Kieth Rogan
A Kodiak Bear Mauling
Description:
In 1998 the author survived a horrific mauling by a Kodiak brown bear. This is the story of that event along with additional tales and personal observations about these coastal giants. The book includes a number of graphic photographs taken within minutes of the actual event, along with the authors personal photos of bears and other Alaskan wildlife.
From the book:
Meeting the eyes of a grizzly is an interesting experience because those eyes hold real intelligence and power. The eyes of other common Alaskan animals (such as moose or caribou) reveal little beyond fear or vague curiosity. A ruminant's brain has very little room for much beyond eating, fleeing and mating. Your attention is drawn to other things on such an animal; the antlers perhaps...
A bear is a different proposition altogether. The wide brown eyes of this predator are expressive and calculating and meeting them is to know that you are looking into the mind of a thinking animal. I can't stress that difference enough, though it's difficult to articulate this to people who haven't had the experience. When meeting a grizzly at close range you generally find yourself waiting for the animal to make a decision - to leave, hopefully. Your eyes will lock with those of the bear and there will be some sort of visceral communication taking place. You can watch the play of emotion and calculation cross the animals face while he evaluates you and tries to decide what your presence means and what he should do about it.
...
...Perhaps the yelling attracted her to my face because she now grabbed my skull, her upper canines sinking into my right eye socket and cheek respectively, while her lower jaw enveloped the back of my head. The sensation was incredible, as if my head was in a powerful vise. My vision began to narrow and darken while a roaring sound grew deep inside my head. It was like being under water too long, holding your breath and fighting to get back to the surface, everything beginning to get dark. I remember thinking; "This is it, this is how it all ends..." Yet, as this went on I was also pulling and turning my head away with as much force as I could muster until suddenly it (my head) popped free with a grating sound that I could sense internally rather than hear audibly. Her upper canines had ripped loose from my eye socket and face leaving two furrows from the entry points well into my hairline. I was partially scalped, but she hadn't "popped" my head...
....
The Kodiak archipelago is tucked within the long reach of the Alaskan coast like a group of badly behaved children in the arms of a somewhat aloof mother. Thumbing its nose at the latitude of its arctic parent, cheeky Kodiak bathes in the waters of warm southern currents which give the island a temperate maritime climate seemingly more appropriate to locales far to the south.
In the same way that the Gulf Stream warms the British Isles, the Kuroshiro current begins in warmer latitudes far to the south to move northward along the rim of the Pacific and then east to the Gulf of Alaska to surround Kodiak with a warm wet noose. Above this warm river in the cold northern sea is another warm river of moist low pressure air. These warm sea currents and air masses move north to collide with much colder waters and arctic high pressure air along the Aleutian Islands. This remote island chain marks the boundary between the genteel Pacific and its rowdy and temperamental arctic neighbor, the Bering Sea. The enormous temperature and pressure extremes in this "Birthplace of the Winds" spawn a seemingly endless series of cyclonic low pressure storms which spin to the northeast to lash Kodiak with the rain and fog which envelope it for much of the year. That wet marine climate ends abruptly when it meets the high coastal mountains ringing the Alaska mainland.
Bio Provided by the author.
Keith Rogan is an outdoor enthusiast who first came to Kodiak in 1990 as a paramedic with the US Coast Guard and soon grew to love the natural beauty of this wild and beautiful island. He has been a popular freelance writer for the local newspaper on various outdoor subjects. He enjoys hiking, hunting, fishing and wildlife photography across every corner of Alaska.
His first book was “A Kodiak Bear Mauling” published in January, 2012. That effort was followed up by a companion title in May 2012 “A Photographic Tour of Kodiak” displaying a collection of his wildlife photography.
Amanda Brenner
Tainted Legacy
Description:
Sid Langdon, a newly licensed private investigator who wonders how he is
going to pay his rent, gets his first case—complete with a corpse and a
million dollars in missing jewels. And he is tapped to find the answers
by the very man who may be responsible for both! So who done it? Sid
wades through a sordid quagmire of blackmail, adultery and betrayal to
find the answers—and let the chips fall where they may! It’s Sid’s first
case—it might well be his last!
Bio provided by the author.
Amanda Brenner is a native Midwesterner who has spent her
adult life in the business world. She has traveled extensively
throughout the United States, occasionally venturing into Canada and
Nova Scotia. Her initial interest in writing started at an early age
when westerns were the most popular attractions at the local theater.
It seemed only natural that her first novel, Trail of Vengeance, should
be in the western genre. In the course of plotting and fleshing out
this work she lived at the library, scouring dozens of books for
authentic details of life on the frontier in the 1880s. After finishing
a second western, Shadow of the Rope, she began to explore a new
direction and completed three contemporary mysteries involving a private
investigator she created, the latest being The Mystery of the Nourdon
Blue.
Inge H. Borg
KHAMSIN, The Devil Wind of The Nile
Description:
KHAMSIN, The Devil Wind of The Nile, a historical novel by Inge H. Borg,
is an engrossing saga of forbidden love, intrigue and warfare, played
out in colorful settings along the Nile, from Ineb-hedj (Memphis) to the
Kharga Oasis, during the reign of Aha, Second King of the First Dynasty
of Egypt, ca. 3080 B.C.The briskly paced action evokes a violent, tumultuous epoch with attention to detail and cinematic presentation. The eloquent and lyrical narrative is divided into five major parts, with forty-three chapters, a poignant prologue, and a thought-provoking epilogue.
Complex main and subordinate characters are well fleshed out, ranging from fascinating to likable; from ambitious to suspicious, to plain unsavory. In the fore is Ramose, the munificent High Priest of Ptah, mentally exchanging poisoned lances with the ugly Vizier, Ebu al-Saqqara.
During a forbidden encounter between King Aha's first Queen Mayet and a nocturnal visitor, a new life is conceived; but its soul, its eternal Ba, is already old. And it is destined yet to live through many other storms. Will Aha's royal heiress, Princess Nefret, become the victim of her fate presaged by the Oracle of Isis, or can Ramose save her life, if not her royal heritage? As the dreaded Khamsin rages over the Valley of the Nile, Ma'at is often breached and it is said that people vanish without a trace. Yet, for an eternal Ba, the end is but a new beginning.
Meticulous research of ancient sites and the way of life of those enigmatic Egyptians lends authenticity to this pre-Pyramid, pre-Pharaoh era of the Two Lands. Select Egyptian words and the usage of ancient city names are made comprehensible within context as well as through the appendices and a glossary.
Reviews:
Move over Jean M. Auel, Author of The Earth's Children series, and make room for a new author on the pre-history scene. Inge H. Borg has emerged with her book "KHAMSIN, The Devil Wind of the Nile", introduced on Amazon.com's Kindle for all the world to read. This novel is meticulously researched, imaginative and purely entertaining, transporting the reader back to the dawn of Egypt long before the pyramids.
Jo Cryder, Author
"Towers, Turrets, Cupolas & Belvederes"
Book #5 of a series of 5
Wonderful First Novel
This is a beautifully written book, set in ancient Egypt before the pyramids and sphinx existed and weaves an entertaining tale which defines the customs, fears and passions of those who lived during this era. The author is well-versed on Egyptian history and provides help for those who aren't with a glossary and appendices to define characters, terms, geographical areas, etc. Egyptian history buffs will love this book.
BevG.
Bio provided by the author.
In 1964, Ms. Borg was the Executive Assistant to the Secretary General of the Austrian Olympic Committee at the XIXth Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck. From there, she was transferred to the Vienna headquarters. Her contract completed, she was hired by an Austrian export company which then sent her to their Chicago office, extracting the promise to remain in the US for at least one year. She never moved back to Europe, but lived subsequently in Boston, New Hampshire, and La Jolla, California, where she became a US citizen in 1982.
Inge has visited many European countries, the Far East, Venezuela and the South Pacific. Always open to new adventure, she joined a 40-foot sailing vessel and spent six months sailing down the Pacific coast of Mexico (with a handsome skipper, of course). Several of her ‘ocean’ poems in “Moments of The Heart” were born while standing watch in a heart-stopping lightening storm. “When you are the only 50-ft metal mast in a vast ocean, you’ve got to think of something other than sinking.”
In 2003, Inge retired to a diversified lake community Arkansas, and there pursued her passion for writing. At long last, she completed her intensively researched epic “Khamsin, The Devil Wind of The Nile,” a historical novel playing out in Ancient Egypt around 3080 B.C.
Her poetry has been published in over twenty anthologies and was chosen for professionally recorded readings.
Her hobbies include world literature, opera, sailing and, of course, devising new plots for a sequel to Khamsin and other future novels.
