The Big Inch

Title: The Big Inch
Series: Misfits and Millionaires
Author: Kimberly Fish
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Release Date: January 22, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
Pages: 344
Date Read: June 22, 2018

Lane Mercer, sent to Longview, Texas in July, 1942 is part of a select group of women working undercover for the fledging federal agency, the Office of Strategic Services. Assigned to protect the man carrying out President Roosevelt's initiative to build the nation's first overland pipeline to hurry East Texas crude to the troops, she discovers there's more to Longview than the dossiers implied. There's intrigue, mayhem, and danger. Shamed from a botched OSS mission in France, Lane struggles to fulfill her mission and keep from drowning in guilt. Getting involved in local life is out of the question. Between family, do-gooders, and Nazi threats, she's knitted into a series of events that unravel all of her carefully constructed plans, revealing that sometimes the life one has to save, is one's own.

Clueless Gent’s Review

Clueless Gent’s Rating

Kimberly Fish certainly knows how to spin a great tale! Her mastery of the craft of storytelling is embedded in The Big Inch from cover to cover. Set in the early days of World War II, the stakes are high as the U.S. scrambles to build an above-ground crude oil pipeline from Longview, Texas, to the east coast, where it will be loaded onto tankers bound for our fighting men in Europe. Similar to the way they built the railroad in the nineteenth century, one team is responsible for getting the pipeline from the east coast to Illinois, and the other team must build it from the oilfields near Longview to Illinois. This story follows the Longview team.

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Harmon General

By Clueless Gent

HARMON GENERAL

Misfits and Millionaires #2

KIMBERLY FISH

Genre: Historical Fiction / WWII / Spies
Expected Date of Publication: June 16, 2018

Number of Pages: 330

ABOUT THE BOOK: Harmon General is book two in the WWII historical fiction series entitled Misfits and Millionaires—set in Longview, Texas. The novel picks up about two months after the story line in The Big Inch ended.

Familiar characters and locations get a shot of adrenaline from the biological hazard espionage going on at the U.S. Army’s new medical hospital treating diseased and wounded soldiers—a 156-acre pop campus created as part of a master plan to place U.S. Army hospitals around Texas specializing in long-term wound care for WWII soldiers. The Office of Strategic Services has one of its best agents in place as a nurse at Harmon General—Sgt. Emmie Tesco—and she’s soon up to her blood pressure cuff in intrigues at the hospital campus, particularly the mission to stop a culprit code-named “Dr. Death” who is accused of skewing the malaria test protocols being established at Harmon so that no one will notice him preparing to sell the malaria research to the enemies of the Allies. Heroes and villains circulate in Longview from the post at Harmon General, and Emmie ropes Lane Mercer into helping manage the overload of responsibilities. Readers of The Big Inch will better understand what drives Emmie Tesco and why poking at old wounds can be a messy affair. The backstory of Lane Mercer and her first husband gets a brutal airing too, and stakes grow dangerous for Lane and Zeke Hayes as the plans they’d wanted for their wedding are upended by well-meaning, Aunt Edith.

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Up Near Dallas

By Clueless Gent

UP NEAR DALLAS
Winds of Change — Book III

GINA HOOTEN POPP

Genre: Texas Historical Fiction / Romance

Date of Publication: November 12, 2017

Number of Pages: 307

Scroll down for the giveaway!

The year is 1934. Economic turbulence rocks the country. And record drought dries up crops, along with the spirits of every farmer south of the Mason-Dixon. Yet for sixteen-year-old Mick McLaren, life is good as he takes to the open road to chase his dream of being a musician. Riding boxcars, hitchhiking, walking and driving his way across Depression Era Texas, he finds not only himself, but the love of a girl from Dallas named Margaret. Along the way, they befriend Cowboy Larson, a Delta Blues guitarist. Together the three teens, from three very different worlds, come-of-age as their life-changing journey carries them through killer dust storms, extreme poverty, and the unprecedented gangster activity of the Dirty Thirties.

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AUTHOR GINA HOOTEN POPP’S PLAYLIST
TO UP NEAR DALLAS

Since Up Near Dallas is about the revolutionary 1930s music scene happening in Dallas and across the state of Texas, of course I had music playing in the background when I wrote it. The following are just a few of the many songs that influenced me.The mournful, longing lyrics of tenor Chris Isaak came to mind when I was writing Mick McLaren’s character. I imagined that Mick’s ballad about the girl he loved would sound very much like some of the song’s off Isaak’s album, Heart Shaped World. In particular, the song “Wicked Game” and the lyrics: “The world was on fire, and no one could save me but you.”

Another song was Eric Clapton’s cover of Robert Johnson’s song, “Crossroads.” This song appealed to me since I read that the blues guitarist Robert Johnson had a big influence on Clapton along with many other modern musicians. Then, of course, more than a few songs from Johnson himself, including “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” “Ramblin’ On My Mind,” and “Sweet Home Chicago.”

…followed by Sister Rosetta rock-influenced “Shout Sister Shout,” “Down By The Riverside,” and “This Train” just to name a few.

I also listened to songs that depicted the time period, including Woody Guthrie’s “Dust Bowl Refugee,” “Hard Travelin’,” “I Ain’t Got No Home In This World Anymore,” and “This Land Is Your Land.” Guthrie’s lyrics gave me a glimpse of the tone of America during the thirties.

And, two more songs stand out in my mind because I actually wove them into the storyline. The Carter Family’s version of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and the legendary jazz standard “I Only Have Eyes For You” that was so popular in 1934.

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A native Texan, Gina Hooten Popp was born in Greenville and now lives in Dallas with her husband and son. Along with writing novels, Gina has enjoyed a long career as a professional writer in advertising. Her debut novel THE STORM AFTER was a finalist in the 2014 RONE Awards, and her just-released book CHICO BOY: A NOVEL was a 2016 Medalist Winner in the New Apple Annual Book Awards. Recently, her novel LUCKY’S WAY, about a young fighter pilot from Houston, was endorsed by the United States World War One Centennial Commission.

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