fiction

Why Felicity?

PLEASE WELCOME Canadian author FRANK TALABER! Take it away, Frank==and yeah, why Felicity??

You hear the phrase all the time; “it’s a man’s world”. Only sometimes it’s not. We can’t do the one most profound thing in all of humanity. Give birth. Okay, we have a part in it, obviously. But it’s a very small part.

            I’m sure there are very many other examples, but the fact is there are a lot of areas

where being a woman is the best thing in the world. Now I know you will think this is a trivial point, but what about romance? We are very bad at it. We really have to learn about it and work at it. Apparently, we are even very bad at writing about it.

            Booking into a romance writing convention in Calgary, the lovely lady receptionist was looking for my name tag and it was taking a while. The other lady bumped her arm and said, “he’s the other guy registered here.”

            “Just the two of us?” I asked.

            “Yeah. Bit of an unknown having even one, y’know. Most guys can’t do romance, let alone write it. Or want to write it!”

Julia-Rae is a highly talented businesswoman who runs a very successful travel magazine; editor, marketing, layout, she does it all. Even the photoshoots, this one in particular at the heady location of Machu Picchu. (So here is the main need for the re-write; cameras. Technology has advanced by leaps and bounds and the very well-written scene of Julia-Rae struggling to change the 35mm film in full Mexican sunlight was, sadly, left on the cutting-room floor.)

Whilst at said shoot, she meets a handsome, crazy man that sweeps her off her feet. Literally. Especially when he takes her bungee jumping (although she does get her revenge later by insisting he attend a cross-dressing party with her, but that’s another story.)

They begin to quickly fall for each other but there is a problem. Both have pasts; pasts that mean neither of them was looking for love so of course it just falls into their laps. Or does it? Julia-Rae is skeptical of his feelings when she finds out he is after something very precious to her. So, was their meeting high on a remote mountainside truly spontaneous? Or was there a sinister reason for it. Well, you’ll just have to enter their world to find out!

So that’s the beginning of the writing life of Felicity Talisman. Frank Talaber (me. As me!) has ventured into many other genres; urban fantasy, crime thrillers, spiritual thrillers (one based on science fiction), comedy, erotica and some non-fiction, basically everything except westerns (although I can dance Gangnam style, does that count?).

Very many times I’ve thought of hanging up my pencil, as it were. I was at that point a few years ago. Well, 398 rejections is an awful lot to take. But then I read a story. A true story. A mother who frequented a warm, dry café somewhere in England, nursing one cup of lukewarm coffee. She graduated from university, but just seven short years later, she had suffered a failed marriage, was jobless and with a small child dependent upon her. Well it is no wonder she was suffering clinical depression and sometimes, in the wee small hours when sleep eluded her, she even contemplated suicide. But despite all of this she knew in her heart she was a writer. How easy it would have been for her to give up and then the world would never have met Harry Potter.

Further research found other similar stories. War and Peace, the great literary classic by Leo Tolstoy, was rejected by over a hundred publishers before it was accepted.

If it weren’t for perseverance, Stephen King’s Carrie would not have seen the light of day. He dumped it into the trash along with the words, “I give up. I’m going to stick to being a teacher.”

Although the perseverance in question was not his but his wife’s. “You tell me you’re a writer. Dust off that blown, crumpled and withered ego and put it out there. AGAIN.”

The very next publisher accepted the book, otherwise only the children of some Eastern American state would know him at all, and then only as a stuffy English teacher.

Dr. Seuss of Cat in the Hat fame did give up. Fortunately for him, he left his rough draft to be found by a fellow during a house party, who just happened to work at a publishing house. The rest is simply Green Eggs and Ham.

So, I persevere. Several of my novels have been picked up, and Felicity Talisman has now been accepted by a publishing house. So, although I am not yet up there with the Rowlings and Kings, I will be one day. Just gotta keep going!

OUR STORY:

She only wanted Not to fall in love with him. He only wanted to steal her company.

Roy only wanted to seduce Julia-Rae and convince her to sell him her company.  Julia-Rae wanted to shut him out of her heart like every other man that ever got close. Only what do you do when you fall in madly in love with the enemy and the enemy with you.

Will the dark secrets they hold tear them apart or bring them closer together?

A romance novel for women seeking, love, marriage and family while fulfilling the adventures of their heartfelt desires and dreams. 

BIO:

Born on the wild Canadian prairies but tired of the winter months in Edmonton, Frank immigrated to the more temperate cedar forests of coastal British Columbia. Yes, they get snow in Chilliwack during the winter months, and on that odd occasion Frank is forced to search out the snow shovel, dust off the cobwebs and have a go. At the snow, not the cobwebs.

His run-of-the-mill day job of auto technician/service advisor seems at odds with being an inspired, off-the-wall, author, but his zest for life, the environment, and the little muses that won’t let his pencil stay still, spring from his mother’s Hungarian ancestry. It’s the Gypsy blood, he says, which pounds through his veins with wild abandon, driving him to the realms of fantasy.

This is the muse inside, the essence of Frank Talaber.

People who have read Frank’s books describe him as a natural storyteller who writes like his soul is on fire and his pencil is his voice screaming. They go further to say that they find his books grabbingly intense and hilarious at times, screaming everyday life from such a realistic viewpoint you’re drawn into his world, hook, line and plum bob, unable to stop; almost cursing that they can’t set the book down, page after page.  Frank takes great pride in the realism of his work, painstakingly visiting most of the locations, (obviously, only the “real-life” ones!) and he is so thorough that many readers have remarked that they can hear, taste, visualize, smell and feel the essence of the place. “It really is like being there” one remarked. There isn’t a greater compliment to be made.

His tagline is Canada’s Foremost Off-beat Author (also the name of his YouTube channel; check it out for his witty and informative videos) who writes in urban fantasy, science fiction, crime, spiritual, romance, erotica and comedy genres. Well, anything that comes to him, basically! Except westerns. Although he does like to ride Gangnam style; does that count?

Literature written almost beyond genres, whose compelling thoughts are freed from the depths of the heart and subconscious before being poured onto the page. Or, as he often says, “you don’t have to be mad to be a writer, but it sure helps”.

Email: twosoulmates@shaw.ca 

My webpage https://franktalaberpublishedauthor.wordpress.com

My novels on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Frank-Talaber/author/B00UC407R0

My Youtube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx5ki4gpdokN-9KAIZzu53w

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/franktalaber

Twitter

Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-talaber-6a594481

Ebooks on Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Frank38

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/franktalaber58

tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@franktalaber

Playing with fire can be deadly #MFRWHooks

My latest book is out, a supernatural thriller called REMNANTS OF FIRE. Here’s the story:

Looking for a fresh start, Sara Woods takes a job as a news reporter in a small town. Her first assignment for the Ralston Courier is to investigate of a string of deaths, all young women, all her age.

To deal with chronic back pain, she seeks help at a local healing center. She soon becomes convinced that there is something strange about the Goldstone Clinic. Its doctors and nurses are all the picture of perfect beauty and health, while their patients at first seem to improve and then mysteriously deteriorate.

Dr. Rick Paulsen, a physician at the local hospital, offers to teach Sara how to access her internal power, enhancing hidden skills and revealing secrets from her past. Police officer Brendon Zale also takes an interest in Sara, watching her every move and trying to get close to her.

The deeper she digs into the Goldstone, the harder it is to deny links to the paranormal. Can she
figure out what is going on and who to trust before it’s too late?

BUY LINKS:

Paperback at Amazon • Paperback at Barnes & Noble • Hardback at Barnes & Noble • eBook at Amazon Kindle • eBook at Apple Books • eBook at Barnes & Noble • eBook at Kobo Books • eBook at Smashwords

EXCERPT:

Of all the corpses I’d seen in six years as a news reporter, Lily Kimball’s hit me the hardest. Found in a drainage ditch along Route 24, two inches deep in snow, she wore only a shabby pair of Banana Republic jeans and a red jersey shirt, a dried clot of blood on her forehead where she’d taken a header into a discarded bottle.

In the half-light before dawn, two CSI-types crouched in front of the body taking pictures and samples, thick parka vests protecting them against the thirty-degree early March chill. Each breath left their cold lips as a mist of water vapor.

“Damnedest thing I ever saw,” the lead investigator said to the waiting medic from the volunteer ambulance service, “Why the hell would some girl be out here in the middle of a snowstorm without shoes, without a coat?”

Good question as far as I was concerned. I was freezing my butt off, despite a hoodie under my jacket, black sweat pants and fur-lined boots. I couldn’t return to the office until I had some answers. So far, all I had was her name, thanks to the CSI techs. No evidence of blunt trauma, no gunshots, no bruising—it didn’t even look like the girl had been tossed out of a car. I angled my pad to catch the headlights of the cop car and scribbled some notes, numb fingers slipping on the pen.

“Your tech pulled a bank debit card from her pocket. Maybe she needed cigarettes or something.” I gestured toward the lights of the all-night market a mile or so further along where the road

intersected with Declan Highway.

The officer’s glare roasted his techs for sharing information, then he eyed me. “Who’re you again?”

“Sara Woods, for the Ralston Courier.” I tilted my laminated badge so he could read it.

He squinted at the black and white picture of a pixie-like brunette with a slightly crooked smile, then compared it to my pixie-like face, much more florid in the wintry wind. I tried for the smile, too, in case it helped. “New blood, huh?”

“Just started. I’m covering for O’Neal this weekend.”

The officer chuckled. “He’ll be pissed. He loves dead bodies.” The medic snickered along with him and they walked away, back to the running patrol car. The heated, running patrol car.

With a disappointed shiver, I observed the techs. They hadn’t disturbed the body much, other than to rule out major trauma. Lily’s skin was icy white, her black hair patchy, so thin it lay atop the snow. Bony stick fingers and toes were dark red, almost violet, from frostbite at the bare tips. It seemed like she’d just fallen over into the ditch. Just let go, dead.

Satisfied with their photos, the techs turned over the stiff body. The girl’s pale, sightless eyes stared into the gray miasma of the late winter sky. Nausea crept from my stomach toward my throat. She had to be about my age, twenty-something; about my size too, although those fingers were wickedly thin. What would have compelled me to leave home in a blizzard, half-dressed, ending in a frozen ditch with my life sucked out? I didn’t know what could cause such desperation.

But the goosebumps that rippled across my skin told me it was still out there, lurking.

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