Tag Archives: women’s fiction

A Mystical Embrace Blitz

 

A Mystical Embrace cover

Love is Forever, Book Three

Romance, Women’s Fiction

 

Published: November 2021

When we view death through the lens of beauty, it surprises us how much more we can see.

The people and the places of the life gone are textured by his soul’s weave. Each presence evokes the beauty of memories.

For each unforgettable character in this stunning sequel, we learn how the memories seep to the surface and bind forgotten joy and endured sorrow.

Throughout, there is an underlying flow of grace that is filled with compassion and understanding—an infusion of springtime into the winters of bleakness.

So intimate are the human encounters, they unravel the thread of one’s being and can even illuminate the heart.

Where does the flame go when the candle is blown out?

This philosophical question haunts them, but they find the courage to take up the wondrous gift of being.

From the silence and stillness that fills the spaces where once their loved one dwelt; and through fathomless sadness, each hears the unheard eternal melody and dances with joy in renewed possibilities.

All books in the Love is Forever series:

Love is Forever series banner

 

Temptation and Surrender

 

Love is Forever, Book 1

 

The Fallen Sniper Tears: A Sniper Romance Novel

Love is Forever, Book Two

 

A Mystical Embrace: A Mystical Romance Novel

Love is Forever, Book Three

 

The Madam’s Friend: A Novel for Women about Flawed, Textured, Vulnerable Soulmates

Love is Forever, Book Four

Amazon

A Mystical Embrace tablet, banner, paperback


About the Author

Marlene F. Cheng

I ran barefoot on the Canadian prairies in the dust that settled after the 2nd World War. That makes me an octogenarian, an oldie.

Thrust from the infinity of wheat fields into the warp of the Rockies, Selkirk, and Purcell mountains, the light that defined a frightful, but interesting, high school life challenged me.

Our neighbours were all Italian—migrants to Canadian mining towns. With his Welsh-born farmers’ busyness, my father found strange their art of dolce far niente—that is, the sweetness of doing nothing. They practiced it, “Come in. Come in. Sit down. Taste my homemade vino.” Our family adapted.

And the flames of railway trestles burning and women parading nude colored life. Doukhobors (a sect that had fled persecution in Russia) settled in the Kootenays. They protested having to send their children to public schools.

Wearing a babushka and twirling spaghetti, not only did I survive those years, but I thrived.

Vancouver, the “big city,” where I discovered traffic lights and city buses, claimed me for medical lab training, and I worked the night shift in the blood bank to put myself through university.

I’ve worked in cancer research, taught at tech schools, become a registered massage therapist, taken up energy schooling in NY., married and raised two kids, and, at 73, published my first book A Many Layered Skirt, a biography about a young Chinese girl trying to keep one frightening step ahead of the soldiers, during the Japanese occupation.

My husband, of 56 years, was Chinese. Our mixed marriage was intriguing, and happiness was ours. Interests in people, cultures, and places took us around the world. Many of those adventures find their way into my writing. He passed away, throwing my life into chaos. Now, I’ve picked up the pen, again, and have written four books in the Love is Forever Series; a Historical Romance-The Inspector’s Daughter and The Maid; and a literary, autofiction-Shifting to Freedom.

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My Name is Mary Virtual Book Tour

My Name is Mary banner
My Name is Mary cover

African American Christian Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Women’s Mental Health

 

Date Published: December 7, 2021

Publisher: Jess, Mo’ Books LLC

Stepping away from her comfort zone, author JC Miller orchestrates a written tapestry chronicling the fragile state of a woman on the edge of insanity.

Plagued by a lifelong curse of mental illness, Mary Magdalene finds herself spending her golden years in a mental asylum. Her once zealous life becomes minimized to an endless routine of over-stimulating antipsychotic drugs. That is until Salmone Abrams, a hidden jewel from her past, resurfaces and helps her remember who she once was—The Queen of Harlem. Madame Mary Mags.

Inspired by her jazz playlist, JC Miller’s current novella, My Name is Mary Magdalene, shakes the family tree while exploring the often-stigmatized topic of mental health. This fictional spin on the biblical account of Mary Magdalene and her seven demons travels from the late 1940s into the mid-1990s as Mary recalls the battles that tore her life apart. Fear, Lust, Entitlement, Greed, Misery, Dependency, Guilt—emotional baggage that once achingly held her down propels her to victory.

My Name is Mary tablet

EXCERPT

“Man is the cruelest animal” – Friedrich Nietzsche 

Hello, My Name Is… 

My name is Mary Magdalene. I know you’re wondering, how did a heathen like me get stuck with such a sacred name? My Mama named me—on her deathbed. I haven’t thought about Mama, or me for that matter, in years. I try not to think about the past; it helps make the present more doable. Life brushes past you. Months and years seem to blend into one indistinguishable blur. It wasn’t until Salmone Abrams, with his beautiful and gentle self, walked into the psychiatric ward where I was an involuntary mental patient, did I even think of such thoughts. Up until that moment, everything I knew and everything I was, was dark, hidden, and dying inside of me. 

That morning, an orderly rolled me out onto the East Lawn Pavilion for breakfast. 

Supposedly I was soaking up rays from the end of the summer sun. Nurse Mulligan would have never allowed such a courtesy. From the moment we met, she disliked me and handled me with mean intentions. She was, by nature, a nasty and uptight person who assaulted me every chance she got. Having no one to turn to, I was devastated and stripped down to my foundation. The first chance I got; I bit a plug out of her arm. I was placed in a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit from that day on, and Nurse Mulligan made sure I was uncomfortable and forcibly over-medicated against my will. She kept me loopy, feeble, and isolated. But on that last sun-filled day, the evil wench had a premature delivery. An acting psych nurse, who changed the trajectory of my life, was filling in for Nurse Mulligan’s maternity leave. If I could have, I would have jumped for joy when I heard the news. As it was, I was still coming down from being drugged, and I hadn’t eaten anything. My hands felt like rubber mallets; I couldn’t lift a spoon, let alone bring one to my mouth. To make matters worse, my next set of meds were scheduled after breakfast; instead of numbing me, they caused me to see monkeys. If I wasn’t careful of how I reacted, the meds were capable of sending me straight to lockdown in the secluded padded rooms. That was where I usually spent my afternoons—hungry and screaming at a locked door with dem damn monkeys crawling the walls. 

That blessed morning, Salmone Abrams, wearing the most angelic smile I’ve seen in a long time, along with Nurse Lindt, the fill-in, walked across the East Lawn with a giant fluffy white teddy bear in his right hand. 

“Mrs. Owens, you have a visitor,” Nurse Lindt announced with a smile not quite as charming as Salmone’s but kind. “It’s your grandson, Mrs. Owens.” She added, reiterating the information on his visitor identification badge while resting a gentle hand on my shoulder. I drew away my shoulder, rejecting her. 

Next thing I know, you’ll be drugging me up and locking me in too. No, ma’am. 

Get your hand off me,  I thought, keeping my eyes on the colorful plate of food I wanted to eat but could not. 

Salmone squatted down next to me and placed the gift down on the table in front of my plate. The teddy bear was holding a big red heart made of felt that read, I Love You. I didn’t know how to act. I was giddy on the inside but forgot how to express myself. It had been so long since a man, smelling and looking as good as he did, brought me anything. I did get that one cracker from Eddie, a patient who frequented my room when I was incapacitated to poke his nasty drawn-up thing in me. When I say poke, that’s what I mean; he thrust himself into me. We didn’t have sex—it was just a thrust. I think Eddie forgot how to do the rest and he came back hoping to remember. 

He did give me that stinking stale cracker, though. Salmone, wearing a navy-blue open blazer over a white tee and faded jeans, inched closer to me and brushed my hair with his hand. I didn’t realize I still had hair. It wasn’t something you thought about often in there. 

“Hey, Maw-Maw, ‘memba me?” I turned toward him, and he smiled that same pleasant smile. 

There was a dim flicker of recognition, but I didn’t know him from Adam. I think I smiled anyway. Why not?  He was colored, kind-looking, and called me Maw Maw—speaking the language I grew up with. 

“Awww… there you go!” Nurse Lindt responded, clasping her small, white age-spotted hands together, pleased with my reaction to Salmone. “I’m going to give you two some privacy.” She lightly touched him to attract his attention. He was gazing at me, and I was avoiding his eye contact. “If you need me, Mr. Abrams, I’ll be in the nurse’s station. Also, the orderlies in blue uniforms are here for you if needed.” She added, stopping the one that I hated as he was walking by. Dino. He was one of Nurse Mulligan’s flunkies. A tall, narrow, slimy piece of crap. He was strong, though. The other was a woman with a nasty facial tic. I hardly ever saw her around except when Nurse Mulligan needed her. 

“Hey!” Dino responded, stopping in his tracks, and smiling wide for the new Head Nurse, with crooked, metal-wired teeth and acne scars tracing his face. 

Salmone stood and shook his hand. “I do have a few questions. Is my… 

grandmother able to speak?” He gestured toward me, rubbing my head again. He had me curious about how I looked. 

Dino glanced at Nurse Lindt first, and she nodded, giving him permission to answer, being that she was new. “Ahh, well no! At least not in full sentences…that I know of.” He answered using facial and body expressions that implied he somehow cared. “She hasn’t spoken to her treatment team…her social worker, or the unit’s clinical psychologist, Dr. Davis, since her admittance.” 

Damn, fool!  I thought, observing Salmone’s immediate disheartened expression. 

I talk. Just not to that raggedy-mouthed rascal.  I looked up at my teddy bear, into his big placid black glass eyes, and felt sad now myself. I wanted Salmone’s company. 

“Ooh,” he uttered sadly, stooping down near me again. “I guess I’ll sit with her for a while anyway…maybe help her eat some of this good-looking food.” He picked up that heavy behind spoon, and I opened my mouth like a little bird as he scooped up some cold eggs. Lord was I happy. 

Salmone didn’t stay long that first day, and I wasn’t sure when, or if, he would return. I didn’t have any answers for him, but he did make me remember who he was. 

He was the preacher’s kid from back home in New Orleans. Little Sal, all grown up. The little boy who used to run behind my great-niece, Rah…I claimed her as my granddaughter. He and his family lost contact with mine around the same time I did. Ten years ago. Sometime after that cursed night back in 1984 that finalized my admittance into the crazy house. Sal told me that he moved to New York City and became a cop. In his spare time, he searched for my family, mostly Rah. His childhood crush and committed friendship propelled him. He said the only public record he found on her was from high school, listing a welfare hotel in Hell’s Kitchen as an address, with no forwarding information. 

When I left them, they were staying with me at my Brownstone on Strivers’ Row in Harlem. Back when I was well, and well to do. Sal said it was like my family disappeared from the face of the earth. No listed employment, utility bills, loans, credit cards. Nothing. He looked so sad, having hit a brick wall. I wasn’t much help either, and I knew he was counting on my assistance. I simply sat there while he held my hands, rubbed my arms, and looked directly into my eyes. He wasn’t scared, like most people. 

They saw the mental unit as a locked box of angry people held against their will. It was. 

If the top of my head could have been unscrewed and looked into, it would have scared the hell out of most. Yet Sal looked at me with love and concern. He told me that he attempted to visit before, around three years earlier, after discovering my whereabouts. I was on lockdown, and Nurse Mulligan deliberately fed him a trough load of hogwash, deterring him from coming again. He almost didn’t. Then, he figured, if Rah was gone for good, he could enjoy a piece of her in me. 

I listened carefully as Sal rambled, drinking his every word. I hadn’t been spoken to in so long; the words gently fell upon my ears and revived my hearing. I enjoyed Sal’s youth, his zeal for life, and how his almond-shaped eyes gleamed and danced as he reminisced over old times back home in Louisiana. I didn’t utter a word, and although my expression was blank, my eyes smiled in remembrance of the world I seemed to have forgotten. My thoughts were knocking around in my head, but at least they were my thoughts and not those tormenting voices. I wanted to talk to Sal. I wanted to join in his laughter, but I felt a lot of irrational shame about being there. Besides, I was afraid. I, too, didn’t know where my family was. They abandoned me just as I did them. I couldn’t fault them. Dr. Davis told them that I would never recover from my Schizophrenic psychosis. Was he right about me?  I wasn’t sure. I definitely wasn’t myself, yet I wasn’t who he said I was either. I didn’t know who I was anymore…but I knew that my name was Mary Magdalene. 

About the Author

JC Miller

JC Miller lives in the scenic Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania with her husband, children, and floppy-eared Bassador pup.

Raised by a single mother in the Bronx, JC pulls from early experiences to showcase the soul of urban survival through faith-based novels. She also dedicates much of her time uplifting women via her blog and creating content with partner and friend, MR Spain, through their publishing company, Jess, Mo’ Books LLC.

On her days off, you can find JC whipping up her famous Red Velvet cake and listening to songs from her impressive vinyl record collection.

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My Name is Mary Magdalene Blitz

 

My Name is Mary Magdalene cover

African American Christian Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Women’s Mental Health

 

Date Published: December 7, 2021

Publisher: Jess, Mo’ Books LLC

Stepping away from her comfort zone, author JC Miller orchestrates a written tapestry chronicling the fragile state of a woman on the edge of insanity.

Plagued by a lifelong curse of mental illness, Mary Magdalene finds herself spending her golden years in a mental asylum. Her once zealous life becomes minimized to an endless routine of over-stimulating antipsychotic drugs. That is until Salmone Abrams, a hidden jewel from her past, resurfaces and helps her remember who she once was—The Queen of Harlem. Madame Mary Mags.

Inspired by her jazz playlist, JC Miller’s current novella, My Name is Mary Magdalene, shakes the family tree while exploring the often-stigmatized topic of mental health. This fictional spin on the biblical account of Mary Magdalene and her seven demons travels from the late 1940s into the mid-1990s as Mary recalls the battles that tore her life apart. Fear, Lust, Entitlement, Greed, Misery, Dependency, Guilt—emotional baggage that once achingly held her down propels her to victory.

About the Author

JC Miller

JC Miller lives in the scenic Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania with her husband, children, and floppy-eared Bassador pup.

Raised by a single mother in the Bronx, JC pulls from early experiences to showcase the soul of urban survival through faith-based novels. She also dedicates much of her time uplifting women via her blog and creating content with partner and friend, MR Spain, through their publishing company, Jess, Mo’ Books LLC.

On her days off, you can find JC whipping up her famous Red Velvet cake and listening to songs from her impressive vinyl record collection.

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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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The Fallen Sniper Tears Blitz

 

The Fallen Sniper cover

A Sniper Romance Novel

Love is Forever, Book 2

Romance, Women’s Fiction, Drama

 

Date Published: October 2021

Raven is the secret love child from Temptation and Surrender, Book One in the Love is forever Series.

 

Much to the chagrin of his parents (Geneva an emergency room doctor and Y an NHL hockey star) he joins the Canadian army and becomes a superior sniper. He endures two harrowing tours of duty in Iraq.

Cheng fills this epic saga with enduring characters and lyrical writing.

Raven, “as fast as a flitting firefly, as silent as fallen snow” answers a call to reconnaissance duty in Mali.

His mother, who aches for her lover and has a horrendous fear for their love child’s safety, laments: “When I watch the moonshine on the water, a nostalgic longing comes over me… a strong yearning that moves me to tears.”

Can an ocean of tears separate the star-crossed lovers, forever?

The Full Love is Forever Series

The Full Love is Forever Series banner

 

Temptation and Surrender: A Secret Love Child Romance

 

Love is Forever, Book 1

The Fallen Sniper Tears: A Sniper Romance Novel

Love is Forever, Book 2

A Mystical Embrace: A Mystical Romance Novel

Love is Forever, Book Three

Coming November 19, 2021

The Madam’s Friend: A Novel for Women about Flawed, Textured, Vulnerable Soulmates

Love is Forever, Book Four

Coming December 17, 2021

Amazon

The Fallen Sniper tablet

 

Excerpt

 

“A command came, for us to retreat.

“Leapfrogging, we started to get the hell out of there. Fire started coming at us from the river and from the houses we had already cleared. The enemy had got between us and the second wave of soldiers that were securing the cleared area. Insurgents were popping up from inside houses and behind walls everywhere, shooting wildly and fiercely. They must have crossed the river because heavy fire was coming from that direction. I was second, and in the chaos, I lost the person in front of me and the person behind, several times. When we got to the copter, Dubbie wasn’t there. He was number four. I went back. In an opening where firing had been heavy, the wind was swirling, looking for an escape tunnel. It caused a circle of dust around a statue in the middle of the opening. The statue came in and out of view, depending on the cloud of dust. I looked, hard. The statue was Dubbie. He was standing straight up, motionless—a sitting duck, in his jargon. I worked my way until I was about fifty feet from him. I remember hearing ‘… as fast as a flitting firefly, as silent as falling snow.’ I dashed, knocked him down, and grabbed and dragged him to a shelter—a bullet-riddled shed. Troy had followed me. Dubbie was in an unresponsive stupor. His eyes stared somewhere in the distance. He was catatonic, but Troy could shoulder him. I covered, and, somehow, we got to the copter. We loaded and took off. We crammed Dubbie in between Troy and me. I put my arms around him to warm him; to melt the ice. When I got my breath, over the noise, I started yelling at him: ‘Good shot, Ryan. Very good shot.’ I yelled it over and over. Then another voice joined mine, and another, and then another. Soon, even though exhaustion and injuries overtook them, all the men started chanting: ‘Good shot, Ryan. Very good shot.’ ‘Good shot, Ryan. Very good shot.’

“A lifetime passed.

I felt him crumble. He slumped over me, moulding against me like a two-hundred-pound sack of prairie potatoes. I felt his hot tears running down my neck.

“The wind came out of me in a huge sigh of relief.”

About the Author

Marlene F. Cheng,

I ran barefoot on the Canadian prairies in the dust that settled after the 2nd World War. That makes me an octogenarian, an oldie.

Thrust from the infinity of wheat fields into the warp of the Rockies, Selkirk and Purcell mountains, the light that defined a frightful, but interesting, high school life challenged me.

Our neighbours were all Italian—migrants to Canadian mining towns. With his Welsh-born farmers’ busyness, my father found strange their art of dolce far niente—that is, the sweetness of doing nothing. They practised it, “Come in. Come in. Sit down. Taste my homemade vino.”

Our family adapted.

And the flames of railway trestles burning and women parading nude colored life. Doukhobors (a sect that had fled persecution in Russia) settled in the Kootenays. They protested having to send their children to public schools.

Wearing a babushka and twirling spaghetti, not only did I survive those years, but I thrived.

Vancouver, the “big city,” where I discovered traffic lights and city buses, claimed me for medical lab training, and I worked the night shift in the blood bank to put myself through university.

I’ve worked in cancer research, taught at tech schools, become a registered massage therapist, taken up energy schooling in NY., married and raised two kids, and, at 73, published my first book A Many Layered Skirt, a biography about a young Chinese girl trying to keep one frightening step ahead of the soldiers, during the Japanese occupation.

My husband, of 56 years, was Chinese. Our mixed marriage was intriguing, and happiness was ours. Interests in people, cultures and places took us around the world. Many of those adventures find their way into my writing. He passed away, throwing my life into chaos. Now, I’ve picked up the pen, again, and have written four books in the Love is Forever Series; a Historical Romance-The Inspector’s Daughter and The Maid; and a literary, autofiction-Shifting to Freedom.

Contact Links

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

Amazon Author Profile

Blog

BookBuzz

Purchase Link

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