BOOK: Sea Witch by Carol Ann Kauffman

Dr. Laura Martin, Chief Extraterrestrial Life Scientist at The Touchstone Institute of Oceanographic Research, noticed troubling but subtle changes in the Atlantic Ocean. Before she could make sense of it all, her longtime assistant abruptly walked out. Laura hired young, handsome Scott Conner to be her personal assistant. Mayhem ensued, mainly because of Zara, the mermaid/siren/monster in the basement of the Touchstone Institute, who eyed on Scott as her possible mate in a plot for total domination of planet Earth.

“The Touchstone Institute of Oceanographic Research is the most fantastic, exhilarating place on the planet to work. It is high energy, exciting, sometimes maddening, often frightening, heart pounding work. It’s not a job. It’s a lifetime commitment. It gets in your blood. It grabs you by the throat and possesses you, body and soul. And it is work. If you’re not prepared to work your ass off day in and day out, weekends, holidays, your birthday, and your mamma’s birthday, leave now.”

From an Amazon review:

Verified Purchase

I love how Carol Ann Kauffman writes her stories. Sea Witch is not a part of the Time After Time series, but it sure could be. She wrote the Sea Witch the same way, love and romance like no others. That feeling of they knew each other before, even though they didn't. The excitement of finding true love and being together. The way the characters intertwined, the loss of one of them, only to be found again. Awwwwwe! True Love!
Dr Laura Martin is the Chief Exraterrestrial Life Scientist at The Touchstone Institute of Oceanographic Research. Dr Martin is looking for a research assistant. She interviewed a few ladies and next was a man. She didn't want a man, she got along better with women. But her colleague told her to give him a chance.
Dr Benjamin Scott Conner, is up next for the interview and is excited beyond means. He has admired Dr Martin for a very long time and it's his dream to work with her, be next to her, love her and just have her in his arms. Well he didn't have a chance. She already had him kicked to the curb in her mind, but he talked her into giving him a 2 week chance, unpaid. She basically had no choice. Scott,that's what everyone calls him, was very over qualified and she asked to make him something more along the line of his degrees.
Now Dr Martin has an alien woman in a holding tank for 20 year and has mad a friendship with her. But when she sees Scott, the alien goes nuts screaming that he is her mate. He has no idea what she I talking about. Zara, the name given to the alien, becomes very hostile and has to be calmed with medication. Lara and Scott try to figure out what is going on and by talking about Scott's background, Lara has an idea how he is connected to Zara. To find out, they have to go to his Mothers home in France. This is where you hold on to the edge of your seat and hold your breath.
Sea Witch is an Romance with SciFi and mystery added in. What a great combination! I was trying to figure it all out along the way and was surprised, very surprised to say the least at the last few chapters. The ending was all science fiction and wrapped tightly with romance. What a captivating storyline! This author has amazing talent!

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Amazon Buy Link:

Sea Witch  https://tinyurl.com/y7dkbt5q

The planet’s leading authority on alien lifeforms teams up with a brilliant young scientist in this tale of what happens when the mermaid locked in the basement escapes. 2.99 or Free on KU. #scifi #fantasy #mermaids

This was a fun one to write. A teeny, tiny bit of science and a whole lot of fiction.  Everyone assumes if aliens DO exist and they decide to invade our planet, we’ll see giant spaceships so large they’ll darken the sky.

 But what if they’re already here, hidden in the ocean, just waiting to pounce? 

BOOK REVIEW: Underneath, A Merfolk Tale, by M.N. Arzú

 

Get this book. Find a comfy seat. And strap yourself in for an exciting ride. A man is walking along the beach in Maine. He sees a lump on the beach ahead. As he gets closer, he realizes the lump is the body of a sea creature and it’s still alive. But barely. He calls an ambulance.
A taut, exciting tale of rescue and humanity, this well-written book will have you believing in, and liking, the merfolk who live underneath.

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GUEST POST: Schooled by the Novella by Kathy Bryson

Schooled by the Novella

by Kathy Bryson

Sounds like a spicy Regency romance, 

doesn’t it? Nothing so exciting. 

But I am very happy

 to have reached the end

 of my novella series, 

all 6 adventures of 

Giovanni In Med School

Writing a series is nothing new. Authors regularly cranked out books in on-going installments,but with the growing popularity of self-publishing, the pressure is on to release books more frequently. When I was between jobs as an adjunct professor, I could manage a book a year. But I went to full-time work, that year stretched to two. 

 

I started Giovanni Goes To Med School in 2016, writing a short story to entertain my coworkers. I had just finished a full-length novel, Fighting Mad, and was looking around for my next project. Since I’d just read about how some authors were writing novellas so they could post something new on Amazon every 6 months, I thought I’d try it. A hundred pages every 6  months should be easier than 300 pages in a year, right?

 

Well, 5 years later, I finished 6 novellas. Poor Giovanni has had to deal with zombies, witches, voodoo curses, werewolves, vampires, and hospital bureaucracy! It was a fun series to write. Novellas lend themselves to action packed stories because the pace is condensed. Comedy works well because dialogue can be short with one-line quips. In Giovanni’s case, a lot of screaming as he ran through the hospital pursued by zombies, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and co-workers!

                                                                                                              

Not only did I get to have fun torturing my hero, I got to explore ideas in many new creative ways. This series became as much the creation of the co-workers who inspired it as I worked to include them in the stories and as they suggested new challenges for poor Gio. A friend of a friend contributed illustrations, another friend created the covers, and my brother recorded the audio version. The series ended up being a chance for a lot of people to try something new, something different!

 

But the novellas did not end up being easier to write and certainly not faster! I have gotten much better at writing in layers. Get the first ideas down and add layers. The draft doesn’t even have to be a formal outline, but I do find a chapter list essential to keep track of plot lines and manage the pacing needed to build up to the key scenes. You don't want everyone’s action to hit during the scene and you don’t want to forget any additional character’s plot line, leaving them hanging! 

 

Novellas are a lot like old movie serials. Even if they are a stand-alone story, they should entice the reader into the next installment. However, I find the cliff-hanger annoying, so I tried for a clear beginning, middle, and end in each novella. After a while though, I had to leave story threads hanging until the next episode because the overall story arc took more than a hundred pages to explain, then wrap up. Even a pantser is probably gonna need extensive notes to remember who did what and when.

 

One area that requires as much work as a full-length book includes research. Any story with any complexity means hitting up the internet or library to verify all the details. Beside looking up decomposition, I had to learn about assorted diseases and routine medical practices. And because I was writing about zombies, I especially had to learn about voodoo. It’s important when dealing with a culture outside your own to know enough not only to sound credible, but to write with respect.

                                                                    

There’s not much room for more than action and dialogue in a shorter format, so description is both easier and harder. Setting and character may be confined to a single sentence, so the challenge of developing characters with depth and avoiding inconsistent behavior becomes even harder. The whole thing can start to feel more like an outline than a fully fleshed story. You may not have room to explain motivation, but you still don’t want simplistic stereotype characters either. This is one area I definitely needed the whole series to address!

 

In the end, my average was still about a hundred pages a year, same as in my full-length works. Life has a way of interrupting the best laid plans. In the past 5 years, I’ve changed jobs twice, moved three times, and then of course, there was the pandemic. You might think you can run the vacuum and write a chapter, but it’s hard to come up with the words when you’re trying to remember if you filed a report and  or turned off the stove. So for my next book, I’m planning a true stand-alone in 2 years. And now I have a body of work to stay current - several bodies in fact! 😂

The Med School (6 book series)

Kindle Edition

by Kathy Bryson (Author) , Jose Garcia (Illustrator) , Joseph Garcia (Illustrator)

From Book 1: an EPIC 2017 eBook Awards Finalist – Fiction Short Works 

You don't have to be a medical student to know the dead don't walk. Anyone who's buried a pet in the backyard knows they don't even lurch. 

The night-shift in the morgue was supposed to be a chance to study in peace. So Giovanni is stunned when his patient sits up and starts scolding. Now he's got to convince an unbelieving medical community to take action, so he can get back to learning about the dead – not the undead! 

With Full-Color Illustrations! You think the zombie is bad? You should see the drool! 

1st in a series of 6 novellas! Follow Giovanni's adventures and uncover the hidden secrets where the twisted worlds of the supernatural and medical science collide!

 

About Giovanni In Med School - 

Giovanni dreams of becoming a doctor. But he’s finding medical school has some unexpected challenges! You think anatomy is tough? Try zombies, ghosts, werewolves, and roving voodoo curses!

That’s just the beginning of Giovanni ln Med School as he grapples with classes, labs, AND the hidden secrets where the twisted worlds of the supernatural and medical science collide. Get all 6 of Giovanni’s adventures in this spell-binding, side-splitting collection you won’t be able to put down!

Available in ebook at https://books2read.com/b/bwaory

 

About the Author - 

Kathy Bryson is the award-winning author of tongue-in-cheek fantasy that ranges from leprechauns to zombies. She’d like to say she’s climbed tall mountains, rappelled off cliffs, and saved small children, but actually she tends to curl up and read, is a life-long advocate of Ben & Jerry’s, and caters to spoiled cats. She works regularly with student writing, so she can claim to have saved a few term papers.

BOOK: Belterra by Carol Ann Kauffman

Belterra https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0072F88NM

In a post-apocalyptic world divided into four segments, one woman envisions a united land and dares to love an outsider. A Romeo and Juliet tale where they are both alive at the end. 2.99 or Free on KU. #scifi #alienworlds #amreadingromance

The bottom green cover was the original Belterra cover. The yellow one, the current Belterra cover, speaks to the romantic fantasy story of lovers from different parts of their world who fall in love despite warnings and admonition from everyone. Is their journey together easy? 

 Belterra is also about relationships. Father and daughter. Mother and son. Sister and a pack of wild brothers. Best friends. A leader and his second in command. A strong, independent woman and a man who’s used to being in charge. Lovers. 

SCHEDULE: October 18 - 22, 2021

 Mon., Oct. 18 - ART:

Japanese Printmaker

Hasui Kawase

Tues., Oct. 19 - BOOK:

Belterra, Time After Time

by Carol Ann Kauffman

Wed., Oct. 20 - GUEST POST:

Schooled by the Novella

by Kathy Bryson

Thurs., Oct. 21 - BOOK REVIEW:

Underneath,

A Merfolk Tale

by M. N. Arzú

Fri., Oct. 22 - BOOK:

Sea Witch

by Carol Ann Kauffman

VISION AND VERSE DISCLAIMER

Note:

Vision and Verse does not store any personal information like email addresses, home addresses, etc. We do not give any information to third parties. And cookies? We eat cookies.