Guest Blogger Preview of Book 4 “The Case of The Persian Plague”

Hello RPP Blog Readers!

I’m a guest blogger here at Red Petal Press. Here’s hoping you enjoy some thoughts from time to time.

I was fortunate to read a proof copy of Jason Case’s latest manuscript “Persian Plague”. This is clearly his best book in the series. It is an exciting read, with several unexpected story turns. Colorado, London, Turkey, secret passages, 007 class technology, and colorful characters. Even the supporting characters are just that – characters! Loved the truck driver. And of course, this book is exciting all the way. It’s a globe trotting romp, and I was very surprised by what turned out to be the actual “Persian Plague”. I know the book hasn’t been published yet, but Red Petal Press told me it is in proof review. I take that to mean it will be out shortly. You won’t be disappointed.

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What’s In A Name?

Everything. While performing some cursory searches for the proposed title “The Persian Plague” for Book 4 of The MacMaster Chronicles, the search engine returned over 3 million links. Apparently there really was a Persian Plague in the mid-1800s. Our fiction title would get lost in that much data. If you add “case” (a double-entendre – author’s last name is “case”), 2 million links are returned. If I put the 3 words in quotes, very few links are present. And so I think the new book title will be “A Case of the Persian Plague”. Our book will be the only one out there with that title.

Our e-books on sale at Smashwords!

It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and Winter in the Southern Hemisphere. What better time to enjoy a Smashwords ebook!
Our books are included in Smashwords Summer/Winter promotion, taking place July 1-31. Visit the Smashwords link and get our e-books at half price. Use the code SSW50 at checkout for 50% off. Thanks very much.

1861 Prelude to Civil War, Whitman’s Words of Witness

This is Whitman’s poem “1861″, published in 1865, from his work “Drum-Taps”, as witness to civil war.

For anyone who is watching the Scott brothers’ “Gettysburg” on the history channel:

1861.

ARM’D year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you,
terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisp-
ing cadenzas piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes,
advancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands—
with a knife in the belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud—your sonorous voice
ringing across the continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great
cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the
workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois
and Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and de-
scending the Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on
deck along the Ohio river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers,
or at Chattanooga on the mountain top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed
in blue, bearing weapons, robust year;
Heard your determin’d voice, launch’d forth again and
again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round
lipp’d cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.

Excerpt from ‘Poem of You, Whoever You Are.’ Walt Whitman 1860 ed.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you,
that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love
none better than you.

(Excerpt of a poem from 1860 edition of “Leaves of Grass’)

(MRC, ed.  – I love the position of the poem whispering to the reader.  Whitman’s genius displayed.)

Haiku in English

The scent of cherry petals drifting on the morning breeze.

EBBs “How Do I Love Thee”

A poem that has endured and is quoted yet.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Transcribed from “Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” in The Best Known Poems of Elizabeth & Robert Browning. New York: Book League of America and Blue Ribbon Books, 1942, Page 86