Saturday, February 28, 2015

Devil's Lake - only 99 cent today!

Hello, friends.

I believe this is the best book I've written to date - of all the 22 published works, that is. Let me know if you agree? 

- Aaron Lazar
http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Lake-Aaron-Paul-Lazar-ebook/dp/B00LNFP8XU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425126355&sr=8-1&keywords=devil%27s+lake

After two years of brutal captivity, Portia Lamont has escaped and returned to her family’s Vermont horse farm—only to find her parents gone to New York to try an experimental treatment for her mother’s cancer, and her childhood friend Boone Hawke running the farm.

Like the rest of her family, Boone has never given up hope that Portia would return. But when she turns up battered, skinny as a twelve-year-old boy, afraid of everything and unable to talk about what happened, he does the only thing he can—try to help her heal. He summons the town doctor and Portia’s parents, and sets out to put this beautiful, broken woman back together again.

Through her family's love and Boone's gentle affection, Portia gradually comes back to herself, and starts to fall for her old friend in a whole new way. But one thing threatens her fragile hope for recovery: The man who took her promised that if she ever escaped, he'd kill her. Slowly. And someone is definitely watching her...waiting to make his next deadly move.

AMAZON BUY LINK


Thursday, February 12, 2015

Lost Shots, by Aaron Paul Lazar





How long will it take before we can burn images stored in our brain onto a computer? Do you think it will ever come to pass? I hope so, because even though I used to dabble in art in college, I never inherited the landscape gene. I could do portraits, from live models or pictures, but I didn’t have the knack to capture a glowing sunset or wavy grasses, or a frothy seascape. Perhaps, with the proper training, I could make a decent stab at it, but for now the only way I can immortalize scenes of nature is through the lens or with my pen. Figuratively speaking, that is, since I haven’t written books with a pen and paper in many years.

Lately, I’ve been lamenting potentially award-winning photos that I’ve missed. Lost shots. Those showstoppers, the gorgeous scenes I couldn’t acquire because of unsafe driving conditions or a timetable that didn’t allow lollygagging. I still see them, clear as cold lake water, simmering and shimmering in my mind’s eye.

The first lost shot occurred one fall, many years ago. We’d been scurrying around all morning, getting ready to deliver chairs to our customers. One of my side jobs, besides engineering, writing, and photography, is chair caning. My wife does the hand caning, and I do the rush, splint, flat reed, and pressed cane. Every Saturday morning, we load up the van with chairs and head for Honeoye Falls and East Bloomfield, where we deliver them to the shops that hire us. My wife and daughter were with me that morning, since we were going to squeeze in a little breakfast at George’s, our favorite small town. We were hungry. We were late. And I forgot my camera. Of course, this was before iPhones with their handy dandy cameras.

It happened only five minutes from the house, and I’ll never stop kicking myself for not turning around to go back. The night had been cold, and the morning dawned sunny. Frost crackled under our shoes as we tromped across the lawn, and there was a freshness to the air, heightened by the icy morning. We traveled north on Lakeville-Groveland Road, and when we passed Booher Hill, I glanced eastward. This is one of my favorite stretches of land, where multiple layers of trees, fields, and hills delineate the ridges that cradle Conesus Lake. When the sun rises over the eastern shore, it kisses the lake valley with rose, orange, lavender, and hot yellow.



This morning, however, the sun had risen hours earlier. But what greeted my eager eyes was not the sun, but a cloud.

I’m talking about a fully-fleshed, cotton ball cloud. It sat directly on top of the lake, lying like a thick eiderdown on the water. This cloud was not filmy, like mist or fog. It wasn’t transparent. It was rock solid puffy white, and it rose at least 1000 feet over the lake, stretching north-south along fourteen miles of the narrow trench carved many years ago by a glaciers. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and fear I’ll never see it again.

The memory is sharp, but I really wish I could show it to you.

The next two scenes that haunt me happened in winter. The frustrating part was that I had the camera with me both times, but just couldn’t stop because it wasn’t safe to pull over on the snowy roads.

The first was a scene I pass every day on the way to work. Normally, I admire the textures and contrasts of this spot with an almost casual, see-it-every-day insouciance. I do take pleasure in the old barns, dilapidated farmhouse, antique cars in the open sided shelter, and the young Thoroughbred who paces in a small paddock. And each time I pass the old milk shed, I admire the faded white paint and the attractive timeworn look it has from years of exposure to sun and wind. My fingers itch for the camera here most mornings, but it’s private property, 6:30 in the morning, and its positioned near a country intersection, which makes it a bit awkward to stop and snap pictures of this venerable old building.





This particular morning, however, snow blasted sideways across the road in such ferocity and beauty, it quickened my heartbeat. It was a fierce burst of white, constant and rippling, blinding whoever crossed its path. The contrast electrified me. Deep turquoise metal-sided barn, cement block barn nearby, white post and board fence swaying in the storm…they were simultaneously shadowed and revealed by the spraying snow.

But I didn’t stop. I worried about arriving late to work, and the sides of the road looked very slippery. So… another lost shot.

Later that week, they closed the whole county for whiteouts. I had to get home, I was determined to get home, and I sure as heck didn’t want to spend the night in my office. So, I spent an hour and a half dodging blinding whiteouts, and finally made my perilous way down Groveland Road, almost home. Another half mile, and I’d be safe in the driveway.



And then I saw them.

Snow devils. Cyclones of white. Billowing and flowing over the hills to the west, up the sides of the valley, rolling across the fields like massive sheet-white tornadoes.

My jaw dropped. My insides thrilled. And I gripped the steering wheel tighter to stay in the snowy lane. I didn’t get the shot. Once again.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not really complaining. I’ve captured dozens of deeply satisfying photos and have been blessed with pastoral scenes of breath-taking beauty year-round. I’ve snapped hundreds and hundreds of photos. But those lost shots… they keep haunting me. Which, I guess, is why I’ve written about them today. When visions haunt me, they spill out of my fingertips.

There is one consolation. The images still reside in my brain. And someday, maybe soon, I’ll download them and be able to show you. ;o)

***

Books by multi-award winning author, Aaron Lazar:

DOUBLE FORTÉ (print, eBook, audio book)
UPSTAGED (print, eBook, audio book)  
MAZURKA (print, eBook, audio book)
FIRESONG (print, eBook, audio book)
DON’T LET THE WIND CATCH YOU (print, eBook, audio book)
THE LIARS’ GALLERY (print, eBook, audio book)
UNDER THE ICE (print, eBook)

HEALEY'S CAVE (print, eBook, audio book)
FOR KEEPS (print, eBook, audio book)

FOR THE BIRDS (print, eBook, audio book)
ESSENTIALLY YOURS (print, eBook, audio book)
SANCTUARY (print, eBook, audio book)

LOVE STORIES
THE SEACREST (print, eBook, and audio book)
THE SEACROFT (coming soon)

ROMANTIC THRILLERS
DEVIL’S LAKE (print, eBook, and audio book)
DEVIL’S CREEK (coming soon)

WRITING ADVICE: 

WRITE LIKE THE WIND, volumes 1, 2, 3  (audio books)

Aaron Paul Lazar writes to soothe his soul. An award-winning, bestselling Kindle author of three addictive mystery series, thrillers, love stories, and writing guides, Aaron enjoys the Genesee Valley countryside in upstate New York, where his characters embrace life, play with their dogs and grandkids, grow sumptuous gardens, and chase bad guys. Visit his website at http://www.lazarbooks.com and watch for his upcoming releases, THE SEACROFT: a love story and DEVIL’S CREEK.


Sunday, February 01, 2015

Read an eBook week - FREE OFFERINGS!

Hello, folks.

Once a year, Twilight Times Books offers a lovely selection of their titles for free. And it all starts today! From March 1-7th you can get the following titles for free. 

Twilight Times Books FREE OFFERINGS


Two of my books are offered here - both favorites of mine since they are set in the sixties and are told from my protagonist's eleven-year-old mind.

Tremolo: cry of the loon  (free all week, click above link)

http://twilighttimesbooks.com/freebies.html
When eleven-year-old Gus LeGarde sees a girl fleeing an attacker in the dark Maine woods, he and his friends spend the rest of the summer hunting for her on horseback and in their rowboat, only to face the wrath of the nastiest villain ever to haunt the Belgrade Lakes.


  • 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Awards: Grand Prize Short List
  • 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Awards: Honorable Mention, Eric Hoffer Legacy Fiction
  • 2011 Global eBook Award Finalist in Historical Fiction Contemporary
  • 2011 Preditors & Editors Readers Choice Award – 2nd place Mystery
  • 2008 Yolanda Renée's Top Ten Books
  • 2008 MYSHELF Top Ten Reads


Don't Let the Wind Catch You (free March 3rd, click above link)

Don't Let the Wind Catch You is the sequel to Tremolo and takes place in summer 1965.


http://twilighttimesbooks.com/freebies.html
When twelve-year-old Gus LeGarde and his two best friends, Elsbeth and Siegfried, stumble on a hermit’s cabin in the woods in the summer of 1965, they’re unprepared for Tully, the crotchety old man who sticks his head out the window and threatens to shoot them. But more surprising is Tully’s best friend, a young Indian girl spirit, Penaki, who reveals herself to the children by forming patterns with butterflies, rattling tin cups, drawing on dusty mirrors, and flipping book pages.

Tully’s past is shrouded in mystery, and Gus can’t understand why his mother hates Tully so. Gus is drawn into an intriguing mystery that reveals long-hidden truths about his grandfather, with even deeper ties to the Ambuscade and the history of the Genesee Valley region. Will Gus’s findings rewrite the most brutal chapter in the history of Livingston County?

All week


Book Reviewers Talk about their Craft by Mayra Calvani, Editor
How I Wrote My First Book: the story behind the story by Anne K. Edwards and Lida E. Quillen, Editors
Practical Tips for Online Authors by Lida E. Quillen
Touch of Fate by Christine Amsden
Tremolo: cry of the loon by Aaron Paul Lazar
Who is Margaret? by Celia A. Leaman

Sunday, Mar. 1st -- An Elfy on the Loose by Barb Caffrey
Sunday, Mar. 1st -- Behold the Eyes of Light by Geoff Geauterre. Book I in the Eyes of Light series.
Monday, Mar. 2nd -- Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective by Christine Amsden. Book I in the Cassie Scot series.
Monday, Mar. 2nd -- Death on Delivery by Anne K. Edwards.
Tuesday, Mar. 3rd -- Deeds of a Colored Soldier During the Rebellion by F. W. Abel.
Tuesday, Mar. 3rd -- Don't Let the Wind Catch You by Aaron Paul Lazar.
Wednesday, Mar. 4th -- Jerome and the Seraph by Robina Williams. Book I in the Gaea series.
Wednesday, Mar. 4th -- Laughing All the Way by Darrell Bain.
Thursday, Mar. 5th -- Monkey Trap by Lee Denning. Book I in the Nova Sapiens series.
Thursday, Mar. 5th -- No place for Gods by Gerald Mills. Book I in the James Foster Adventures series.
Friday, Mar. 6th -- Rue the Day by Ralph Freedman.
Friday, Mar. 6th -- Schooled in Magic by Christopher G. Nuttall. Book I in the Schooled in Magic series.
Saturday, Mar. 7th -- The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival by Stephanie Osborn. Book I in the Displaced Detective series.
Saturday, Mar. 7th -- The Storks of La Caridad by Florence Byham Weinberg.
Saturday, Mar. 7th -- Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine Issue Sept/Oct 2005
Saturday, Mar. 7th -- Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine Issue Jan/Feb 2006
Be sure to check out the official web site for Read an E-Book Week. A number of publishers are offering give-aways during the week. For example, Smashwords is offering hundreds of free ebooks.
http://www.ebookweek.com/


Click here to access free offerings:

Twilight Times Books FREE OFFERINGS



Happy reading!

Aaron Lazar
www.lazarbooks.com