Hello and welcome to this edition of "Five For Friday" with Rukia Publishing Featured author Andrew C. Branham and his newly released book, "Parched".
​ 
"A family’s desperate struggle to survive in a world where water is more valuable than gold." 

We had the pleasure of getting to know Andrew during an interview. Today, we would like to share with you some of what we learned. 

Five For Friday with Andrew C. Branham
and 
"Parched"
(Parched Series Book 1)
​4.14.2016

We were also fortunate enough to acquire an excerpt from Andrew's newest release, "Parched".
We would like to share that with you today as well.
​Please enjoy!

The sun no longer shone canary yellow. It hadn’t done so for years. Instead, it glared down, obstinate, punishing—beet red, like the garden tomatoes that no longer existed. It stood guard over the desert-dry water taps that had likewise fallen prey to the relentless heat, even in mid-October. Livermore, California had been a town set on rolling hills, swathed in green grass and fragrant orange poppies. Now, each day played out like the one before it: sun, heat, illness, death.
On that particular day, relative calm engulfed them. Only a few trails of smoke rose up in the distance toward the west and the Oakland Hills. Usually it was worse—the smoke was more like the dense cloud of marine fog that used to roll in daily. Now, the arid air, once fresh with coastal mist and the scent of eucalyptus trees mixed with wild lavender and rosemary, smelled like burning hay. The sun’s transition from an earthly asset to man’s most vicious foe had been going on for decades, but you would never have known it. It had caught humanity ill-prepared. Those who once had awaited its daily arrival now despised its very existence.
Scientists had a word for it; scientists had a word for everything. They called it a Red Giant, a star that had exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core and had switched to thermonuclear fusion. As a result, the Earth found itself baking, its waters evaporating, and humanity’s extinction imminent. No scientist or politician could explain why the sun had made such a drastic transformation; nor did it matter.
In the distance, the sound of a laboring sixteen-wheeler lumbering up the road startled James as he popped up from his sleep. Scanning the room, he breathed out his relief. Everybody’s okay, he thought, checking out their California king bed. For a brief moment, he recalled his dream, in which he had been frolicking with his brother along the beaches of Lake Erie, near where they had grown up. But, instead of laughing, shouting, and swimming in cool waters, he was perspiring. Sweat soaked the bed and stained his shirt and underwear. His mouth felt and dry.
What’s the truck doing here at this hour?
The clanking of the massive tires hitting the potholes brought him back to reality. Rising cautiously, he kicked into the nightstand and let out a yelp, awakening their infant, who began to cry.
“What is it?” his wife asked.
“Nothing. Just the water truck. Go back to sleep.”
His thirteen-year-old son, Silas, was now awake as well and was scanning the room with his eyes. His long blond hair was matted down against his boyish face and, despite his sleep, he still looked extremely fatigued. He was irritated not only at the unrelenting heat and his sister’s cries, but also that he woke up in the same depressing room where they almost always stayed. Sometimes he hoped his life was just a nightmare that he would someday wake up from. Looking around, he saw walls stacked with cardboard boxes, dirty clothing on the floor, and dirt-stained sheets on the bed in which he was lying. The two windows in the room were covered in a thick film of dust and sand. A loaded rifle and handgun were on a box next to the bed.
“Can someone keep her quiet?” Silas grumbled as he looked toward his crying infant sister, Charlotte. “It’s impossible to sleep around here.”
Already dressed, James grabbed his shotgun and several plastic gallon water jugs, which he had strung together with nautical rope, and sprinted down the steps, the jugs thumping with each step. He pushed aside the heavy desk and chair he had used to barricade the door and scrunched down to peek out through a two-inch crack he had opened. He saw the truck that had stopped in the middle of the road. As he struggled to focus, he smelled the burning air and saw the heat waves reflecting off the cracked and buckled asphalt. He made out several residents emerging from their deteriorating town-homes, guns and jugs in hand, walking toward the truck with its distinctive Red Cross logo. The sound of his baby crying and the rustling of his waking family echoed through the empty stairwell.

So, what did you think???

You can find out more about this book by visiting the Book Showcase for Parched here at Rukia Publishing.

Read The Reviews Here
​&
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99c Sale

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 Jack and the Magical Beanstalk 

by 

author Pablo Michaels

(Yellow Silk Dreams)

"This piece really reflects Pablo Michaels’ creativity. His string of word choices is clever and wraps the scene in vivid visuals. The imagery is sublime. Who is the old man, the stranger, and what does he have to do with Jack and his mother? Pablo has cleverly added poignant character depth by infusing some of Jack's genesis, his family, parents and farm life, even expanded upon it to describe the hardship which was the reason the cow was traded in the first place. We have a strumming and artful gold harp—delightful—a young man running into forest. When they run into the thicket, do they meet all the other naked men? Are they slaves of the Giant? The panic and fright caused by the Giant was wonderfully underscored in his careful descriptions. I love these, 'rumbles of thunder', 'like a fox on a hunt', 'where daylight became dimmer'. Also his use of the 'thump, crunch' and the cackling hen really added an element of tension and heart pounding pursuit that was so tangible. This was a cleverly layered piece that I think was a bang on perfect tie-in for the original fairytale story. Pablo adds depth to their situation and tragedy, multiple layers of tension and understanding. I loved the fairytale as a child. I love this story as an adult; just love it. It is a well-crafted, beautifully developed, very sensuous taste of adventurous youth that just kept getting better. To the hilt: delicious, decadent and delectable." 

~ Muffy Wilson

In this adult fairy tale young, awkward, young Jack sells their prize cow Pearly White for magical beans to a strange man in a red bikini. Little does Jack’s mother, Lorene, know that the beans grow into a giant, magical beanstalk, high above the clouds?

Jack ascends the beanstalk to a land where a Giant Slave serves his larger Master, Jack begs Slave for food to satisfy his hunger from his long journey. But Jack finds Master hoarding treasures.

Attempting to escape the wrath of Master and Slave with the treasures, Jack encounters a handsome, engaging normal sized human man. Sam lives with others that live naturally without clothing deep in the forest. As Jack ages he becomes a handsome man, just like his father, attracting many men, including the two farmhands, Zeke and Adam.

Even though Jack has enabled the farm to prosper with the treasures he stole from Master and is met with increasing danger, he climbs the magical beanstalk again and again to find more treasures and pursue Sam.

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See The Character Series

"Who Is Jack?"

"Who Is Lorene?"

"Who Is Adam?"

"Who Is Zeke?"

"Who Is Sam?"

About The Author
Pablo Michaels disguised himself as a shy, friendly heterosexual during his adolescence, fantasizing other males. Falling in love with another man his first year in college, he followed him to another university to maintain their platonic love, while he

Author Pablo Michaels

continued in his in studies. When he had his first sexual encounter with another man, just before turning twenty-one, he exploded into gay life with lust and anger. He attempted to live his new life naturally, seeking love, ignoring the statistics of the books he read on homosexuality in high school, and proving what he had read was wrong.
He wrote poetry and stories since third grade. When he turned twenty-one, he moved to San Francisco to work and write, experiencing more of gay life. In the 1980's he wrote every chance he had, trying and failing miserably at publishing mainstream fiction. He published his first story in 1986 in a literary magazine. read more...

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