Book Spotlight

Every now and then I like to point out a book or author that I think is interesting. Today I'm doing a book spotlight on author Ron D. Smith and his novel The Night Budda Got Deep In It.  Check out the book blurb, the excerpt, and author bio listed below!

Fifteen-year-old Budda (Butter with a souther drawl) Jessico leads an unremarkable and anonymous life in suburban St. Louis. He’s not unpopular, because someone would first have to notice him. Except for the tormenting by his older brother, however, Budda is content. He follows his father’s rules and stays out of trouble. Then, at the urging of Blood Mama (his birth mother), a voice only Budda hears, he catches a bus to Kentucky to rescue his former foster sister, Addie.

As soon as Budda reaches Louisville, he goes to a McDonald’s for the first time in his life where he meets the resolute Baresha, a fellow runaway on her own adventure. Then Budda’s mission to find his sister goes downhill. He hitches a ride to Valkyrie, Addie’s hometown, in hopes of saving her from some danger Blood Mama won’t reveal. Instead, Budda encounters her blood kin, led by the ominous Odyn Starkwether and his violent brother Dickie.

A drug shipment controlled by the Starkwethers has disappeared and so has Addie. The brothers have a mess to clean up, and Budda is soon in the middle of it. At first, Budda goes along willingly, if it will help him find Addie. Before long, though, Budda realizes it’s sometimes better to stay put.

 

 

The Night Budda Got Deep in It

Segment 1

Ellie had the cigarette lit before they made it out the front door. She began to relax immediately. It wasn’t so bad smoking outside where she could enjoy the fresh air in her lungs.

 

Exhaling a plume of smoke, she asked, “You say you’re looking for Addie, huh?”

 

Budda nodded. He was momentarily less interested in finding his sister than watching this girl put her lips around the cigarette. Even the smoke couldn’t overpower the smell of cleanliness about her. He would from then on see her in his mind when he smelled bleach. But he had to get that out of his mind, because that wasn’t what brought him to Valkyrie.

 

“I just need to find Addie.” he said.

 

“She’s inaccessible at the moment,” Ellie said, blowing a plume of smoke upward.

 

“Inaccessible in what way?”

 

“The kind where she can’t be accessed.”

 

Told you so.

 

Ellie sized up Budda, but she couldn’t make him fit as Addie’s brother, even a half one she didn’t know about. Addie had moved with her mom a long time back to Missouri where her mom had an aunt or some such. Ellie hadn’t heard anything about Addie until she showed up back in Valkyrie a few months earlier, broke as the day she was born. Addie didn’t talk much about all the years she’d been away, and it didn’t matter enough to Ellie to ask.

 

“I guess her mom got knocked up with you after she left here,” Ellie said, going with the most obvious possibility.

 

“Addie’s my foster sister,” Budda said absently. “How long before she can be accessed?” He began to think Blood Mama was right about Addie needing help.

 

Ellie took a long drag, and then exhaled the smoke in bits like a chugging train as she answered. “I wouldn’t hold my breath. Could be awhile. Sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

 

This here girl’s a lying liar. She knows where Addie is, all right, Blood Mama said.

 

Am I supposed to just accuse Ellie of lying? That’s not going to make her too happy, Budda said.

 

You’re thinking with the wrong part of your anatomy. You’re not here to make this girl happy. You’re here to save your sister.

 

Author Info for Ron D Smith:

 

I started my adult life as a journalist, but gave it up when I realized I wasn’t going to become Walter Cronkite. I grew up in small towns in Missouri and Iowa, which make my adopted hometown of Louisville look like Manhattan.

 

I envy the dialogue of Daniel Woodrell, the sense of place of Silas House, and how Wendell Berry makes writing seem deceptively easy. I appreciate Elmore Leonard for being Elmore Leonard. I don’t write like anyone but me.

 

Amazon Kindle copy

Ron Smith Online

• Website http://smithdeville.wordpress.com/
• Blog
• Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/ronDsmithWriter
• Twitter @smitrond
• Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5411663.Ron_D_Smith

The Finding by Timothy Cavinder--Excerpt and Giveaway!

I love discovering great new summer reads, don't you? That's one of the many reasons I enjoy being a tour host for Innovative Online Book Tours. Today I'm sharing with you an excerpt from Timothy Cavinder's novel The Finding. We are also giving away a free copy of the book too! Be sure to enter the raffle below!

Excerpt:

On the day Horace’s truck wouldn’t start he called Henry Bill to give him a ride into town. Horace needed to pay his property taxes, today being the final day allowed for such transactions and also he needed to purchase a new white shirt. The reason for the new shirt was the occasion of an impending visit from his older brother Donald and his wife of several years Vivian. Donald visited Horace every year much like a pilgrimage as Donald had promised their mother on her death bed that he’d keep an eye on Horace. The reason for this request remains unknown perhaps it was just a mother’s worry or it may have been the effects of the painkillers and the sips of Kentucky whiskey she liked to take from her bedside bottle.

Horace got along fine with Donald who managed a shoe store in the next county but he always felt nervous around Vivian. For Vivian was as they say “taken by the Lord.” She was as devout as they come, underneath her cold steely eyes lurks all the wrath that fire and brimstone could offer. Horace felt she never seemed happy and if that was what loving the Lord turned a person into he’d just as well remain in the liking column, nothing wrong with that he thought: nothing wrong with just liking the Lord and then I can still be happy.

Horace always wanted to look and act his best around her as he felt she looked down on him. So, a new shirt every year was Horace’s manner of proclaiming “I’m doing just fine. I have a new shirt don’t I?”

And so Henry Bill, driving his old four door that used to be a taxi, pulled up in front of Horace’s house to give him a ride into town.

“Hey ya,” Henry Bill calls out with a slight wave.

Horace nods and begins walking down the steps of his front porch and down the short sidewalk to the street. Having received his passenger Henry Bill slowly pulls away from the curb.

“What’s wrong with it?” He asks his friend.

”It’s making a grinding sound, then nothing,” Horace answers.

“Bouts where?”

“Under the hood, right side. I think anyway, I’m not sure.”

“That truck’s been trouble for you lately ain’t it?”

“Yeah, but it’s a good truck. I’ve had it for so long I don’t want to give up on it. I just need to figure it out that’s all.”

“Yep,” Henry Bill says as they approach town. “Where ya headed Horace?”

“Just downtown is fine, gotta pay at the courthouse and then to the Dixie May.”

“New shirt? Your brother coming again?”

“Yep, that time of year.”

“Boy, oh boy time sure flies,” Henry Bill says.

“That it does Henry. That it does.”

 

Horace felt quite comfortable calling Henry Bill for a ride as they have known each other since childhood. Henry Bill was the only child of Dee and Vernon MacArthur. When Henry started school Dee took a housekeeping job for the Ginleys. They were and always have been the richest family in Fair County, the only rich family actually. Vestor Ginley, the old man, made his money investing in Texas oil fields and foreign stocks. He wasn’t from here originally he showed up one day fifty years ago and bought up the seventy three acres that once made up the Winnie Ladlow farm (Winnie the window died with no known heirs.) And so Vestor hired a staff, put in crops, brought out his wife and raised five children all of whom divided their time between the farm in Fair county and New York City where Vestor owned a townhouse and liked to stay close to his business contacts.

When Dee took the job, Ginley had been there for forty years and was now as they say “getting up there in years.” His hearing and eyesight weren’t nearly what they used to be. Dee neither attempted to avoid him or interact with him. She saw him occasionally sitting in the parlor drinking coffee or sitting out on the porch with his large black Newfoundland at the old man’s feet.

Dee took the job for the sole reason that most folks take jobs: she needed the money. Since her husband Vernon had been let go from the machine shop he tried his hand at farm help but it tore up his back so bad the doctor gave him some pain pills that Vernon liked so much he took them every day for a week sleeping the entire week away. He said it gave him good dreams but by the time he got back on his feet his job had been filled. So, Vernon went out looking for work and the best he could come up with was a position selling shoes door to door, he did okay but was gone a lot and what money he sent home wasn’t enough to make ends meet so Dee took the job not always sure how she was going to pay the bills and not sure if Vernon would ever return.

Her premonition proved correct as one week when Vernon was due home he didn’t show up. As she washed the dishes in the kitchen sink she didn’t need to think twice she knew; “he’s gone.”

This was when Henry Bill was ten years of age. He learned to help bring in the badly needed money and help around the house. He learned to live life as an only child without a father and was never heard to say much about it then or now.

“Here be good,” Horace says as they approach the courthouse. Henry Bill pulls over to the curb and stops.

“You want me to look at your truck sometime? I be glad too,” Henry Bill offers.

“Well, all right but let me ask Roy first,” Horace says stepping out of the car and onto the sidewalk.

“Let me know then,” Henry Bill waves.

Horace waves back then turns and walks toward the courthouse.

Timothy Cavinder Online:

Website http://www.cavinder.com/

Blog http://wwwtimothycavinder.blogspot.com/

Good reads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13491255-the-finding

a Rafflecopter giveaway