The Legacy by Melissa Delport Blog Tour!

One man obsessed with power.

One woman prepared to sacrifice everything to stop him.

One war that changed the world.

“World War Three lasted twelve days. Twelve days was all it took for mankind to devastate the planet and almost eradicate the human race. No victor emerged from the ashes and billions lost their lives.

We survivors lived through the bleakest of winters. A primal existence became the new order, and the little that remained of our humanity hung in the balance.

Then one man stood up and changed the world. I believed, as did everyone else, that he was the hero of our time, the man who had saved us from our own demise. His name is Eric Dane and he is the President of the New United States of America. 

He is also my husband, and my greatest enemy.

I grew up oblivious to the truth, until my father found me when I was nineteen years old. He told me about the many horrifying facts that our new leader kept hidden from us. And he told me that beyond the borders the Resistance grew and fought for freedom from the oppression that Eric Dane had imposed on us.

My name is Rebecca Davis. I am twenty-six years old, and in me the Resistance has found the ultimate weapon.”

A narrative of good and evil, love and passion, right and wrong – and at the centre of the story a strong woman who is prepared to sacrifice everything for the cause she believes in.

The Legacy is an action-packed, adrenalin-inducing thrill ride which will leave you riveted long after you have turned the last page.

Bio

Wife and mother of 3, Melissa Delport is the author of The Legacy Trilogy and the stand-alone self-published e.books Rainfall and The Traveler.

She graduated from the University of South Africa with a Bachelor’s Degree in English in 2000

At the age of twenty-four Melissa started a logistics company (Transmax) from the spare room of her flat and built it up to two fully operational depots in Durban and Johannesburg. Now, 10 years later, she has sold her business in order to write full time.

Melissa lives with her husband and three children in Hillcrest, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

The Legacy (book 1 of The Legacy Trilogy) and The Legion (book 2) are available now and the final book, The Legend, will be released early 2015.

An avid reader herself, Melissa finally decided to stop ‘watching from the sidelines’ and to do what is her passion.

“I was driving home from work when inspiration struck, and a storyline started unravelling in my head. For a few days it was all I could think about and eventually I realised that the only way to get it out of my head, was to put it all down on paper. I started writing, and that was that.”

SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS

Blog: www.melissadelport.com

The Legacy Trilogy Website: www.thelegacytrilogy.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheMelissaDelportBookClub

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/MelissaDelport

Twitter: www.twitter.com/MelissaDelport

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/MelissaDelport

Publisher’s website: www.traceymcdonaldpublishers.com

TITLE: The Legacy

SERIES: Book 1 of The Legacy Trilogy

AUTHOR: Melissa Delport

PRINT ISBN: 978-0-620-59636-7

eISBN: 978-0-620-59637-4

PAGES: 366 pages

WORD COUNT: 99 160

GENRE: Speculative Fiction

MARKET: Adults (with crossover to the 16+ reader)

PUBLISHER: Tracey McDonald Publishers

BUY LINKS

Amazon.com - HERE

Amazon.co.uk - HERE

Barnes & Noble - HERE

Kobo - HERE

Discounted Series from Sourcebooks!

Mary Wine’s fourth book in The Sutherlands series, The Highlander’s Bride Trouble pubs tomorrow, August 5. To celebrate, the first three books in The Sutherlands series will be dramatically discounted in their eBook formats.

The eBook prices for the series will be as follows:

·         The Highlander’s Prize - FREE

·         The Trouble with Highlanders - $1.99

·         How to Handle a Highlander - $3.99

·         The Highlander’s Bride Trouble - $6.99

This promotion will be active for 90 days. 

www.sourcebooks.com

BASTARD ROYAL DAUGHTER, PAWN IN A DEADLY GAME

Sent to Scotland to be the king's mistress and produce an heir, Clarrisa of York has never needed a miracle more. But the brusque Highland laird who kidnaps her is a bit too rough to be considered divine intervention.

HE'LL DO ANYTHING TO THWART HIS KING

With rival lairds determined to steal Clarrisa from him and royal henchmen searching for her all over the Highlands, Laird Broen MacNicols has a mess on his hands. Worse yet, there's a magnetic attraction between them, although he's betrothed to another. But even an independent-minded lady like Clarrisa knows that a Highlander always claims his prize..

She Has Hardly Any Choices Left...

With her clan on the wrong side of the struggle for the Scottish throne, heiress Daphne Macleod, once the toad of the court, is out of options...

And They're All Dangerous...

Norris Sutherland once helped Daphne, but she walked away from him without a backward glance. Now she's in deep trouble and needs him more than ever. But he may be lost forever...unless she can somehow convince him to forgive her.

Moira Frazer is betrothed to a man who is old enough to be her father, but it's her duty to her clan to marry him, and she's determined to see this through…until she meets Gahan Sutherland.

Gahan knows this match is designed to start a feud between the clans, which is why he decides to stop the wedding. But when Moira awakens a passion within him that he never knew existed, he realizes that the outcome of this perilous situation will determine the future of his own happiness. 

As trust and honor clash with forbidden attraction, manipulations, rivalries, and schemes will threaten to blow the Highlands sky high…

Nareen Grant is confident, well-educated, and quick with a dagger. So when her brother, Kael, unknowingly sends her to live at a cousin’s secret brothel, she escapes to court where she meets the arrogant Highlander, Saer MacLeod…

Saer is considered savage even by most Highlanders. It will take an extraordinary woman to handle him, and Nareen enchants him like no one he’s met before. When a furious Kael threatens revenge against the cousin who wronged his sister, Saer knows its his one chance to win over Nareen and reclaim the respect his family deserves…and he’s going to take it

The Graham Saga by Anna Belfrage Book Blast!

Join Anna Belfrage as her beloved time-slip series, The Graham Saga, is featured around the blogosphere from July 28-August 15 with HF Virtual Book Tours and enter to win your own set of Books 1-6!

About The Graham Saga

 

 This is the story of Alex and Matthew, two people who should never have met - not when she was born three hundred years after him. It all began the day Alex Lind got caught in a thunderstorm. Not your ordinary storm, no this was the mother of all storms, causing a most unusual rift in the fabric of time. Alex was dragged three centuries backwards in time, landing more or less at the feet of a very surprised Matthew Graham. In a series of books we follow the life and adventures of the expanding Graham family, both in Scotland and in the New World - and let me tell you it is quite an exciting life, at times excessively so in Alex' opinion. Sometimes people ask me why Alex had to be born in the twentieth century, why not make her a woman born and bred in the seventeenth century where the story is set? The answer to that is I have no idea. Alex Lind is an insistent, vibrant character that sprung into my head one morning and simply wouldn't let go. Seductively she whispered about terrible thunderstorms, about a gorgeous man with magic, hazel eyes, about loss and sorrow, about love - always this love, for her man and her children, for the people she lives with. With a throaty chuckle she shared insights into a life very far removed from mine, now and then stopping to shake her head and tell me that it probably hadn't been easy for Matthew, to have such an outspoken, strange and independent woman at his side. At this point Matthew groaned into life. Nay, he sighed, this woman of his was at times far too obstinate, with no notion of how a wife should be, meek and dutiful. But, he added with a laugh, he wouldn't want her any different, for all that she was half heathen and a right hand-full. No, he said, stretching to his full length, if truth be told not a day went by without him offering fervent thanks for his marvelous wife, a gift from God no less, how else to explain the propitious circumstances that had her landing at his feet that long gone August day? Still, dear reader, it isn't always easy. At times Alex thinks he's an overbearing bastard, at others he's sorely tempted to belt her. But the moment their fingertips graze against each other, the moment their eyes meet, the electrical current that always buzzes between them peaks and surges, it rushes through their veins, it makes their breathing hitch and ... She is his woman, he is her man. That's how it is, that's how it always will be.

Graham Saga Titles

Book One: A Rip in the Veil 
Book Two: Like Chaff in the Wind Book 
Three: The Prodigal Son 
Book Four: A Newfound Land 
Book Five: Serpents in the Garden 
Book Six: Revenge & Retribution 
Book Seven: Whither Thou Goest (November 2014) Book Eight: To Catch a Falling Star (March 2015)

About the Author

Anna was raised abroad, on a pungent mix of Latin American culture, English history and Swedish traditions. As a result she's multilingual and most of her reading is historical- both non-fiction and fiction. Possessed of a lively imagination, she has drawers full of potential stories, all of them set in the past. She was always going to be a writer - or a historian, preferably both. Ideally, Anna aspired to becoming a pioneer time traveller, but science has as yet not advanced to the point of making that possible. Instead she ended up with a degree in Business and Finance, with very little time to spare for her most favourite pursuit. Still, one does as one must, and in between juggling a challenging career Anna raised her four children on a potent combination of invented stories, historical debates and masses of good food and homemade cakes. They seem to thrive… For years she combined a challenging career with four children and the odd snatched moment of writing. Nowadays Anna spends most of her spare time at her writing desk. The children are half grown, the house is at times eerily silent and she slips away into her imaginary world, with her imaginary characters. Every now and then the one and only man in her life pops his head in to ensure she's still there. For additional information regarding Anna, her characters, extra scenes, and teasers for her next books, have a look at Anna's website at: www.annabelfrage.com. You can also find her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

Book Blast Schedule

Monday, July 28 
Broken Teepee 
Kincavel Korner 
bookworm2bookworm's Blog 
Tuesday, July 29 
So Many Books, So Little Time 
Wednesday, July 30 
A Bibliotaph's Reviews 
Thursday, July 31 
Book Drunkard 
Friday, August 1 
The Lit Bitch 
Saturday, August 2 
Book Nerd 
Sunday, August 3 
Literary Chanteuse 
Just One More Chapter 
Monday, August 4 
A Bookish Girl 
Historical Tapestry 
To Read, Or Not to Read 
Tuesday, August 5 
CelticLady's Reviews 
Wednesday, August 6 
The True Book Addict 
Thursday, August 7 
Impressions in Ink 
Friday, August 8 
A Bookish Affair The Mad Reviewer 
Saturday, August 9 
Historical Fiction Connection 
Monday, August 11 
Gobs and Gobs of Books 
Tuesday, August 12 
Pages of Comfort 
Wednesday, August 13 
History Undressed 
Thursday, August 14 
Passages to the Past 
Friday, August 15 
Mina's Bookshelf

Giveaway

To win a set of Anna Belfrage's Graham Saga (Books 1-6) please complete the Rafflecopter giveaway form below. Two winners will be chosen. Giveaway is open internationally!

Giveaway ends at 11:59pm on August 15th. You must be 18 or older to enter. Winners will be chosen via Rafflecopter on August 16th and notified via email. Winners have 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

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Price of Vengeance by Kurt D.Springs Book Spotlight!

Book information:

• Series Title: Dreamscape Warrior

• Book Title: Price of Vengeance (Book 1)

•  Author: Kurt D. Springs

• Publisher: Tate Publishing & Enterprises LLC

• Release date: April 22, 2014

• Word Count: 90400 (320 pages)

• Formats: Paperback; mobi (through Amazon) & epub available         

Book blurb:

What is the Price of Vengeance? One could understand why Liam was angry. He was orphaned at the age of two by a group of giant carnivorous insects called the chitin. Adopted by High Councilor Marcus and his wife, Lidia, Liam was raised with their older son, Randolf in New Olympia, the last remaining city on the planet Etrusci. As an adult, Liam becomes a soldier. After being cut off from the city, Liam finds that there is an alien intelligence behind the chitin. To defeat it, he must discover who he is and how to use his powers. Then, Liam discovers that a traitor, responsible for his birth parents’deaths, had murdered his beloved foster parents. Will the price he has to pay in his quest for vengeance prove to be an even more unbeatable foe? 

Author Bio: 

Kurt D. Springs is presently an adjunct professor of anthropology and archaeology in New Hampshire. He holds a PhD. in anthropology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, as well as a Master of Literature in archaeology from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and a Master of Liberal Arts in anthropology and archaeology from the Harvard University Extension School. His main area of interest is megalithic landscapes in prehistoric Ireland.

              Excerpt 

Liam! What have you done!

Liam!

Marcus was in front of him. Liam stopped, confused.

What have you done? Marcus demanded.

Liam’s control faltered. “I’m sorry!” He wept.

You know our teachings on revenge, Marcus said sternly. Licinious will die in agony.

Suddenly, irrationally angry, Liam straightened. “How can you defend him after what he did? To you, to Mom, to my birth parents, to everyone we cared about?”

I’m not defending him, Marcus said quietly, but how does that make it right?

With a howl of despair and emotional agony, Liam dashed forward through the shade of his father, blindly running into the sewers.

One could understand why Liam was angry. He was orphaned at the age of two by a group of giant carnivorous insects called the chitin. Adopted by High Councilor Marcus and his wife, Lidia, Liam was raised with their older son, Randolf in New Olympia, the last remaining city on the planet Etrusci. As an adult, Liam becomes a soldier. After being cut off from the city, Liam finds that there is an alien intelligence behind the chitin. To defeat it, he must discover who he is and how to use his powers. Then Liam discovers that a traitor, responsible for his birth parents’ deaths, had murdered his beloved foster parents. Will the price he has to pay in his quest for vengeance prove to be an even more unbeatable foe?

Review Snippets:

“Kurt Springs takes us through an action-filled adventure of villains and monsters, of kindness and redemption, and searches the human soul for motives that transcend our tendency toward ‘getting even.’Does vengeance carry a price? Does it always carry a price?”

“This is an exhilarating story, full of action and adventure, and with no assurance that everything will turn out all right, even into the very last battle. Once started, this book is hard to put down. You will want to add this book to your library so you can read it again and again.”  --Patricia Scholes

“It was a very well written book, with enough interesting characters, as well as a Bear-lizard who can communicate telepathically, to keep everything interesting. I loved the dreamscape where Liam meets Jarek and finds out about who he is, and all about his family. The plot was very well written with enough betrayals, twists and turns to keep you turning the pages.”

“Overall a very well written book. One I feel all Sci-fi and fantasy/paranormal readers will enjoy.” --Aoife Marie Sheridan

“I have to be honest... I was completely blown away by this book. Normally I don't read novels of this genre but Mr. Springs work has me rethinking my choices. The characters were impressively easy to relate too and the storyline keeps you captivated through the entire novel.”--A.C. Heller

“I rarely read sci-fi owing to a “technical detail” fatigue, but the prologue of this wonderful book started with the character dynamic, not an elaborate sci-fi world. I HAD to care. I had to know what was going to happen to my poor characters. 

“The author doesn’t bog the reader down with the technical aspects and the story is action focused. I would definitely read more from this author.”--Crystal Collier

“Move over ‘Star Wars’! ‘Prince of Vengeance’ by Kurt D. Springs is Published!”--LuAnn Worley Rockin’ Book Reviews

August Kindle Giveaway!

It's time for August's $229 Kindle Giveaway Hosted by I Am A Reader. Enter to win 1 of 2 great prizes both valued at $229. Winner’s choice of a Kindle Fire HDX or $229 Amazon Gift Card or $229 Paypal Cash! 

The first prize is available via the rafflecopter below. The 2nd is available only to those share this giveaway. You can find info on how to enter the 2nd giveaway in the rafflecopter.

   

Win a Kindle Fire HDX, Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash ($229 value)

Kindle Fire HDX 7" Giveaway

The winner will have the option of receiving a 7" Kindle Fire HDX (US Only - $229 Value)

  Or $229 Amazon.com Gift Card (International)

  Or $229 in Paypal Cash (International)

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Giveaway Details 1 winner will receive their choice of a Kindle Fire 7" HDX (US Only - $229 value), $229 Amazon Gift Card or $229 in Paypal Cash (International). There is a second separate giveaway for bloggers who post this giveaway on their blog. See details in the rafflecopter on how to enter to win the 2nd Kindle Fire HDX 7", $229 Amazon Gift Card or $229 in Paypal Cash. 
Ends 8/31/14   Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. 

Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader and sponsored by the participating authors & bloggers. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. 

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The Jones Men: 40th Anniversary Edition by Vern E. Smith Book Blast!

Book Details:

Genre: Crime
Published by: Rosarium Publishing
Publication Date: May 2014
Number of Pages: 264
ISBN: 978-0989141185
Purchase Links:

Synopsis:
DETROIT, 1974
To become the King, you have to take the crown. It won't be given up lightly. Heroin kingpin, Willis McDaniel, has been wearing that particular piece of jewelry for far too long, and youngblood, Lennie Jack, thinks it would look really good on his head. When a junkie tells Jack about a big delivery, the young Vietnam vet makes his move. Feeling his empire crumble, McDaniel puts the word out to find whoever's responsible. The hunt is on, the battle is engaged, and the streets of Detroit run red with blood.
In 1974 Vern E. Smith took the crime fiction world by storm with his debut novel, The Jones Men. Heralded as "a large accomplishment in the art of fiction" by the New York Times, The Jones Men went on to be nominated for an Edgar Award and became a New York Times Notable Book. The art of crime fiction has never been the same since.

Read an excerpt:

For Bennie Lee Sims’ wake, Lennie Jack chose the sky-blue Fleetwood with the chromed-up bumpers and the bar-line running from the trunk to the dash, dispensing six different liquors with chaser.
Joe Red brought the car to a halt in front of Fraser’s Funeral Parlor on Madison Boulevard. He backed it in between a red El Dorado with a diamond-shaped rear window and a pink Lincoln with a leopard-skin roof.
Lennie Jack wore a medium-length Afro and had thick wide sideburns that grew neatly into the ends of a bushy moustache drooping over his top lip. He got out of the passenger seat in a manner that favored his left shoulder. He had on a cream-colored suede coat that stopped just below the knee, and a .38 in his waistband.
Joe Red was shorter and thinner and younger than Lennie Jack. He got his nickname for an extremely light complexion and a thick curly bush of reddish brown hair; it spilled from under the wide-brimmed black hat cocked low over his right ear. He had on the black leather midi with the red-stitched cape; he had a .45 automatic in his waistband.
They came briskly down the sidewalk and went up the six concrete steps to the entrance of Fraser’s.
An attendant in a somber gray suit and dark tie greeted them at the door.
“We’re here for Bennie Sims,” Joe Red said.
“Come this way,” the attendant said.
He guided them down a narrow hallway past a knot of elderly black women waiting to file into one of the viewing rooms flanking the hall on either side. The hallway reeked of death; the women wept.
They passed three more doors before the attendant led them left at the end of the hall and down a short flight of stairs. A single 60-watt bulb illuminated the lower level. The attendant went past the row of ebony- and silver-colored caskets stacked near the staircase and stopped at a door in the back of the room.
“They’re in there,” he said. He turned and headed back up the stairs. Lennie Jack rapped softly at the door. They stood a few feet back from the doorway to be recognizable in the dim light.
The door cracked.
“This Bennie Lee?” Lennie Jack said.
“Yeah, this it,” said a voice behind the crack.
A man with wavy black hair in a white mink jacket and red knicker boots let them in. He relocked the door.
The room smelled of cigarette smoke. A row of silver metal chairs had been stacked in a neat line on one side, but most of the people come to pay their respects were scattered in the back in tight little clusters, talking and laughing.
At the front of the long room, near a small table of champagne bottles, Bennie Lee Sims’ tuxedo-dad body lay in a silver-colored coffin with a bright satin lining.
His face was dusty with a fine white powder.
Lennie Jack walked over to the coffin. He dipped his fingers in the silver tray of cocaine on top and sprinkled it over Bennie Lee.
Joe Red stepped up behind him and tried to find a spot that wasn’t covered. He finally decided on the lips and scattered a handful of the fine white crystalline powder around Bennie Lee’s mouth and chin.
They moved through the crowd, shaking hands and greeting people. Almost everybody had come to see Bennie Lee off.
The Ware brothers were there: Willie, the oldest at twenty-four; Simmy, who was twenty; and June, who often swaggered as if he were the elder of the clan but still had the baby-smooth face and look of wide- eyed adolescence. He was seventeen.
Pretty Boy Sam was standing in one corner with his right foot resting on one of the metal chairs. He had smooth brown skin and almost girlish features, topped off by a pointed Van Dyke beard. His good looks masked a violent temper.
Pretty Boy Sam had worn his full-length brown mink and brought his woman to pay his respects to Bennie Lee Sims, who had two neat bullet holes right between the eyes and underneath all the cocaine on his face.
Slim Williams was there with his woman. He was a tall, thin dark-skinned man whose left eye had been destroyed by an errant shotgun blast. He now wore a variety of gaily colored eye patches the way he had heard Sammy Davis did when he lost his eye. He had on a patch of bright green and red plaid and stood conversing on one side of the room with Hooker, Woody Woods, and Mack Lee.
Willis McDaniel was not there, but then, he never came. He had probably never considered it, but it was a source of irritation to the others.
Joe Red said, “Hey Jack, he the man. He don’t hafta come see nobody off if he don’t wanta come. Ain’t none of these people thinkin’ bout makin’ him come. Who gon make him come?”
“Why he can’t come like the rest of the people?” Lennie Jack said. “Has anybody ever thought of that, you reckon? He too big now to bring his ass out here to see a dude off? He probably had him ripped anyway. I don’t understand how these chumps let an old man like that just get in there and rule.”
“Now we both know how he got it,” Joe Red said. “He took it. He say, ‘Look, I’m gon be the man on this side of town cause I got my thing together and I got plenty big shit behind me. Now what you motherfuckers say?’ Everybody say, ‘You the man, Mister McDaniel.’ That’s the way he did it.”
“That is the way to take it from him, too.” Lennie Jack said. “We gon get lucky pretty soon. I think he can be had and I know just the way to do it. I got some people working on it. The first thing they teach you in the war is to fight fire with fire, you know?”
He took the tiny gold spoon on the chain around his neck and scooped a pinch of cocaine off the tray Joe Red handed him. He brought the spoon up to his right nostril and sniffed deeply.
The crowd was beginning to drift to the corner of the room where Slim Williams was holding court. Slim was thirty-seven, and much older than most of his audience. Lennie Jack was twenty-six, and Joe Red had just turned twenty-one three days ago.
Slim Williams had diamond rings on three fingers of his left hand, and he was waving them around in a dazzling display and talking about Joe the Grind.
“Joe used to walk into a bar with his dudes with him–he always carried these two dudes with him everywhere he went. He’d walk into a place fulla people and say, ‘I’m Joe the Grind, set up the bar! All pimps and players step up to the bar and bring your whores with you.’”
Slim Williams chuckled. “Then Joe would talk about ‘em. He used to say, ‘You ain’t no pimp, nigger. What you doin’ up here? I ain’t buying no drinks for you. Sit down!’”
Slim Williams laughed; so did everybody else.
“Joe used to rayfield a chump bag dude too,” Slim Williams said. “He used to tell ‘em ‘Just cause you got eight or nine hundred dollars worth of business don’t mean you somebody.’ Then Joe would throw a roll down that’d choke a Goddamn mule and tell the chump: ‘Looka here boy, I just had my man sell forty-two thousand dollars worth of heh-rawn, and I got twenty more joints to hear from fore midnight. Gon sit down somewhere, you don’t belong up here with no big dope men.”
They laughed again and somebody passed the coke tray.
June Ware took his pinch and squared his toes in the eighty-dollar calfskin boots from Australia, via Perrin’s Men’s Shoppe on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
“What happened to Joe, Slim?” June Ware said.
“Oh, somebody shot ‘im in the head in an after-hours joint,” Slim Williams said. “And lemme tell you, youall shoulda been there to see Joe’s wake. It put this thing to shame. Compared to Joe’s, this thing ain’t nothing. This light-weight. They say there was coke in the block wrapped in foil and pure heh-rawn set out on silver trays with diamonds in the sides.
“So they partied all night till twelve the next day, then they all went to Joe’s funeral. After the funeral was over, everybody got on the plane with his woman and went to Jamaica for two days.”
“Say what?” June Ware said.
“Yeah, that’s the truth,” Slim Williams said. “And you shoulda seen that funeral too. They say a broad came over from Chicago in a white-on-white El Dorado, and she was dressed in all white with a bad-ass mink round her shoulders. Then when she came out of the hotel the next day for Joe’s funeral, they say she was in all black. She went to the graveyard and threw one hundred roses on Joe. Then she got in her ride and split. Don’t nobody know who she was. When they had Joe’s funeral march, there was one hundred fifty big pieces lined up for blocks down Madison Boulevard. They pulled a brand new Brough-ham behind the hearse, and when the march was over they took the car out to the trash yard and crushed it.”
“Goddamn Slim!” June Ware said.
Mack Lee, who was twenty-two years old and decked out from the top of his big apple hat to the tip of his leather platforms in bright lavender, came their way with his woman on his arm.
The woman looked about nineteen; she wore diamond-studded earrings and a matching bracelet. She carried a tray of glasses and an unopened bottle of champagne.
“We oughta drink a toast to Bennie Lee,” Mack Lee said, “and ask the Lord how come he made him so stupid.”
The laughter rippled through the room; Mack Lee popped the cork in the champagne bottle and poured the rounds.

Trailer:

Author Bio:

A native of Natchez, Miss., Smith is a graduate of San Francisco State University, and the Summer Program for Minority Journalists at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He began his journalism career as a reporter for the Long Beach, Calif. Independent Press-Telegram.
From 1979 until 2002, Smith served as the Atlanta Bureau Chief and as a national correspondent for Newsweek.
Vern Smith's work as a journalist, author and screenwriter spans four decades.

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