Spotlighting: Coach's Midnight Diner

Coach’s Midnight Diner: The Jesus Vs. Cthulhu Edition
A Hardboiled Genre Anthology with a Christian Slant

A hardboiled anthology of horror, mystery, and paranormal fiction, Coach's Midnight Diner is the faith-based anthology readers have been waiting for. With full allowance for artistic freedom, Diner authors pull no punches.

Entrees of Jesus Vs. Cthulhu Fiction by Chris Mikesell, Kevin Lucia, Neil A. Riebe, and Jens Rushing highlight the first edition of Coach's Midnight Diner, but there's so much more on the menu.

We'll server up horror fiction by Editor's Choice Award winner Robert N. Jennings, J. Mark Bertrand, Melody Graves, Nathan Knapp, and Caroline Misner.

Side orders of Crime, Mystery, and Detective Fiction by Charles Browning, Suzan Robertson, R.M. Oliver, S.J. Kessel, Michael Medina, and Mike Dellosso will have you trying to guess who the culprit is until the very end. We'll quench your thirst for Paranormal Fiction with stories from Mike Duran, Robert Garbacz, Matt Mikalatos, and Paul Luikart.

And for dessert, Jennifer J. Edwards and Linda Gilmore bring stories from That One That Happens in A Diner.

Coach's Midnight Diner will satisfy your appetite for thrills and quench your thirst for something a little deeper than your average fare.



“Long before the rise of Christian publishing, marketing departments, and book committees domesticating content to appeal to the sensibilities of evangelical audiences, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote novels filled with profound Christian truths. However, his characters were a dark and colorful bunch including murderers, the mentally challenged, gamblers, seditionists, and prostitutes. Fyodor's painted his characters with such a dark brush that one wonders if "The Possessed", "Crime and Punishment", or "The Brothers Karamazov" would be publishable in today's Christian market.

Coach Culbertson and the creative minds at ccPublishing are hoping to change all that with COACH'S MIDNIGHT DINER, an anthology of "horror, mystery, crime, and paranormal goodness." Like Dostoevsky's universe, the pages of the diner are filled with murders, strippers, demons, debauched pastors, trolls, alcoholics and a host of other unlikely purveyors of divine truth.”
-Larry Shallenberger, Author of Divine Intention

Book Details:

Title: Coach’s Midnight Diner: The Jesus Vs. Cthulhu Edition
Editors: Coach Culbertson, Vennessa Ng
Category: Horror, Mystery,
ISBN: 978-0979228445
Format: Trade paperback
Publication Date: Aug 2007
Pages: 276
Cover Price: $20.00
Trim: 9.4 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
Available from: Ingram’s, Baker and Taylor

Buy The Book:

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance Review: Try Dying by James Scott Bell

About The Book

On a wet Tuesday morning in December, Ernesto Bonilla, twenty-eight, shot his twenty-three-year-old wife, Alejandra, in the backyard of their West 45th Street home in South Los Angeles. As Alejandra lay bleeding to death, Ernesto drove their Ford Explorer to the westbound Century Freeway connector where it crossed over the Harbor Freeway and pulled to a stop on the shoulder.

Bonilla stepped around the back of the SUV, ignoring the rain and the afternoon drivers on their way to LAX and the west side, placed the barrel of his .38 caliber pistol into his mouth, and fired.

His body fell over the shoulder and plunged one hundred feet, hitting the roof of a Toyota Camry heading northbound on the harbor Freeway. The impact crushed the roof of the Camry. The driver, Jacqueline Dwyer, twenty-seven, an elementary schoolteacher from Reseda, died at the scene.

This would have been simply another dark and strange coincidence, the sort of thing that shows up for a two-minute report on the local news—with live remote from the scene—and maybe gets a follow-up the next day. Eventually the story would go away, fading from the city's collective memory.

But this story did not go away. Not for me. Because Jacqueline Dwyer was the woman I was going to marry.

In the fast-paced thriller Try Dying, lawyer Ty Buchanan must enter a world of evil to uncover the cause of his fiancée’s death—even if he has to kill for the truth.

About The Author

James Scott Bell is a former trial lawyer who now writes full time. He is also the fiction columnist for Writers Digest magazine and adjunct professor of writing at Pepperdine University.

His book on writing, Plot and Structure, is one of the most popular writing books available today. The national bestselling author of several novels of suspense grew up and still lives in Los Angeles, where he is at work on his next Buchanan thriller.

Visit James Scott Bell’s Web site: http://www.jamesscottbell.com

Book Link

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1599956845

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance Review: Deadfall by Robert Liparulo

Illuminating Fiction Review

Walk into a computer store, check out the software department, and what do you find?

Shelf upon shelf of computer games.

And it’s not just computer stores. With PlayStation, Xbox, and a range of other devices, gaming has become a huge part of today’s culture. Browse the shelves long enough and you will find games aimed at pre-school age right through to adults.

If you think gaming is regulated to a form of entertainment, you’d be mistaken. The US Military view life-like games and simulators vital in the training of new recruits and also regard video games as a way to interest teenagers into enlisting.

With some video games also being attributed to the increase in teen violence, it stands to reason a novel would soon surface looking at the reach of today’s gaming.

Deadfall, Robert Liparulo’s latest release, is a fast paced, action thriller which combines gaming and military technology into a storyline that will have readers enthralled from start to finish.

Fiddler Falls, population 242, is about as remote as towns get. Situated in the Canadian far north, the town has no mobile phone service, landlines, cable or satellite television, or Internet. Satellite phones provide the only form of communication to the outside world. During Fall, rain makes roads impassable and isolates the town, making it the ideal spot for those who simply want to get away from it all—and those looking for a place to test a top secret weapon.

Lead by Declan Page, six visitors arrive in Fiddler Falls, bringing with them a terror unlike any the town has seen before. Intent on proving that the future of warfare lies in the technology of video games, Declan brings with him “Slacker” (SLCR), a control unit for a top secret weapon created by his father’s company. Declan and his group, largely made up of teens, use the town and surrounding area to test SLCR’s capabilities, as well as shot real life footage for a new video game set to take gaming to the next level. Declan only has one rule. Leave no witnesses.

When John Hutchison, known as Hutch, and his three closest friends needed a vacation, Hutch planned a hunting trip in the Canadian wilderness. Four men, nature, and ten days of seclusion to decompress. On the first morning, keen to hunt caribou and bring back meat for his friends, Hutch sets out. Soon the hunter becomes the hunted.

A deadly game of cat and mouse begins as Hutch races to save innocent lives and remain out of the sight of an eye in the sky.

An explosive read, Deadfall will blast holes in any action fanatics sleep pattern. Intent on only reading a chapter or two each night, I often found myself struggling to keep my eyes open many hours and many chapters later.

Although more tightly written, Deadfall lacks the storyline complexity Robert’s previous two releases contained. Reader enjoyment is carried throughout the story by hard and fast action and well developed characters. Robert also refrains from using gory descriptions as he did in Comes A Horseman and Germ, thus leaving more to the imagination, which may suit many readers.

As well as pleasing Liparulo’s existing fan base, Deadfall is bound to attract new action thriller seekers to his readership.

About The Author

Robert is an award-winning author of over a thousand published articles and short stories. He is currently a contributing editor for New Man magazine. His work has appeared in Reader's Digest, Travel & Leisure, Modern Bride, Consumers Digest, Chief Executive, and The Arizona Daily Star, among other publications. In addition, he previously worked as a celebrity journalist, interviewing Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Charlton Heston, and others for magazines such as Rocky Road, Preview, and L.A. Weekly.

Robert is an avid scuba diver, swimmer, reader, traveler, and a law enforcement and military enthusiast. He lives in Colorado with his wife and four children.

Robert's first novel painted a scenario so frighteningly real that six Hollywood producers were bidding on movie rights before the novel was completed. His acclaimed debut novel, Comes A Horseman, is being made into a major motion picture by producer Mace Neufeld and his short story "Kill Zone" was featured in the anthology Thriller, edited by James Patterson.

Bob has sold the film rights to his second book, GERM. He is also writing the screenplay for a yet-to-be-written political thriller, which sold to Phoenix Pictures, for Andrew Davis (The Fugitive, The Guardian) to direct!

He is currently working on his fourth novel.

Find out more about Robert by visiting his Web site: www.robertliparulo.com

Competitions!

A NOTE from Bob: I’d like to give away five signed copies of Deadfall to readers of CFBA blogs during my tour. All they have to do is sign up for my e-mailing list (they won’t be inundated!) by going to my website (www.robertliparulo.com) and going to the “Mailing List” page. Or email me with “CFBA giveaway” in the subject line.

And a second NOTE from Bob: I wanted to let you know that I’m holding a contest on my site:

**one winner a week till the end of the year for a signed Deadfall
**one winner a week till the end of the year for an unabridged audio MP3-CD of Deadfall
***and on Dec. 31, I’m giving away an iPod Nano, pre-loaded with an unabridged audio recording of Deadfall

Winners are selected from my e-mailing list—sign up at my site. If a winner has already purchased what he/she wins, I will reimburse them for the purchase price (or give them another—whichever they choose), so they don’t need to wait to see if they win before buying Deadfall.

Buy The Book

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0785261796

The Kelli Standish Fund

Let me draw your attention to a great need, for a great person.

Kelli is one of my dearest friends; an amazing encourager, a huge supporter, with a generous, loving heart.

She is also a big supporter of Christian fiction. For a few years she ran the successful Focus on Fiction Web site. Now she works hard behind the scenes by creating amazing web sites. Kelli tirelessly works to promote authors and provide the support they need.

What many don't know is that Kelli is in need of support herself.

Kelli needs an urgent operation on her spine. Read her story at the links below, from top link to bottom link.

http://kellistandishwrites.blogspot.com/2007/10/view-from-here.html

http://kellistandishwrites.blogspot.com/2007/11/so-what-happened.html

http://kellistandishwrites.blogspot.com/2007/11/stumbling-onto-hope.html

http://kellistandishwrites.blogspot.com/2007/11/better-to-give-than-receive.html

For additional reading, check out:

http://faithatthefront.blogspot.com/2007/10/miracle-for-kelli.html

As stated in Kelli’s last blog entry, Better to Give Than Receive, literary agent Janet Kobobel Grant, has started a huge fundraising drive to help Kelli get the surgery she desperately needs. Here is what Janet writes:

Word has come of an anonymous matching grant of $10,000 for all monies raised on Kelli's behalf by November 15. If you would like to contribute, you are welcome to send checks made out to me, Janet Grant, at my address. I will collect the monies, apply the matching grant and give Kelli one check.

Books & Such Literary Agency

52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170

Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370

PayPal contributions now accepted. Please send PayPal payments to wlawton@mindspring.com. Please put "For Kelli" in the subject line.

So, there it is folks.

You may not know Kelli, but please help if you can. Even the smallest amount will add to the final balance.

Prayer is also greatly appreciated.

UPDATED:

Are you a writer? Are you looking for an editing service and hoping to pay a reasonable rate? Would you rather your money went to a good cause?

Well here is your chance!

Aotearoa Editorial Services have a limited amount of services available via auction, all proceeds going towards Kelli's operation.

Be in quick. Auctions close midnight 12 November 2007

http://kellistandishfundraiser.blogspot.com/