Jon Latham's Blog

The second book in the Candomble Guard series and things are beginning to heat up.
This is a well written Science fiction series about a futuristic society, after the apocalypse and how they survive, interact and co-exist. Or don't. A very good read.

This is book one of the Candomble Guard series, a 392 page action packed futuristic drama. It's hard to categorize this novel because it has so many covered. Mystery, Romance, Fantasy, and SYFY.
It is well written by Danielle Bellwood and depicts a strong female lead that is a captain of the guard.
The gist is the much needed resources of the future, that being food and water, and the Candomble guard's job is to protect those resources.
The female lead, Dari Nguyen, is known as an all business leader, without a private life of any kind. Until a certain man from another community shows up to be trained as a guard.
Excellent read.

Willow Sturgeon learns on ending her patrol shift that she is being promoted to detective. She also learns the promotion is not solely based on her performance. The department has no female detectives. Then she finds out she is being partnered with the department drunk. She knows this is because of her past experiences with her father.

Travis Birch is the department’s best detective. His skills in interviewing persons of interest results in convictions. He is having trouble holding on to partners, though. The captain keeps reassigning them. He is unaware his partners have been asking for reassignment. When he arrives at the station to start his day, he learns he has yet another partner. A woman.

The partnership becomes volatile immediately and continues that way throughout the day as they draw their first case. A woman’s body has been found in a city park. When they arrive at the park to canvas the scene, things become more complicated. They find a second body.

Willow shakes off Birch’s insults, but Travis has no such luck as Willow continues to badger his drinking habits and on day two of the investigation she finds herself basically alone. She gets help from an FBI agent and his technical skills and resources as she tries to connect a picture she found of one of the victims standing with a man by a sailboat. She begins to doubt herself as she runs into one roadblock after another. Willow is no quitter, however, and her investigation becomes more intense when she decides to break a few rules and take unorthodox methods to find the killer.

Barring any unforeseen issues, book 2 of The Lands of Mother series is due to be released in the spring of 2018. The book is titled “Towers of the Own”. As soon as I get a set cover I will pass it on.

In the meantime, here is a quick synopsis of Lands of Mother Book 2: The Towers of the Own

The King, after a night’s rest at Junction City, continues his journey toward Black Mountain. He takes with him a contingent from the Sisterhood. The King is one of the few people on Mother who has knowledge of the Sisterhood’s abilities, and their abilities are many. He plans to use that to his advantage.

Meanwhile, Queen Melanie and her small clandestine company, is traveling the same direction. Their trek north is slowed by treachery and treason. When they finally arrive at Marseilles, she discovers something that may save thousands of innocent civilians.

Can she find a way to stop her King before he puts siege to Black Mountain and defeats his own purpose?



Black Mountain

Tom stared in disbelief.

“Do you need me to call for a wheelchair, Commander?”

“No, Majesty.” His legs went to work, but only well enough to get him out the door. Once he was in the hall, he straightened and headed to the cook. I hope that convinced her what a terrible King I’d make. He whistled his favorite tune.

Brittany Stone looked at Tom’s documentation, drew a big x across the paper and tossed it aside. She needed to hurry her decision. It was almost time to meet with her Commanders, or what was left of them. Those potato sack bitches had been a handful. It had taken longer to kill them than it had to build her army. It would have been so much easier if she could have just entered their minds, but they had some kind of block, something she couldn’t get past.

Seven hundred men lost in the taking of one compound. A sisterhood of one hundred eighty-six. How embarrassing. A bunch of women, for Mother’s sake. She suddenly had doubts about her fighting force and the words of her Commanders.

A bunch of damn women.



Junction City, Sisterhood East

The trip to Junction City was uneventful for Melanie, but very eventful for others. During the trip, Kristen drew suspicious looks from Junction’s forces.

Several times, one would edge toward Kristen, causing the King, Sir Kevin, or one of the Queen’s Own to materialize at her side. They would brook no disrespect of their new ally.

It wasn’t until they were a mile from the gate, that Kristen dismounted and sent the Riggers in to the woods, sharing Marie’s mount for the remaining distance.

Marcus never left the Queen’s side, so for the most part he was ignored, but was still the victim of the occasional stare. It was obvious to Melanie that the dissension and turmoil that had occurred in Junction City, had everyone suspicious, unsettled.

The wilder women conducted themselves in the best of fashion. Several sisters occupied the wagon they were in, and the canvas had been removed, so they would be visible. Melanie witnessed heavy conversation between the two groups. The women were respectful, answering every question put to them. And they cried a lot.

In this day and age of electronics, book reading is not as important to some as it used to be. We get infatuated with video games and television.

Authors, however, continue to be diligent in their endeavor to promote literacy. They continue to write in hopes that they are providing their readers with some relaxation time, while at the same time trying to peak their interest with the story. Authors do not write to become rich. That’s just not going to happen.

Many of us that do read will finish the novel and set it aside for a different one. Instead, let’s take a couple minutes and lend our opinion.

If you are a member of Goodreads, for example, you can let your friends and other readers know what book you are reading, where you are at in the book and when finished, leave a rating and a review. You can also check to see if the author is on Goodreads and accepting questions. He or she isn’t required to answer, but if they’re accepting, they usually will. If you ask their phone number or address, you probably won’t get an answer, but if you have a question about the book or a particular character, they usually will.

Ratings and reviews are important to the author and the reader, the rating more so.

Ratings, whether on Goodreads, Amazon, the publisher’s site, or any other outlet, tells the author and reader how well the book is being received. It is a star rating. One star being that you didn’t care for it and five stars means that you loved it.

Never leave the star rating blank. It disrupts the average. One is poor, five is excellent. If you don’t want to post a review, that’s okay. Or even say “I didn’t care for it”, or “I loved it.” It doesn’t have to be extensive, but the star rating needs to be checked. Your opinion is important to the author and to potential readers. Just reading the book and moving on to the next doesn’t tell the author or reader what you thought.

Feel free to leave the rating on multiple sites. Not everyone will get their books at the same place. Some buy from Amazon, some from Barnes and Noble, some directly from the publisher, etc.

Lend your voice. It can be fun and if you know someone that reads a lot, encourage them to do the same. Even if the only author you read is King, or Koontz, or Patterson, the individual book rating is still important. Other readers looking for a new read need your input. Try to avoid spoilers on the reviews.

It can also help you when you’re ready for your next book. Search it for a rating, first. Maybe check out a couple reviews. Keep in mind, though, that some may have left the star rating blank, skewing the numbers, Look up one of your favorite books and you’ll see what I mean. You know there is no way anyone could have disliked that book , but when you look it up the star rating is only 50 or 60 percent. Yet when you read the reviews, they’re all positive.

Lend your voice!

Just for fun I am going to put together a short story/excerpt of content in the first novel of the Lands of Mother series: “18”. You won’t find this anywhere in the novel, as written, but the scene will be. In the novel the scene is written with the King’s perspective, however in this short story it will be the same scene but from the Queen’s perspective. Ready? Okay, here we go!

Melanie took a last look at the clinic that held her family and walked through the gate. The gate guard and the men and women of the King’s force were taking a knee to her as she approached and she thought that absurd. These brave men and women who were here to wage battle with the approaching enemy. Here to defend the city, the citizens, her own children. They were bending knees to her. Queen or not, she was no more than a housewife. Broken from her old family and now from her new family, as well.

Absurd.

She was too embarrassed to give the ‘Rise’ command, so she stayed silent and just continued past them as fast as she could. It took many long minutes to get past the force, even with her path to the tree line being cleared as she went, but eventually she reached the woods and continued in along the path. She had not seen the King among his men, but she knew he was there with them.

Once she was about a hundred yards into the woods, she stopped and removed her shoes, merging with Mother. This gave her vision and hearing a boost, among other things, and she immediately heard the leaves cracking behind her. The cracking stopped quickly. She didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. It would be her Own. She had fired them, so they wouldn’t come with her and suffer harm, but they were, to the one, stubborn.

Ughhh!

She put her shoes in her pack and continued on her way, keeping her senses alert, so that she could hide if she came upon the enemy marching on the Landing. She walked for only a few minutes when her hearing alerted her to a loud noise approaching, so she darted off the path and hid behind a large boulder. She didn’t want an altercation, she only wanted the Wilder Queen. The woman that had orchestrated the attack on Melanie’s King on Caruso. The woman that had sent her forces to attack Dawn’s Landing. The woman that planned to supplant Melanie. Well, here I come. Supplant me!

She hoped for a clear journey, but if need be, Sister Meredith had taught her how to stream fireballs, so that she might defend herself. Melanie knew she couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a fireball. Hell, she couldn’t hit the side of a Beast, and they were twice as large as a barn. She had, however, spent a lot of time on her own, merged and playing with the Queenstone, trying to compact, expand, twist or anything else that she could think of to make it pliable enough to use as a weapon, and she thought she may have succeeded, but she would need to wait until she got to a completely open area to try it. She certainly didn’t want to hurt anyone.

The noise turned out to be a single rider that was kicking his warhorse to frightening speed. It had sounded like a hundred horses to her. These elevated senses were going to take a while to sort out. In any event, she could only assume the rider was on his way to alert the King of how close the enemy was. She listened, but heard nothing, so she stepped back onto the path and continued her journey.

The woods were thinning and she heard them. She once again rushed off the path and began to climb a heavily forested hill. She worked her way around the trees and up the hill and then stepped out and looked down at a huge army of men, a few horsed women and an ungodly number of lions, tigers and other assorted members of the cat family. She gave some thought to trying the Queenfire to see if she could thin the enemy for her King, but she was trying to stay unseen.

Shit! She forgot she was merged. The Wilder could feel her when she was merged with Mother. One of the horsed women hurled a fireball right at her. She could duck, but then it would hit the Own. She concentrated on the air between her and the fireball, waved her arm and the fireball diverted to the side, exploding into the ground. She called the Queenfire to bear and pointed at the wilder woman. A blue flame shot from her fingers and cut the woman in half, exploding beyond her, sending dozen of men flying. Holy crap!

She heard the grunting and clanging of steel behind her and realized the enemy had tried to circle that direction and slay her. The Own sounded to be fighting for their lives. She had to get out of here. She had to get them out of here.

Another fireball, from a different direction. She repeated the bending of the air and fired at that wilder, but this time, just in front of her. Another loud explosion and more bodies flying through the air. Another attempt, this time from two different directions, at once. Melanie was unfazed. She diverted the balls and unloaded with both hands at anything and everything in front of her.

Suddenly, the army was in disarray and fleeing back the way they came, some being carried, some dragged, but a goodly number just being left where they lie.

Melanie stood, wide eyed, staring down at the plateau before her and the carnage she had created. She felt the urge to wretch, but stayed with Mother and the nausea soon quelled. She listened, but heard nothing behind her but heavy breathing. She walked down the hill toward a glen, away from the fleeing enemy. Maybe the Own would realized there must be a safer life than following her. She doubted it.

She crossed the glen and entered another tree line, but got no further in than a hundred feet when she heard the conversation behind her. Up until now they had been totally silent, or at least they had thought they were. Puzzled, she turned and walked slowly back to look.

There sat Kristen, atop her Rigger, challenging the Captain of her Own. Both looked ready to pounce on each other. Melanie didn’t want them harmed. She wanted them all to go back to the safety of the cities, but she could tell this conversation was escalating. She stepped out of the trees.

“When you two are done with your pissing match, I would like to be back on my way.”

“Who are those people on the cover of your book?”

Easy question. Easier answer. Especially for those that have finished the novel.

The middle character is, naturally, Queen Melanie. The “18”th queen of Mother.

On the left, holding the sword, is Marie Mercer. The captain of the Queen’s guard, the Own.

On the right, riding the Rigger, is Kristen Muller, who, at the beginning was the mild mannered and eager to please Queen’s Lady. Those that have finished know the story, but I don’t want to spoil it for those that haven’t finished.

In the background along the top of the mountains are a set of eyes. Hmm! I’m not telling you. At least, not yet.

Now that the question is answered, let’s talk a bit about the making of the cover.

The cover was designed and set to scale by Steven Hammond.

Steven is the author of the “Rise of the Penguins” series. You can check those out on Amazon and you can learn more about Steven at: http://www.stevenhammondbooks.com/ and on Instagram@stevenhammond12 .

I, personally, had little to do with the cover, other than hashing suggestions out with the publisher, and then providing Steven with some famous people that I thought the characters in my mind resembled, so that he could get bone structure and muscle tone ideas. Steven took it from there.

His first challenge was reading the initial draft, which he did and then sat down and sketched out a basic design with a few ideas of his own. Just basic shapes, layout and positioning.

Once approved, he moved on to developing the characters, as well as working on the Rigger. The Rigger was the size of a riding horse, and there was nothing else for him to go on, so Steven pictured a mixture of a hyena and a wolf, which for me was pretty accurate.

Once preliminary sketches were finished it was time, once again, to submit them for feedback. He got the feedback and made the changes necessary.

Next, Steven dove into Photoshop to flesh out the sketches. Most of Steven’s experience was in charcoal and oils, so digital painting was new to him, but he soon became experienced. He started with the background, mountains and landscape, and then came the fun part. The characters. Time for layers.

Each character had multiple layers. Melanie alone was nearly twenty, ranging from a line drawing to multiple layers for the hair coloring. After the first iteration of digital painting, it was time for another critique, which brought on more tweaking.

From there, it was time for that unique thing that Steven does. Pyrography. He converted that digital painting onto a wood burn. A book cover from a wood burn! The subtle details could have been lost and that is not something you can make a mistake on. You can’t exactly erase the boo boo. It took about a week, but he got it done.

Then Steven put his photography experience to work. He photographed the wood burn, made some tonal adjustments, did a little cropping and took it in for approval from the publisher. It was decided wood burn wouldn’t show up well as a cover.

Undaunted, Steven went back to Photoshop and spent a goodly amount of time merging the wood burn with the original digital painting. Voila! It was done.

The entire process, start to finish, took a couple of month’s to complete, but did provide a unique and distinctive cover.

Steven described it as “A great experience, full of frustrations and accomplishments, and more than a few long nights of eye strain and an aching hand.” He is also ready for book two.

When the first Queen of Mother, Queen Emily DeShields, saw the problem that was arising from the children being swept without anyone to care for them, she created and instilled the law that all new arrivals were to be processed and supported by a separate entity that was to be the responsibility of the Kings of the lands. This entity would be housed in a separate building within each city and village and would be referred to as "The Sisterhood".

It was also the Queen's intent that the sisterhood handle trials of perpetrators of crime. To that end she forged six staffs. There would be one for each Supreme High Sister of each land. These staffs were forged and infused with Queenstone to be multi-faceted tools. They were named the "Staff of Truth". one facet provided the sisters of the lands to detect falsehood. Those sisters that were found to be infallible at the practice were known as "Trial Sisters."

When women would request to become sisters, they would go through a series of interviews and testing and if accepted would be sent to the Supreme High Sister for appointment. The Supreme High Sister would conduct her own interview and end the process by explaining that the sisterhood is a lifetime commitment and not a job. If the woman still wanted to be a sister, she would be touched by the staff and her new life would be confirmed.

The Supreme's of the lands decided for the sake of the element of surprise, they would keep one of the abilities of the staff's power a secret and so instructed each sister to not speak of it. Keeping secrets was not something Queen Emily was fond of, but when the Supreme's explained their reasoning, the Queen relented. Knowing the power of the staff talisman, the Queen added that it might be best to keep the knowledge of the staff out of the Chronicles as well, to eliminate the possibility of physical harm to a potential thief.

As an added tool to help them maintain their secret, the sisters developed special attire. This was a one piece pullover knee length short sleeve dress made of a heavy light gray material known as a "Grock". Any sister that was outside of a sisterhood, either on days off or vacation was permitted to be in street clothes, but while inside the sisterhood, whether on duty or not, they were never to shed the Grock. The Grock, along with the white headband all sisters wore was what would identify them as sisters. It was highly unattractive and the sisters would suffer many comments from the citizens, which was the plan. Look harmless.

Sisters were considered to be without personality and devoid of emotion and most of the citizenry considered that to be a requirement of acceptance. Although the sisters were always helpful to the peoples with nearly every request that wasn't ridiculous, they were also mysterious and always suspicious which caused most people to be leery. No one stopped by a sisterhood just to say hello.

Registered in the chronicles as a sanctuary, most looked upon the sisterhood as an orphanage, because of the children and the sisters efforts to get those children without parents, into family homes as "Accepted". The sisters were relentless in this endeavor. It wasn't a matter of space. The sisterhood was a massive building. Usually the largest in the city or village. Children, however, were inquisitive and the sisters were concerned one would find a way past the locks and descend into the lower level, despite the rules against it. The lower level of each sisterhood was a prison.

Queens would come and go and the Kings of the lands would change based on the whims of those Queens. Kings would come and go and for the same reasons the kingdoms would change, but the sisterhood was the one constant. The sisterhood, mysterious, unwavering, and suspicious of all, never changed regardless of the whims of Kings and Queens. Never changed, that is, until the sweeping of "18".

About the "Beast":

The Beast is the largest land animal native to Mother. It is brownish green in color and stands, depending on age, between twenty and thirty feet high and eighteen to twenty feet wide. The legs are disproportionately small for the body, causing the underside of the animal to be hairless from dragging on the ground, and lacking the strength to propel the animal to any degree of speed. Climbing slopes is also a problem for the same reason. Although anyone senseless enough to walk up to the Beast will die instantly, it is common knowledge that a five year old could outrun one. There are three twelve inch claws on each foot that they use to hold the carcass in place as they rip the meat away.

Although the head of the Beast is of proportionate size with the creature and full of teeth, the brain is not. It’s capacity for rational thought is suspect, at best. Some have referred to them as too stupid to live. The only consistent thought that occupies the brain is their need to eat, and they are not restricted to carnivorous diets. When hungry, they feed on vegetation. Although they do live in “Families” of four to six, they have no loyalty to one another when it comes to food. They will fight among themselves.

The Kings of the Lands have petitioned Queen after Queen to do away with the animals and been denied each time. The Queens feel the animal is easily avoided and is needed to keep Mother’s lands clean of carcasses. They only become aggressive when threatened or hungry.

The Beasts are a threat to travelers, the Kings forces, settlements and farms, because of their need to eat. In reality, the Beast prefers their meal to already be dead. They are scavengers and do a good job at keeping Mother cleaned of those carcasses. They simply do not have the speed to hunt. They have been known to feast on sleeping campers that make the mistake of camping in a valley or non-elevated area, however.

Their size and destructive nature has forced the Kingdoms to construct “Beast Walls” around cities and villages. In truth, these walls serve many purposes, but they were named after the creatures, as keeping them out of heavy populated areas was the main function.

The Beast is one of the few animals of Mother that has no fear of or respect for the Queen. To them, she is not just another “Little thing”, she is the little thing responsible for their lack of food supply.

The Beast can be frightened into a stampede by high pitched noises or by one of the smallest creatures of Mother, the Abedi. Many believe it is because the Abedi emanate a high pitched shrill, as squirrels and other Abedi like sized creatures do not concern the Beast in the least, other than as a snack.

This is an intro of King Brent from the book "18".18: A Lands of Mother Novel

Brent Jensen had been King now for over 12 years. With nearly a unanimous vote of confidence by his fellow Commanders, Queen Shirley Carillo had crowned him in the early part of 519. His Queen was a wonderful and compassionate woman and he had no difficulties serving.

He was sad for old King Philip, but the Queen had been extremely patient with his blundering and poor decisions, depending on the commanders to clean up his messes. It got to the point, however, that she could no longer abide it and she forced the seventy year old King into retirement. She had built the man a home on Northern Cutter of the Eagle Islands, hired him a staff and let him live out his remaining days in peace. Queen Shirley refused requests from the sisterhood to install an age law for kings, saying each Queen would decide.

That is how Brent became the King. He loved Queen Shirley for the confidence she showed in appointing him. The relationship would last but two years. While escorting her on her tour and audiences, Queen Shirley passed away from a massive heart attack, her last breath taken as he cradled her head in his arm, three miles from the gate of Pelican Sound and their clinics.

That brought along his second Queen, Queen Pamela Canton, the youngest Queen in history at 25 years of age. An absolute charmer she was. Was, being the key word. At some point during her reign, she had gone totally bonkers. She had become mean, disrespectful and belligerent with the peoples, making her extremely unpopular. Then, what was left of her compassion departed as well. She flooded three villages, killing thousands before Supreme High Sister Kai Ming caught up to her and arrested her on the eastern shore. Brent was still stinging from the Sister beating him to her.

Two days past he had been sitting on his deck, teaching his son how to use a hammer, when the missive was delivered to him by Sister Heather. The sisterhood of Dawn’s Landing had completed the investigation and trial of Queen Pamela. He had read over the trial notes and investigation reports and when he finished, the still present Sister Heather handed him a second missive. That one had been from His Holiness, sentencing Queen Pamela to death for genocide.

One day past, he left Silver Mountain for Dawn’s Landing. It had been a troubled ride. The thought of what he had to do ate at him with every passing yard of the ride, but he knew it was not something he could pass to another. When he arrived at Dawn’s Landing, he wasted no time contacting His Holiness to get this deed done, having no desire to think on it more. Within an hour of arriving at Dawn’s Landing, King Brent Jensen did the unthinkable. He beheaded a Queen.

It had not been a worry free rest of the evening, despite the efforts of the sisters and the soldiers of his Own. Not even his niece was able to ease his troubled mind, nor the news of a new Queen having been swept. It would probably take days to locate her, anyway. Even though he knew the effort to be useless, he made an attempt at sleep.

He lay in the room of the Queen’s Mansion for nearly an hour without any luck, when his Captain entered and told him of the rider from Road Safety saying the Queen had been located. Within an hour he and his men were horsed and once again on the road. He wondered the entire ride if this Queen would be compassionate toward the peoples. He didn’t need her to be Queen Shirley, he just needed her not to be Queen Pamela.

The first thought he had when he arrived was what a worthless excuse for a Queen this woman was going to be. She lay unconscious in the arms of Desiree, the wife of his best friend, who was trying to cool her forehead. She was either a drunkard or medically impaired. This did not bode well!