Featured Titles
FEBRUARY FEATURED TITLES
(in no particular order)
By Debra L. Hartmann
Write dialogue worth eavesdropping on.
Your plot is tight. Your characters are compelling. But every time they open their mouths, something falls flat.
Maybe your dialogue sounds stilted, or all your characters speak with suspiciously similar voices. Maybe you’ve been told your conversations are “on the nose,” but no one’s explained what that means or how to fix it. Maybe the mechanics trip you up: dialogue tags, action beats, punctuation that never quite looks right.
You’re not alone. Dialogue is one of the hardest elements of fiction writing to master, and one of the most important. It’s where readers decide whether your characters feel like real people or just constructs on a page.
Dialogue That Speaks gives you the same diagnostic tools professional editors use to identify and fix dialogue that isn’t working. Drawing on more than two decades of experience as a developmental editor, line editor, and proofreader, Debra L. Hartmann breaks down the craft of compelling dialogue into learnable, immediately applicable techniques.
You’ll discover:
- Techniques for creating authentic subtext
- How to give each character a distinctive voice
- The truth about “said” (hint: it’s not dead)
- When to use action beats and body language clues
- How to weave exposition into dialogue without “As you know, Bob…”
- Techniques for pacing dialogue scenes
- Strategies for handling group conversations without losing readers
Each chapter includes examples, practical exercises, and revision challenges you can apply to your work-in-progress today.
Whether you’re drafting your first novel or polishing your tenth, Dialogue That Speaks will transform how you write, revise, and hear the conversations on your pages.
Insurgency (American Terrorist Book 4)
By Jeffrey Poston
How many must die…to save the first female president?
In a near-future United States, Former President Shirley Mallory finds herself leading an unprecedented coalition of states against federal overreach. As President Hanson’s administration launches aggressive immigration crackdowns—dragging American citizens from their homes without warrants, without trials, without a trace—the California Alliance of States emerges as the last line of defense for civil rights.
The situation becomes explosive when Alliance aide Lenore Cummings is illegally detained and her daughter Lisette barely escapes a government abduction team. Forced into action, Mallory deploys former special forces operator Jasper Crow on a dangerous rescue mission that leads him to the one man capable of tipping the scales: Carl Johnson.
Carl thought he was done being the American Terrorist. After years of violence and sacrifice, he’d finally found peace in a Mexican villa with a new family and a chance at redemption. But when Lisette appears at his gate—the young woman whose life he nearly destroyed a decade ago—Carl learns that some debts can never be outrun. Now he must reassemble his team of elite mercenaries and plunge back into a shadow war where the enemy wears his own country’s flag.
With federal troops massing at state borders, CIA assassins hunting Alliance leaders, Chinese warships lurking off the California coast, and nuclear weapons in play, the Alliance must navigate a treacherous path between peaceful resistance and open rebellion. But as economic sanctions tighten and the body count rises, one question remains:
Can they prevent a second Civil War without sacrificing the very principles they’re fighting to protect?
Insurgency is the latest high-stakes political thriller from acclaimed #1 bestselling author Jeffrey Poston. If you enjoy fast-paced action, intricate political machinations, and stories of resistance against tyranny, you’ll be enthralled by this riveting tale of American democracy in crisis.
By Lefter Baklas
Begin unraveling Andean Secrets, if you dare…
When dentist Jonathan Leventis embarks on a humanitarian mission to Bolivia, he never imagines he’ll be thrust into a deadly web of cartels, spies, and long-buried secrets. After saving the life of Liaison Officer Raphael Morales during a guerrilla attack near the Peruvian border, Jonathan forms an unlikely friendship with the estranged son of Bolivia’s most powerful general. But one fateful night in La Paz changes everything.
Despite Raphael’s warnings, Jonathan can’t resist the allure of a cabaret known to attract the city’s most dangerous players. There, he becomes enchanted by a mysterious dancer, setting off a chain of events that pulls him deeper into Bolivia’s treacherous underworld. As he navigates this dangerous new reality, he finds himself caught between the ruthless Cochabamba cartel, two determined DEA agents, and a former CIA operative hiding dangerous secrets.
In this gripping thriller, loyalties blur and family ties fray as Jonathan discovers that in Bolivia, nothing—and no one—is quite what they seem.
Ekeko is the first book in the Andean Secrets series by author Lefter Baklas.
By M. K. Stelmack
The man she loves stands in the way of the man she’s vowed to kill.
Set in 1825 Russia, on the eve of the First Russian Revolution, The Tsar’s Angel draws together court opulence, military brutality, and revolutionary fervor into a singular drama of romance and intrigue.
Intent on recovering his family’s estate, Captain Gavril Danilov of the imperial personal guard finds his loyalties tested by his growing feelings for the enigmatic Anna. She harbors a deadly secret: her father has purposed her to eliminate the very monarch Gavril serves.
As Anna trades her solitary life as a mercenary for the silken influence of the marriage-minded empress, both she and Gavril must navigate a world where trust is a luxury and love, a fraught web. Should personal desire ever outweigh the greater good? Their desires will not only shape their own fates but potentially alter the trajectory of a troubled nation.
Meticulously researched, The Tsar’s Angel is a genre-defying epic that will leave you yearning for more from this vividly rendered realm of Imperial Russia.
Tales of Ejoma (Dual Realms Book 1)
By Paige Addams
Ejoma and Thavos are immortal and human realms, held separate from one another by a magical barrier. Ejoma is a world of magic, danger, and beauty that humans have long forgotten exists. The shimana can change their shape or bend the elements to their will, and have filled their countless years with learning. Thavos is a world of science and machines. Always striving to invent new things and understand the world around them, humans became strong.
Balance has been maintained between the two realms for millennia, for the safety of immortals and humans alike. But a deadly enemy is growing steadily more powerful with dark magic. Soon, neither realm will be safe.
This series of novellas and short stories will introduce you to:
Shauna, an ordinary human dragged across the barrier, who comes face to face with beings she thought only existed in stories. As confusing and strange as this new world is to her, she can’t help her fascination with Ori, a powerful immortal who manifests wishes and hears the dreams and desires of others. When a rogue group of immortals takes an interest in her accidental jump across the barrier, can Ori protect her?
Rina sees a mysterious man reach out to her in her dreams with such a heartbreaking smile that she can’t help but wish he were real. A commander who leads one of the contingents of warriors in the capital city, she should push him out of her mind and focus on her work, but she can’t forget him. When she’s sent to defend a city under siege by rogue immortals, she hears a familiar name…Isaro. How far is she willing to go for him?
Future ruler or not, Mayun would rather die than be stuck with her protector, Toren, while she trains to master her alternate form. He’s overbearing, annoying, and has made it clear that he thinks she’s unfit to become ruler. So why does he seem so determined to stay by her side? And why can’t she stop fantasizing about him? When the enemy begins targeting her, can Mayun and Toren set aside their issues long enough to escape?
Bonus Materials: Also included are a glossary, a bit of the history of Ejoma, and teaser standalone chapters for future books. For the full glossary and history, and blog exclusive behind the scenes material, please visit paigeaddams.wordpress.com
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