Tuesday, November 27, 2012

TURN ON, TUNE IN.......

Heartless Cruelty hits the airwaves!!

Dave Kelber at WRNJ, 104.7 FM, 92.7 FM, 1510 AM and streaming live online at wrnj.com will be interview-ing me at 8:15am next Wednesday, Dec. 5. TUNE ME IN! 

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

More stores! More stores!

Clinton Book Shop in Clinton NJ. The Book Garden in Frenchtown NJ. More details to follow, but bottom line: if you can get to one of those stores, please do go in and talk to Rob (in Clinton) and Caroline (in Frenchtown). And as long as you're there, pick up some holiday gifts. Knowhutimean?

Sunday, November 18, 2012

More Hearty Praise for Heartless Cruelty

A FUN READ
"I'm not really much of a murder mystery fan, but Heartless Cruelty was a thoroughly enjoyable read. The fact that I got to read it by candlelight (during the Hurricane Sandy power outage) enhanced a number of the "dark and stormy night" scenes."
BLAIR

MR. BACHMAN: A NEW TYPE OF SLEUTH
"A fascinating new type of sleuth, Mr. Bachman, helps solve this mystery. He's a high school English teacher, beloved by his students, and ready to help a mixed up teen find himself. There are many chills and spills along the way. I couldn't put it down. The New Jersey shore comes to life with Mr. Bachman. Can't wait for his next escapade."
G.H.

TERRIFIC READ. A MUST FOR JERSEY SHORE FANS.
"Heartless Cruelty is a terrific read. Fast-paced, well-plotted and cleverly written, it evokes the dark side of the Jersey shore of the 1980s - not the Jersey shore of sun, sand and surf, but the darkness, cold, squalor, and corruption of the shore in winter. Mr. Bachman, the lead character, is an English teacher at Atlantis High whose students love him because he treats them with honesty and sensitivity without dumbing down what he does in class. Concerned about Jason, one of his students, Bachman stumbles upon the dead body of Jason's father while making a call at Jason's home. The mystery of who killed Jason's father, together with Bachman's relationship with Jason's stunningly beautiful pro bono lawyer, propels the plot as the scenes shift from the classroom to the Mayor's office, from good cops to bad cops, from honesty and justice to heartless cruelty. Strongly recommended."
J.P. Sattin


Hearty Praise for HEARTLESS CRUELTY


“If you’re looking for the next great suspense novel, look no further than Heartless Cruelty. Richard W. Goffman’s moody setting, wonderful characters, and masterful plotting will have you turning pages late into the night as you follow high school English teacher-turned-reluctant hero Bill Bachman, who is in a race against time to save one of his students.”

Maryann McFadden
Indie Award-Winning Novelist of

The Book Lover

Friday, November 9, 2012

MORE STORES CARRY HEARTLESS CRUELTY

Two more bookstores have joined the growing network of NJ indy retailers who are carrying Heartless Cruelty, the first book in the Mr. Bachman Series of riveting Jersey shore thrillers. BOOKENDS, 211 East Ridgewood Ave. in Ridgewood, has two big floors of books, lots of celebrity sightings, and something exciting going on all the time.
Next is beautiful MENDHAM BOOKS, in the Mendham Village Shopping Center on Rt. 24 in Mendham. Not only will they have a big display of Heartless Cruelty (while they last!). I'll be doing a reading/signing/cookie-eating event there on Saturday, Jan. 26, at 2:00. Please mark the date on your calendar. If you can attend, I would love to see you there.


We're developing some more events early in 2013, so keep watching this space for emerging details. And remember, the easiest gift to wrap at the hurried holiday times, is an 8"x5"x1" paperback book. This has been scientifically proven in the secret 99%BOOKS Wrapping Lab at Wossamatta U., in Frostbite Falls, PA.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

A BUCK A BOOK FOR SANDY NJ RELIEF FUND

https://sandynjrelieffund.org/index.html

Click on the link to see the charity that will be getting our BUCK A BOOK money.

Our brothers and sisters in Staten Island (where I spent the first eight years of my life, and where I worked in the early '00s) seem to be getting both brutalized and ignored by their city. The folks on Long Island, where I grew up, have been clobbered too. I have chosen the recently thrown-together charity, Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund, as being most appropriate for the BUCK A BOOK promotion for HEARTLESS CRUELTY. By donating a dollar every time someone buys a copy of the book for the rest of 2012 (and counting everything already sold in November), we'll make a small difference. Of course, you can donate more to Hurricane Relief, whether it's this charity or another one. I know I am going to. Maybe this will help remind everybody that, just like we have to now pull our divided country back together and heal all of those ugly wounds, we have some very ugly wounds right here in the region that is so dear to the heart of Mr. Bachman, wounds that are NOT metaphoric. 

Today was the day that many school districts finally reopened. It was GREAT to see my kids today -- although not everyone was there. And if you don't live around here, if you are part of the vast network of fans of the Mr. Bachman series but live in California or Hawaii or Mississippi or Zagreb, you may not know that it is now snowing here on people, many of whom STILL don't have electricity, and are being told they are unlikely to get it back before Thanksgiving. Right. Snowing. And cold. Can we get a break please?

Let's all do what we can, in the place that we are, with the means at our disposal.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

A BUCK A BOOK



A BUCK A BOOK FOR HURRICANE RELIEF. 

For the months of November and December, my publisher, 99%BOOKS (aka me) will donate $1 from the author's (aka my) royalties to the hurricane relief effort. Now you have that extra incentive to buy a copy for everyone on your Christmas-Chanukah-Ramadan-Kwanzaa list. To purchase go to one of my local independent booksellers, or click on the picture of the book on the right.
The most current list of bookstores includes (but is not limited to) 
To Be Continued in Metuchen 
Sages' Pages in Madison
Sparta Books in Sparta
Well-Read Books in Hawthorne

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Sparta Books, 11/2/2012







Mike Lawlor entertained before and after
the reading. Thanks again, Mike! 


SOS - Save Our Shore

Up here in Sussex County, where I live, we got hit hard enough so that almost everyone lost power, and some still haven't gotten it back yet. It was bad. Trees came down all over, but it wasn't as bad as Irene last year.
But the coastal areas of New Jersey have been devastated, along with New York City, where the transit system is not back up to speed yet and much of Manhattan is still dark, and especially Staten Island, which got clobbered from all sides. In these places, the people are still suffering a week after the storm.
Mr. Bachman, the hero/teacher of Heartless Cruelty, would be running around rescuing whoever he could in the hard hit shore town of Atlantis, except for one small fact: he's fictional.



But we aren't fictional, are we? That's why we have to do something. I'm going to start here: I will donate a portion of all royalties from sales of my book, Heartless Cruelty, to a fund to rebuild the devastated areas, beginning with all the books sold last night at our wonderful event at Sparta Books, and continuing through the rest of 2012.


The plan is to call this The Atlantis Fund. I don't know yet how the legal ins and outs of fundraising will complicate things, so for now, I will be putting money into an account every time a book sells. If you would like to add to this fund other than by buying copies of Heartless Cruelty, you can send a check to me at 57 Compton Road, Sussex, NJ 07461. When my accountant tells me how to do it, I will set up an actual named charity; until then, make your check out to me, and put ATLANTIS FUND on the memo line.

Booksellers who are carrying Heartless Cruelty: maybe you would like to join in the effort.

This is what we do, isn't it? We pull together when others need help. Just when you think that people are so polarized that nobody wants to care for his neighbor, a crisis happens, and we are reminded of the things that matter most.




I'll end this lengthy post with a thank you to Bruce Springsteen for writing "Land of Hope & Dreams,"
and for performing it last night with the E Street Band. 
These lyrics are the intellectual property of Bruce Springsteen and I sure hope he doesn't mind me reposting them here.
Grab your ticket and your suitcase
Thunder's rolling down this track
Well you don't know where you're goin' now
But you know you won't be back
Well darlin' if you're weary
Lay your head upon my chest
We'll take what we can carry
Ya, and we'll leave behind the rest

Well, big wheels rolling through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

Well I will provide for you
Ya and I'll stand by your side
You'll need a good companion now
For this part of your ride
Ya leave behind your sorrows
Ya this day at last
Well tomorrow there'll be sunshine
And all this darkness past

Well, big wheels rolling through fields
Where sunlight streams
Oh meet me in a land of hope and dreams

Well this train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This train
Carries whores and gamblers
This train
Carries lost souls

This train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This train
Faith will be rewarded
This train
Hear the steel wheels singing
This train
Bells of freedom ringing