Barbara Ellen Brink

Barbara's Thin Line Between Truth & Fiction

Barbara

MIDSUMMER MADNESS & Double Barrel deals!

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This week the 3rd book in my Double Barrel Mysteries released worldwide. MIDSUMMER MADNESS continues Blake and Shelby Gunner’s story as part-time private eyes and co-owners in the Drunken Sailor Bed & Breakfast.

There is a lot going on in Port Scuttlebutt these days. Double Barrel Investigations is up and running, and Shelby’s dream to direct community theatre is closer than ever as the Port Playhouse is nearly complete, but a life-changing curveball throws both Blake and Shelby for a loop. Add to that the body of a man washed up on the bank of Lake Superior and you’ve got an unforgettable summer!

Pick up a copy today! MIDSUMMER MADNESS

To celebrate the new release, I have discounted the first two books in the series as well. This month you can pick up ROADKILL and MUCH ADO ABOUT MURDER for 40% off the regular price. Just $2.99 each!

While all the crazy people go shopping at the mall, you can relax in your easy chair with a cup of coffee, a piece of pie, and a good book. That’s where I’ll be.

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving, and holiday season!

Thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment and say hi!

Barbara

Barbara is the author of the Fredrickson Winery Novels, the Grace Award winning thriller, Split Sense, The Second Chances series, The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy, and The Double Barrel Mysteries. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and pup.

 

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Book Review: Crisis Shot by Janice Cantore

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Today on the blog I have a book review. As you know, I am partial to mystery, suspense and thriller novels. CRISIS SHOT falls right in that sweet spot between all of those.

Author Janice Cantore has become my go-to author for whenever I have the urge to read a really good, meaty, cop book. Her heroines are real people, struggling with personal lives, family, and friends, all while protecting and serving the public interest and dealing with constant politics on the job.

Crisis Shot is about a female division commander in Long Beach, California who has to shoot a teenager to save a fellow officer’s life and is lambasted in the media until she is forced out of her job. She gets a job as Chief in a small town in Oregon and hopes she can put it all behind her, but some people still believe the bad press regardless of her exoneration and she has to work doubly hard for the respect of her fellow officers as well as many of the townspeople.

When a man is murdered and a well-loved pastor’s wife goes missing, she is put to the test to prove her mettle and ability and along the way she has cause to question all she thought she believed about faith and trust in the God of the universe.

This is obviously the first book in the Line of Duty series, so I’m looking forward to the next edition to follow Chief Tess O’Rourke’s progress in Rogue’s Hollow and whether or not she finds time to date deputy Steve Logan.

*I was given a complimentary copy of Crisis Shot from Tyndale Publishing for review purposes.

You can purchase CRISIS SHOT here: Amazon  Barnes&Noble

Thanks for stopping!

Barbara

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Series, The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy, Second Chances series, and The Double Barrel Mysteries series. She lives in Minnesota and yearns for Hawaii.

 

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Oh, the madness in Port Scuttlebutt!

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COVER REVEAL day!!!

It’s time to rejoice!

MIDSUMMER MADNESS is available for pre-order NOW! Scroll down to the links for all of your favorite stores at the bottom of the page. PreOrder your copy today and be first to learn all the recent happenings in Port Scuttlebutt!

~They say, Lake Superior never gives up her dead. They also say, you can’t keep a good man down. Sometimes spur-of-the-moment murders don’t go as planned.

Blake and Shelby Gunner are pulled into yet another murder mystery in this 3rd installment of the Double Barrel Mysteries. Hired to find a stolen fishing boat, they end up catching a dead body and a trail of rose petals.

There is a lot going on in Port Scuttlebutt these days and the August sunshine seems to be causing a bit of Midsummer Madness. ~

If you haven’t read the 1st two books in the Double Barrel Mysteries, check them out on my bookstore page.

PreOrder Today and get the lowest price of the season!!

Amazon   Barnes&Noble   KOBO   iBookstore

 

What do you think about the new cover? Are you excited to get back for a visit to Port Scuttlebutt? Leave a comment below!

Thanks for stopping!

Barbara

Barbara is the author of the Fredrickson Winery Novels, the award winning thriller, Split Sense, The Second Chances series, The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy, and The Double Barrel Mysteries, Roadkill and Much Ado About Murder. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and pups.

 

 

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A storm in the pages…

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Today on the blog, my friend and fellow author, Nike N. Chillemi, is going to introduce you to her new romantic suspense novella and tell you a little about the storm she went through to get it ready to publish. (ever heard of Hurricane Irma?) I know you will enjoy her writing because I’ve read some of her books and they are terrific! So enjoy! 

Authors Are Like the Postman ~ neither snow, nor rain…

By Nike N. Chillemi

Since I live in Jacksonville, Florida, the snow part doesn’t apply to me. Boy, oh, boy, the rain part sure does. After getting hit by Hurricane Irma, it was a struggle to get my New Adult novella, THAT SPECIAL ONE published in a timely manner. Still, I was determined.

The novella opens with the start of college for Freshman Ivy Chalmers. So, naturally I wanted to release the book in September. Since I’m an indie author, I have some flexibility as to the release date. I had hoped for the second week in September. Unfortunately, Hurricane Irma hit Jacksonville on September 11th. As can be imagined, this put something of a crimp in my plans.

After the storm left Jacksonville, nearly the entire city was without power, which was incredible for me to comprehend at the time. My power was restored after three days. Those were three long days without light, water (because electric runs water in Jacksonville), or WiFi. Even after my power was back, I had no WiFi. I had to publish THAT SPECIAL ONE using WiFi at the public library. I knew there was a reason God created libraries.

THAT SPECIAL ONE in a nut shell…

New Adult Christian Romantic Suspense Novella

College freshman Ivy Chalmers moved in with her aunt and uncle in Arroyo, Texas. She needed to get away from her alcoholic and weed smoking mother. Ivy longed for a different life than the revolving-door-men in her mom’s life. Making a one-eighty, she vowed not to make a serious dating commitment unless she knew it would be that really ‘special relationship.’

Corey Jones had been the man in his house since age twelve, when his alcoholic dad abandoned him and his mom. Once in a while, his dad showed up trying to extort money from them using threats. Then his blue-haired, self-centered cousin Ava came to live with them and the way she treats his mom enrages him.

Ivy is thrilled when she meets an upper classman from a neighboring college and thinks he might be ‘that guy.’ When she is horribly betrayed, her world is thrown upside-down, and she plunges into a depression. In a steady and kind of clumsy way, Corey is there for her during her worst moments. But his family is plagued with alcoholism, the life she had with her mom, the life she ran away from. What’s wrong with her that she attracts the wrong guys? As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s an arsonist terrorizing their tiny village.

Author Bio:

Like so many writers, Nike Chillemi started at a very young age. Her first major work was a Crayola, fully-illustrated book she penned as a little girl (colored might be more accurate) about her then off-the-chart love of horses. Today, you might call her a crime fictionista with a humorous side. Her passion is crime fiction. She likes her bad guys really bad and her good guys smarter and better.

Nike is the founding board member of the Grace Awards and its Chair, a reader’s choice awards for excellence in Christian fiction. She has been a judge in the 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016 Carol Awards in the suspense, mystery, and romantic suspense categories; and an Inspy Awards 2010 judge in the Suspense/Thriller/Mystery category. Her four novel Sanctuary Point series (out of print), set in the mid-1940s has finaled, won an award, and garnered critical acclaim. The first novel in the Veronica “Ronnie” Ingels/Dawson Hughes series HARMFUL INTENT won in the Grace Awards 2014 Mystery/Romantic Suspense/Thriller/Historical Suspense category. She has written book reviews for The Christian Pulse online magazine. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and John 3:16 Marketing Network. http://nikechillemi.wordpress.com/

Get your kindle copy of That Special One

~~Thanks for stopping by! Have a question for Nike about Hurricane Irma or her new book? Please leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you!

Barbara

Barbara is the author of the Fredrickson Winery Novels, the award winning thriller, Split Sense, The Second Chances series, The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy, and The Double Barrel Mysteries. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and pup.
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Bumper Sticker Wisdom

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So, you know those cute little sayings some people have for every situation?

If you’ve ever been to college and lived in a dorm room, you probably had one roommate who collected posters with sunny quotes and positive slogans that made you want to rip them off the walls and paper their larynx with them. Of course you would never have done that because a moment of patience in a moment of anger saves you a hundred moments of regret.

When you complain that your kid threw up in the car, your washing machine is broke, and your carpet cleaner is out of soap, they say count your blessings, name them one by one and you count to ten, hoping they’ll disappear before you open your eyes again.

When you’re blue they say turn that frown upside down and then you turn on some jazz and tune them out.

When you’re lifting that bench press and ready to cave they say it’s not over till the fat lady sings and you drop it on their foot and they scream bloody soprano.

Another one I read today was, We can’t direct the wind but we can adjust the sails. Where do people come up with these things? You just want to turn on the blow dryer to hurricane level and blow their boat right out of the bathtub.

But my least favorite… is when I’m forced by passing time to celebrate another birthday and they say you are only as old as you feel. Well, I feel stinking old! Especially after going to Perkins with my husband and mother-in-law the other day and realizing that we can all eat off the senior menu now. That’s just wrong.

Not wanting to leave you in a downer mood, here is a quote to brighten your world:

You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy coffee! Have a happy caffeinated day!

Is there a slogan you love, or love to hate? Share it in the comments!

Thanks for stopping!

Barbara

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Series, The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy, Second Chances series, and The Double Barrel Mysteries series. She lives in Minnesota and yearns for Hawaii.
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They put a camera up… where?!

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They put a camera up… WHERE??

What happens in an exam room usually stays in said exam room, but I’m over fifty now and apparently I’ve lost most of my inhibitions. So, I’m going to share my colonoscopy adventure with you today. No, I don’t have the video, but I can give you the gist of it.

Being of a certain age, I was finally cajoled, pushed, pressured, and reminded enough that I set up an appointment for a Colonoscopy. Hearing vaguely unhappy reports from others who had gone through this procedure, I put it off like a five-year-old on a playground digging her heels in the sand when her mother takes her hand and says it’s time to go home. There was no actual kicking and screaming, but inside my head there was definitely an argument going on between Me, Myself, and I about whether I’d keep the appointment.

The day before the procedure I was required to be on a clear liquid fast. That means no colorful, caffeinated, or alcoholic drinks may pass your lips. So not only was I in starvation mode, but I wasn’t even allowed the Nector Of The Sane… coffee. A headache set up residence behind my eyes in a vain attempt to prove to me how very bad caffeine was for me and what a pitiful addict I had become. It didn’t work. It just made me want it all the more.

In the afternoon, I began drinking 64 ounces of Gatorade laced with a bottle of laxative powder that looked a whole lot like Sweet’n Low. Well, it did make things move very low.

Can I just say that when your bowels are clean as a whistle (whatever that means) – but they are still on high alert because of all the various laxatives you’ve consumed – the slow release of gases through the intestines make an eerie high-pitched sound like an all string band called Whippoorwill. I can only imagine that this very sound is where the country of Wales got its name.

The whole process brought to mind an old 1980’s movie starring Dennis Quad. A drunken and disgraced astronaut volunteers to have himself miniaturized and injected into the bloodstream of a caged rabbit but ends up in the body of jerky, manic, nervous Martin Short. It would’ve been a whole different scenario if he were put into my colon after drinking that awful stuff. Instead of calling the movie, InnerSpace, they would’ve called it S**t Storm of Massive Proportions. A combination between The Perfect Storm but with a Dante’s Peak ending.

You might think I’m telling you that having a colonoscopy is the worst experience ever. But you’d be wrong. The worst experience ever would be to find out you had colon cancer because you were never checked in time.

The nurse in charge of me said she’d had three colonoscopies in the past fifteen years. Most people don’t need that many, but she was extra vigilant after the doctor found polyps each time and got rid of them before they could become a problem. Her brother wasn’t so lucky. He refused to be checked and died last fall from colon cancer.

I can’t say it was a pleasant experience, but after the fact I will say that I feel very relieved I don’t have to worry about it again for ten more years.

As I sit here drinking a mug of lovely dark coffee and nibbling on a Dove’s chocolate, I am thankful for life, health, and caffeine.

Thanks for stopping! Leave a comment or just say hi!

Barbara

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Series, The Amish Bloodsuckers Trilogy, Second Chances series, and The Double Barrel Mysteries series. She lives in Minnesota and yearns for Hawaii.
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