David Fortier’s first book of poems, Paradise, combines a “whimsical look at the human experience with a cunning and critical consideration of the big questions that have plagued humanity for centuries.”
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David can be reached at fortier.david@gmail.com
By Dawn Leger
The second book in the Cassie Thornton mystery series finds Cassie helping her friend Michael unravel an old family secret in his mother’s attic, while her own past continues to encroach on the new life she’s trying to establish in New York City. Sparks fly between Detective Friday and Cassie when she starts researching two mysterious sisters.
The presence of Cassie’s “husband” complicates her growing relationship with Detective Friday as the Gypsies come to town, and Cassie reaches for her deck of Tarot cards for guidance when life gets complicated. It’s a fast-paced, bumpy ride, but whether she’s sorting old papers in Massachusetts or dealing with a cat-napping in Manhattan, you can trust Cassie to have a snappy retort and a whole lot of moxie when it’s needed.
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Dawn can be reached at drdawn2013@gmail.com
Dawn’s website is http://dawnleger.com/
When Horace Greeley advised Americans to “Go West!” a century and a half ago, it’s doubtful he envisioned someone like Calvin Hopper. Greeley’s advice was full of promise and optimism; Hopper, who has lived and breathed the East all his life, wants only a place to escape.
Fifty years old and adrift, Hopper is trying to shed the remnants of a relationship that has collapsed for the second and final time. He envisions the West as a place in which to disappear; and Sage, Montana, becomes the way station on a journey whose endpoint he hasn’t really considered.
Sage is isolated by both weather and topography, but despite its sleepy appearance and a smattering of old-west kitsch, it hides a multitude of secrets, many of which extend well beyond its borders and involve residents who, like Hopper, have sought solitude but failed.
As he becomes enmeshed in the life of the town and sees the possibility of starting over, he uncovers more about its past. Soon isolation is no longer an option: unless Cal Hopper can expose those secrets, his own life may end in the place where he sought a new beginning.
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By Dawn Leger
Prof. Cassie (Cassandra) Thornton’s mother left the family when her daughter was just 8 years old to return to the Gypsy life in Europe. In the first book of the series, “Embracing the Fool,” Cassie is starting her second year in a teaching position at New York University, trying to live a quiet academic life in a new city. She has secrets, but she is innocent of the murder she stumbles upon in the opening scene. Cassie is funny and fresh. Her give-and-take with NYPD Detective Tyler Friday is priceless, and their relationship takes off when Cassie’s past comes knocking on the door in book two, “Freeing the Magician.” The series is quick and fast-paced, with a bit of romance stirred in and a soupçon of the exotic when Cassie allows herself to test the skills she has inherited from her mother.
Available at the following:
Dawn can be reached at dawnleger
Dawn’s website is http://dawnleger.com/
Dawn Leger’s new novel, Eagle Scouting, is now available for purchase. Click on the book below to order your copy today!
On September 11, 2001, the entire country was swept up in feelings that were unfamiliar after the first attack on its land since Pearl Harbor. From cities to small towns, National Guardsmen patrolled armories and “foreigners” were looked at with more animosity than ever. Along the Connecticut shore, in the small fictional town of Jerome, the looming naval base and its adjacent shipyard were not immune to this atmosphere of fear and suspicion, especially after a man was discovered murdered in a gruesome manner, tied to a bed in a Main Street apartment. Although dismissed as a sex-related killing by the local police, the victim’s sister was certain that the death was related to the terrorist acts that had taken place the same day the body was discovered. Both Clara Quiñones and her brother Raoul were trained FBI officers, and he was still on the job in Jerome, seeking the source of a gun-running outfit operating near the naval base. Clara’s search for the truth about his murder alternates with chapters describing Raoul’s discovery of a group of terrorists organizing an attack on New York City.
The fast pace of the two stories takes readers inside the minds of the terrorists, and uncovers the seamy underbelly of life in the shadow of a defense monolith. Interspersed with memories of growing up Hispanic in a transient town, looking after a beloved baby brother and trying to make her own mark on the world, Clara’s journey for truth and vindication takes her deep into the heart of what it means to be good, to be right, and to get justice.
Also available at Amazon:
Dawn can be reached at dawnleger
Dawn’s website is http://dawnleger.com/
Chuck Radda presents his new novel, Dark Time, available as a trade paperback or ebook. Here’s a summary from the book jacket:
A woman survives the dramatic crash-landing of an airplane on the Hudson River, only to disappear into thin air. Her husband begins a journey to find her that leads him hundreds of miles from home, to uncover her secrets in the desolate tundra of northern Canada.
In his debut novel, Chuck Radda takes readers deep into the new territory of Nunavut, where Martin Wilkes struggles to come to terms with the truth about his wife, his marriage, and ultimately, the meaning of his life.
With a wide-ranging cast of characters that includes a cranky detective, a psychic Inuit, a daredevil pilot, and some uptight suburbanites, Radda captures the desperation of a man teetering on the brink of losing everything he holds dear.
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Chuck Radda presents his second novel, Absolute Truth, available as a trade paperback or ebook. Here’s a summary from the book jacket:
Brutal murders on successive nights have shocked the small town of Drayton. In their aftermath two young women are dead, two anguished families will confront a shattering loss, and residents must face the possibility that a serial killer lives among them.
To Brianna Cooper, a reporter for the Drayton Courier, even such horrific crimes would ordinarily mean little more than an assignment; but because the first victim was a friend, Brianna feels a greater personal involvement. Unfortunately, her reputation as a journalist is spotty at best: she cuts corners when it suits her, and at least once has embarrassed herself and the Courier with her nonchalant approach and indifferent attitude.
Brianna Cooper believes she can do better—can gather facts and verify sources, seek the truth and report it, play her role with a new independence. She doesn’t realize that simply doing her job may well have consequences she could never have anticipated, and that the absolute truth can present its own dangers.
Also available at Amazon:
I’ve always been drawn to aviation—maybe because I had an uncle once who flew bombing missions in the Pacific during World War II, crash-landed in New Guinea, and somehow made it back alive. He seldom spoke of the incident, but to the rest of the family he was always a pilot.
I’m not a pilot. I never became one (just as Kramer in Seinfeld never became a banker) but that didn’t keep me away from airports—even dragging my family there incessantly in years past—less so these days when heightened security measures make it difficult to find a location to watch take-offs and landings. But of course aviation is often linked to disasters, and the piece previewed here involves one of them: the crash of American 191 in Chicago, May, 1979. Though the story takes place today, its seed grew from that event.
The link below will take you to my website where you can download an early chapter. I’d love to hear what you think.
Lefora author Judy Giguere poses along side her painting incuded in the Monastery Gallery art show in West Hartford through April 23.
Lefora author Judy Giguere’s Chinese ink brush painting is included in the Monastery Gallery’s current art show. entitled “No Ordinary Path.” Giguere published The Art of Chinese Brush Painting two years ago.
The announcement on the website describes the show as allowing the exhibitors an opened-ended opportunity to participate using many different mediums. “Most artists provided a statement as to how the artwork fit the theme. For many it was following their own creative path exploring where the theme took them. Learn more as you explore the exhibit.”
The gallery is located on the grounds of Holy Family Passionist Retreact Center in West Hartford. The shows runs through April 23.
Its mission states the following: “The Monastery Gallery of Art values and promotes all forms of art that explore themes of compassion, resilience, peacemaking, loving kindness, social justice, and care for others and our planet.”
