Posts Tagged ‘Puget Sound’

I will be posting my review of Adrift in the Sound in November.

Just wanted to let you know it’s free on Amazon. Go here to get your copy! Don’t wait.

Please make sure the book is still free before you hit purchase.

Adrift in the Sound

Adrift in the Sound

by Kate Campbell

In 1973, frazzled Seattle street artist Lizette Karlson tries to pull herself together and turns to the Franklin Street Dogs for help. This low-life tavern softball team is a horrifying choice for a fractured spirit like Lizette, who’s only trying to stay warm and make it through another rainy night. The Dogs think she’s a head case and don’t realize that while Lizette’s beautiful, talented, and a bit off kilter—she’s also cunning and dangerous.
Lizette wants to make it with top-Dog, Rocket. He’s fixed on next door neighbor Sandy Shore, the little snake dancer who strips for soldiers coming home at the end of the Vietnam War. Everybody sleeps with everybody—whatever gets you through the night—it’s a sexual free-for-all until Sandy turns up pregnant and the scene go haywire.
After witnessing a murder and getting kicked out by the Dogs, Lizette is on the run again, crisscrossing Puget Sound. She hides out on Orcas Island and paints in a secluded cabin owned by her childhood friend Marian, a gifted midwife who recently inherited her family’s ranch. On the island, Lizette works with Lummi tribal leaders Poland and Abaya, who stick to their cultural values, guard their family secrets and offer her unconditional love. Along the way, Lizette sorts out crippling secrets in her own past, unwittingly makes a splash in the New York art world—and finds the only thing that really matters.
If you lived through the free-love 60s, if you’ve ever wondered what happened the day after the music died, ADRIFT IN THE SOUND picks up the beat and offers unforgettable insights into a turbulent time in American history. It’s a story about fighting the tides, surviving the storm, and swimming for shore.
Readers are calling ADRIFT IN THE SOUND an important exploration of the resilience of the human spirit in a radically changing world. In both lyrical prose and gritty street language, Kate Campbell rocks our understanding of contemporary history and challenges our fiercely held beliefs. She reshapes old myths and creates new folktales to delight our imaginations.(less)

Paperback, 340 pages
            Published        May 22nd 2012         by NutTree Media
About the author and where to find her:
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A novelist, a journalist, an adventurer, Kate Campbell grew up in San Francisco and has lived and worked throughout California and the West. Like every good Westerner, she can swim, ride and shoot. Her novel “Adrift in the Sound,” was a finalist for New York’s 2011 Mercer Street Books Literary Prize. Her new book for writers: “Between the Sheets: An Intimate Exchange on Writing, Editing, and Publishing,” chronicles the final editing of “Adrift in the Sound” through a spirited exchange with her editor and co-author Thomas T. Thomas. An award-winning journalist and photographer, Campbell’s environmental and political writing appears regularly in newspapers and magazines throughout the U.S. She lives in Sacramento and, in addition to writing fiction and poetry, publishes the Word Garden blog at kate-campbell.blogspot.com.

Title: Dark Passage “Chosen” 

Author: M.L. Woolley 

Every now and then I read a book that catches me by surprise. Expecting a haunted house story, I instead discovered a tale about the human struggle to find our place in this world. This story is told from multiple points of view which made it fun and easy to understand.

The story centers around an old Victorian house in Olalla, on the Dark Passage of the Puget Sound.

Bill has come to Olalla looking for inspiration about a book. He is drawn to an estate sale at an old house and for reasons unknown to him he feels compelled to buy it. It has a sense of familiarity to him. Before he can complete renovations he has an accident which puts him in a coma.  While unconcious, he sees a woman in a tunnel beckoning him.

Desperate  to escape the frequent, violent attacks of her abusive husband, Jen accepts an offer from her friend Peter to rent an old house. The strange man from her dreams, the one she loves in this other reality, has given her the confidence to leave her abusive relationship and take her life back. She senses something special about the house, something otherwordly, but is unsure if it is evil or good. There is something or someone watching her.

Strange forces have drawn Bill and Jen together through their dreams. They will need each other as they slowly come to understand what the house is and where their place is in the coming events.

There are many characters that have important roles in this story of darkness and light.

Bill’s cousin Lisa has been corrupted by something evil and commits unspeakable acts in her hunger for fortune. You will loathe her.

David is ensnared by Lisa’s manipulations and blindly follows her wishes, ignoring an inner voice that warns him not to.

Jen’s best friend Ivy gets drawn into the mystery of the house and discovers she has a very important part to play in the times ahead. She really endeared herself to me. the guilt she has carried around for years over the death of her brother and sister has led her to pick all the wrong men.

Peter has been friends with Bill since childhood and is his guardian in more ways than one while he lies in a coma. He begins to receive messages from Bill, but that is impossible. Bill is still in a coma.

John’s life spins out of control after Jen leaves him and, in his madness, dark forces control him for their own purposes.

I could write so much more about this book but then I would be telling too much. Now that the stage has been set and I have come to know the characters, I am ready to dive into the Guardians, the second book. Due to be released soon, you can read a little bit about it at the end of Dark Passages.

I am now hooked and the author has reeled me in.

A resounding 5 Stars for Dark Passages.