Fiction – Page 9 – Readers Alley

Category: Fiction

Crime Fiction / Noir – The White Field

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Crime Fiction, Urban Fiction, Noir, Drama

Release Date: September 18, 2020

Publisher: TouchPoint Press

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The White Field is a fast-paced journey of a man, Tom, fresh out of prison
and trying desperately to rebuild his life. But he is caught by mysterious,
unseen forces beyond his knowledge or control. After his release from
prison, he is dropped back into the world in the wastelands of the city. In
the menial work afforded the underclass, he begins his new life among
characters at the edges of society, dwellers of the netherworld such as
Raphael, a former cop from Mexicali singing Spanish arias in the mists of
the industrial night among drug addicts and crooked cops; Tony, a stoner
scholar with an encyclopedic knowledge of history based solely on the
intricate study of rock and roll; and Larry, the bloated, abusive manager
trapped as much as his workers in a world of tedium and repetition and
machines. Think, The Three Stooges on acid. Unable to reconnect with
what’s left of his family, Tom embarks on a criminal path more
harrowing than the one that led him to prison in the first place. Lured in
by the nefarious, Thane, he slips into a plan that will leave him with no
way back. And with no place left in this world to go but prison, he makes
one last run for freedom. Will he escape?

Praise for The White Field:

“The White Field is a rabid yet tender odyssey into the oscillating
abyss of an ex- convict degenerating into redemption. Cole writes with
haunting splendor, illuminating the dreams of the doomed.”
—Matthew Dexter, author of The Ritalin Orgy

“Author Douglas Cole’s breakneck prose places us squarely in
the hectic mind of a man influenced from all sides, seeking a life free from
fear. The result is a stunning narrative that is simultaneously frightening
and familiar.” —Kerri Farrell Foley, Managing Editor Crack The
Spine.

Excerpt

I walked into the sun. It seared the road and the rooftops, intense,
blinding. I went up Eighty-Eighth Street through the homes and the old elms
with their heavy summer growth and darkness along their limbs, light
strobing through the shadows. I knew someone might recognize me. They might
even call the police. But I couldn’t resist. I was free, now. Nobody
could touch me.

Only those who cared, and by now there were none, would have known my
release date. My wife may have known. At one time, I imagined her writing it
on a wall calendar, marking off each day leading up to it with a big, black
X. But I knew I’d fallen far from her thoughts.

I couldn’t be sure of my children, though. They were so young when I
went in they could have forgotten all about me. My wife had remarried. Very
likely they called her new husband daddy. Very likely, they thought he was.
Events had erased me. After all, I’d made no contact. And while I had
no idea what my wife might have told them, unless she’d changed in
ways I couldn’t foresee, I knew she’d tell them the truth if
they asked and say nothing if they didn’t. At worst, they believed I
was dead.

And that life seemed like something unreal. There were no traces of it
around here. But my sense of time was way off. From counting, literally,
minutes as they passed, I went into a vast timeless trancezone where whole
years vanished. In the midst of this, I reemerged from time to time to peer
into my little cell of life with seconds hanging like drops of water on a
window ledge and refusing to fall. But now, walking this street, I was the
last person anyone around here was expecting to see.

So, as I went up Eighty-Eighth to the old house, I had this strange feeling
that I was invisible. In the dusk light, I saw the windows of the houses
blazing. Commuters on their way home shot by and curved around the meridians
in the intersections, their faces steel traps that snapped and flashed
mirror eyes and grim lips and frenzy, frenzy for home, motion so fast they
blurred into tracer ribbons. And the sun only cloaked me that much more.
Even my shadow was a rail.

And I heard it, that high tension ping, like my own past ringing from the
driveway and those days when I was a kid, too, playing into evening as our
faces disappeared in the darkness with only the square of the backboard
above and the black sphere of the ball and the heat and breath of the other
players around me. Then I saw them, three boys playing basketball in the
driveway. One was a tall gangly kid with long black hair and ripped jeans
and a T-shirt with the word ENEMY printed on it. Another kid stood beside
him, but the light made it hard to see his features. Then, the ball landed
on the rim, bounced up, arced over to the other side of the rim, hung there
suspended in the net for a moment and then dropped through. The third boy
stood back from his shot with his hands on his hips, breathing hard, turning
his head slowly as I saw, I swear, my own face there in front of me.

With a brow of concentration like a hawk’s predatory gaze, he looked
at me as our eyes locked for an eternal moment that I thought carried some
recognition, but the moment changed before I could read it.

Then, I was passing on, and my son returned to his game.

About the Author

Douglas Cole has published six collections of poetry, a novella and has a
novel, The White Field, coming out in September with Touchpoint Press. His
work has appeared in several anthologies as well as The Chicago Quarterly
Review, The Galway Review, Bitter Oleander, Louisiana Literature and
Slipstream. He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart and Best of the Net
and received the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry. He lives and teaches
in Seattle. His website is https://douglastcole.com/.

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Romantic Comedy – Pairs With Life

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Humorous Fiction, Romantic Comedy

Date Published: September 15, 2020

Publisher: Hurn Publications

Forty-eight-year-old Corbett Thomas, a one-hit wonder of the 90s, now
works as the lead sommelier at Napa Valley’s hippest restaurant. Set
to become one of the few Master Sommeliers in the world, Corbett
self-destructs during his final exam, ruining his last chance at capturing
the stardom and adoration he got a taste for in his youth.

When billionaire game designer, Brogan Prescott, asks Corbett to consult on
a major vineyard acquisition, Corbett sees it as a shot at redemption, until
he learns of Brogan’s ridiculous vision of a virtual-reality, Woke Ant
Colony Winery. Disgusted, Corbett decides to buy the vineyard himself and
preserve its magic and history. Cashless, clueless, and with his reputation
in tatters, Corbett enlists the help of his bass-player-turned-lawyer Seamus
O’Flaherty, who may have finally lost his stomach for Corbett’s
bad ideas; his uber-rational daughter Remy, who wants Corbett to uncork some
family secrets he’d rather leave in the cellar; and Sydney Cameron,
whose sudden appearance in Corbett’s life may repair his heart or
shatter it forever.

With their help-and sometimes despite it-Corbett discovers what Brogan has
known all along: a four-billion-dollar gold deposit lies beneath the
vineyard. If Brogan acquires the property, the ensuing gold rush will
destroy Napa Valley.

But if Corbett can get out of his own way long enough to purchase the
vineyard first, he’ll be faced with the hardest decision of his life:
take the fame and fortune he desperately craves, or save the soul of the
valley he loves so much.

Excerpt

Let’s get one thing clear – I won that bet fair and square, even
though I cheated.

I blame the whole thing on Rick Dornin, who was being particularly douchey
that night. I used to be able to choose whichever party I wanted to serve
without question. That is, until Dornin arrived at Appellation with his
anal-retentive online calendar and industrial-grade Napoleon complex.

Yes, that Appellation. The most coveted dining experience in all of Napa
Valley, and one of only nine restaurants in America awarded three Michelin
stars. It took a DNA sample and a copy of your credit report to get a table,
and then you’d better be ready to cash in your 401(k) when the bill
came.

The evening started out normally enough. I arrived at the restaurant an
hour before my shift to check reservations, talk to Chef Dan about the
evening’s specials, and think of pairings for the prix fixe. Dornin
was in his office—a modified broom closet next to the staff bathroom
that looked like a hoarder’s den with one, tiny deer trail leading to
his desk. In fact, he was always in his office, even when service was
slammed, which drove me batshit crazy. I don’t care if you’re
General Manager or General Patton—when it’s time to schlep a
plate or buff a glass, you step up and do it.

Anyway, I poked my head through the doorway and said, “Hey,
Rick,” trying to keep things light and cheery. “What do you know
about this Harrison party at eight?”

“Whales,” he replied, not bothering to look up from his
purchase orders. “Big whales, like Moby Dick whales.”

“Sweet!” Visions of stockbrokers trying to one-up each other
with bottles of Screaming Eagle at five thousand bucks a pop danced in my
head. Tips so big they come in a brown paper bag.

“Yes.” Dornin finally looked up at me and grinned like he
learned how to do it from an infomercial. “They’ll be in the
Veraison Room. With Andrew.”

“What?” I lunged into the tiny office, nearly tripping over a
carton of water glasses. “You can’t give it to
Andrew!”

“I can give it to whoever I want.” He went back to his purchase
orders, feigning a nonchalance that made me want to smack him. “If I
want to move Felipe off of bussing and let him pop some corks, I could do
that, too.”

Time for a different tack—one that wouldn’t involve me going
full-on Hannibal Lecter. “I’m just saying that a party like that
comes to a restaurant like this to experience the highest level of service
in the world. I’m the guy they’re coming for, not Andrew. I sit
for my Master Somm next week, and—”

“You know what you are, Corbett? You’re an overpaid
bartender.” Dornin had thin lips and an Adam’s apple the size of
Detroit, and it bugged me. “You trained for twenty years to learn how
to pull a cork from a bottle and tell people that red wine goes with steak.
Whoop-tee-freaking-do. You’ll work the floor tonight, and you can have
the Jansen party on the terrace at seven-thirty.”

My left eyebrow started twitching, which happens when I get stressed out.
Apparently, no one can see it, but to me, it feels like a two-year-old is
digging tiny fingers into my face and stretching it like saltwater taffy. I
considered trying the No One Has Experience At Up-Selling Like I Do
approach, but this was the third time in as many weeks I’d had such a
run-in with Dornin.

I was done.

It was time to talk to Chef Dan.

Most people remember Chef Daniel Foyer from his five seasons on Elite Chef,
The Food Channel’s number one show from 1998 to 2002. With a chin so
chiseled it could slice a burnt chuck steak and blue eyes that screamed,
“Come taste this gazpacho in my bedroom,” he was the prototype
celebrity chef. But Father Time had been most inhospitable to Chef Dan, and
for the past couple of years the poor soul tried to counteract a rapid aging
process by dunking his scalp and Sam Elliott-sized mustache in a
fifty-gallon drum of jet-black hair dye. The net effect was so incongruous
with the rest of his wrinkled face that I could barely look at him without
drowning in the shore break of cognitive dissonance.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the guy. He was a loyal and trusted
friend, and straight-up the most amazing culinary artist of my generation.
But if I’d had any money, I would have bought stock in Just For Men
and eventually retire on my Chef Dan profits alone.

About the Author

John Taylor has been writing about wine since 2012, but his meanderings on
life began way before that. Born and raised in San Diego, California, John
moved to Los Angeles in 1982 to pursue dreams of screenwriting and
filmmaking. He attended the University of Southern California, where he
majored in Shattered Dreams and False Hopes, with a minor in Getting Gut
Punched By Reality. After being handed a degree in Journalism in 1987 as a
consolation prize, John dove into a career in music. Because getting
gut-punched just isn’t painful enough.

By 1996, John and his band, The Uninvited, had produced four independent
albums and became one of the most popular acts in the western United States.
This lead to a deal on Atlantic Records, which released the band’s
self-titled debut album in 1997. The band had two Top 100 hits, and toured
nationally with Dave Matthews, Blues Traveller, Third Eye Blind and many
other acts. Their music appeared in the TV shows Beverly Hills 90210 and
Party of Five, and in the motion pictures The Commandments and North Beach.
The band can also be heard in several HBO Documentaries, video games and on
that annoying “One Hit Wonders of The 90’s” station your
co-worker always plays on Spotify.

In 2001, John’s vast experience in shattered dreams was once again
called into play as the band hung up their touring shoes for good. After a
brief but horrifying career in real estate, John got wise and made a career
out of his favorite hobby – wine – and has held various sales
& marketing positions in Napa Valley since 2011. John’s writing
career started in earnest at this point, with blogs, essays and short
stories appearing in various publications. John is the author of three
novels, including the aptly-titled Pairs With: Life, which will be released
by Hurn Publications in September 2020.

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Fiction – Missing Colors

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General Fiction

Date Published: August 25, 2020

Publisher: Three South Press

Friends since childhood, Logan Ritter and Hunter James are now only held
together by family ties and a history of codependency. Logan is a doctoral
student and teacher who wraps himself in work, Hunter’s parents, and his
other long-time friend, Missy. Meanwhile, Hunter, struggling to balance his
summer undergraduate courses, a part-time job, and his ever-increasing
alcoholism, becomes obsessed with a misguided young woman he’s never met. As
their university town experiences unprecedented fear in the summer of 2002,
each man’s life becomes blurred by self-absorption, assumptions, and
full-on delusions. When faced with some undeniable truths, Logan and Hunter
must decide how to untangle themselves from the false realities to which
they’ve been clinging.

Excerpt

Another mouthful of hoppy beer enriches my senses. Before I can even
swallow, I see he has finally made the connection in his brain, his eyes
opening twice as wide as I thought was possible. Logan lets out a breath and
contorts his face, as if he just caught me doing his precious Buffy, or
Cindy, or whatever, doggy style on their Egyptian cotton sheets.

“You’re delivering pizzas? A pizza delivery boy? That’s just fucking
fantastic. Good for you. Something to be proud of after spending a fifth of
your life in college.” Logan is really great with literature and shit,
but he sucks at math.

“Well, like I said, I prefer to say I’m in transfers. I will transfer
the pizza from Pizza House to someone’s living room,” I say,
demonstrating the complexity of the gig with large gestures. “Without
me, thousands of people would starve. I’m a god-damned
humanitarian!”

Logan shakes his head, looks me up and down, and laughs. Not because he
finds humor in anything, but because he is mocking me. His judgemental stare
causes me to heat up with rage, with the amount of alcohol in my system
I’m already highly flammable. “I am not a fucking clown!”
I ignite and slap Logan’s beer bottle off of the table. It hits the already
damaged wall and shatters making a loud, but not out of place, sound. No one
else in the bar seems to notice. Logan lets out a slow, controlled breath.
Now having a look of disapproval rather than shock, he pulls a fifty out of
his wallet, sets it on the table and walks through the bar, leaving me
alone.

About the Author

Lana Orndorff works as a freelance writer and lives in Chicago with her
husband and son. Missing Colors is her debut novel. As a reader and writer,
she prefers beautifully tragic stories that fracture her heart. Because of
this, her husband rarely takes her book recommendations.

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Crime Drama – Eating the Forbidden Fruit

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Crime Fiction / Family Drama / Women’s Fiction

Date Published: March 30, 2020

Publisher: Pearl Publishing

Eating the Forbidden Fruit is a gritty fiction novel loosely based on true
events in author Roland Sato Page life. The newcomer author delivers a
personal journey into his rise and demise as a St. Louis City Police
Officer. He takes the readers on a roller coaster ride of good old family
memories to the nightmarish reality of being a police officer indicted on
federal drug charges. During his trial, he wrote memoirs as a testimonial of
redemption. Roland’s case stems from the conflict of his childhood
affiliation and his oath to uphold the law. What is certain one can’t run
from sin for karma is much faster. The author actually wrote the novel years
ago however after battling Lupus he lost his motivation to complete it.
Promising his mother, Fumi Karasawa, who recently passed that he would
finish what he started. Roland opened his computer to complete telling his
story. He also would like to encourage others with determination they too
can reestablish position as a productive citizen.

Roland was a popular tattoo artist in the St. Louis area however once
diagnosed with Lupus he lost his hand and eye coordination bringing the body
art career to a halt. No other choice he had to reinvent himself
transforming visual art into literary art. Writing is quite therapeutic for
the newly ordained writer. The silver lining is his family support kept him
going. “With tragedy comes blessings”.

About the Author

Author Roland Sato Page was born in Brooklyn New York in a military
household with a mother from Osaka Japan and a combat trainer father with
three war tours under his belt. He grew up in a well-disciplined home with
five other siblings. As he got older his family relocated to St. Louis where
the author planted his roots and also pursued a military life in the Army
Reserves.

Roland married his high school sweetheart and started a family of four.
Roland joined the St. Louis police department where his career was cut short
when he was convicted of federal crimes due to his childhood
affiliation.

After enduring his demise, Roland rebounded becoming a tattoo artist
opening Pearl Gallery Tattoos in downtown St. Louis Mo. The company grew
into a family business yet another unfortunate incident tested his fate. He
was diagnosed with Lupus which halted his body art career. However, with
tragedy comes blessings. Roland’s sons took over the business and
propelled the shop to a higher level. Consumed with depression, Roland began
writing to occupy the time. With a newfound passion, he traded visual art
for literary art.

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Fiction – Blood & Sand

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General Fiction (cozy small town fiction)

Date Published: August, 2019

Publisher: Pen & Key Publishing

A tiny town. A broken tavern. And one woman searching for a place to
belong.

Logan Cole is used to getting her way and what she wants more than anything
is for her father to get out of jail and restore her old life in New York.
All she has to do is wait for his scandals to fade and the online rancor
against her family to subside. Low on cash and out of options, she takes a
bus north looking for anonymity and stops in the smallest town she can find:
Ramsbolt, Maine.

When she stumbles into Helen’s Tavern, she finds a place in need of a
make-over and a grandmotherly woman who could use some help. Soon, she finds
herself growing fond of the bar, Helen, and the town. She’s even found
a friend in Grey, the local plumber. The tiny town puts her at a crossroads:
keep hiding her identity to preserve her new reputation or let down her
guard and reveal her true self to the people she’s grown to love. But
the choice is ripped from her hands when tragedy strikes the bar and saving
it requires every tool at her disposal.

Can Logan find a true home among the people of Ramsbolt Maine?

The Collected Stories of Ramsbolt is a series by Jennifer M. Lane,
award-winning author Of Metal and Earth and Stick Figures from Ramsbolt.
Fresh and heart-warming, the series tells the stories of a small town
looking for belonging.

Excerpt

Chapter One

Logan Cole had never been on a bus in her life. As she stretched her legs
and stumbled onto the sidewalk at the tip of Maine, she cursed the eight
hour learning experience and swore never to do it again.

The last stop before the border was less like a terminal and more like a
dead end. No benches, no depot, no ticketing window. And no taxis. Just a
little yellow house with leaning porch surrounded by scruffy blueberry
shrubs. At least it wasn’t sweltering out.

She yanked her black Rimowa suitcase, one of the few things the FBI let her
keep, from the bottom of the bus. She gave the driver a wry smile and
thanked him for the trip. It wasn’t his fault a woman coughed and
crinkled candy wrappers the whole way, and that guy with his earbuds in
behind her never learned to sing.

“Six hundred miles better be far enough.” She mumbled to
herself as she dragged the suitcase down the sidewalk, fumbling for her
phone in her purse. It was a habit she still hadn’t broken, opening
apps to fill a void, but she’d deleted Twitter, Facebook, and the rest
of them when the threats started pouring in. Eight months, four court cases,
a thousand stories in the news, and she still hadn’t gotten used to
being without social media. Being disconnected was better than scrolling
through contempt, though.

“Battery’s almost dead. Map won’t load. Damn it.”
She walked back the way she’d come, past quaint little houses and
blueberry bushes, back to the bar she’d seen a mile or so before. It
was across from a cheap motel with moldy siding and mildewed plastic chairs.
The bar itself was windowless and brick. Definitely not the kind of place
where someone would look for one of the wealthiest people in the country. Or
someone who used to be.

She paused at an intersection and started a text to her mom, a quick note
to say she was far from the gossip and rumors, safe from tabloid headlines
squawking about a Cole Curse, and nowhere near the internet trolls who
flooded her notifications with threats, saying they knew where to find her
and what they would do to her when they did. All because of her
father.

She waited among the cigarette butts and rusted beer caps while her text
bounced its way to France.

Delivered. Three dots appeared. Her mother’s reply came slow.

Good luck. Lay low. I’ll send money if I can. Try to blend in.

Logan sent back a smiley face and a greeting for her aunt and uncle.

Letting her phone fall back in her purse, she swallowed hard and tugged hem
of her T-shirt down over her jeans. Her heart pounded so loud she
wouldn’t be able to hear traffic if there’d been any. But the
intersection was dead. The only other animate object in that town was the
little orange hand blinking on the stop light, telling her not to
walk.

The light changed and a little white man blinked, urging her to cross the
street before it was too late. By the look of the town nothing was urgent.
The only signs of life were two cars in the bar’s parking lot. They
could be abandoned for all she knew.

A countdown timer marked off the seconds. Eleven. Ten.

Left to the motel. Straight to the bar. Neither option looked all that
inviting.

For the first time since she left New York, rage, hot as the surface of the
sun, boiled within her. She was supposed to be in an air conditioned office
somewhere, running a foundation. Sipping a latte that came from cart. Logan
kicked a beer cap into the street, and it skittered into a pothole.

Five. Four.

The little man on the pedestrian signal had his whole life together. He had
purpose and goals and a job. He had an identity, and everyone knew who he
was. Logan had all of that until her father screwed up, and the government
charged him with money laundering and took it all away. All she had left
were some comfy pants shoved in a suitcase and a cell phone plan she
couldn’t afford. She squeezed the handle of her suitcase so tight her
knuckles turned white.

Two. One.

The Do Not Walk signal blinked, and she crossed the street defiant.

The sidewalk rippled. Uneven slabs of concrete were mere islands, broken by
the freeze and thaw of ice, lost in a sea of weeds and road dirt. She faced
the bar.

When she opened that door, she would find herself in a whole new world.
There would be questions. What was her name? Where did she come from? Maybe
they would recognize her right away from the newspapers, the tabloids,
Twitter. She wasn’t prepared for any of it, and she never would be.
She didn’t even know how to fill out a job application. What was she
supposed to say? I’m a Yale graduate with a degree in Art History, the
daughter of a felon, and I’ve come to scrub your bathroom?

The sun would set in a few hours, and that motel did not look hospitable.
The keys to a job and a cheap apartment were somewhere in that bar.

Taking in a shaky breath of Maine air, she held it in until her lungs
soaked it up, then let out a steady stream of all she had left.

“Get in there and prove your mother wrong. You are still a Cole and
Coles do not give up. We don’t stand on the sidewalk and talk to
ourselves, either.”

Her whole future lay ahead of her. She just had to get by until her dad set
it right. Shoulders back, head up, she opened

About the Author

A Maryland native and Pennsylvanian at heart, Jennifer M. Lane holds a
bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Barton College and a master’s in
liberal arts with a focus on museum studies from the University of Delaware,
where she wrote her thesis on the material culture of roadside memorials.
She is the author of the award-winning novel Of Metal and Earth, of Stick
Figures from Rockport, and the series of stand-alone novels from The
Collected Stories of Ramsbolt, including Blood and Sand. Visit her website
at https: //www.jennifermlanewrites.com/

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Chick Lit – Lucky

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Chick Lit

Kat Davidson bought the ticket on a whim…she never expected to win.

Will $200 million dollars ruin her life?

At 34, what Kat really wants is to start a family. Her husband, Michael, only wants to be a famous actor. After winning the lottery, life seems perfect – until they get the reality TV show offer.

Maria Gonzales, the ambitious TV producer of Lucky, knows the show will be her ticket to ratings gold – as long as she can amp up the drama between Kat and Michael.

Drama is the last thing Kat wants.

It’s not easy, becoming famous. People stop them on the street. Women throw themselves at Michael. It’s not the life Kat pictured when she fantasized about being rich.

Winning the lottery flings Kat into a life of luxurious Manhattan mansions, exotic beaches, extravagant sports cars and fabulous clothes.

But will she find the strength she needs to win the life she really wants?

Dive into the book that readers are finding impossible to put down.

About the Author

V. R. Street lives in a New York City suburb with her husband, daughter, son and a cheeky cat named Bob.

Lucky is her first novel, although she has published three nonfiction titles under a different name. The idea for Lucky came from fantasizing about winning the lottery and wondering what it would be like if a reality TV series was shot about lottery winners. Since writing this book, HGTV has come out with a show called My Lottery Dream Home. Sometimes life imitates fiction!

When not writing, V. R. works for a sports broadcasting company. In 2017, she was the winner of an Emmy for her work on the 2016 Summer Olympics.

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Literary Fiction – Inferno of Silence

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Literary Fiction

Date Published: 08 May 2020

Publisher: The Roaring Lion Newcastle Ltd

The first collection of short stories by this multitalented author entwines
everyday events that are articulated in excellent storytelling. The title
story “Inferno of Silence” portrays men’s societal challenges and
the unspoken truths and burdens that men bear. While “Black lives
Matter” shows the firsthand trauma of a man facing racism as a
footballer plying his trade in Europe.Stories range from “Return
Journey” where we encounter a techpreneur/ Poet/Serial Womanizer
confronting consequences of his past actions to “Blinded by
Silence” where a couple united by love must face a political upheaval
changing their fortune. Completed with stories of relationships:
“Trouble in Umudike” – family wealth and marriage, “Everybody
don Kolomental” where the main character deals with mental health
issues, and “In the Trap of Seers” when one’s life is on
auto-reverse and with the death of her confidante, her mother as she takes
us through her ordeal and journey to redemption. This is a broad and very
inclusive collection.

About the Author

Tolu’ A. Akinyemi hails from Nigeria and lives in the UK where he has
been endorsed by the Arts Council England as a writer with
“exceptional talent”. Tolu is the author of seven outstanding
books, one of which is a collection of ‘short essays’
encouraging you to “Unravel Your Hidden Gems”. The five other
books form the basis of his poetry collection, ripe for future growth, and
which includes Dead Lions Don’t Roar, Dead Dogs Don’t Bark, Dead
Cats Don’t Meow, Never Play Games with the Devil and his latest
release, A Booktiful Love. He has also authored a widely acclaimed stellar
collection of Short stories titled “Inferno of Silence”.

A former headline act at Great Northern Slam, Crossing The Tyne Festival,
Feltonbury Arts and Music Festival, and featured in various Poetry
Festivals, Open Slam, Poetry Slam, Spoken Word and Open Mic events in and
outside the United Kingdom. His poems have been published in The Writers
Cafe Magazine Issue 18 and 57th issue (Volume 15, no 1) of the Wilderness
House Literary Review and many other literary outlets.

His books are based on a deep reality and often reflect relationships, life
and features people he has met in his journey as a writer. His books have
instilled many people to improve their performance and/or their
circumstances. Tolu’ has taken his poetry to the stage, performing his
written word at many events. Through his writing and these performances, he
supports business leaders, other aspiring authors and people of all ages
interested in reading and writing. Sales of the books have allowed
Tolu’ donate to charity, allowing him to make a difference where he
feels important, showing that he lives by the words he puts to page.

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