Hi,
lovelies! It gives me great pleasure
today to host Roger Peppercorn and his new book, “On The Devil's Side of
Heaven”! For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of
the images in this post.
Be
sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $10 Amazon or Barnes
and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back
daily to interact with Roger and to increase your chances of winning!
Thanks
for stopping by! Wishing you lots of
luck in this fabulous giveaway!
On The Devil's Side of
Heaven
by Roger
Peppercorn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Thriller / Crime
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
With
the drop of a judge’s gavel, Walt Walker has finally lost everything. The badge
and gun he used to carry and the moral certainty of right and wrong, good and
evil that used to keep him grounded. Now Walt, sans gun, gets his badges from
an Army Navy store. He spends his days in South Florida, working for a boutique
insurance firm as their investigator. He spends his nights in dive bars, trying
to forget the mess he has made of his life.
Ronald
Jacobs always preferred the title Human Resource Manger to Hitman. But now that
he's retired, he can concentrate on living in the shadows as a respectable
gentlemen farmer. Far from the reach and pull of his past life.
Their
transgressions are behind them but a chance encounter and a failed
assassination attempt sets the two of them on a collision course of violence
and retribution. Hunted by contract killers, the law, and corporate bag men,
they are pursued across the unforgiving adobes and the sweeping vistas of the
Mesa Valley in Western Colorado.
Survival
means putting their past in front of them and their differences aside, because
in this world the only thing that matters is to cast not others on the devil’s
side of heaven, lest you be cast in with them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT TWO:
After
Ronald had emptied his last clip he waited to see if the threat would advance
into the house or if they had decided enough was enough. A long five minutes of
silence dragged into fifteen minutes and then into thirty. After that, he
decided to move Jessica and himself deeper into the house, to a better
defensive position. Jessica was sobbing and beating his chest.
“Why
are they doing this?” she cried.
He
had no answer. Instead, he held her close, smoothing her hair and patting her
gently on her back. “I don’t know,” was all he could muster.
The
adrenaline coursing through him was unbearable. He wanted to fight back; to
hunt the man who had invaded their home and then make him regret that decision
in a very painful and deadly way. Inside, Ronald was working to force down the
impulse to leave her here and seek out those who would do him harm. It took a
long time for those feelings to subside and in its place, a burning anger began
to take over.
“Jess,
I promise you the men who did this will pay,” he said.
Jess
reacted like she had been slapped. “No you won’t. You’re going to let the
police do their jobs and YOU’RE not going to do anything! Do you hear me,
Ronald?”
He
didn’t answer right away, the thoughts of vengeance and retribution taking
front and center in all of his thoughts.
“I
don’t think that’s a good idea. They are going to ask questions I can’t
answer,” he said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GUEST POST:
My Favorite Scene in This Book…
This is a very hard question for me to answer because there are
a few that really stand out. Probably because they are the first scenes, I
created. In chapter 1 we meet Walt in divorce court. He’s defending himself
mostly because he has broken, but also because he’s at the height of his
alcoholism and he’s aware his kids belong with their mother.
Excerpt Chapter 1
Today I am in divorce court.
What’s in dispute is how much it’s going to cost me and more importantly, how
often the spoils of my loins and I will get to spend time together. The former
is a lot (for which I have no means to pay) and the latter is turning out to be
not much.
I can’t really complain.
After the incident, I began to drink… a lot. Which is to say that if it had
booze in it and I was awake, I would be able to give you a pretty good
description of the bottom of the glass, bottle, or jug I was drinking from at
the time.
I haven’t surrendered to a
higher power yet, but I do attend meetings. What this really means is I show up
on time, I’m relatively sober, but I don’t participate in a way that my
on-again-off-again sponsor says is meaningful or helpful to others. I haven’t
the funds for a good mouthpiece so I represent myself in court, which is part
of the problem.
My wife has the best lawyer a
dentist can buy while I have chosen to throw myself on the mercy of the court
and as it turns out, mercy is in short supply. My soon-to-be ex-wife, Lori,
knows all about the incident but we have agreed it won’t factor into the
divorce. What that really means is my character and honor will be freely
impugned by counsel and I have no meaningful way to combat it without being
forced into pleading the fifth.
I really enjoyed chapter 5 because in this scene you get to see
Walt go from a flippant casual drunk without a care in the world and the next
he is concerned parent. Spoiler alert in this chapter you also learn where the
title of the book comes from.
“Jessica, you know why. The fact
that I took the proverbial bullet for him doesn’t make it any better or you any
less innocent,” I growled into the phone.
I heard her exhale loudly
into the phone and then she cast her line with just enough weight on the other
end to make sure I would see it, hit it and swallow it. “Someone tried to kill
us last night,” she said.
I put the glass on the bar
and stared at a decal someone had glued down for reasons unknown. It held me in
place for just a couple of beats. It said: “Cast not others on the devil’s side
of heaven, lest you want to be cast with them”. Ah, Rickets.
Chapter 5 is near and dear to my heart because this is the
chapter I submitted to Wallace Publishing. It’s a free standing chapter that
helps transition Walt from working as a insurance fraud investigator to helping
track down hired gunman.
But I had it covered. I called Phil when the cuckoo clock in my
head stopped singing in my ears. We agreed to meet at an out of the way bar
called “The Shaft”. It was owned by a guy named Jackie Deutch. He named his bar
after a coal mine in West Virginia. After thirty years of digging coal and iron
out of the bowels of a mountain, he decided there had to be an easier and safer
way to make a living. So he pulled the pin and retired to south Florida. The
Shaft was a blue-collar bar with old-time spittoons on the floor. It was one of
those neighborhood places that had a bad name yet never showed up on any police
blotter nor could anyone ever remember the last time a bad element had wandered
in and busted the place up.
Chapter 31 is the arc of the book and also the first scene I
really envisioned when I started to lay out the book. It was the first scene I
sketched out that brings all of the major characters together through the
various plots I laid out. This scene was particularly difficult to write
because there are multiple action sequences that are both separate and intertwined
together.
It’s really the first time you get to see my two main characters
on equal footing and also where you see the limits both of them are willing to
go to in the name of justice. I can’t say much more about this particular
chapter without giving away a lot of spoilers here but I can give you a small
insight into who my two main characters are.
I straightened up and looked
him in the eye.
“You swore no more killing.”
“And right now, he’s alive.
Take comfort in that
knowledge. I can honestly say with a clear conscience, I didn’t kill anybody.”
“Confessions of a serial
killer. Nice.”
“Walter, I’m not really in
the mood right now for a morality lesson. Also, if I recall, you were the one
who both beat a defenseless man and nailed his nuts to a chair.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR BIO:
Roger Peppercorn has
suffered for the better part of his life from wanderlust and this need to see
the other side of the horizon has taken him to all parts of the world. The
people and backdrop of his travels have served as the inspiration behind his
characters and storytelling.
As a
child, his mother taught him to read and write. His father's collection of
Louis Lamour novels provoked the fantastical images in his mind and the romance
of the written word. In the seventh grade, his history teacher brought the
characters of a bygone era alive. From that point on, Roger began to hone his
skills in storytelling. After high school, Roger took a course in creative
writing that was taught by a long haired hippy in a Hawaiian shirt.
Roger’s
grandmother used to tell hypothetical tales of traveling across the plains in a
covered wagon, the woes of having a son sent off to war, and the larger-than-life
man she met at Pea Green Hall who later became her husband.
His
first two novels "On The Devils Side of Heaven" and "The
Sometimes Long Road Home" take place on the western slopes of Colorado, in
the sleepy town of Fruita, where he grew up. They center on the strained
relationships and sorted histories of three characters - Walt, Ronald and
Jessica, and violence that erupts around them.
Roger
is married and is a father of four beautiful children. He currently calls South
Dakota his home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CONNECT WITH ROGER:
Website:
Blog:
Email:
rpeppercorn@yahoo.com
Facebook Author Page:
Facebook Fan Page:
Twitter:
Instagram:
Goodreads Personal Page:
Goodreads Author Page:
Goodreads Book Page:
Amazon Author Page:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon Kindle eBook:
Amazon Paperback:
Amazon UK:
Barnes and Noble Paperback:
The Book Depository Paperback:
BAM! Books-A-Million Paperback:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY INFO:
Roger will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B/N GC to
a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this
blog. This does not cost you anything,
it just helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
Roger ~ Good morning! Welcome to FAB! It is so great to have you here! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for putting this on today and all that it brings.
DeleteThanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteWow.. This sounds like a super exciting book.. I can't wait!
ReplyDeleteAnd I am looking forward to hearing from you after you read it.
DeleteGreat
ReplyDeleteJust like Tony the Tiger says it's GREEAAAATTTT!!!
DeleteSounds like a great book.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very good book and I'm proud of the way it has turned out. I look forward to hearing your feedback.
DeleteI hope your book is a success. It sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteThank you Bernie for the thought. I too hope it is a smashing success. And it is a fun read as well as interesting.
DeleteGood day to the fabulous brunette blog and thanks for hosting todays event.
ReplyDeleteRoger, How do you celebrate a book release?
ReplyDeleteI've only had the one so far, but when my book launched my wife and I stayed up and just kept hitting the refresh button on Amazon to see it go live. Later that day we had friends and family over for a nice dinner and drinks. It was close and intimate. Truly, it was a day we will not soon forget. Thanks for the question.
DeleteCongrats on this tour and thank for the opportunity to read about another great book out there to read. It helps out so I can find books I know my family will enjoy reading. Thanks as well for the giveaway.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a very intriguing read.
ReplyDelete