Tag Archives: Contemporary Fiction

The Pot of Gold at the Rainbow Cafe Blitz

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The Pot of Gold at the Rainbow Cafe cover

Contemporary Fiction

Date Published: April 1, 2025

 

 

In a time when too much emphasis is on our past sins, instead of our many
celebrated successes, The Pot of Gold at the Rainbow Café is a breath
of fresh air. It’s a story that looks at what’s right with America,
its big heart, and its kind and generous people. It is an inspiring,
touching, humorous story about main-street America, still the land of
opportunity and exceptionalism, where fairy-tale endings are still common.
It’s a place where neighbors look out for each other, help each other,
then pay it forward, pass their good fortune along. Just look around you. It
still happens every day.

 

About the Author

  

Dan Chabot

Dan Chabot is a retired newspaper editor and columnist for a major metro
daily, the Milwaukee Journal (now the Journal-Sentinel). For many years he
presided over the paper’s most popular section, the Green Sheet, a
daily compendium of entertaining feature stories, nostalgia, history, humor
and whimsy. He is the author of several other novels and now lives in
Florida.

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The Underdogs Virtual Book Tour

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Contemporary Fiction

Date Published: 9/26/24

 

 

The Underdogs was inspired by my time building a tech startup during the
golden era of San Francisco, when Uber and Lyft were just getting started
and battling it out. It’s a coming-of-age, immigrant story following a
set of characters who are all trying to create a better future for
themselves, for society, and escape their pasts.

Readers have shared that this story reminds them of The Prestige. Two
geniuses, who came from nothing, competing against each other in a market
that preys upon those who also come from nothing. Others have reflected on
the story as a cautionary tale that stands the test of time — How
“the few, the chosen” may end up taking advantage of the very
same people who they grew up with.

The Underdogs tablet

QUOTE

”An optimistic blue sky with scattered clouds above the Golden Gate and Marin County. Groups of friends assembling on rooftops, uncorking bottles of wine from Napa or Sonoma. Deals being made in coffee shops, angel investors trying their best to convince an entrepreneur to let them into their funding round. Disruption, convertible notes, paper millionaires, Rwandan coffee poured with surgical precision. This was where the world’s problems were being solved. Where fortunes were made, seemingly overnight, and the best and brightest flocked to. This was Silicon Valley.”

About the Author

Isaac Kan

 

 

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The Underdogs Blitz

The Underdogs

The Underdogs

Contemporary Fiction

Date Published: 9/26/24

 

 

The Underdogs was inspired by my time building a tech startup during the
golden era of San Francisco, when Uber and Lyft were just getting started
and battling it out. It’s a coming-of-age, immigrant story following a
set of characters who are all trying to create a better future for
themselves, for society, and escape their pasts.

Readers have shared that this story reminds them of The Prestige. Two
geniuses, who came from nothing, competing against each other in a market
that preys upon those who also come from nothing. Others have reflected on
the story as a cautionary tale that stands the test of time — How
“the few, the chosen” may end up taking advantage of the very
same people who they grew up with.

About the Author

Isaac Kan

 

 

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The Shade Under the Mango Tree Blitz

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The Shade Under the Mango Tree cover

Literary, Contemporary Fiction, Multicultural

 

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Gold Medal, Contemporary Fiction, 2021 Global Book Awards (formerly New
York City Book Awards)

Finalist, 2021 SPR (Self Publishing Review) Book Awards

Finalist, Multicultural Fiction, 2021 International Book Awards

 

After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and
somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home where she grew
up. An adventure in which she can make some difference.

Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s
journal at a café. He has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it.
But they don’t stop him. His decision to go on reading changes his
life.

Meeting later at a bookstore, Luna is fascinated by Lucien’s stories and
adventurous spirit. She goes to a rice-growing village in a country steeped
in an ancient culture and a deadly history. What she finds there defies
anything she could have imagined. Will she leave this world unscathed?

An epistolary tale of courage, resilience, and the bonds that bring diverse
people together.

 

The Shade Under the Mango Tree standing book

Excerpt

Prologue

Luna: February, 2016

 

Ov’s thin upper body is slumped over his crossed legs, his forehead
resting on the platform. His brown, wiry arms lie limp, the right one
extended forward, hand dangling over the edge of the platform. Dried blood
is splattered on his head, and on the collar, right shoulder, and back of
his old short-sleeved white shirt.

It seems fitting that he died where he used to spend most of his time when
he wasn’t on the rice fields—sitting on a corner of the bamboo
platform in the ceiling-high open space under the house. It’s where
you get refreshing breezes most afternoons, after a long day of work.

The policeman looks down at Ov’s body as if he’s unsure what to
do next. He lays down his camera and the gun in a plastic bag at one end of
the platform untainted by splatters of gelled blood.

He steps closer to the body, anchors himself with one knee on top of the
platform, and bends over the body. Hooking his arms underneath Ov’s
shoulders and upper arms, he pulls the body up, and carefully lays it on its
back. He straightens the legs.

He steps off the platform. Stands still for a few seconds to catch his
breath. He turns to us and says, “It’s clear what has happened.
I have all the pictures I need.”

 He points to his camera, maybe to make sure we understand. We have
watched him in silence, three zombies still in shock. Me, standing across
the bamboo platform from him. Mae and Jorani sitting, tense and quiet, on
the hammock to my left.

Is that it? Done already? I want to ask him: Will he have the body taken
away for an autopsy? I suppose that’s what is routinely done
everywhere in cases like this. But I don’t know enough Khmer.

As if he sensed my unspoken question, he glances at me. A quick glance that
comes with a frown. He seems perplexed and chooses to ignore me.

He addresses the three of us, like a captain addressing his troop.
“You can clean up.”

The lingering frown on his brow softens into sympathy. He’s gazing at
Jorani, whose mournful eyes remain downcast. He looks away and turns toward
Mae. Pressing his hands together, he bows to her. A deeper one than the
first he gave her when she and Jorani arrived.

He utters Khmer words too many and too fast for me to understand. From the
furrowed brow and the look in his eyes, I assume they are words of sympathy.
He bows a third time, and turns to go back to where he placed the gun and
camera. He picks them up and walks away.

For a moment or two, I stare at the figure of the policeman walking away.
Then I turn to Jorani. Call him back. Don’t we have questions? I can
ask and you can translate, if you prefer.
But seeing her and Mae sitting as
still and silent as rocks, hands on their laps, and eyes glazed as if to
block out what’s in front of them, the words get trapped in my brain.
Their bodies, rigid just moments before, have gone slack, as if to say: What
else can anyone do? What’s done cannot be undone. All that’s
left is to clean up, as the policeman said. Get on with our lives.

My gaze wanders again toward the receding figure of the policeman on the
dirt road, the plastic bag with the gun dangling in his right hand. Does it
really matter how Cambodian police handles Ov’s suicide? I witnessed
it. I know the facts. And didn’t I read a while back how Buddhism
frowns upon violations on the human body? The family might object against
cutting up Ov—the way I’ve seen on TV crime shows—just to
declare with certainty what caused his death.

I take in a long breath. I have done all I can and must defer to Cambodian
beliefs and customs.

But I can’t let it go yet. Ov chose to end his life in a violent way
and I’m curious: Do the agonies of his last moments show on his face?
I steal another look.

All I could gather, from where I stand, is life has definitely gone out of
every part of him. His eyes are closed and immobile. The tic on his
inanimate cheeks hasn’t left a trace. The tic that many times was the
only way I could tell he had feelings. Feelings he tried to control or hide.
Now, his face is just an expressionless brown mask. Maybe everyone really
has a spirit, a soul that rises out of the body when one dies, leaving a
mansize mass of clay.

I stare at Ov’s body, lying in a darkened, dried pool of his own
blood, bits of his skull and brain scattered next to his feet where his head
had been. At that moment, it hits me that this would be the image of Ov I
will always remember. I shudder.

My legs begin to buckle underneath me and I turn around, regretting that
last look. With outstretched hands, I take a step toward the hammock. Jorani
rises to grab my hands, and she helps me sit down next to Mae.

Could I ever forget? Could Mae and Jorani? Would the image of Ov in a pool
of blood linger in their memories like it would in mine?

I know I could never tell my parents what happened here this afternoon. But
could I tell Lucien? The terrible shock of watching someone, in whose home I
found a family, fire a gun to his head? And the almost as horrifying
realization—looking back—that I knew what he was going to do,
but I hesitated for a few seconds to stop him.

 

About the Author

Evy Journey

Evy Journey writes. Stories. Blogs (three sites). Cross-genre novels.
She’s also a wannabe artist, and a flâneuse (an ambler).

Evy studied psychology ( Ph.D. University of Illinois) initially to help
her understand herself and Dostoevsky. Now, she spins tales about
multicultural characters dealing with the problems and issues of
contemporary life. She believes in love and its many faces.

Just as she has crossed genres in writing fiction, she has also crossed
cultures, having lived and traveled in various cities in different
countries. Find her thoughts on travel, art, and food at Artsy Rambler
(https://eveonalimb2.com).

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Becoming Ruthless Blitz

 

Becoming Ruthless cover

Contemporary Fiction, Women’s Fiction

 

Published: October 23, 2021

Ruth is young, excited about life and not looking for love. Yet love finds her, and Ruth is thrilled. But she is left devastated when she finds out that her the man she loves has deceived her. Still hopeful, she embarks on another relationship only to find herself in the same predicament.

Ruth becomes disenchanted with love and decides that if she can’t beat them, she may as well join them and begins a journey that will change her very being and endanger her life.

Can Ruth find herself before it’s too late? Or will she become what she has always despised—a loathsome liar?

Becoming Ruthless tablet, paperback
 

 

Excerpt

 

Her head spun and the back of her neck felt moist. She wondered whether a bead of sweat would run down the side of her neck and put a blemish on her white satin bodice. A scarlet letter would be better suited for the likes of her. She looked at her bosom now, half expecting it to be embroidered there, but little diamantes

that sat along the edges of her dress glinted back at her, laughing, mocking, challenging.

She looked up again, trying to ignore the warning signs her body was giving her. But seeing the faces as they turned towards her in a sick anticipation, she felt faint. They waited for her, all of them, ready to attack, ready to condemn her for her sins. She blinked hard, hoping that when she opened her eyes, they would not be there, that she would be somewhere far away, wishing it was not too late. But here she was, about to walk in the middle of the throngs who sat in their pews ready for the harlot to be wed.

About the Author

Rita H. Rowe

Hailing from India, and growing up in Melbourne, Rowe has a passion for words, encouraged by a mother who spent most of her spare time with her head buried in a book. Of course, she was going to become dazzled by the words of Enid Blyton, Louisa May Alcott and later on, the likes of Sidney Sheldon and even the early works of Harold Robbins. Her tastes are diverse and she can go straight from Margaret Mitchell and Alexandre Dumas, to Liane Moriarty and Jeffrey Archer in the blink of an eye.

It was finding her own style that was problematic. Trying to recreate stories in the same vein as her gurus was not fulfilling and in 2019, she embarked on a Masters in Writing. She found her passion and established her style; so keen was she to get going, that by the end of the year, she had completed, edited and published her first novel, Never The Moon, a love story. The psychological drama, She Remembered, came soon after and when she had more time on her hands, having completed the degree at the end of 2020, she just couldn’t stop herself. The Bad Seed came next, exploring small town prejudice and young love. Most of her work deals with the human condition, particularly from a woman’s point of view, which draws from her own experiences and that of others around her, with their permission. The novel, Becoming Ruthless, is one such work.

Rowe lives with her family and teach English and Art at a school in Melbourne’s West.

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