Selfies of Success for Authors presents Sessha Battousai with her Book 'SHADOW WOLF'

 Selfies Of Success for Authors is delighted to present Sessha Battousai with her book 'Shadow Wolf'.

BIO:
 
Sessha is a sword carrying Buddhist writer of transgressive homoerotic fiction. Published works include the Shinobi Saga (Geisha, Shadow Wolf and the soon to be released Ripples), and Strength of Will. Her short fiction is collected in the anthology Sex Ray Specs. Her short story The Poetry Game is included in New Sun Rising - Stories for Japan. Her story Tapestry is part of the Written on Skin anthology. Since writing doesn't pay all the bills, she continues to work as a graphic artist, specializing in book covers and trailers.
 
Shadow Wolf  
Will love be sacrificed when duty and honor rule all?
 
The life of a shinobi is, at its best, a selfless devotion to duty. In modern day Japan, the ninja legends live on in a grim saga of political maneuverings, betrayal, sexual abuse, torture and homoeroticism.
 
The Shinobi clans lurk in the shadows, performing services that not even the hardened Yakuza will touch. Takahashi Yoshi fulfills his duty with soul-stripping resolve, each assignment driving a nail into a coffin of lost faith. After years of sexual abuse and torture   in the name of clan honor, Yoshi must learn to trust, but the man who offers him hope is himself flawed. Sasaki Makoto has spent a career   in torture and interrogation, exploring not only the dark secrets of his clan's enemies, but also the darkness within his own heart.
 
How far must Yoshi run to escape his shame and torment? And what price freedom when fear and self-loathing threaten to upend the hard fought struggle to find meaning and safety in a world fraught with danger.
 
Yoshi seeks time and space, only to find himself once more at the mercy of power mongers and despots. When Makoto finds him, Yoshi is broken in more than body. Near death, his spirit recedes to find safety within, locking out all who care.
 
They say time will heal but the path to acceptance is never easy, the roadblocks many, and none will emerge unscathed as Yoshi embarks on a struggle for balance.
 
Shadow Wolf is transgressive M/M literary fiction. It utilizes adult language and adult situations. It depicts violence, explicit sex and disturbing scenes/images. If you are offended by male/male eroticism, sexual situations, depiction of BDSM elements, and strong language you might not enjoy this work.
 
REVIEW:
 
Honor and duty rule a contemporary shadow world where legend clashes with the stark realities of bodies and souls bartered in the name of clan hegemony. In modern day Japan only the ninjas move within the secret circles of power and influence, fulfilling roles not even the Yakusa will touch.
 

Against this backdrop of manipulation, betrayal and conspiracy, Takahasi Yoshi willingly fulfills a horrendous mandate to submit to a perverted despot in service to a clan debt. Groomed to accept abuse as his duty and obligation, the infamous shadow wolf slowly succumbs to the brutality that marks his existence, stripping his soul of faith and trust.
 

Sasaki Makoto is the clan's torture master, wickedly self-contained and viciously successful at his job. He is a man least likely to extend a hand of friendship, let alone open his heart to the battered psyche of the broken man that Yoshi becomes. The question becomes: can a man of darkness penetrate the barrier of a lost soul and lead them both down the path of redemption and acceptance of who and what they are.
 

Shadow Wolf is a saga of faith betrayed, of love denied, all replaced with such shame and torment that self-loathing becomes the raison d'être of a man's existence. It is raw. It is cruel. It speaks of unspeakable acts, never holding back, never allowing the reader to ever once turn away because the only way to truly 'know' the man is to meet him at his breaking point.
 

It is heart-wrenching and outside of everything we know to be right and true. Yoshi stands for us at that point where the basest nature of man is legitimized and sanctified through the clan's indoctrination and culture of absolute loyalty and submission to authority.
 

Make no mistake, this epic tale of homoeroticism, politics and selfless duty will not be for everyone. It is sensual, it is brutal, it is honest. There's nothing prurient here. This is the good, the bad and the ugly set against a backdrop few of us have ever seen, in a legendary culture most of us can scarcely imagine.
 

Sessha Batto blends legend and mythology, sensuality and eroticism, in a startling and mesmerizing way. We sympathize, or hate, or grieve with the many characters who tread through the 'gates' along Yoshi's journey, hopeful for resolution but knowing that nothing is writ in stone and a man's freedom oft times comes at too high a price.
 

Abuse is ugly, what it does to the body and the mind is nothing compared to what it does to the soul. The author explores this with gut-wrenching honesty, pushing our comfort zones and redefining what it means to love and be loved when the line between pleasure and pain ceases to exist.
 

As I said, this is male-male erotica, it is intense, it is sensual. And it is brilliant.
 

Five stars.
 
LINK:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CB8I61O?tag=geolinker-20
 
OTHER LINK:
http://sesshabattousai.com/Shinobi_Saga.html

Selfies of Success for Authors presents Maria K. (Maria Igorevna Kuroshchepova)

 I am delighted to be able to share with you these Selfies Of Success by Maria K. (Maria Igorevna Kuroshchepova.)

 Maria K. (Maria Igorevna Kuroshchepova) is a writer, translator, and blogger, covering a wide range of topics from travel and fashion to politics and social issues. 

A non-fiction and science fiction writer in her own right, Maria is also a prolific translator of less-known works of Russian and Soviet literature into English. Her most prominent translations include her grandfather Vasily Kuznetsov’s Siege of
Leningrad journals titled The Ring of Nine, and Thais of Athens – a historic novel by Ivan Yefremov. Both works quickly made their way into the top 100 Kindle publications in their respective categories and
continue attracting consistent interest and acclaim from readers.
 
About the book: Great historic rulers attempted to take over the world with superior armies and weapons. Ludwig Shtirner decided not to follow in
their footsteps. Instead, he set out to take over the world using nothing more than the power of his mind.
 
Book Review Aleksandr Belyaev’s RULER OF THE WORLD (1929), newly translated by Maria K, is a fun read. But it is also a look at a whole school of science fiction that emerged in Europe after World War I and
can be characterized as apocalyptic sf.
 
An “apocalyptic” work is formally defined as a prophetic vision, like the Revelation of St. John in the New Testament. But its connotation, from that same book, is more specific: a vision of ultimate disaster –
of wars and plagues and pestilences that signal the end of the world. 

It is no accident that the same traumatic war that produced Vicente Blasco Ibanez’ The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1916) also led to apocalyptic visions of mass upheavals and destruction in science fiction. 

A new image of the Mad Scientist emerged. No longer a Frankenstein or Dr. Moreau, pursuing his research in back streets or on remote islands, he was now a megalomaniac using science as a means to achieve world power, or at least allying himself with forces which so used it. 

Destructive rays and atomic energy were staples of the apocalyptic school, but so was scientifically-based mind control/ Ludwig Shtirner in THE RULER OF THE WORLD (1929), is a latter-day Svengali, but
he doesn’t rely on mere charisma and he isn’t looking for just a Trilby.
 

A “Napoleon Wannabe” (the translation is anachronistic, but you get the point!), he seeks to rule the world, and he has the mind-control technology to do just that – first imposing his will on a banker and, after that banker’s death, taking effective control of first the bank and before long the entire economy of Germany. Police and military
attacks on his headquarters are fruitless; the attackers’ minds are simply taken over.
 
One prophetic detail: France, alarmed that it may be next on Shtirner’s list, calls on America to attack his headquarters with drones, which can’t be taken over. 

That attack fails only because the drones are early
models that can’t be directed from afar and are blown off course.
 

Meanwhile, a duel of wits and technology unfolds between Shtirner and Kachinsky – a Russian electronic telepathy expert recruited by the
government who comes up with the idea of protective suits to shield the forces of law and order from mind control). But the finale isn’t what
you expect; Belyaev always liked to avoid the obvious in his sf, and Ruler of the World is no exception. Maria’s translation captures both the flow and the spirit of the story.
 
Book link:
http://www.amazon.com/Ruler-World-Alexander-Belyaev-ebook/dp/B00CTA3XAI/
 
My web site: http://www.landofmariak.com/
 
 
 

Selfies of Success presents Author Janet Oakley with her book "Timber Rose."

Selfies of Success for Authors is delighted to present Janet Oakley with her book "Timber Rose"

                                                                            

BIOGRAPHY

Janet Oakley grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, and steadily worked her way west after college in Kalamazoo, Mich. After meeting her husband in Honolulu, she moved to Bellingham, WA where they raised three sons. After his sudden death, her love of writing took hold not only as a passion, but also as a release.

She has been published in various magazines, anthologies, and other media including the Cup of Comfort series and Historylink.org, a “cyperpedia of Washington State history.”  She writes social studies curricula for schools and historical organizations and demonstrates 19^th century folkways. Her historical novels, The Tree Soldier set in 1930s Pacific NW and The Jossing Affair set in WW II Norway were Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest finalists. A memoir essay won top prize at Surrey International Writers.

She was project coordinator for a History Channel grant. She led high school students through 1850 territorial court case files and taught how to take research and create essays for a professional historical

About the book

1907. Women climbing mountains in skirts. Loggers fighting for the eight hour day. The forests and mountains of the North Cascades are alive with  progress, but not everyone is on board.

Caroline Symington comes from a prominent family in Portland, Oregon. Much to her family’s dismay, she’s more interested in hiking outdoors and exploring the freedoms of a 1907’s New Woman than fancy parties and money. She plans to marry on her own terms, not her parents. When she falls in love with Bob Alford, an enterprising working-class man who loves the outdoors as much as she, little does she know how sorely her theories will be tested. Betrayed by her jealous sister, Caroline elopes, a decision that causes her father to disown her.

The young couple moves to a rugged village in the North Cascade Mountains where Caroline begins a new life as the wife of a forest ranger. Though she loves her life in the mountains as a wife and mother, her isolation and the loss of her family is a challenge. As she searches for meaning among nature, she’s ushered along by a group of like-minded women and a mysterious, mountain man with a tragic past.

Eventually, her relationship with her mother and sister improves and things seem to be taking a turn for the better. That relationship is tested again when her uncle and her sister's ruthless ex-husband muscle their way into the national forest, threatening the nature she loves, and more importantly, the man she loves. Though Caroline desires to reconcile with her family, she knows she must take a stand. 

TIMBER ROSE is about gilded society, thugs and big timber meeting the newly formed Forest Service, mountaineering clubs and a young woman's desire to make her own way in a changing world.

TIMBER ROSE is the prequel to the award-winning TREE SOLDIER.

Most dangerous animal in the Jungle  A failed writer.

Book REVIEW  

J.L. Oakley’s Timber Rose is set in the earliest years of the 20th century and follows the life and adventures of Caroline Symington, the daughter of a prominent family in Portland, Oregon. The year is 1907, and Caroline is unapologetically unconventional, preferring tramping and hiking in the wilderness to her family’s ideas of more ‘proper’ pursuits for a well-born young lady. Both her fondness for the outdoors and her complicated family relationships entwine with her adult life: she elopes with Bob Alford, a forest ranger in the North Cascade Mountains, and her malevolent uncle eventually darkens her life again, trying to make inroads into the national forest that has become her home.

Oakley does a skillful and confident job of weaving a good deal of historical material into her story of married life, from mountain-climbing to the women’s suffrage movement to the early days of ecological conservation. All of it is presented in an appealingly earthy, unpretentious prose style laced with wry humor and some memorable insights into human nature. Timber Rose is at times an openly sentimental tale, and it’s portrayal of Caroline’s slow awakening to love and happiness is genuinely memorable.

Highly recommended.

 TIMBER ROSE
http://www.amazon.com/Timber-Rose-JL-Oakley/dp/149370981X

TREE SOLDIER
http://www.amazon.com/Tree-Soldier-J-L-Oakley/dp/1453896473/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
ABNA 2014 Quarter Finalist; Chanticleer Grand Prize winner 2013; 2012 EPIC ebook Award winner
Blog: http://historyweaver.wordpress.com