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Showing posts from 2024

The Forever Detective Series "Catch-Up" Sale is Happening NOW

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  FOR THOSE WHO ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THIS SERIES, HERE'S A QUICK OVERVIEW... It all starts in New York City, 1947. Former police officer, Rafael Jones has returned from Europe where he oversaw a special international team who gathered evidence for the Nuremberg trials. Now he’s opened up for business as a private investigator and already has two cases lined up. But little does he know that these two cases are connected… in more ways than one . Rafael is about to discover there's another side to the city, and the world, that he never dreamed existed. For he soon finds himself facing the supernatural in the form of a cult run by vampires. Their leader is both surprising, and yet a historical figure who was described by his assassins as almost impossible to kill. Sensing there's something more to our hero, he decides to make Rafael his new 'brother' in blood, hoping to make him part of the plan to retake Russia as a new Tsar. However, Rafael has other plans. Altho...

An Early Halloween Treat for You All...

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This year has been 'difficult' for me on a number of fronts, some of which I've already shared with you. Still there are others, that are still ongoing and taking up a lot of my time and brain power. I have actually done a number of audio short stories which are perfect for this time of year, I just haven't had the time to really gather and piece together videos to present on YouTube for my "Library of the Obscure" channel. However, if any of you wish to hear any those recordings (complete with sound effects), I'll be happy to post them as a prelude to the podcast itself here on this blog as well as on the Library of the Obscure YouTube channel. Please let me know what you think by leaving your thoughts in the comments section below. In the meantime, here's the link to a story by Lord Dunsany (one of HP Lovecraft's greatest influences), that I shared last year. I hope you enjoy this tale, and I thank you for your understanding... NOTE: I will be a...

Be Careful What You Wish For...

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 ... because you might just get it. So, after all my talk and posting about finding a crystal ball... well...um... Ah, the photo pretty much tells you what happened.  Now to be honest, I've had this crystal ball for years. Helen got it for me long before we got married, and we exchanged our vows 35 years ago. (Go us!) But I'd lost track of it some time ago, and I literally just ran across it in one of our boxes in storage. Upon spotting it, I just had to pull it out, cleaned and dusted it, and now it is currently sitting on my desk. "So? Did you look into it or not?" I hear some of you ask. Or maybe that's just the voices in my head, and believe me, as a voice-actor I've got a LOT of them. The answer is... I'm thinking about it. Why haven't I done it already? Well, I got kind of side-tracked wondering what would my characters do? See how I slipped the topic of writing into this entry?  Although to be honest, I have had one of my characters actually wei...

Continuing My Journey of Drawing from the Darker Side of Life'''...

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Those of you who have been following this blog (especially in the last couple of months) will be familiar with this image and the snippet of the song it comes from... "I wonder what tomorrow has in mind for me. Or am I even in its mind at all? Perhaps I'll get a chance to look ahead and see. Soon as I find myself a crystal ball..." - From Styx album "Crystal Ball" ...and my worries that if I did find a crystal ball and gazed into it, I might find a wheelchair staring back at me. Well, after being examined by a 2nd neurologist, and the results of another MRI of my cervical spine and head, the doctors have ruled out Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig Disease, cancer and a host of other worrisome possibilities. So, what was causing all my problems? Myelopathy which is caused by some kind compression on the spinal cord itself, inside the spinal column. In my case, the compression is happening in the cervical region (neck), and yes pressure on the spinal cord in that are...

Big News!!!

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Good news, it's finally happened. Helen and I now have an online store for our books. Anyone who has been wanting to get a personalized/signed copy of one of our books, now all you have to do is click on the link below and it will take you straight to our store. And "yes" it takes credit cards. (I know, welcome to the modern age, Allan. Took you long enough). Here's the link:  https://musingsof2creativeminds.com/shop/ And while not ALL our books are up just yet, I'm working on it and will be adding more this week. NOTE: I also plan to add another branch to the store for our original artwork, so stay tuned for that as well.  In the meantime, come see what we have available and maybe place and order or two. Until next time take care and keep writing and recording my friends.

Drawing from the Darker Side of Life…

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(this is my trying to be brave face) To continue with what I was saying in my last post, this whole experience has been quite an eye-opening journey. For instance, trying to almost constantly adjust to dealing with my current circumstances while doing what was once ordinary tasks for me. Now as I said in my last post, I am still generating loads of new story ideas. It's just being able to sit comfortably enough to be able to really flesh them out takes more out of me than it used to. And believe me, I'm getting so many thoughts and ideas, since this journey began.     Take a recent outing I had to go on namely grocery shopping. I went to a Safeway that I knew would have the electric shopping carts to make getting around easier (because I was really feeling tired and sore). Normally, I'd do a curbside pickup, but I wanted to actually go in myself and try one of those carts in order to see if it would give me a little more freedom to get around once in a while. I found the ...

A Brief Explanation and Drawing from the Darker Side of Life...

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I know I've been quiet again, but with good reason. I won't go into great detail but will give you all a quick overview. In the last few years, I've been having greater and greater difficulties with pain, mobility and balance in the lower half of my body. The main cause for all of this is still being investigated by my doctors, including neurologists. And although one explanation seems likely, I am not going to say anything until we finally get a concrete diagnosis. Naturally, I've been finding the prospect of not being able to get around on my own legs very unsettling and upsetting. Mostly because I only recently turned 60. I wasn't expecting to have problems like this until much later in my life. I certainly did not expect to start having problems beginning in my mid-50's, which is when this all began.  Anyway, as things have gotten progressively worse, I find myself dwelling on an old Styx song called "Crystal Ball", from the album of the same title...

Book Review - The Curious Mr Tarrant by C. Daly King

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  I love a good anthology, or collection of short stories. Naturally, when I spotted this book in a used bookstore, I was intrigued by the title and the image on the cover. After reading the synopsis on the back cover, I decided it was worth checking out. And boy was I right to do so. I thoroughly enjoyed each of these odd little mysteries. As the cover indicates, there are only 8 stories contained in this volume, and each one (even though a couple of the tales takes place outdoors) have been referred to as a "locked room" mystery, which makes the collection all the more interesting for me.  Similar to Arthur Conan Doyle's beloved Sherlock Holmes, we are introduced to Mr. Trevis Tarrant, through our narrator Jerry Phelan who first encounters Tarrant in the first story involving an ancient codex in a museum. And also like Holmes, Tarrant has an affinity for 'unusual' cases or problems. But, there the similarities end. We soon learn that Trevis Tarrant is more willi...

A Kirkus Review of "The Pass"

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KIRKUS BOOK REVIEW In Krummenacker and Caminiti’s paranormal thriller series starter set in the Civil War era, an Irish immigrant on a spy mission fights monsters and discovers a new superpower. The story opens on a man named Jacob Long, who’s carrying his infant daughter in a blizzard, encountering a great beast called a Skinwalker, which gains different powers depending on what pelts it acquires. The creature protects the child when a pack of monsters attack. Readers soon learn that the monsters are under the control of a mysterious figure working with an assassin named Lansford Hastings. The plot transitions to the main character, Keefer O’Connor, an Irishman who’s made a name for himself as a military strategist. This leads to his recruitment by Union Army Provost Marshal Lafayette Baker, and soon, Keefer is promoted from a captain to a colonel by the War Department. He’s assigned a mission to assassinate Gov. Fredrick Low of California if he sways from his antislavery stanc...

One Day To Release of "The Pass" Plus a Kirkus Book Review...

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We're just hours away from the release of the first installment our paranormal thriller trilogy "The Pass" (4-14-2024). And start things off, I thought it might be interesting to share with you all what Kirkus Reviews had to say about this new tale of adventure and suspense... KIRKUS BOOK REVIEW In Krummenacker and Caminiti’s paranormal thriller series starter set in the Civil War era, an Irish immigrant on a spy mission fights monsters and discovers a new superpower. The story opens on a man named Jacob Long, who’s carrying his infant daughter in a blizzard, encountering a great beast called a Skinwalker, which gains different powers depending on what pelts it acquires. The creature protects the child when a pack of monsters attack. Readers soon learn that the monsters are under the control of a mysterious figure working with an assassin named Lansford Hastings.  The plot transitions to the main character, Keefer O’Connor, an Irishman who’s made a name for himself as a m...

Sneak Peek Countdown to Release...

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 Only six more days until you reach "The Pass"... That's right folks. In just a few more days (on 4-14-2024) you can get your copy of "The Pass". A novel that Kirkus Reviews has called "A supernatural espionage tale that keeps the excitement high." Rich Caminiti, my co-author (an old friend from high school - Levittown Memorial H. S. class of '82 to be exact) and I have woven this tale of supernatural mystery and intrigue, set in the old west (or the Civil War to be precise). This book is the first of a trilogy we have been working on for some time, and the next installment has a completed 1st draft, waiting to be re-worked, edited, re-drafted, etc. Plus, the third installment is already underway as well. Besides having a cracking good tale to tell, this volume has some beautiful pen and ink illustrations created by the wonderfully talented Gabrielle Callan (artist/tattooist) whose link to more of her work I will provide towards the end of this ent...

Take Another Sneak Peek Into “The Pass” If You Dare…

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Greetings one and all. And welcome back to the blog. Sorry to keep you all waiting, but last weekend got a bit crazy around here. Nevertheless, we're back with another Sneak Peek Saturday edition for you.  Continuing with "The Pass" coming next month, we realized that last time we'd introduced you all to a couple of our protagonists, so it's only fair this week we introduce you to two the villains of this piece.  So, without further ado, sit back and meet two very unsavory, and disturbing men who each has their own secret agenda in this story. Enjoy...         Some five hundred yards away, a man bundled in furs, lowered his still smoking Mississippi rifle. “Sorry, Jake, old boy. But business is business. And if you made it out of here alive, you’d be able to claim cousin Amanda’s inheritance which would’ve been bad business for me,” he sighed. In the distance, he could hear the baby’s wail.           ...