The Junkyard Dick by Gillespie Lamb - Book Tour - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!

Hi, lovelies!!  It gives me great pleasure today to host Gillespie Lamb and his new book, “The Junkyard Dick,” 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 $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!  Also, come back daily to interact with Gillespie Lamb and to increase your chances of winning!!

Thanks for stopping by!!  Wishing you all lots of good luck in this fabulous giveaway!!

The Junkyard Dick

by Gillespie Lamb

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GENRE:  Contemporary Mystery

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BLURB:

Salvage yard operator and part-time sleuth Tak Sweedner is asked by a buddy, Roque Zamarripa, to investigate a murder. Tak says OK and for his trouble is assaulted with a tire iron. Then he's run off the side of a cliff-the investigation really goes downhill at that point!

Tak calls up gal-pal Emma to help him and soon discovers his feelings for the woman go beyond palling around. When she asks him to give up his investigation and concentrate on her, Tak balks. She might better have asked a bulldog to give up its bone. It would be like quitting, Tak said, and he wasn't a quitter.

Can this blue-collar crime-solver hang in there to get the bad guy... AND win his girl?

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AUTHOR’S NOTE:

My latest novel, The Junkyard Dick, is a mystery set in Uvalde, Tex. It contains numerous allusions to Uvalde streets, restaurants, swimming in the Nueces, and so on, and positively characterizes this multicultural, county-seat town where I happen to live.

One week before I began marketing the book through my website (gillespielamb.com), Uvalde became a national byword for school shootings. A minor consequence of that tragedy is that suddenly my book became awkwardly positioned in the marketplace. Many people naturally will see promotion of a book about Uvalde at this time as shamelessly cashing in on the tragic event. I want neither the perception nor the reality of that.

So, I have created a nonprofit that will benefit elementary fiction-writing programs in Uvalde—or create such programs out of whole cloth. Any royalties I receive from the book will go into the fund along with contributions from the publisher, Black Rose Writing. That will just be seed money. I will be soliciting donations to the fund from the literary industry and associated artistic ventures, from local and regional community organizations and businesses, and from readers anywhere who find comfort, escape or inspiration in fiction.

I am calling the nonprofit “The Story Inventors Club,” which is appropriately juvenile so that it might appeal to young people. It will be dedicated to the proposition that young imaginations are capable of producing fictional stories of merit and enduring value. The hoped-for legacy of the Club would be creation of a new generation of prose (and poetry) to delight readers, and the instilling of enhanced cognitive, language and communication skills in some young people.

So, as a consequence of all of the above, I now will be promoting two things: (1) a novel that I believe in on its literary merits, and (2) a Club that I believe can build a new and creative legacy upon the ashes of misfortune.

For more information on this Club, please go here: https://www.storyinventorsclub.com/home

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EXCERPT ONE:

Sunday stroll with dog…

I scratched behind the dog’s ears when it strolled over for companionship. We were a lazy pair. His eyes pleaded with me for a walk. So, I carried the bowl inside, rinsed it, grabbed a hat, and we headed out to the pasture behind the house. Otis trotted ahead and periodically ran back to jump against me and trot away again. A fun, fun dog.

I unhooked the pasture gate for us, and we moseyed north into my thirty-five acres of south Texas soil. We moved past clumps of blackbrush and sumac, through stretches of buffalo grass, and under a live oak whose branches seemed to defy gravity in their undulating horizontal reach. I admired several Beauty Berry shrubs near the western edge of the property that were favorites of wandering white-tailed deer. Certain times of the year, hungry deer virtually stripped the plants of their lavender fruit.

Otis padded down the bank of a dry gulch that foamed with runoff after heavy rains, but normally was no more than a pleasing variant in the landscape, cutting southeast across flat terrain. The dog poked its head into a guajillo thicket on the other side. The bush wasn’t good for livestock but was great for honeybees. Preserving it was my contribution to the local honey industry.

Otis lifted his leg to fertilize the bush and we began to walk the gulch back toward the house. A black-tailed jackrabbit sprang from hiding and Otis gave chase for half a minute before returning to my side with tongue lolling from the side of his muzzle.

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GUEST POST:

A Book for You…and the Kids (see below)

Let me explain: My new novel, The Junkyard Dick, is not a children’s book. But it could be, which brings me to the first of five reasons you should buy and read it.

1.)  It is family-friendly, which are not f-words usually associated with novels. Unless your child is offended by “Hell!,” he could safely leaf through the book. Yes, there is a murder and a several attempts to do in the hero, Tak Sweedner, but the violence is not egregious and mostly leaves Tak feeling philosophical rather than dead. The romance is genuine, but passion is anticipated rather than consummated. Tak’s buddy describes Tak’s girlfriend, Emma, as “a feisty little button,” which is not an appropriate feminist description, true, but, you know, guys. Nothing in the book should cause blood to rush to your cheeks.

2.)  It is written readably. That is no small thing. Someone somewhere concluded that seriously good books must be worked through by the sweat of your vowel and dint of your voluminous vocabulary. Naw. Composing accessible sentences doesn’t preclude exploring important issues. Plain-spoken people are not unserious in their conversations. Tak and his friend Roque and Roque’s dad Pele and Pele’s sheriff peer Phillipe all speak with a clarity that is music to the eyes of readers. The Junkyard Dick is a “beach read,” meaning a book you can enjoy without taking a dictionary to the seashore with you.

3.)  It is a true murder mystery. Where poor Pablo was done in is clear. Whodunit is not clear at all. Why the killer dunit is beyond speculation. If you are a reader who likes to guess the who and how and why of a story, this might be a book for you. I can’t promise that you won’t figure out the chain of events leading to murder. You’re awfully smart, after all. I can promise you Tak won’t be the only person chagrined by being duped.

4.)  It is a blue-collar sleuthing story. Not a cozy mystery presided over by a marm or a retired cop back on the beat. Nor is it the tale of a hard-boiled detective, or of a smooth and indestructible guy replete with muscles and quips. Tak Sweedner is a regular guy. He runs a junkyard and likes to puzzle out crimes. He fumbles run-ins with bad guys, overlooks critical clues and tends to let his affection for Emma cloud his mind. Tak cares enough about the woman in his life to give her some priority. How blue-collar of him!

5.)  It is a book about… Uvalde. Yes, the setting is, by name and description, the southwest Texas community where I live and which was stricken in May by a wanton shooting. The horror happened a few weeks before I began marketing The Junkyard Dick. I quickly determined that I could not market the place of the book—with live oak trees in the middle of streets, clear-water river swims, gordita restaurant hangouts—without seeming to capitalize on the tragedy. So, I created a nonprofit into which my royalties and contributions from the publisher will kick off funding for programs to foster creative writing for elementary-age children in Uvalde. You can read more about it at the website, storyinventorsclub.com. You are invited to buy, read and enjoy The Junkyard Dick and, at the same time, help children recover from tragedy through writing of prose and poetry.

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AUTHOR BIO:

Gillespie Lamb developed writing skills as a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist before leaving journalism to become a freelancer and pursue less formulaic writing. He published his first novel in 2017, a middle-grades reader about a girl who rode an “orphan train” from New York City to Kansas. It is titled The Beamy Courage of Gerta Scholler. This second novel is his initial foray into the mystery genre. The setting of The Junkyard Dick is the rural Texas region where Lamb lives.

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CONNECT WITH GILLESPIE LAMB:

Website:

https://www.gillespielamb.com

Goodreads Author Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17167333.Gillespie_Lamb

Goodreads Book Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61257463-the-junkyard-dick

Amazon Author Page:

https://amzn.to/3Bn1YmZ

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BOOK BUY LINKS:

Amazon US Kindle eBook:

https://amzn.to/3TSAsVH

Amazon US Paperback:

https://amzn.to/3RyBF34

Amazon CA Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.ca/Junkyard-Dick-Gillespie-Lamb-ebook/dp/B09ZYLLH65

Amazon CA Paperback:

https://www.amazon.ca/Junkyard-Dick-Gillespie-Lamb/dp/1685130178

Barnes and Noble Paperback:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-junkyard-dick-gillespie-lamb/1141416409

Black Rose Writing Paperback:

https://www.blackrosewriting.com/mystery/thejunkyarddick

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Gillespie Lamb will be awarding a $25 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner’s Choice!!!) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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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.