Category: Guest Posts

#GuestPost Presidents’ Day 2025

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts> Holidays> Presidents' Day
“The looking glass for 1787” – A political cartoon attributed to Amos Doolittle satirizing the debates between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.

It is therefore obvious to the least intelligent mind, to account why, great power in the hands of a magistrate, and that power connected, with a considerable duration, may be dangerous to the liberties of a republic—the deposit of vast trusts in the hands of a single magistrate, enables him in their exercise, to create a numerous train of dependants—this tempts his ambition, which in a republican magistrate is also remarked, to be pernicious and the duration of his office for any considerable time favours his views, gives him the means and time to perfect and execute his designs—he therefore fancies that he may be great and glorious by oppressing his fellow citizens, and raising himself to permanent grandeur on the ruins of his country.—And here it may be necessary to compare the vast and important powers of the president, together with his continuance in office with the foregoing doctrine—his eminent magisterial situation will attach many adherents to him, and he will be surrounded by expectants and courtiers—his power of nomination and influence on all appointments—the strong posts in each state comprised within his superintendance, and garrisoned by troops under his direction—his controul over the army, militia, and navy—the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be used to screen from punishment, those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt—his duration in office for four years: these, and various other principles evidently prove the truth of the position—that if the president is possessed of ambition, he has power and time sufficient to ruin his country.

(Emphasis my own.)

This quote is from “Cato IV”, an essay published in 1787. It is one of the Anti-Federalist Papers that argued against ratification of the Constitution, in this case arguing that the powers of the presidency were too broad and held for too long.

While not all of Cato IV holds up – nobody has reason to care nowadays that the state that the vice president comes from technically gets a bit of a boost in the Senate, nor could one imagine any presidency or premiership being usefully held for just one year – I fear that we are all about to learn the hard way that the Anti-Federalist’s fear that the presidency could become tantamount to an elective monarchy was not unjustified.

In “Federalist No. 69”, Alexander Hamilton argued that the presidency had a built-in accountability mechanism (as compared to the British monarchy) in the form of impeachment:

The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware.

What Hamilton did not anticipate or ignored was the possibility that the president could end up commanding a “train of dependants” who would refuse to hold him to account.

I will not sugarcoat: we are in a dangerous time for the American Republic, and I make no apology for this post being more political than the ones in the past couple years. But regardless of your own views on the current situation, please at least consider this: the U.S. Constitution was the work of humans, not demigods, and it was contested. It may be time to start reading and considering some of the arguments made against it and understand why the current form of the presidency had its critics all the way back to the 1780s.

#GuestPost: Martin Luther King Day 2025: Number 21

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts> Holidays> Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Maude Ballou and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Picture from the Ballou family)

The job of secretary to a minister is generally not associated with any particular risk to life or limb. But there are exceptions. From an interview published in the Washington Post (and republished by the Chicago Tribune in 2015:

Four days later [after the bombing of Ralph Abernathy’s house], Montgomery Improvement Association leaders supplied the chief of the highway patrol with a “List of persons and churches most vulnerable to violent attacks.” King registered at the top. Mrs. Maude Ballou was No. 21.

“Maybe I didn’t have the sense to worry,” says Ballou, who later spent three decades as a college administrator and a middle and high school teacher in North Carolina. “I didn’t have time to worry about what might happen, or what had happened, or what would happen,” she says in the cadences of a Baptist minister. “We were very busy doing things, knowing that anything could happen, and we just kept going.”

One time a man came down from Birmingham. “He said the White Citizens’ Council had sent him down there to tell me to stop working for civil rights or they would get my children. And that’s what got me, when you think about your babies. That really shook me,” says Ballou, with considerable equanimity. “But it didn’t stop me.”

Another night, working late in the office, alone, “somebody was outside watching. They were outside there in the car. And I found out later it was the KKK. But I was not afraid, for some reason,” she says. “I was a daredevil, I guess.”

What was the Montgomery Improvement Association? The organization that organized the Montgomery bus boycotts.

Who was Number 21, Maude Ballou? Martin Luther King, Junior’s first secretary. She worked in that role from 1955 to 1960, handling King’s voluminous correspondence (including putting off Malcolm X), keeping his affairs in order, and helping to set up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference office when King moved to Atlanta.

Ballou went on maternity leave in 1958, so Hilda Stewart Proctor, a niece of Harriet Tubman and active in other civil rights organizations, filled in for seven months. King clearly made an impression on her; later that year, after she had moved on to other work, she still offered to help with his correspondence prior to his trip to India:

If I do 100 letters between now and the time you leave for India that will peel down the pile a little won’t it?

AND I WOULD LIKE TO DO IT AS ANY FRIEND WOULD DO WHO IS INTERESTED IN GETTING YOU OFF TO INDIA. I shall donate my services to the cause.

Please do this. Of course, as usual, all your work will be held in the strictest confidence.

PLEASE LET ME HELP BECAUSE I STILL FEEL AS THOUGH I AM YOUR SECRETARY WITHOUT PORTFOLIO, SECRETARY AT LARGE, SECRETARY ON ‘MATERNITY’ LEAVE, not mine, of course.

King also had a significant effect on his final primary secretary, Dora McDonald, who worked for him from 1960 until his assassination in 1968. From a profile of her by Dudley Percy published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1989:

Working for Dr. King was her political awakening. Unlike many of those who found themselves aligned with the movement, Miss McDonald did not initially join because of a deep-felt conviction. Dr. King sought her out when he moved back to Atlanta from Montgomery, Ala., to co-pastor his father’s church.

…

Once she agreed to join his staff, his spirit was contagious.

“After I got into my job, and what I was doing, what we were doing, and what the movement meant, I never wanted to be doing something else. I was a part of something momentous.”

King’s spirit may have been contagious, but the Civil Rights Movement could not have been sustained on spirit alone. It was a collaborative, thoughtful effort that depended on organizational skills to pull off. Consequently, on this MLK Day, please give a thought not only to King and the other luminaries of the movement, but also to the secretaries, the bookkeepers and the office managers who kept things running.

As with my 2022 MLK Day post, I am grateful to the The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford for making many of King’s papers available online.

#GuestPost: Election Day 2024: Readings

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Election Day> Guest Posts

Pins labeled "Vote" with American flag iconography.
Surprisingly – or maybe not – the first American to vote from outer space did so while on a Russian space station.

Rule §81.35 of the Texas Administrative Code:

(a) A person who meets the eligibility requirements of a voter under the Texas Election Code, Chapter 101, but who will be on a space flight during the early-voting period and on election day, may vote under this chapter. In order to vote by this method, the voter must apply by a Federal Postcard Application (“FPCA”) and meet the requisite deadlines under state law. The FPCA may be submitted by fax or other electronic means.

(b) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”) shall submit in writing to the Secretary of State a method of transmitting and receiving a secret ballot for persons on a space flight during an election period. The Secretary of State shall approve, deny, or request further information from NASA on the proposed method of transmission.

(c) Proposed changes to an approved ballot transmission method shall be submitted in writing to the Secretary of State for approval.

The legislation that enabled this was passed after astronaut John Blaha attempted but failed to vote while in orbit (the state of Texas had no laws permitting electronic ballots at the time). After the law was passed, David Wolf was the first astronaut to successfully vote in orbit from Mir.

Of course, Americans find themselves voting from other remote locations. Paul Coldren writing about voting from Antarctica:

Since I was in Antarctica during the Fall 2022 election, it was important for me to figure out a way to reliably participate in elections at the federal, state, and local levels.

I haven’t moved to Antarctica; I’m simply temporarily residing in Antarctica. I’m still a San Francisco resident and therefore eligible to vote in local elections.

…
When I got to Antarctica, to my surprise, I already had an updated voter registration card waiting for me! It flew down on one of the Winfly flights; it might have even been my flight. Even though I’m getting the ballot via email, they still send a physical confirmation card. This was my first piece of mail I received in Antarctica.

Americans have also found themselves voting from the battlefield, though setting up the mechanics to support this was heavily contested during WW2:

Debate over the bill divided legislators along both partisan and regional lines. Initial drafts of the bill mandated that no soldier would be required to pay a poll tax or make any other type of payment in order to vote. This provision infuriated representatives of the eight southern states (all former members of the Confederacy) that continued to use poll taxes in order to disenfranchise African American voters. Some congressmen accused their southern colleagues of blocking the Soldier Voting Act’s passage just because it might benefit African Americans in uniform. Representative John Jennings of Tennessee vehemently declared that African Americans “are citizens of this country, they are its defenders, and they have the right to vote.” With less than two months to go before the election of 1942, Jennings and his allies finally secured the votes necessary to override supporters of the poll tax. The final bill was signed into law on September 16, 1942. Among the bill’s provisions, it guaranteed that “every individual absent from the place of his residence and serving in the land or naval forces of the United States” was entitled to vote in elections for federal offices.” It also contained a provision which stated that “No person in military service in time of war shall be required, as a condition of voting in any election… to pay any poll tax.”

In the wake of this improbable victory, the bill still failed to live up to its sponsors’ hopes. A mere 28,000 service members, out of nearly four million men and women in uniform in 1942, voted in the election. While the late passage of the bill gave states little time to prepare ballots and send them to soldiers, the bill also failed to make any provisions for soldiers serving overseas to vote. This omission stemmed from the opinion of War Department representatives, who informed Congress that the demands of wartime shipping and slow mail service overseas would preclude the return of overseas soldiers’ ballots by the election.

It’s easier to vote from overseas now, in part thanks to the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

As Andy Craig put it, America has a glorious tradition of voting:

The state is at its core the institution of violence, the monopoly on the use of force. It is odd that we limit this propensity by expanding the number of people who participate in it, who have a hand in directing it, but the arrangement works like no other can. It is undeniable that democracies have been more liberal, more prosperous, more rights-respecting than any of their autocratic alternatives. They are not immune from rebellions, coups, civil wars, chaos and disorder, blood in the streets, nor from committing massive injustices and abhorrent depravities. But they are vastly less prone to these things, and much more capable of correcting them.

When we include groups of people previously excluded from the democratic process, we are not just tinkering with political incentives, as important as those are. We are making a commitment to respect their full and equal membership in our society. We are acknowledging them as our equals, and receiving that same acknowledgement in return.

…

The people who make our elections happen are in a very real way peacemakers. And so are we, when we partake of what they are giving us. Freedom, security, justice … the recognition in each other of the innate worth of our shared humanity. The same sentiment can be expressed in more secular terms, but if you’re so inclined, it is the sense that we are all, without exception, created in the image of God. Created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. That we ought not inflict harm on each other, despite the fact that we can. The promise of, as Lincoln put it, the better angels of our nature.

If you are reading this, you are probably not on the International Space Station or in Antarctica, so it is probably easier for you to cast your ballot. Many elections are consequential, but this one is especially so. If you can vote, please do so!

Labor Day 2024

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts> Holidays> Labor Day

In 2021 the Belgian singer Stromae released the song “Santé”, a paean to the invisible workers who receive all too little regard while performing work that supports our society. If you have never seen the music video, stop reading now and watch the link above, and rejoice in being one of the lucky ten thousand today.

Back? Let’s continue. Part of the lyrics are this:

Pilotes d’avion ou infirmières
Chauffeurs de camion, hôtesses de l’air
Boulangers ou marins-pêcheurs
Un verre aux champions des pires horaires
Aux jeunes parents bercés par les pleurs
Aux insomniaques de profession
Et tous ceux qui souffrent de peines de cœur
Qui n’ont pas le cœur aux célébrations
Qui n’ont pas le cœur aux célébrations

In English:

Airplane pilots or nurses
Truck drivers, flight attendants
Bakers or fishermen
A drink to the champions of the worst schedules
To young parents rocked by crying
To professional insomniacs
And all those who suffer from heartache
Who have no heart for celebrations
Who have no heart for celebrations

The mention of nurses is of course not surprising for a pandemic-era song, but let’s consider the airline pilots. Pilots are of course not nearly as invisible as the cooks and cleaners shown in the music video; after all, who could miss them in their smart uniforms with stripes on their sleeves? It is not every job where one is responsible for the safety of dozens or hundreds of people at once. Flying is very safe (but we’ll get back to that in a moment), but the sheer flying skill of a pilot is tested the most when things have gone wrong.

A pilot is not just a glorified bus driver (but don’t underestimate the bus drivers either!); the training required makes piloting very clearly a skilled profession that continues to command public respect. For all that, however, pilots are still labor, not management. A pilot-in-command’s near absolute authority regarding flight safety evaporates the moment that they exit the plane. Fundamentally, the management of the airline calls the shots, telling pilots where to go, when, and with what fuel allotment. Pilots need their unions; passenger airlines are not in fact hugely profitable percentage-wise, so there is always at least of background level of management attempting to cut cost as well as a lot of very smart people trying to completely automate airliners.

Cut costs too much in the wrong ways, of course, and the result will be less safety. However, airliner travel is incredibly safe by every measure you can think of. The last fatal passenger airliner crash in the United States was over fifteen years ago!

This degree of safety is mostly not a matter of luck. In fact, I argue that it is one of the crowning achievements of modern society: it is the result of literally decades of work across the globe to improve aircraft design, pilot training, air traffic control, and emergency procedures conducted by governments and corporations across the globe. Along the way, we collectively have learned many important lessons, some of which apply to most any job that presents risks to the workers or the public:

  • Make sure to investigate every significant accident or incident (and as many of the minor ones as you can)
  • Keep digging until you find the ultimate cause(s) of the incident, then dig some more
  • Look for the systemic causes before laying blame on the people involved (too often has “pilot error” been invoked for crashes where the fundamental problem was with the design of the airplane)
  • Make it possible for people to report incidents without fear for their jobs
  • Safety practices are perishable: you can never stop doing your bit to promote safety culture when doing dangerous jobs

For more on flight safety, I particularly recommend Admiral Cloudberg’s retrospectives on airline crashes.

These lessons (and the more technical ones about aircraft design and flying procedures) were learned the hard way. Many regulations are written in blood, especially in flight safety.

So on this labor day, please also give a toast to the safety staff of the world: the crash investigators, the engineers, the policy analysts, the lawyers, the pilots… and the flight attendants.

Marlene’s Note: Because Reading Reality is, at its heart – or mine – a book blog, I can’t resist mentioning a book series here that is absolutely on the nose for the topic at hand. If, after reading Galen’s excellent post about the labor of pilots and the labor of the people at the National Transportation and Safety Board who investigate incidents to help keep us all safe while we travel – and particularly while we fly – you’d like to explore that process a bit more in an exciting, fictional way, through the operations of a terrific group of characters, let me recommend (again, I’ve done it before in reviews) the Miranda Chase NTSB series by M.L. Buchman that begins with Drone. The series is a political technothriller, but at the heart of each and every story is a plane crash and the team’s meticulous investigation into the cause of that crash. So far, every single book in the series has been an edge-of-the-seat thrill ride, and I’ve loved every one of them. Hopefully you will too.

Memorial Day 2024

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts> Holidays> Memorial Day
Rear Adm. Lisa Franchetti lays a wreath at the US monument at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan, Korea.

The U.S. has fought wars overseas from almost the very beginning of its history. Many of the fallen have, by necessity or by choice, been lain to rest in the country where they fell.

The American Battle Monuments Commission administers 26 cemeteries and 31 monuments, almost all of which are located overseas. One of them is the monument in the picture, the U.S. Korean War Memorial in the United Nations cemetery in Busan, Korea.

A poem of the “forgotten war” by Lt. Cmdr. (Ret.) Roberto J. Prinselaar, U.S. Coast Guard:

We didn’t do much talking,
We didn’t raise a fuss.
But Korea really happened
So please – remember us.

We all just did our duty
But we didn’t win or lose.
A victory was denied us
But we didn’t get to choose.

We all roasted in the summer
In winter, we damn near froze.
Walking back from near the Yalu
With our blackened frozen toes.

Like the surf the Chinese kept coming
With their bugles in the night.
We fired into their masses
Praying for the morning light.
All of us just had to be there

And so many of us died.
But now we’re all but half forgotten
No one remembers how we tried.

We grow fewer with the years now
And we still don’t raise a fuss.
But Korea really happened
So please – remember us.

Guest Review: Chef’s Choice by TJ Alexander

Posted on by Amy Daltry | Author : | A+ Reviews> book reviews> Guest Posts
Guest Review: Chef’s Choice by TJ AlexanderChef's Choice (Chef's Kiss, #2) by T.J. Alexander
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, queer romance, romantic suspense
Series: Chef's Kiss #2
Pages: 336
Published by Emily Bestler Books on May 30, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A fake dating arrangement turns to real love in this deliciously delightful queer rom-com from the author of the sweetly satisfying Chef’s Kiss.
When Luna O’Shea is unceremoniously fired from her frustrating office job, she tries to count her blessings: she’s a proud trans woman who has plenty of friends, a wonderful roommate, and a good life in New York City. But blessings don’t pay the bills.
Enter Jean-Pierre, a laissez-faire trans man and the heir to a huge culinary empire—which he’ll only inherit if he can jump through all the hoops his celebrity chef grandfather has placed in his path. First hoop: he needs a girlfriend, a role that Luna is happy to play…for the right price. She’s got rent to pay, after all! Second hoop: they both need to learn how to cook a series of elaborate, world-renowned family recipes to prove that Jean-Pierre is a worthy heir. Admittedly, Luna doesn’t even know how to crack an egg, but she’s not going to let that—or any pesky feelings for Jean-Pierre—stop her.
Another swoon-worthy and heartwarming queer love story from a charming new voice in romance.

(More chefs! More queer folk!  Now I just need the sci-fi. Marlene’s recommendation in a comment on my last post has been added to my reading list, so look for a review on that once conference season is over for me.)

Guest Review by Amy: The opening chapter of this book hit me like a shovel to the face; Luna O’Shea gets fired, abruptly, for no other apparent reason than for being transgender. This is something that is unfortunately common among gender non-conforming people in the United States, and  that sort of discrimination is not even prohibited  by law in much of the country. Having had a number of friends this has happened to, I found the chapter very triggering and unpleasant, and I had to put the book down and sleep on it, complete with nightmares of me being treated that way.  I was tempted to tell Marlene this was a “DNF,” a book that I simply could not finish. But I knew deep in my soul somewhere that author TJ Alexander would not do us dirty like that, and there was something good right behind that painful setup. Turns out, I was right, and I’m glad I kept reading. Once you’re past the rocks and shoals of that first chapter, there’s a lovely, fun story to be had here.

Escape Rating: A+. “Wealthy heir-apparent must appear to be in a relationship to inherit, so he gets a fake girlfriend” is a tried-and-true plot; the romance industry has made use of it for decades, and it’s a great venue for some really comedic scenes. TJ Alexander gives us a slight twist on it here; the wealthy young Frenchman Jean-Pierre isn’t simply an idling playboy, he’s also a transgender man, so there’s some family-acceptance issues in his life, too. His famous chef grandfather has set him a challenge:  recreate a pretentious, difficult nine-course meal that he is famous for, and he’s the heir. Fail, and he’s out of the will.  He needs a fast cover story for why he’s in New York, instead of talking to his (also famous chef) grandmother from the other side of the family, and transwoman Luna takes the bait – money, of course – and finds herself embroiled in family drama.  They’re going to take Papi’s challenge…but neither of them have a clue how to cook.

Our story begins a few months after the end of the companion story, Chef’s Kiss, and Simone and Ray figure in heavily, along with some of the other supporting cast from the earlier novel. I was delighted to see this, as I had really enjoyed the development of their relationship, and seeing what it looked like some months later as an established relationship was nice for me. It gave me a sort of Nora Roberts-esque wish that there was a third story to tell here somewhere, that could be plugged in around these two.

Meanwhile, back to the future in Chef’s Choice…as simply must happen, the not-couple is forced to act like a couple by circumstance way too early, when Luna’s mom shows up, drawn to town by the paparazzi pictures of her daughter with the young man, and a visit to Luna’s weekly friends-gathering at the local pub. Smooth, urbane Jean-Pierre handles all this with a healthy dose of Gallic stubbornness, but when Luna points out that their arrangement is little different from sex work, he loses his cool for a bit. There’s some back and forth – these two complicated people are trying really hard to make it look like they’re the perfect couple, and the challenges pile up fast.

The pair spend a weekend at his grandmother’s lavish condo being taught to cook by Simone and Ray, and we get some of the first hints that something more might be afoot for Luna and her “JP.”  Ray is non-binary, and when introduced, Jean-Pierre takes some time to make sure he has their pronouns right in both French and English. Luna finds that sort of caring unspeakably hot – she wants to “shove JP against the labeled shelves and grind like a freaking pepper mill.” That particular statement had me laughing loudly. The book is liberally garnished with fantastic one-liners and in-jokes like that, and it helps make the well-trodden plot a light, fun read, even through all the trials and tribulations.

I shan’t ruin the ending for you. In my review of Chef’s Kiss, I gigged the book slightly for its abrupt ending. I have no such complaint here; Jean-Pierre and Luna go to France for the cook-off, and the various threads of the story come together into a smooth, satisfying end. Along the way, Alexander grasps the question of “what makes a man, a man?” in their development of Jean-Pierre’s character, and touches on how gender non-conforming folks may struggle with the choice of how to interact with the world around them. Both questions are handled in a most gentle way, giving the reader space to consider these matters for themselves without struggle or pain.

Normally, in a book review, we don’t spend much time on the author’s acknowledgements, but this bit at the very end stuck out to me:

So if you’re reading this, you beautiful, powerful, tired trans person, please know that this was my love letter to you. I hope it brought you a little joy; you deserve every bit you can get.

Both of the tales in this series absolutely did. TJ, if you ever read this: thank you, from the bottom of my non-binary transgender heart.

TJ Alexander writes with mandoline-sharp wit, a clever eye for details, and a deep understanding of queer life and culture. This work, like its predecessor, gets my strongest possible recommendation.

Memorial Day 2023

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts> Holidays> Memorial Day

Memorial marker for Lt. John R. Fox

When directing artillery fire, using the phrase “danger close” signifies that the desired target for the fire is close to friendly forces, possibly including the artillery observer — and that the observer is aware of that fact. The distance for a strike to be considered “danger close” varies with the type of weapon, but for artillery it’s at minimum 600 meters. The point of the phrase, of course, is to acknowledge that the request is dangerous but not suicidal.

Calling a strike directly on one’s own position is an evocative act. As a former artillery office put it on Quora: “People who called in artillery, or gunships, or aerial bombs on their own position have been noted to have received EITHER a posthumous Medal of Honor OR… considered to be foolish and excitable at their funerals.” And that makes sense; trying to live to fight another day is better than a heroic sacrifice that accomplishes little.

Of course, some times living to fight another day is not in the cards. Lieutenant John R. Fox found himself in such a position in Sommocolonia, Italy, on 26 December 1944. A group of U.S. soldiers were dug in defending the village against an overwhelming force of the Wehrmacht. Lt. Fox directed artillery fire against the attackers, but eventually his position was about to get overrun with no chance of Fox being allowed to be captured. Consequently, he called down fire on his own position.

As it happened, one of Fox’s best friends, Maj. Otis Zachary, was the gunner. Zachary refused Fox’s request until a colonel ordered that the fire proceed.

After the battle, the villagers were rounded up and made to leave the village. Their priest recalled seeing Fox’s body surrounded by the corpses of a hundred attackers.

Instant Medal of Honor? Not so much:

Medal of Honor Recipient John R. Fox

Like many African American soldiers, Lt. Fox’s sacrifice was not recognized at the time. The “Buffalo Soldiers” were, after all, just expected to melt away. Formal desegregation of the army wouldn’t happen for another four years.  It took 38 years for him to be awarded a Distinguished Service Medal; 53 to get the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The villagers of Sommocolonia had long acknowledged the sacrifice of the U.S. soldiers in defense of their town, but had it not been for the efforts of the survivors and families of the soldiers, as well as that of author Solace Wales, Lt. Fox may not have been remembered at all.

Remembrance is not a passive act. It takes time and effort to remember, especially of the things that for whatever reasons of prejudice were discounted or intentional forgotten.

On this Memorial Day, remember — actively.

Review: Bound by Rhys Ford + Guest Post + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways> Guest Posts
Review: Bound by Rhys Ford + Guest Post + GiveawayBound (Chinatown Demons #1) by Rhys Ford
Format: ebook
Source: author
Formats available: ebook
Genres: M/M romance, urban fantasy
Series: Chinatown Demons #1
Pages: 105
Published by Rogue Firebird Press on November 30th 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

Chinatown, San Francisco.

A different place — another time— and where the city’s streets keep secrets, shadowy mysteries SFPD Inspector Spencer Ricci needs to dig through after he finds himself on a case involving a dismembered, mummified man in a restaurant’s locked storage room.

Spencer drags around a lot of baggage, including an ongoing battle with the bottle and a long career as an LAPD detective he’d set fire to in a blaze of booze-soaked mistakes. San Francisco is supposed to be a new start but his old ghosts haunt him, beckoning him back into his self-destructive bad habits. Bad habits that include contemplating doing dirty things with the wrong kind of guy and this time, it’s a sleek, cold-tempered medical examiner named Xian Carter with a complicated reputation.

For a century-old demon, Xian Carter is content with his secretive life. Hiding his nature from the mundane world, he blends in with the city’s inhabitants as best he can but even the best of predators make mistakes. Delving into the mysteries of the dead provide a welcome distraction from endless nights and hiding in plain sight amuses him, until something supernaturally wicked comes knocking on his door with an extremely hot, broody Inspector close behind.

Murder makes for strange bedfellows and this one is no exception. The twists and turns of the case leaves Xian and Spencer on a wild goose chase after clues but Xian can only hope there’s a human at the end of the trail—because the last thing San Francisco needs is another predator.

My Review:

I feel teased. Intrigued, slightly exasperated, and definitely, definitely teased.

I was expecting Bound to be a bit like Dim Sum Asylum, and it kind of is. Bound, like that previous marvelous story, takes place in a slightly off-kilter version of San Francisco. A version of our world where magic definitely exists, although the acceptance of that magic is less in-your-face and more under-the-table in this version of that storied city.

Detective Spencer Ricci certainly starts out this adventure as garden-variety human. Albeit the kind of garden variety that includes a lot of scars, a lot of baggage, a history of alcoholism and a need to make something out of his one last chance at being a cop.

Dr. Xian Carter, on the other hand, is absolutely not original recipe human – or at least not any longer. He might have been, once.

But that once was a century and a half ago. Another continent. Another lifetime. Considering how much has changed since the mid-19th century, another world.

Dr. Xian Carter is a medical examiner for the San Francisco Police Department. He’s the one who gets all the weird and wacky cases. And the case that brings Spencer and Xian together is way past weird and wacky and over the line into downright bizarre.

Somebody found a mummy. Not an honest-to-Bast Egyptian mummy, but a contemporary murder victim. Mummified. It’s Spencer Ricci’s job to figure out who wanted the victim dead. And for that matter, the identity of the desiccated corpse.

It’s up to Xian Carter to learn how, and why and whether this mess means that someone is invading his territory. Because Xian Carter is a demon, and San Francisco belongs to him.

And possibly, so does Spencer Ricci.

Escape Rating A-: Damn, this was good. And DAMN, this was short. As I said at the outset, I feel teased. The case is fascinating, the setup is wild, the chemistry between Spencer and Xian is explosive, and I want more of this world and this story pretty much yesterday.

I wanted to scream “NO!” when this story ended. Because it does end, and it does feel like this piece is complete – but it’s such a tiny piece of such an obviously greater (and great) world. Rhys hints at so much more to discover in this San Francisco, so much tension, so much angst, and SO MUCH MAGIC!

Also magical cats. Not that all cats aren’t at least a bit magical. But seriously, magical cats for the win!

An Alternate San Francisco, Just A Step To The Left Of Our Own Glittering City — (a word from our author, Rhys Ford)

When I began to write Bound, I knew I wanted to have a bit of fantastical combined with a dash of Asian horror. Sort of. The monsters in Asian mythology are usually a bit odd and driven by fierce emotions, usually revenge. There were bits and pieces I wanted to pull together as well as give a shout out to inspirations along the way. Since I’m going to be writing this as a serialized saga, it allows me to tease out bits and pieces of the world as I go, which is a lot of fun.

There’s a long argument of the pros and cons of having a paranormal world that’s hidden or out in the open. I’ve done both, most notably in Ink and Shadows for hidden and blurring the lines of hidden and open in the Hellsinger series. For the Chinatown Demons serializations, I wanted to do a hidden world where only the very wise could see the dangers but people knew something was off about the supernatural. Kind of a step away from the world we live in now.

So with all that being said, let’s talk about world building and what the underlying layers of the Chinatown Demons’ worlds hold.

OH BUT FIRST… A GIVEAWAY! RED ENVELOPE MONEY!

At each stop, enter to win a $20 gift certificate to the online retailer of your choice! Be sure to enter at every stop!

One of the major personality quirks of Xian’s that I’ll explore is his fondness for gambling. Well, his innate love of playing hanafuda, which is a flower card game. I grew up playing hanafuda in Hawai’i and while there are a few variations of the game, it’s the simplest one to master. I’ve even taught Greg Tremblay, the narrator of Bound, how to play it. It’s addicting and challenges the player depending on the level you want to play at. A child could play it and then with the addition of yaku, the playing level becomes harder. It’s a game of patience and calculation or simply matching the cards. Really, it all depends on the level of play.

Which brings me to Xian and his love of the game.

I’m going to include a website link here for the game just so you have a reference. There are very complicated yaku and the link shows some of the basic ones. Only some of these are played in the Hawai’i but it gives you a good idea of how they are constructed. Also, the Hawai’i game does not have the plain cards as 1 pt. For us, they are rubbish and discarded.

Link to basic hanafuda rules: https://www.hanafuda.fr/en/

Hawai’i rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian-style_Koi-Koi

In a lot of ways, hanafuda play marks the passage of time. Each suit represents a month as is depicted by a seasonal plant associated with that month. Since the play can vary, there’s a lot of intrigue while laying down your cards and that’s something that would greatly appeal to Xian. See, he truly is by nature a cat and this is one way he plays with humans. His brother, Jiro, has his own ways and those are best left for another time.

The thing with hanafuda and playing in Chinatown gambling halls is not just an exchange of money because trust me, fortunes have been won and lost betting on the appearance of the yakuza card at the wrong moment but there also is the very good chance that a favour or two will be won. Oftentimes, that’s a greater coin than actual cash. Xian is a dealer of secrets and he hoards them, tucking them away until he needs them later on. Remember, for him, this is a long game. Someone might not realize a secret shared over whiskey and cigarettes twenty years ago will come back to haunt him but it will and Xian will probably be the one to reap the rewards.

Gambling is a very serious business and hanafuda games are a great place to do business. Or even simply overhear business. While it’s technically a “Japanese” game, it’s flowed over into other types of dens, including mahjongg parlors but tile play is sometimes too chancy. Xian likes a game he can manipulate and guide.

Which is kind of why Spencer intrigues him so much. Inspector Ricci is not one to be led by the nose and Xian is very much aware of that. In a lot of ways, he is as enigmatic as the hanafuda deck, changeable and with varying levels of emotional power.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 


Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and is a two-time LAMBDA finalist with her Murder and Mayhem novels. She is also a 2017 Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Florida Authors and Publishers President’s Book Awards for her novels Ink and Shadows and Hanging the Stars. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.

She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Harley, a grey tuxedo with a flower on her face, Badger, a disgruntled alley cat who isn’t sure living inside is a step up the social ladder as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.

Rhys can be found at the following locations:

Blog: www.rhysford.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author

Facebook Group: Coffee, Cats, and Murder: https://www.facebook.com/groups/635660536617002/

Rhys is giving away a $20 Gift Card to the online retailer of the winner’s choice at every stop on this tour. Fill out the rafflecopter for your chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Valentine’s Day Blog Tour – Guest Post from Kristan Higgins

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Guest Posts

Today I’d like to welcome Kristan Higgins, the author of the recent Now That You Mention It as well as the absolutely marvelous Blue Heron series. (Anything for You was my personal favorite).As this is a Blog Tour for Valentine’s Day recommendations, Kristan is here to tell us her favorite Valentine’s tradition. And don’t we all remember the dread of having to give Valentine’s to every kid in the class?

Pizza, Books & Valentine’s Day
by Kristan Higgins

Here’s a little secret I’m somewhat loath to admit—I hate Valentine’s Day. When I was a kid, we’d have to give every single one of our classmates a card, and I’ll confess: Joey L. did not deserve a Valentine from me, no sir. Nor did Kate M., who was always mean.

Even then. the holiday smacked of forced good cheer. When I was in college, the poor lad I dated would give me a gas station rose, or worse, write me a poem and then read it to me, and I’d sit, twitching, waiting for the recitation to end.

As a young married couple, McIrish and I once made a Valentine’s Day reservation at a lovely Italian restaurant. That night, the servers were harried and forgetful, and the restaurant was mobbed with couples feeling the pressure to be romantic. No one was proposed to, though I’m pretty sure one young woman was waiting, because she got more and more tense as the night went on (eavesdropping is one of my great gifts). The food, which was usually so good, was mediocre, and McIrish and I decided not to go out anymore. These days, I usually draw McIrish, my sainted husband, a cartoon of the two of us. Some grown-up snuggling may ensue. Sometimes I make him pudding or crème brulée in the heart-shaped ramekins we got as a wedding gift.

Truthfully, the best Valentine’s Day I can remember was when I was living alone, working in a strange city, no friends. A bouquet of flowers arrived at my workplace, signed “From Your Secret Admirer.” I immediately called my dad to thank him, and, bless his heart, he played dumb.

When I got out of work, I went home to my little apartment, got a pizza from the restaurant below, and read a book. A romance novel, of course. No pressure, no expectations… just me with two of the great loves of my life: pizza and a good book.

About Now That You Mention It

One step forward. Two steps back. The Tufts scholarship that put Nora Stuart on the path to becoming a Boston medical specialist was a step forward. Being hit by a car and then overhearing her boyfriend hit on another doctor when she thought she was dying? Two major steps back.

Injured in more ways than one, Nora feels her carefully built life cracking at the edges. There’s only one place to land: home. But the tiny Maine community she left fifteen years ago doesn’t necessarily want her. At every turn, someone holds the prodigal daughter of Scupper Island responsible for small-town drama and big-time disappointments.

With a tough islander mother who’s always been distant and a wild-child sister in jail, unable to raise her daughter–a withdrawn teen as eager to ditch the island as Nora once was–Nora has her work cut out for her if she’s going to take what might be her last chance to mend the family.

But as some relationships crumble around her, others unexpectedly strengthen. Balancing loss and opportunity, a dark event from her past with hope for the future, Nora will discover that tackling old pain makes room for promise…and the chance to begin again.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.