Please Give a Warm Reception to Amy Kaufman Burk

One of the most enjoyable parts of posting covers and new books for other authors is getting introduced to great new fiction and to meet wonderful new people.

Today is no exception.

Let me introduce to you, Amy Kaufman Burk and her debut novel Hollywood High: Achieve the Honorable.

I found Hollywood High searching the top 100 Kindle books in gay and lesbian literary fiction and saw this title at number three. I backtracked Amy to her blog and read a few entries.

I was impressed with both her personal story and inspiration for the novel (I was shocked and saddened when I read it).

Also, as I get older, I become more and more intrigued with the 70s, the decade in which I was born.

For those reasons, I just had to give this one a read.

Currently I’m about 20% through the novel, and I am enjoying the characters Amy has brought to life. I’m reminded of my own high school days, although I must admit they were a little—lot—less intense. I can't wait to pick it back up.

I reached out to Amy and asked to include her book on my blog and was thrilled to have her agree.

So allow me to turn the mic over to Amy Kaufman Burk and welcome you to Hollywood High.

Hollywood High: Achieve The Honorable is a fictionalized account of my first year of high school, inspired by the violence I witnessed targeting gay students. I was deeply affected by this bullying, and at 15 years old, I promised myself I'd write about it some day.

Hollywood High tracks Caroline Black, a straight LGBTQ ally, as she transfers from an all-girls prep academy, to the local public school, Hollywood High, with gangs, over 40 native languages, teen prostitution, and extreme violence toward the gay students. The story follows Caroline's group of friends as they grow aware of homophobia, both in their environment and in themselves, and find paths to becoming allies.

I posted on my blog about he original bullying incident that inspired my novel. "Everyone Can Be An Ally" 

Amy Kaufman Burk grew up in the Hollywood Hills.  Her father was a screenwriter and her mother, a social anthropologist.  Amy was raised in a home with thousands of books.  She was an avid reader as a child, and still is.

Cover Reveal: The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes

Today, I learned of a real treat and had to share it!

It is The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes from Albert Wendland. Al is a faculty member at Seton Hill University where I went for my masters in writing (popular fiction). He has been an inspiration to me and to many students over the years and is also a champion that genre-based fiction deserves as much respect as literary fiction.

This is definitely on my to pre-order and to read list.

What could draw poet, explorer, loner and paranoid Mykol Ranglen away from the relative peace of his own ring-in-space habitat?

He has no choice in the matter as one by one acquaintances are murdered or disappear altogether. Propelled by ever changing and deepening mysteries Mykol embarks to uncover secrets which could make people rich beyond their wildest dreams…or tear apart human civilization.

The escalating quest takes him through worlds of many dangerous extremes, leading him to confront the deadly alien Fist of Thorns, extinct species refusing to give up their power over the future, and those racing against him to uncover the secret first. But in the course of his pursuit, he must also face his own secrets. And some of these are even more dangerous.

The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes by Albert Wendland

Cover Art by Bradley Sharp

Foreword by William H. Keith

Space Opera Paperback coming from Dog Star Books in June 2014

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What They’re Saying About The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes
"Mystery, heart-pounding adventure, and the dazzling wonders of far-flung space play significant roles in Wendland's breakout novel, all while gifting us with a mesmerizing tour of alien landscapes destined to get under your skin and remind you of the very reason science fiction exists: Not to escape to other worlds, but to find ourselves within them."
--Diana Dru Botsford, author of THE DRIFT and FOUR DRAGONS

Inside are alien worlds and titanic space habitats and a brilliant and paranoid hero, all skillfully blended together with long-vanished galactic secrets. Science fiction… good science fiction, by a college professor of literature who loves good SF."
--From the foreword by William H. Keith, New York Times Bestselling Science Fiction Author