There’s Always Dust When You Move — And a New Release! Post by Mary C. Findley

In the course of redesigning the blog, we chose to make do with less storage space. In the course of clearing out space to make way for new content and posts, some old images have been removed from blog posts written in the past. We hope you’ll excuse the absence of some old covers and a few other missing images. Please ask if you need to see something in a past post that’s really confusing you by its absence. But, for the most part, we hope you’ll understand that dust is a part of the moving and changing process and help us look forward to new things here.

And there is some news! Just before the end of 2019, Sophronia Belle Lyon published Beware the Bustle, book 4 in the Alexander Legacy Steampunk Literary Tribute series. The series is now half completed. The first book, a Dodge, a Twist, and a Tobacconist, is free, so you can hit the ground running and enjoy the series. Please let us know what you think. Sophronia is drinking ‘way too much tea trying to calm herself down. She’d be happy to share a pot with you and hear your thoughts on this series.

Here’s an excerpt from Beware the Bustle:

“F-Father?” Samuel quavered. I heard the click of a hammer and realized a loaded gun had just pressed itself against my head. I turned slightly and saw my old enemy Shan Xiongxi had stepped out of a hidden niche and now held my son by the coat collar. No White One conditioning could prevent me from recognizing this man. It was a bizarre transformation, however, to see him rendered pasty-white, skin shrunken tight against his cheekbones, red-tinged goggles doing nothing to blunt the narrow-eyed stare he favored me with as he stood so close to my face, sneering at me.

“Let him go,” I said. “You said in your message that you had no interest in harming innocents.”

“Yes, I did,” the long-bearded man replied, “but you still brought your child along, didn’t you? I didn’t want to harm him, but now he will be harmed, because you ignored my warning.”

“Just let him go back out of the tunnel,” I said. “He is only a child.”

“I know full well your friends are out there making repairs,” Shan Xiongxi replied. “He now knows exactly where my dragon makes its home, and can tell them. We can’t have that. We really can’t. This is your fault, for bringing a child to confront the demons of your past. Now your family will suffer for what you did to mine.”

“The sea took your family,” I replied, knowing he had heard this argument hundreds of times, but I had to say it, for Samuel’s sake. “My crew and I did everything we could to save our passengers. You know this. I do not know why you have chosen to hate me and blame me, but know this: God can change your heart. Jesus Christ can cleanse your wicked soul. You must let God work in you. This is your choice; to hate or to let go and accept forgiveness.”

“Do not wave God under my nose like smelling salts,” Shan Xiongxi snapped. “I am wide awake. It is you who have been in an opium dream, living a hallucination, and must now awaken. You were never safe. You were never free. People like me have always been fighting to right wrongs you never admitted happened. We Chinese were treated like slaves, but now we can become equals by accepting the White One ways. You see how they have helped me on to my goal of revenge? They have helped me in every way, and I will help them with my Azure Dragon. We will wake everyone up. Your way of life will end. Ours will never end.”

“My father is a good and honorable man,” Samuel said. “He has earned respect and favor without changing to conform to a manmade system like that of the White Ones. You do not know history if you can’t see that it cycles around with every failed idea man has but comes back to one principle: God treats all men equally. He offers Christ to all. Nothing can alter His plan. You think you can defeat my father, and you may, because this life is not where the victory comes. It comes when we spend eternity with God. If you don’t understand that, you are already defeated. I feel sorry for you.”

“Stupid brat!” Shan Xiongxi screamed. He hoisted Samuel off his feet, slapped him hard with the side of his gun, and threw him into the river flowing through the cavern. It had been sluggish when we had first entered but in the darkness I had not seen how swift and how deep it had begun to flow. Samuel was snatched away and dragged underwater in the blink of an eye.

Amazon World Link: mybook.to/BewareBustleAlexLeg4 Google Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Sophronia_Belle_Lyon_Beware_the_Bustle?id=1CfHDwAAQBAJ&hl=en_US All other sites: https://books2read.com/u/mdGZMy