Hi, lovelies!! It gives me great pleasure today to host Kevin R. Doyle and his new book, “The Anchor,” here on FAB!! 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 Kevin and to increase your chances of winning!!
Thanks for stopping by!! Wishing you all lots of good luck in this fabulous giveaway!!
The Anchor
by Kevin R. Doyle
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GENRE: Mystery
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BOOK BLURB:
The Anchor: Jen has toiled away in television news, just waiting for a big break. And at the same time she finally gets a shot at the promotion opportunity she’s waited years for, head anchor for the nightly newscast, an unseen, shadowy man is desperate for her to notice him. When messages and well wishes don’t do the trick, her mysterious admirer intends to do anything necessary to make Jen a success and snare her attention, even if it means attacking her fiancé and killing off her competition.
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EXCERPT ONE:
“Package for you,” Aldiss said.
Jen looked down at the plain wrapped bundle lying on her desk.
“Jack do something to make up for?” her deskmate asked.
Jen puffed in exasperation and plopped into her chair.
“What hasn’t he done?” she replied.
Aldiss chuckled and bent over his computer screen.
“How long have you and I shared a desk?” she asked.
“A year or so, give or take,” Aldiss replied, looking up.
“Uh huh. And how long have I been seeing Jack?”
“That you’ve admitted to? Seems like running on a year.”
“Eleven months.”
“Close.” Her coworker turned away and went back to his work.
Jen tapped her fingers on her desk and stared at the bundle. It had a small card attached, but without raising the flap and reading it, it looked like some sort of generic message-type thing.
“And when’s the last time he’s sent me a gift at work?”
Aldiss grinned.
“What’s the package say?” he asked.
“You didn’t look?”
“Hey, bunky, I believe in privacy.”
“Some reporter you are.”
She glanced at the package again, noted that it had come from FedEx, and assumed Tammy had signed for it up at the front desk. Then she flipped the front flap on the little card open.
“Hmm.”
Aldiss
glanced up from his work but didn’t say anything.
Jen snared some scissors out of her desk and cut the paper open.
“Obviously, somebody thinks my current diet’s unnecessary.”
He
looked up again, his brows raised.
Jen held up a box of Russell Stover chocolates.
“Card not from him?”
Jen shook her head.
“Say who it’s from?”
She held the card up eye level.
“In appreciation of all your service to the community,” she recited.
“Doesn’t sound like a new lover.”
“I hope not. I’d like to think I’d know if I was seeing someone new.”
Aldiss furrowed his brow.
“You done any story lately that’s been big time?”
Jen half glared at him.
“Meaning?”
Aldiss spread his hands out in a placatory gesture.
“Hey, nothing personal. I’m just curious what they mean by service to the community.”
Jen glanced down at the card for a second before looking back up.
“Maybe it’s just a fancier way of saying ‘I like your work.’”
“Or maybe it’s just some creeper who’s got a thing for you. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time a hot news anchor had an admirer.”
Grinning, Jen picked a paper clip off her desk and flipped it at him.
“Far as that goes,” she snorted, “wouldn’t be the first time for me.”
Aldiss picked the clip up from where it had fallen on his desk and tossed it back her way.
“Just imagine if they end up giving you Karyn’s nighttime slot. They’ll be coming out of the woodwork.”
“Thanks,” Jen said. “I’m doing my best not to think of that.”
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GUEST POST:
When it came to imagining the setting for The Anchor, I used a similar tactic as I did a few years back when I began the Sam Quinton series. I based the setting for the story around a real place, but changed the name and fictionalized it some.
For the Quinton books, as some local readers have spotted rather easily, Providence, Missouri, is a stand-in for Columbia, my home of the last two decades. While naturally all the place and business names are changed, and the actual facts altered enough to keep me out of court, anyone at all familiar with the Columbia area can spot the inspiration right away.
I did this mainly because the Quinton books are a tad less serious than my other work (a broken-down professional wrestler who works as a private eye? seriously?), and upon dreaming up the series decided I wanted to have a little fun while writing it, at the same time paying a, mostly positive, tribute to my home.
With The Anchor, tonally about as far from the Quinton books as one can get, I decided to go all the way back to my hometown. Once again, anyone at all familiar with the area shouldn’t get too many pages in before identifying Wichita, Kansas, as the real-life equivalent of Riverside.
The similarities are there on both the macro and micro levels. On the macro, there are such inclusions as pointing out that for decades Riverside was known mainly as a hub of aircraft manufacturing (as in Wichita, the Air Capital), and there are a few slight references to the city’s history that I don’t want to give away here, hoping instead that eagle-eyed readers can spot them.
On the micro level, many of the locations of various scenes, including parks and hamburger joints, are based on actual places from my childhood. Though I want to make it clear that the TV station at the heart of the story is not based, as far as I know, on any of the handful of stations that serve the Wichita area.
So what was my main reason to go about developing setting in this way? Was it necessary to fictionalize actual cities for either Anchor or the Quinton books? Of course not. I could have placed them in generic communities, as I did when writing The Group or The Litter some years back, or I could have gone the standard way and placed the stories in actual, real cities. This way, though, basing on actual locations while changing things up somewhat, added a little fun and curiosity to the stories.
Which, as I had for some inexplicable reason set about writing five books in three years while still somehow working as a full-time teacher, I desperately needed.
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AUTHOR BIO:
A high-school teacher, former college instructor and fiction writer, Kevin R. Doyle is the author of numerous short horror stories. He’s also written three crime thrillers, The Group, When You Have to Go There, and And the Devil Walks Away and one horror novel, The Litter. In the last few years, he’s begun working on the Sam Quinton private eye series, published by Camel Press. The first Quinton book, Squatter’s Rights, was nominated for the 2021 Shamus award for Best First PI Novel. The second book, Heel Turn, was released in March of 2021, while the third in the series, Double Frame, came out in March of 2022.
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CONNECT WITH KEVIN:
Website:
http://www.kevindoylefiction.com
Email
kevinrossdoyle@gmail.com
Facebook Fan Page:
https://www.facebook.com/kevindoylefiction
Facebook Personal Page:
https://www.facebook/com/kevinrossdoyle
Goodreads Author Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6473241.Kevin_R_Doyle
Goodreads Book Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63428437-the-anchor
Amazon Author Page:
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BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon US Kindle eBook:
Amazon US Paperback:
Amazon CA Kindle eBook:
https://www.amazon.ca/Anchor-Kevin-R-Doyle-ebook/dp/B0BKH7JSZ6
Amazon CA Paperback:
https://www.amazon.ca/Anchor-Kevin-R-Doyle/dp/1937769763
Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-anchor-kevin-r-doyle/1142687593
Kobo US eBook:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-anchor-9
Kobo CA eBook:
https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-anchor-9
Smashwords eBook:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1177954
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
Night to Dawn Magazine and Books LLC will be awarding a $10 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner’s Choice!!!) 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 fabulous community outreach projects and awesome giveaways on here**
This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions. Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
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