Six-Word Story
Author: markbierman
Born and raised on a farm near Brockville, Ontario, Mark Bierman's childhood consisted of chores, riding horses, snowmobile races across open fields, fishing trips to a local lake, and many other outdoor adventures. He was also an avid reader of both fiction and non.
Transitioning towards adulthood also meant moving from the farm and into large urban areas that introduced this country boy to life in the big cities.
After a short stint as a private investigator, he moved into the role of Correctional Officer, working at both Millhaven Institution and Kingston Penitentiary, until it closed.
Review of Guns Of Perdition, by Jessica Bakkers
Happy Sunday! We’ve just had a week of unseasonably warm weather up here in the Great “White” North. Many of us took advantage and hung out our Christmas lights, instead of waiting for the finger-numbing deep freeze.
On this chilled out Sunday, I wanted to share my experiences with a great book I just read by Jessica Bakkers, Guns of Perdition (The Armageddon Showdown Book 1) . It was both thrilling and chilling all and I loved it!
Heres what Amazon says:
IT TAKES GRACE TO HUNT WHEN IT’S DARKSOME
Jessie expects he’ll be forever cleaning up after the cowpokes of the Bad Hoss Saloon. That’s until the day a drifter strides through the doors, and blows away a blood-sucking demon, along with Jessie’s belief in an everyday world. Jessie is captivated by the enigmatic Grace, with her pearl-handled revolvers, and wolf companion. He throws in his normal life and follows her across the Wild West, as she hunts down and slays the evil creatures that roam the frontier.
Along the way, they seek the aid of a Native American warrior, cross paths with a Cajun Queen, and encounter a small-town tycoon with a deadly hunger for gold. Animosity and distrust plague Grace and Jessie, and their strange group of allies, but they must put their differences behind them if they’re to have any hope of finding and defeating the frontier’s true evil, the Darksome Gunman.
The Armageddon Showdown is a dark-fantasy, weird western series of epic proportions, focusing on the age-old battle between good and evil, though in the Wild West, it’s not always clear just who is good and who is evil.
Join Grace Dyer and her band of miscreants as they battle demons and demi-gods, in the frontier’s deadliest conflict…the Armageddon Showdown.
My Turn
I’m not a Western fan at heart, but this went far beyond my expectations. Bring six main characters together, each different in everyway, each one haunted by painful memories, Each guitly of their own seven deadly sin, yet completely unaware. Each one of them justifying their actions for revenge, lust, greed, and love.
I’m familiar with Revelations in the Bible, and this take on that book enticed my curiousity. Though I’m aware that it’s work of fiction, I couldn’t help but ask, “What if?”
There were more than ‘two scoops of action’ in this book, so my adrenaline junkie was satiated. There were plenty of well orchestrated plot twists, too. Not a dull moment hiding behind any page.
I must add that I enjoyed Grace’s dialogue. Her idioms and slang flowed smoothly and I chuckled more than a few times. That’s no easy feat, without getting repetitive. Well done, Jessica!
If you’re into gunfights, thrilling scenes, ‘end-of-days’ cliff hangers, spiritual battles . . . this is your book!
FIVE STARS from me!
Meet Jessica Bakkers:
I am a creative writer with over twenty years of writing experience. I am a speculative fiction writer, and have written in the genres of fantasy-romance and paranormal-romance, however my genre of choice when it comes to writing for myself is dark fantasy where I can allow myself to fully explore the anti-hero characters that pepper my stories. I dabble at poetry and have written professionally for clients locally and internationally.
My debut novel, Guns of Perdition, The Armageddon Showdown Book 1, is a dark fantasy stroll through a weird wild west setting, pitting bad heroes against worse villains.
My major love affair is with the written word; specifically creative writing. I allow myself to indulge and rendezvous with this secret lover whenever time allows… and then we make beautiful poetry together!
Purchase your copy:
Connect with Jessica
‘Fiction In A Flash Challenge Week #23 Entry by Mark Bierman #WritingPrompts #WritingCommunity #FlashFiction
Hello everyone, today I’m featuring my contribution to Author Suzanne Burkes’ “Fiction in A Flash Challenge!” Each week she features an image and invites writers to write a Flash Fiction or Non-Fiction piece inspired by that image in any format and genre of their choosing. Maximum word count: 750 words. Please head over to Suzanne’s wonderful blog site and have a look around! Click on this link: https://sooozburkeauthor.wordpress.com/
Here is the photo prompt for today’s blog:
“Forget it Talbot, we’ll never get down there! Not with the bullet hole in your paw! Never mind neither of us can swim a lick.”
“Hear that?”
“What?”
“Don’t sound like we’ve much choice, Earnest.”
“Hounds! Coppers are comin’! How close?”
“’bout the same as a grasshopper can shotput an elephant, be my guesstimate. We gotta’ skeedadle! ‘Less ya’ wanna go back to an eight by ten cage and floaty meat sauce suppers.”
“Heck no! Do ya’ think the chopper’s comin’?”
“Pshaw! Listen, Bekr—”
“Hate that nickname! Should a fed Billy a knuckle sandwich with a side a hand chop, right cross the neck! Long form is worser, Be Kind Rewind. Kinda’ morose comes up with such hogswallop?”
“Anyone gets five years for video piracy deserves it.”
“Comin’ from Mister Parkin’ Warriors? Ooh! Park here, there, in front of hydrants and driveways. Pretend you’re leadin’ a revelation ‘gainst the almighty arm of the Parkin’ Coppers. Torchin’ tickets, leave ‘em burnin’ in the street. Bad a**! ”
“Revolushion is what ya’ meant. Pay no mind to that. Earnest, I say we jump. Rock, Paper, Scissors to see whose first?”
“You’re on! One, two, three, shoot! No! Ya’ can’t use your shot up hand, that’s cheatin’!”
“How?”
“Ya’ always use rock then, and I use . . . oh, I see! Wait! Let’s do that again.”
“What’s so funny?”
“Uh, nothin’, jus’ go. Lemme count. One, two, three . . . dang it! Ya’ can’t change paws! ‘gainst the rules!”
“Says the infamous Blue Ray Beard, captain of his momma’s basement couch? Ya’ think I’m stoopid ‘nough to use rock again? Sure ya’ didn’t eat the plastic T.V. Dinner trays?”
“Shut up, Talbot! I’m warnin’ ya’, or I’ll stuff a tire boot in it!”
“I don’t think the FBI heard ya’. Those ‘Finders of Bumbling Inbreds’ they warn ya’ about jus’ before the movie.”
“Shh! Coppers ain’t far behind. Them mutts are getting’ louder. One of us has to go and if he breathes, yells up.”
“What ‘bout if he croaks? Ouch! My hand!”
“’Enough of the smart walkie talkies. You’re thick as your ma’s toenails, how about ya’ pick a number between one and ten. I’ll say if ya guest it.”
“Yup, plastic and beavered on lead painted toys.”
“What do ya’ suggest then, genies?”
“Put your hands up! Turn around and walk slowly backwards, towards us!”
“Dang, Earnest, look what you done! Jawin’ till the feds caught us.”
“Me? Your lips were flappin’ like a dogs’ out a truck’s window.”
“Get your hands up, turn around! Move to us!”
“Jus’ a moment. Need to hash out who’s done what. Bekr thinks I done get us caught. But he don’t know when to beat feet out of an alley cats’ can. ”
“What’re you talking about? You’ve got until three to put—”
“We got your air mail, bud. Talbot was sayin’ we gotta’ butter our popcorn. Line our dragons with the startin’ gate. Ouch!”
“Ain’t said that way! It’s churn butter for our popcorn and drag our horses to the startin’ gate. Ya’ gonna’ quote somethin’ get it right.”
“Enough! Get them!”
“Talbot, that an eagle flyin’ out there?”
“No, jus’ a haaaawwwwkkk!”
“I knnnnooooowwww!”
SPLASH!
“We’re alive! Earnest, good job! How’d you know we’d make it?”
“Huh? Jus’ knowed, is all.”
“Look at ‘em coppers up there! Can’t get us! Look at ‘em shakin’ their fists and pointin’!”
“Uh, Talbot, they’s not pointin’ at us. Water up ahead is boilin’ like it’s got a hundred hippos passin’ wind all at once.”
“Yup, there’s a might racket comin’ from ahead. I’ll have a look see. Jumpin’ jiminy cats! What in the Sammy’s Hill you gotten’ us into? Ya’ toady brained pint-wit?”
“’Scuse me, the correct terms is Jumpin’ Jiminy Crackers and horse-brained half-wit. Some wise acre once settled me straight on quotes and their properly meanins’.”
“Hush! I jus’ had movement in the gray Jello in my attic.”
“Can’t wait for this Hershy squirt of gospel truth.”
“This is serious stuffins’. Pull the ‘taters from your ears and listen up.”
“Be easier if they wasn’t fillin’ with water and the noise of those gassy hippos, but out with it.”
“Well, ‘member the coyote and road runner cartoons we watch? You know when the poor coyote is up in the air and realizes he can’t fly? ’member what happens next?”
“Talbot! You sayin’ what I’m thinkin’? You side of beef butt you! Why’d ya’ hafta remind us that we can’t swim?”
What if Trees could think and Talk?
Happy Halloween! Here I sit pecking away at the keyboard like a hen in the dirt, my only sources of light are a desk lamp and the glow of this screen. Behind me is a window that’s currently more of a dark mirror than a view of our driveway.
Yup, Halloween 2020 and later today, we’ll be setting up a candy scavenger hunt for our kids that’ll take place this evening in our yard (some glow tape will be wrapped around the packaging to make things a little easier).
Just an interesting factoid, before I get to the promised tree-thingy. On the radio yesterday, I heard that this will be the first time since 1944 that we will have a full moon on Halloween . . . anyone else hearing Warren Zevon’s – “Werewolves Of London”? At the end the radio announcer said, “What do you expect, it’s 2020.”
Ummm . . . well yes, but, in 1944 the world was still in the grips of WWII, I’m sure those must have been strange and scary times, too.
So, yesterday, as I was out for a walk and admiring the flora, my kooky mind decided to explore a ‘what if’. What if trees, just for one night, let’s say, Halloween, could think and talk? Would they compare bark complexion? Gripe about never getting to redeem points on their travel reward cards, or perhaps the loud mouthed crows that perch on their limbs? When they creak in the wind, are they really groaning about aches and pains, especially the oaks. Ya, they seem like whiners to me, and they do get really old. So here’s my compilation, there’s a few of them, maybe I got carried away, but I think it’s important that someone speaks for these stoic sentinels that do so much for us. 🙂
Today I’m A Guest of Mae Clair
I’ve packed my bags and went to visit talented mystery and supernatural thriller author, Mae Clair. I’m a big fan, so it’s quite a thrill in itself just to be there. Please stop by and have a read, it’s a short trip, all you have to do is click on this portal https://wp.me/p2dMh0-3IM . During your stay, please do have a look around at her wonderful blog site.
Mar 