My Journey by Jim Woods

NEW RELEASE MAY 1, 2014!

My Journey by Jim Woods

#gypsyshadow #autobiography #hunting

http://www.amazon.com/My-Journey-Jim-Woods-ebook/dp/B00K2EV8VE

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-journey-jim-woods/1119395013

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/434196

http://www.gypsyshadow.com/JimWoods.html#MyJourney

Born by the side of the road, Jim Woods went on to be a writer and an adventurous big game hunter. My Journey by Jim Woods. Available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, other fine eBook vendors and Gypsy Shadow Publishing at:

http://www.gypsyshadow.com/JimWoods.html#MyJourney

Jim Woods was a sports hunter writer, outdoorsman and game hunter. Follow his journey from his early beginnings in the Navy through many hunting adventures, both in the Eastern and Western hemispheres as he searches for and bags trophy game.

Word Count: 98600

Pages to Print: 272

Price: $5.99

EXCERPT:

A Long Walk Home

This account of my birth is enhanced family verbal history—enhanced because I don’t know precisely what dialogue was spoken, although the gist of it is faithful to what I’ve been told. I’m not certain that my mother remembered exactly either, and quite likely recalled and told it a bit differently each time I heard it from her. However, the story is as I remember it being told to me, and of course I have no personal memory of the events.

“Virgull! [My father, Virgil Neff Woods] Ah kain’t go no futher!”

Already some fifteen steps ahead of her, he deliberately took two more as though he didn’t hear, and then disgustedly set down the two battered and mismatched suitcases. He unslung the water jug hanging by the rope loop from his shoulder, and turned to face her.

Her streaked, blonde, straight, sweat-matted hair clung to her colorless features. She hadn’t put on lipstick in four days. Even her normally blue eyes were dusky gray.

The tattered sweater, once blue like her eyes, now faded by the years and grayed by the dust filtering upward from her every step, hung limply on her shoulders. The stretched sleeves covered half of her hands so that only her fingers were exposed below the frayed cuffs. She had needed the wrap in the coolness of the morning when they started out just after first light. Now at midday in mid-September, the Arkansas weather was steamy. Still, it was easier to wear the sweater than to carry it and the sniffling boy too.

Her dress once had been a bright flowered print. She traded and coaxed cloth from neighbors until she had enough of the multicolored flour sacks in the same pattern to make the only maternity dress she had ever owned. She had worn it while pregnant with the boy, now in her arms, two years ago. Threadbare and almost bleached out, once again it stretched taut across her swollen stomach. The soles of her flimsy sandals gave way to the piercing of every pebble in the road, and her feet were bruised and dirty.

“We can make six more miles today,” he objected gruffly, then relented to the persuasion of her silent tears.

Under the refuge of a hickory tree just turning to yellow alongside the grassy roadside ditch, he fished cigarette makings from the bib pocket of his overalls. To conserve tobacco, he packed the paper loosely from the Prince Albert can, twisted the ends to keep the cherished narcotic in place, and then popped a wooden match into flame under his grimy thumbnail. When the paper flared and the tobacco glowed, he stuck the half-burned match to the grass and twigs she had gathered for a cook-fire.

He appreciated the tree that sheltered them, but cursed the forest around Hardy [Arkansas] that finally had run out, causing the mill to shut down. It had been degrading for him to go hat-in-hand to her sister’s family in Fort Smith, and beg to stay on with them until he found another job. There should be jobs. It was 1934; the Depression was turning around, the nation’s economy on the way to recovery—Mister Roosevelt said so. Then came the letter from his own sister Catherine [Pierce] in Paducah [Kentucky] telling him that the Illinois Central Shop was hiring—and paying forty cents an hour!

Paducah was three hundred miles away. Train fare was impossible for them, so they set out afoot, and had been lucky with rides while they walked along the main roads. They crossed the Ozark Plateau in three days, sometimes hitching a ride on a wagon or truck. They even slept under a roof every night; on the ground huddled in their coats in abandoned or dilapidated barns, but at least not out in the open. Now at Marked Tree, they turned northeast through the Mississippi Valley to cut across the corner of Missouri into western Kentucky. The main flow of commerce moved in the tug-towed barges on the river, so the surface roads through the region were lightly traveled. The single car going in their direction passed with a blaring horn and a flurry of dust. They had walked nine miles.

She untied the rope from around the heavier suitcase, and removed the cast iron skillet and the battered aluminum pan that long ago had lost its handle. Then she dug out the bag of flour and measured a couple of handfuls into the pan. From the Clabber Girl can, she added a pinch of baking powder, and lastly, a sprinkle from the saltbox. She twirled the ingredients briefly with her single tablespoon, and formed a depression in the center of the mixture.

He pulled the cork from the jug of tepid, cloudy water reclaimed from a farm pond back down the road, washed the dust from his mouth with a swig, and handed her the bottle. She poured some into a tin cup to give the fretful boy a drink, and then clucked soothing endearments to quiet him, while she splashed more water into the flour mixture. When it was stirred into a thin batter, she used the same spoon to measure lard from the tin to the hot skillet where it sizzled and smoked, and spooned three pools of the batter into the skillet. She then retrieved the spatula he had shaped and thinned from a broken board with his clasp knife on their first night’s stopover.

After the batter was covered in bubbles over the entire top surface, and the bubbles broke, she flipped the hoecakes over to cook them through. The edges of the bread were burnt and crisp, while the centers were plump and soft. When the first one was done, she passed it to her husband. She turned her attention to the boy, crumbling the next hoecake in a tin plate and pouring syrup over the pieces from the almost empty Log Cabin can. Then she mashed the bread into a gooey mixture and spoon-fed the boy.

She was snatching a bite of her own bread in between feeding the boy when He demanded, “Don’t we have some of that baloney left?” Setting her lunch aside, she probed once again into the kitchen suitcase and produced a greasy paper package, and remembered the meager feast of last night.

They agonized over the decision, but had spent a precious dime for their first meat in three days. It was hard to wait as the butcher sliced a few pieces from the cloth-wrapped sandwich loaf. When the man realized how desperate was their hunger, he rolled another sheet of butcher paper into a cone and filled it with crackers from the barrel out in front of the counter. They protested that they didn’t have money for crackers, too, but he insisted that crackers were free with the purchase of bologna. They carefully divided the meat and crackers into two portions and put half away for the next day, even though what they acquired was barely enough for one meal.

She unwrapped the package and gagged at the odor, and her eyes brimmed at seeing the formerly fresh pink bologna now slimy and tinged with green. The crackers, also closed up in the hot and airless suitcase, had gone stale and soft. Her weeping turned to near hysterics at the waste, and he stoically resolved not to add to her misery. He wouldn’t voice the deserved accusation that she should have known this would happen when he insisted they not eat it all at one time. Besides, she cried at everything these days.

She separated the crackers on the butcher paper in the forlorn hope that they would dry in the air and perhaps serve as an acceptable snack to pacify Bobby [My brother, Bobby Gordon Woods] before the next meal, then solemnly fried the last of the batter.

After another sip all around of the just barely drinkable water, she started to repack the suitcase, because she knew that he wouldn’t allow them to rest here for very long. As she twisted around in her sitting position to stretch for the fry pan, she felt a sharp, penetrating pain and screamed him out of his musings of the good life to come. “Virgil! The baby’s coming!”

“Don’t be silly, Ethel Marie! [My mother, Ethel Marie (Burns)Woods] You’re just upset over that damned baloney. You’re not due for two weeks and we’ll be at Cat’s way ‘fore then.”

“No! It’s coming. I know it is and it hurts! You’ve got to help me!” Her panic was real and contagious.

“What can I do?” Now, scared at his inadequacy, he was yelling at her. She had no right to involve him in this business that was her doing.

“Get the coats . . . and the boy’s diapers!”

The Will and the Way by Hendrik van Oordt

NEW RELEASE MARCH 7, 2014!

The Will and the Way by Hendrik van Oordt

#gypsyshadow #romance #contemporary

http://www.amazon.com/The-Will-Way-Hendrik-Oordt-ebook/dp/B00IUTGZXO

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-will-and-the-way-hendrik-van-oordt/1118882178

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/416623

http://www.gypsyshadow.com/HendrikvanOordt.html#WillWay

Torn between wild-cat oil operator Will Evans and current lover yaughtsman John Dunesne, cellist Kim Chalmers puts her future happiness on the line. The Will and the Way by Hendrik van Oordt. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, other fine eBook vendors and Gypsy Shadow Publishing at:

http://www.gypsyshadow.com/HendrikvanOordt.html#WillWay

Cellist Kim Chalmers is in Paris preparing for a world tour when her fiancé, yaughtsman John Dunesne, is caught in a storm and reported missing. Haunted by John's loss and a failed childhood love for which she still feels responsible, Kim gets deeply depressed and ready to give up a promising career.

Agent and friend Anne Moorecroft discovers the whereabouts of Kim's childhood love, Will Evans, now a wild-cat oil operator in the Sahara, and tries to rekindle the fire between Kim and Will. Just then John Dunesne is found alive on the Irish coast. Kim's heart is in a turmoil. She is faced with a terrible choice. Will she make the right decision?

Word Count: 59400
Pages to Print: 211
Price: $4.99

EXCERPT:

“You didn’t bring any bedding?” Will Evans sounded almost sympathetic in his perplexity. “What did you expect to find here? A hotel?”

A smile briefly lit up his face, and Anne could once again feel the powerful attraction exuded by this man. But he didn’t explain the reason for his smile and it was gone in an instant, leaving the same handsome mask as before. He had probably been laughing at her.

“I’ll give you my tent for the night.”

Anne didn’t argue. She was a modern woman who valued her gender equality, but she was far too scared of what was happening to protest that she could sleep under the stars as well as any man. She had never camped out in her life and she had already come to the conclusion that she would never ever do so again. Something was rustling somewhere, and something else was calling to the moon. Away to the right she could make out the silhouettes of the men talking quietly among themselves. Meekly she followed Will Evans to her quarters, a triangular tent so low you had to crouch to get in.

“No extra blankets, I’m afraid. You better keep your clothes on. The tent is insulated, but it’s a lot colder out here than at Fort Khaldun.”

He took out his bedroll, which he dumped right in front of the shelter.

“This is where I’ll be sleeping. If you need to go to the bathroom, it’s back there.” He pointed beyond a hillock and looked at her with an amused air. “Just don’t expect a bathroom.”

Prologue

“It’s a good thing your parents don’t know I’m here.” The girl laughed breathlessly.

The boy and the girl were running through the orchard by Hardwood River. Ahead rose the old boathouse, derelict and abandoned since the construction of the new shed near the manor.

It was raining heavily. Both adolescents were drenched. The boy’s heart ached at the sight of the running girl in her bedraggled summer dress, clinging wet to her skin as though it never wanted to let go. It was the way he wanted to hold onto her.

When they reached the door, she turned and smiled through the wet strands of hair plastered against her cheeks and forehead. She took the boy’s face in her hands and kissed him.

“You look so serious,” she whispered. “I want you to tell me your problems. But first I want you to make love to me. That’s all I want from life. Happiness. You.”

“No!” The boy tore himself away, staring wide-eyed at her. “No,” he said again. He was crying soundlessly. “Laetitia knows and is threatening to tell Mom.”

The girl sagged to the ground against the building. “Aunt Mary will kill you,” she said, “if she finds out.”

He shrugged, unable to express himself. How could he explain that he wouldn’t mind whatever punishment his mother had in store for him as long as he could have her?

“I’m leaving home,” he said softly.

The girl looked up sharply. After a moment she laid a hand on his knee. “And me?”

He shook his head in silence. She scrambled to her feet.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No.”

“You can’t stop me.”

No, but society can, he thought sadly. “You’re seventeen, without a passport, and you’re my cousin. If we ran off together, Laetitia would be sure to tell Mom what was going on between us and the police would haul us back in no time. Your life would no longer be worth living. And if I stayed, we’d try to continue what we’re doing. We wouldn’t be able to stop ourselves.”

He stood looking at her for a long time, unable to tear his eyes away from her face.

“I love you, Kim,” he said at last. “I’ve loved you forever, it seems.”

She took his face again in her hands and whispered, “Make love to me.”

He closed his eyes against her searching look. She was scanning his face as if she wanted to reach inside his mind for an argument that would convince him to stay. She bit his ear and put one of his hands on her breast. “Make love to me,” she said again.

He took her hand in his and kissed it long and desperately.

“I’ve signed up on an oil rig for the season. I’m flying out tonight. I’ll be stationed in Greenland. I’ll write.”
The girl began to cry, burying her face in his chest.

One

The neighborhood had that old-world charm you find in so many European cities, with deep courtyards, alleys at odd angles, old and rather dusty shops, bars and restaurants everywhere, and far too much traffic for the narrow streets.

It was a beautiful day in Paris, and Kim Chalmers stood lazily watching a couple of teenagers from her second-floor apartment window, enjoying the heat of the late summer sun on her face and upper body. The two kids in the street below were flirting heavily, laughing and showing each other pictures on their cell phones, with just enough body distance to suggest that they might not yet be together. It wouldn’t be long before they found each other, she thought. They would make a cute item. If John were here, he would have concluded cynically that they were negotiating a temporary truce between the sexes. But that was John, and she loved him for what he was, macho warts and all. For all his outward display of cynicism, she knew him for a softy who could not get enough of her and who would stand by her come hell or high water. Literally. John had seen enough rough weather and human misery while sailing around the world on his yacht to be ready to fight for the true things in life, and for reasons she could only marvel at, he thought she was the truest thing in his life.

She thought they would soon be married, if his parents had anything to do with it. His people were the type to keep pushing and arranging until everything was boxed tidily and prettily where it belonged, with the lid on and a neat label, ready for sailing on the great ship of life. Kim and John definitely belonged in the box labeled marriage. John’s mother kept saying so, and Kim had to admit they made a handsome couple. If she had qualms about the freckles on the bridge of her nose and a constant fear of growing fat, she had no doubts at all about John’s physique. He was easily one of the best-looking men she had ever seen, with the sort of carefree walk that made him stand out from the crowd wherever he went; dark, with untamed eyes that made any woman’s heart race faster, and a smile that opened all doors for him.

The sun had dipped behind the buildings across the street, and the kids below her window had moved on, absorbed by the shadows and their own private world. She turned toward the room, wondering what life was all about anyway. All day long she had been feeling strangely nostalgic and rebellious. She loathed anything smacking of self-pity and nostalgia, and yet she was feeling homesick for a past that was utterly irrelevant to her life and future. Perhaps it was the two kids with their cell phones or the burnished copper of the setting sun, reminding her of an Indian summer just like this when she had passionately loved and lost. More likely, the growing pressure on the part of John’s mother highlighted her own doubt that marriage was what she wanted right now with her career taking off. But wherever she looked, things seemed to be throwing up memories of years gone by.

She sighed and looked at her reflection in the mirror and at the comfortable room behind, with its pleasant clutter and spacious dimensions. Even if she did not share John’s unbridled admiration for her looks, the mirror told her she was good-looking by any standard, while her apartment spoke of a life without financial worries. In the words of the magazines, she had it all—talent, beauty and, if not wealth, enough money to lead an independent life. She had no reason to feel sorry for herself. She was twenty-seven and engaged to a dashing adventurer, a once-in-a-lifetime man who was also a gentleman in this graceless day and age, with a circle of friends that was equally glamorous and wild. A man who paid the daily compliment of telling her she was the most beautiful woman in the world and who backed it up with endless gifts. She had no right to indulge in that sort of nonsense.

Resolutely, she turned on the light, took her cello from its stand and placed it between her knees. With just three months to go before a series of concerts that would take her to major concert halls around the world, on the verge of an international breakthrough, this was not the moment to pretend a mid-life crisis. Besides, it was extremely unfair to John. The past was over and done with. She had cried enough to fill a bathtub after Will’s departure and it hadn’t brought him back. For years she had thought she would never forget him and now, when she had finally forgotten, a red sunset and a few rose-colored memories were going to bring him back and spoil the party? Teenage love. Never again, thank you very much. Look at the puppy love of those kids passing below her window. Think of the tears they would shed, only to go off and make an entirely different life with someone else, all promises forgotten.

Angrily she tightened the bow of her instrument, snapping several horsehairs.

“Stupid girl,” she muttered, anxiously eying the wood for cracks. Her bow was a beautiful example from a 19th-century maker, a gift from her teacher when she graduated with honors from the conservatory, and she’d never forgive herself if she damaged it. “No man is worth your ruination, you hear?” she crooned as she loosened the screw. “Not John, not Will, not any man.”

She played old folk tunes of the kind that wailed about broken promises and impossible loves, until the professional in her took over and she settled down to playing scales. She had been at it for over an hour, almost satisfied with the blur of her fingers as they slid, stopped and vibrated across the fingerboard, when the doorbell rang. She wondered who it could be. She did not encourage unannounced callers when practicing.

Coming March 1, 2014!

The Will and the Way by Hendrik van Oordt

#gypsyshadow #romance #contemporary

Torn between wild-cat oil operator Will Evans and current lover yaughtsman John Dunesne, cellist Kim Chalmers puts her future happiness on the line. Coming soon to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, other fine eBook vendors and Gypsy Shadow Publishing at:

http://www.gypsyshadow.com/HendrikvanOordt.html#top

Cellist Kim Chalmers is in Paris preparing for a world tour when her fiancé, yaughtsman John Dunesne, is caught in a storm and reported missing. Haunted by John's loss and a failed childhood love for which she still feels responsible, Kim gets deeply depressed and ready to give up a promising career.

Agent and friend Anne Willink discovers the whereabouts of Kim's childhood love, Will Evans, now a wild-cat oil operator in the Sahara, and tries to rekindle the fire between Kim and Will. Just then John Dunesne is found alive on the Irish coast. Kim's heart is in a turmoil. She is faced with a terrible choice. Will she make the right decision?

Word Count: 59400

Pages to Print: 211

Price: $4.99

EXCERPT

“You didn’t bring any bedding?” Will Evans sounded almost sympathetic in his perplexity. “What did you expect to find here? A hotel?”

A smile briefly lit up his face, and Anne could once again feel the powerful attraction exuded by this man. But he didn’t explain the reason for his smile and it was gone in an instant, leaving the same handsome mask as before. He had probably been laughing at her.

“I’ll give you my tent for the night.”

Anne didn’t argue. She was a modern woman who valued her gender equality, but she was far too scared of what was happening to protest that she could sleep under the stars as well as any man. She had never camped out in her life and she had already come to the conclusion that she would never ever do so again. Something was rustling somewhere, and something else was calling to the moon. Away to the right she could make out the silhouettes of the men talking quietly among themselves. Meekly she followed Will Evans to her quarters, a triangular tent so low you had to crouch to get in.

“No extra blankets, I’m afraid. You better keep your clothes on. The tent is insulated, but it’s a lot colder out here than at Fort Khaldun.”

He took out his bedroll, which he dumped right in front of the shelter.

“This is where I’ll be sleeping. If you need to go to the bathroom, it’s back there.” He pointed beyond a hillock and looked at her with an amused air. “Just don’t expect a bathroom.”

 

Prologue

“It’s a good thing your parents don’t know I’m here.” The girl laughed breathlessly.

The boy and the girl were running through the orchard by Hardwood River. Ahead rose the old boathouse, derelict and abandoned since the construction of the new shed near the manor.

It was raining heavily. Both adolescents were drenched. The boy’s heart ached at the sight of the running girl in her bedraggled summer dress, clinging wet to her skin as though it never wanted to let go. It was the way he wanted to hold onto her.

When they reached the door, she turned and smiled through the wet strands of hair plastered against her cheeks and forehead. She took the boy’s face in her hands and kissed him.

“You look so serious,” she whispered. “I want you to tell me your problems. But first I want you to make love to me. That’s all I want from life. Happiness. You.”

“No!” The boy tore himself away, staring wide-eyed at her. “No,” he said again. He was crying soundlessly. “Laetitia knows and is threatening to tell Mom.”

The girl sagged to the ground against the building. “Aunt Mary will kill you,” she said, “if she finds out.”

He shrugged, unable to express himself. How could he explain that he wouldn’t mind whatever punishment his mother had in store for him as long as he could have her?

“I’m leaving home,” he said softly.

The girl looked up sharply. After a moment she laid a hand on his knee. “And me?”

He shook his head in silence. She scrambled to her feet.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No.”

“You can’t stop me.”

No, but society can, he thought sadly. “You’re seventeen, without a passport, and you’re my cousin. If we ran off together, Laetitia would be sure to tell Mom what was going on between us and the police would haul us back in no time. Your life would no longer be worth living. And if I stayed, we’d try to continue what we’re doing. We wouldn’t be able to stop ourselves.”

He stood looking at her for a long time, unable to tear his eyes away from her face.

“I love you, Kim,” he said at last. “I’ve loved you forever, it seems.”

She took his face again in her hands and whispered, “Make love to me.”

He closed his eyes against her searching look. She was scanning his face as if she wanted to reach inside his mind for an argument that would convince him to stay. She bit his ear and put one of his hands on her breast. “Make love to me,” she said again.

He took her hand in his and kissed it long and desperately.

“I’ve signed up on an oil rig for the season. I’m flying out tonight. I’ll be stationed in Greenland. I’ll write.”

The girl began to cry, burying her face in his chest.

One

The neighborhood had that old-world charm you find in so many European cities, with deep courtyards, alleys at odd angles, old and rather dusty shops, bars and restaurants everywhere, and far too much traffic for the narrow streets.

It was a beautiful day in Paris, and Kim Chalmers stood lazily watching a couple of teenagers from her second-floor apartment window, enjoying the heat of the late summer sun on her face and upper body. The two kids in the street below were flirting heavily, laughing and showing each other pictures on their cell phones, with just enough body distance to suggest that they might not yet be together. It wouldn’t be long before they found each other, she thought. They would make a cute item. If John were here, he would have concluded cynically that they were negotiating a temporary truce between the sexes. But that was John, and she loved him for what he was, macho warts and all. For all his outward display of cynicism, she knew him for a softy who could not get enough of her and who would stand by her come hell or high water. Literally. John had seen enough rough weather and human misery while sailing around the world on his yacht to be ready to fight for the true things in life, and for reasons she could only marvel at, he thought she was the truest thing in his life.

She thought they would soon be married, if his parents had anything to do with it. His people were the type to keep pushing and arranging until everything was boxed tidily and prettily where it belonged, with the lid on and a neat label, ready for sailing on the great ship of life. Kim and John definitely belonged in the box labeled marriage. John’s mother kept saying so, and Kim had to admit they made a handsome couple. If she had qualms about the freckles on the bridge of her nose and a constant fear of growing fat, she had no doubts at all about John’s physique. He was easily one of the best-looking men she had ever seen, with the sort of carefree walk that made him stand out from the crowd wherever he went; dark, with untamed eyes that made any woman’s heart race faster, and a smile that opened all doors for him.

The sun had dipped behind the buildings across the street, and the kids below her window had moved on, absorbed by the shadows and their own private world. She turned toward the room, wondering what life was all about anyway. All day long she had been feeling strangely nostalgic and rebellious. She loathed anything smacking of self-pity and nostalgia, and yet she was feeling homesick for a past that was utterly irrelevant to her life and future. Perhaps it was the two kids with their cell phones or the burnished copper of the setting sun, reminding her of an Indian summer just like this when she had passionately loved and lost. More likely, the growing pressure on the part of John’s mother highlighted her own doubt that marriage was what she wanted right now with her career taking off. But wherever she looked, things seemed to be throwing up memories of years gone by.

She sighed and looked at her reflection in the mirror and at the comfortable room behind, with its pleasant clutter and spacious dimensions. Even if she did not share John’s unbridled admiration for her looks, the mirror told her she was good-looking by any standard, while her apartment spoke of a life without financial worries. In the words of the magazines, she had it all—talent, beauty and, if not wealth, enough money to lead an independent life. She had no reason to feel sorry for herself. She was twenty-seven and engaged to a dashing adventurer, a once-in-a-lifetime man who was also a gentleman in this graceless day and age, with a circle of friends that was equally glamorous and wild. A man who paid the daily compliment of telling her she was the most beautiful woman in the world and who backed it up with endless gifts. She had no right to indulge in that sort of nonsense.

Resolutely, she turned on the light, took her cello from its stand and placed it between her knees. With just three months to go before a series of concerts that would take her to major concert halls around the world, on the verge of an international breakthrough, this was not the moment to pretend a mid-life crisis. Besides, it was extremely unfair to John. The past was over and done with. She had cried enough to fill a bathtub after Will’s departure and it hadn’t brought him back. For years she had thought she would never forget him and now, when she had finally forgotten, a red sunset and a few rose-colored memories were going to bring him back and spoil the party? Teenage love. Never again, thank you very much. Look at the puppy love of those kids passing below her window. Think of the tears they would shed, only to go off and make an entirely different life with someone else, all promises forgotten.

Angrily she tightened the bow of her instrument, snapping several horsehairs.

“Stupid girl,” she muttered, anxiously eying the wood for cracks. Her bow was a beautiful example from a 19th-century maker, a gift from her teacher when she graduated with honors from the conservatory, and she’d never forgive herself if she damaged it. “No man is worth your ruination, you hear?” she crooned as she loosened the screw. “Not John, not Will, not any man.”

She played old folk tunes of the kind that wailed about broken promises and impossible loves, until the professional in her took over and she settled down to playing scales. She had been at it for over an hour, almost satisfied with the blur of her fingers as they slid, stopped and vibrated across the fingerboard, when the doorbell rang. She wondered who it could be. She did not encourage unannounced callers when practicing.

GSP's Book of the Day June 13

Guns Over Africa by Jamel DuBois

Guns Over Africa is an affirmation of sport hunting, and in this context, hunting that contributes to the economy of developing countries within the rules of international wildlife conservation and preservation.  This does not mean that the hunter cannot enjoy the sport; it’s not all high-minded and only for these obvious commercial and conservation benefits for other than the hunter himself (or herself). For the hunter, trophy mounts and memories resulting from such experiences flash back the challenge, the competition, the failures, the successes, the remorse, and the elation of the hunt.  And they make last year, or before, when the animals were taken, seem not so long ago, and make the next hunt seem not so far away. Settings for these safari accounts are Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Word Count: 42800
Pages to Print: 130
Price: $3.99

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Over-Africa-ebook/dp/B005D1C87O
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/guns-over-africa-jamel-dubois/1104301335
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/73614
http://www.gypsyshadow.com/JamelDuBois.html#Guns

Author/world traveler/big game hunter, Jamel DuBois, shares his safari experiences in southern Africa. Guns Over Africa by Jamel DuBois. Available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, other fine eBook vendors and Gypsy Shadow Publishing at:

http://www.gypsyshadow.com/JamelDuBois.html#Guns

Book of the Day Ocrober 19

Guns Over Africa by Jamel DuBois

Guns Over Africa is an affirmation of sport hunting, and in this context, hunting that contributes to the economy of developing countries within the rules of international wildlife conservation and preservation.  This does not mean that the hunter cannot enjoy the sport; it’s not all high-minded and only for these obvious commercial and conservation benefits for other than the hunter himself (or herself). For the hunter, trophy mounts and memories resulting from such experiences flash back the challenge, the competition, the failures, the successes, the remorse, and the elation of the hunt.  And they make last year, or before, when the animals were taken, seem not so long ago, and make the next hunt seem not so far away. Settings for these safari accounts are Zimbabwe and South Africa.

 

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