an excerpt from her latest release Brand Purpose – Less Unicorn, More Zebra?

About the book

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Excerpt

There is a lot of confusion around purpose, especially when it comes to a brands’ purpose, how they deploy this concept in their marketing efforts and then portray it to the world. We are currently living in some really troubled times (probably not the worst in human history); but nevertheless constantly bombarded with bad news, apocalyptic images and consistent negative updates across politics, nature, economics and many other verticals. So naturally, people as consumers and as citizens of this world turn their attention – more than ever to social and environmental issues. 

There has never been such a desire to change, fix, improve, eliminate, or embrace actions that would make a difference to the current affairs and not only make us feel better about ourselves but genuinely help shape a better future. Specifically, for this reason more than 60% of consumers believe that brands play a greater role than governments when it comes to the future of this planet. Whilst this is all fabulous news for brands to be entrusted with such great confidence, some of them are taking advantage of this trend in an unorthodox manner. 

Here I present this book, hoping to highlight some of the issues around brand purpose and purposeful brands, attempting to better define brand purpose and dreaming to be able to make a difference in how people/consumers/marketers perceive brand purpose and its real importance and power.

I just don’t want to stay silent anymore and marvel at how some big brands who have been silently chopping down trees from nature reserves are getting praised on a wider scale for improving and changing our society for good. I want to bring bad examples to your attention, but I also wish to define genuine brand purpose to inspire those companies out there who are fooling themselves (and at times, us) that their brand purpose is real.

Thus, I hope you will enjoy this book and become inspired to evaluate the brands you are working on as a marketer or the brands you are buying as a consumer through the lens of “true brand purpose”.

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About The Author

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If you are an author and wish to be featured as our guest or if you are a publicist and want to get your author featured on TRB, then please get in touch directly by e-mail at thereadingbud@gmail.com

Welcome to TRB-Lounge, the section of TRB dedicated to book promotions. Today, I’d like to welcome author Thalia Henry, for sharing an excerpt from her latest release Beneath Pale Water.

Read on to get a sneak-peek into this amazing new read!

About The Book

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Book Excerpt

In the fading light Luke took his fishing rod and laid it flat by the water’s edge.  His stomach rumbled. He walked away from the campsite, closer to the roadside where a row of poplars swayed. His fingers tossed aside the larger rocks. He picked one up in each hand and gouged at the dirt. It stung underneath his nails, and the exertion coated his forehead with a sheen of sweat. A tail flickered just beyond his grasp. Its body glistened and then vanished. He dug deeper and, with his thumb and forefinger, pulled a worm from its escape. He squeezed and it died instantly. He pulled a second and it too hung lifeless in his fingers. The first worm he brushed off and swallowed, then attached the second to a hook and cast out the line into the evening light. No food was wasted, not even the most disgusting. He was used to it and didn’t retch.

The smell of searing trout wafted across the campsite. Luke chewed on strips of flesh. Afterwards he buried the bones at the spot where he’d dug the worms.

He felt around inside his tent for the jersey he kept beside his mat and a baggy hat to rest askew on his head, put his feet into a pair of gumboots, sat on a rock and watched his breath rise. The lake stretched before him, a burnish of silver gracing its surface. Two ghosts danced pirouettes on it. He shook his head to shake the image away but the ghosts remained.

He watched the, smiling to tempt their friendship. Each figure was blurred, lingering somewhere between life and death. The man had bare feet and looked weatherworn and free. The woman turned her head, acknowledging Luke’s figure perched in the darkness. Two share eyes stared at him. Startled, he realised the apparition looked just like Delia. This jarred him. Since he’d met her by the side of the lake, she hadn’t returned, and he was starting to wonder whether she’d visited him at all. His eyes and mind fell heavy. The ghosts with their piercing eyes waltzed a slow diagonal in one direction and then the other, criss-crossing the corners of his skull until they fade from his sight. She might have turned to farewell him, her sundress swirling in the night, but he couldn’t be sure. Too much time alone; he must be losing it. When he looked up again, he saw what he had thought to be figures were worn down pylons – like those that once must have held up a jetty, and that the shapes of the pylons had warped with the lull of the lake into contours. He returned to his tent. The isolation of the landscape covered him in a blanket and he fell asleep.

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About The Author

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If you are an author and wish to be featured as our guest or if you are a publicist and want to get your author featured on TRB, then please get in touch directly by e-mail at thereadingbud@gmail.com