#Paperback #Giveaway! Gary Gatlin Reluctant Hero.

Reluctant Hero Book 1

Reluctant Hero: World War Trilogy Book 1

(Clicking the image or title will take you to the Amazon Page order the book released Nov. 5.)

Entries Through Veteran’s Day

Blurb

In April of 1939, as 20-year-old Gary Gatlin travels from Los Angeles abroad, he cannot know that he will singularly influence the outcome of WWII. Gatlin, a friend of Japanese-immigrant farmers in California, finds himself in Formosa to learn about Japanese fruit cultivation. When he arrives on the lush island, war is in the air, and his presence begins to raise suspicion. Following the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Gatlin finds himself called upon by the U.S. Navy in an unpredictable battle of allegiances.

Author ROYALTIES from book sales WILL BE DONATED to the nonprofit organization ANGELS ON THE BORDER.

To enter the GIVEAWAY for one of two books, just fill out the form below. All email addresses will be deleted following the drawing of the two winners, with the exception of the two winners for contact purposes.

I do ask that you consider putting a review on Amazon and/or GoodReads.

 

 

Author ROYALTIES from book sales WILL BE DONATED to the nonprofit organization ANGELS ON THE BORDER.

Author Biography

TUCSON, Arizona – Carl F. Haupt, a 93-year old retired military veteran on a government pension, has become a philanthropist who feeds the starving refugees at the U.S. border in Arizona. From a wheelchair, he works to make life tolerable for those in limbo. Just as he helped to liberate Europe during WWII and fought in the Asian Theater on the other side of the world, today, he and his wife continue, after more than 17 years, to personally help those fleeing poverty and internal strife within their home countries.

At age 15, along with a reported 1 million other boys across the country, Haupt left home during The Great Depression. He was homeless, hitching rides on freight trains, sleeping on the ground and going hungry for days at a time. Eventually, he landed in Los Angeles. In 1944, he joined the United States Navy and served his country for 22 years, including more than a decade in the United States Air Force. He retired in 1966 as a Master Sergeant.

In 1992, with his military life behind him, Carl began helping locals in Mexico with his wife, Sarah. They worked in Agua Prieta, a city across from Douglas, Arizona. Remembering his time as a homeless teen, Carl helped build over 100 homes and moved 25 donated mobile homes to families in Agua Prieta, delivering food and other necessities to struggling families.

Haupt is a first time author at 93 years old. His novel, “Gary Gatlin: Reluctant Hero” (Dudley Court Press, November 5, 2019), was inspired by a strange situation in 1987 when he woke up one morning compelled to write for 13 straight hours the story that had come to him through a dream. Now, decades later, Dudley Court Press has acquired his story for release in 2019. All author royalties from “Gary Gatlin” will be consigned to the non-profit organization Angels on the Border.

 

 

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#BookReview of Levant Mirage by @OliverFChase

 

Levant Mirage by Oliver F. Chase

You all know I don’t often cross my two sites over with each other. LitWorldInterviews is its own beast. I could count on one hand the times I recall having shared a book review here on RW, as it’s known behind the scenes. Today I wanted to share this one that I wrote for Levant Mirage by Oliver F. Chase. Why? Read on and you’ll see.

I received a copy of this book for an honest review and I’m glad I did. After having read it, I almost want to send him a check.

Levant Mirage takes snapshots from the headlines of the past few years to build a character and combines it with frighteningly realistic levant miragepossibilities to give a story you pray never happens.

35 year old U.S. Army Major Adam Michaels is no James Bond, nor did he ever set out to be. What is he? He’s a man who rejects the easy path that being the heir to a shipping empire gives him in order to join the military, serve his country, and be a father. Right, no money other than what he makes as a Major in the Army. You don’t see jet flying, limousine riding, womanizing and all of that. I would trade in the 10 year old Corolla for something a little better though. Tap into the trust fund already.

Finding himself used as a scapegoat for a foreign relations nightmare, Michaels works out his days in the Pentagon pushing papers, and paying alimony, child support and the mortgage on his rising political star ex-wife’s house. You see the everyday life to some extent leading up to the changes in life the military can throw at you. You don’t control you in the Army. And there are times when that twists the guts out of Michaels.

Michaels is of a dubious parentage, with his father not being who he thought he was, but upon finding out explains a great deal. This in part leads to his choice of path in life. He wants to be his own man. He doesn’t want to be identified with a past that isn’t really what he thought it was.

But part of that past comes back in one night and changes a quiet world into a search to find the defense against a missile guidance system he created that is now in the hands of terrorists. Which terrorists? Who is the enemy? You won’t believe it. Or you will believe it but be surprised.

The believability of Levant Mirage is what makes it so freakin’ scary at times. Perhaps the guidance system isn’t real, or I hope it’s not. But I’m sure there is something like it out there. The enemy Michaels must fight against is out of this world. If he fails, billions die. If he succeeds?

Chase writes with detail and a knowledge base that gives the story realism. You are able to submerse yourself into Levant Mirage and you don’t get pulled out by oddities and unbelievable scenes. Some scenes are high energy and amped up, but still possible.

Being honest, the amount of detail is incredible at times and I could have done with a little less of the technological speak, but it doesn’t take away from the story. In truth, it adds the believability—you don’t have these leaps from action to intellect in the span of a few seconds. Okay, maybe you do but for a whole different reason, but I’m not giving those parts away. Ah, that does remind me of one scene that did cause me pause and have to reread in order to get it clear. In part, that was due to the surprise of those involved.

I enjoyed the handling of the terrorists. As you read you’ll develop ideas but never get to comfortable, you never know what is going to happen next, who is going to happen, or what the truth is until it’s almost too late. But there are clues along the way.

RECOMMENDATION

I would recommend Levant Mirage to those who like believable action thrillers. Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt and other NUMA series books come to mind, but not that fantastical or off the charts. Where Cussler takes you over the edge of believability at times, Chase keeps you here on earth and scares the life out of you with reality you can find in your neighbors living room.

Character Believability: 4levant mirage
Flow and Pace: 4
Reader Engagement: 4
Reader Enrichment: 4
Reader Enjoyment: 4
Overall Rate: 4

Seriously Share this Review in any form you are able to in order to Support this Author and this great book.

Author: Oliver F. Chase
Title: Levant Mirage
File Size: 3416 KB
Print Length: 309 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Pearl River Publishing Group; 1 edition (October 15, 2015)
Publication Date: October 15, 2015
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B015G7TWYQ
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Word Wise: Not Enabled
Lending: Enabled
Formats: Paperback & Kindle
Pricing: $13.99 & $3.99
Genres: Action, Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, War

About the Author

Oliver F. Chase AuthorOliver spent five years in a police department working narcotics and SWAT, and the next 22 in the FBI. Now he’s the author of Marsh Island, Blind Marsh, the first two installments of the Hirebomber Series. And now Levant Mirage, releasing Oct. 15, 2015.
oliverchase.net
https://oliverchase.wordpress.com
facebook.com/oilverchase
https://twitter.com/OliverFChase

 



About the Reviewer

Ronovan HesterRonovan is an author, blogger and former educator who shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer though his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of  LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com, a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources.  For those serious about book reviewing and interested in reviewing for the LWI site, email Ronovan at ronovanwrites (at) gmail (dot) com to begin a dialogue. It may not work out but then again it might.

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@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by LitWorldInterviews.wordpress.com 2015

Big Brother? Small brain!

Big Brother? Small brain!

by: Ronovan

ISIS Control
ISIS control January 2014

What’s Wrong With Iraq? Big brother let ‘em down.

 

The US let Iraq down. Yes, the US is the big brother in that we like to act like it.

 

 

People are seemingly amazed at ISIS and the advances it is making in Iraq. Really? Seriously? Wow.

 

This is RonovanWritesRanting time.

 

Hey, enemies of the new Iraq government, you guys just wait and plan because we’re going to pull out our troops by this date! Is that cool with you guys? Yeah? Okay, stock up.

 

Okay and before I go on, I am ticked off. I am mad. I am angry. Yes, RonovanWrites is angry. Think of all the troops, US, Iraqi and all the other countries involved that lost their lives just for this to happen. Yeah, ticked off is my polite way of putting it.

 

Oh, and before people start blaming Obama for pulling the troops out, Bush actually signed the order with the date on it for the troops to be removed before he left office. And no, this does not mean I am an Obama supporter or a Democrat, it means I like facts, I guess it’s the Historian in me. But does that mean I am a Bush supporter or a Republican? No, it means I like facts.

 

You cannot set a date for something like what happened in Iraq. You stay until they ask you to leave or the situation is well in hand. Now the US is storming to the area with a warship. I hope no more lives are lost.

 

I read a book a while back, took some notes on it, and it said that the reason terrorists from that area of the world are turning their attention to the US is because we keep stomping around in their yards. If a country asks for help, sure, go for it. Was there a legit reason to go into Iraq in the first place? I’ll never know.

 

But this I do know; once you are there you stay there without an expiration date until the job is done. One president caved to the pressure to set a date, and another caved to the pressure to follow through with it. Both were wrong.

 

I don’t understand everything going on in Iraq. We get the news here in the US with a western take on things. I try to look at a lot of sides. Regardless of what’s going on ISIS has been wrong so far. And really the whole idea of ISIS from my understanding is wrong, especially there methods.

 

I think the US needs to change their foreign policy in the future about how to deal with things. Don’t mess in other people’s muck. Take care of number 1, US, and each country would call themselves number 1 so don’t start with me on calling US number 1.

 

And here is my biggest Foreign Policy change. Whoever the president is consider this; if we cannot get it right in this country why are we going elsewhere to think we can fix it there?

 

Much Regards

Ronovan

 

© Copyright-All rights reserved-RonovanWrites.wordpress.com-June 16, 2014.

A Father Leads You Through This World…not just brings you into it.

A Father Leads You Through This World…not just brings you into it.

by: Ronovan

 

I met my father in the second grade. No, it wasn’t that he had been away for so many years or anything like that. My father is what you would call a step-father. Too me, he’s the real thing.

Father

The person that brings you into this world isn’t always a parent. It’s the person that raises you and helps you become what you are that is your parent. That could even be a grandparent really. For some that is who raises them. My grandmother, who I wrote about in Maw Maw’s Lovin’ raised two of my cousins.

 

But my father showed up in the second grade. He never tried to push any of his own thoughts onto me. In fact years later when I became heavily involved in church he said he didn’t know how it ended up happening because I didn’t get it from him. It’s not that he wasn’t a Christian it’s just that we didn’t go to church. My mother wasn’t a Christian so my father didn’t want to force anything on anyone. I never stepped foot inside a church until my 20s and that was on my own. He had been a Deacon and Sunday School Director and all of that. Oddly I ended up doing the same.

 

People have seen him, my step-brother and me together and say how much my father and I look alike and that my step-brother, his actual son, doesn’t favor him at all. I think it’s the mannerisms mostly that show a resemblance. Well that and we both can cook anything. I get my adventurous foodie from him.

 

I’m proof that it’s not just your DNA that makes you what you are, but your environment as well.

 

One of the stories I like best that he tells is about his time in the military. He doesn’t talk about it much though. But he and some men were flying into someplace. It was a smaller plane and the front landing gear wouldn’t lower. The pilot made them all move to the very back of the plane so as they landed the weight would keep the plane on the back wheels and slowly lower the front of the plane down as they slowed.

 

Another thing about him, and this isn’t really a flattering story but it does show something about him, is that every time he was promoted in the military, he would go out and ‘celebrate’ and be busted back down the next day. He didn’t want positions and promotions. That’s not why he was in the military.

 

He’s in his 80s now, but you would swear it’s his 60s. I know someday it’ll be a last Father’s Day. He’s been through some heart problems and now has diabetes, but he’s actually one of the healthiest people I know. He stays active and is in church.

 

Years ago he came close to dying…again…because of some medications he was given in a hospital. I called my pastor after having visited him because he had wondered why no preachers had been by his room. Back in the days a preacher would have come around to visit, but there are rules and laws now.

 

It was a Wednesday and my church has services on Wednesday nights and youth activities. Well, I called my pastor and told him what was going on and asked if maybe he could visit him the next morning because he was going into surgery and was asking about a preacher.

 

I came back the next day and my pastor had dropped everything on Wednesday, driven an hour away, sat with my father and talked, and then made it back for church. As soon as my father was able to drive again he was back in church for the first time in over 30 years. Sometimes people think that God does bad things for good reasons. But that’s not it. God takes bad things and turns them around to make good things happen.

 

On this Father’s Day I just wanted to say that it’s not who brought you into this world, it’s who helped lead you through it. If you only have a mother, wish her a Happy Father’s Day today…from me as well as from you.

 

Much Respect and Much Love

Ronovan

 

© Copyright-All rights reserved-RonovanWrites.wordpress.com-June 15, 2014.