Book Blitz: The Hero of Pamplona by Len Wechsler

 

And Other Mostly True Stories

Memoir

Date Published: June 12, 2026

Publisher: MindStir Media

What makes a life worth remembering? Is it danger—or joy? Triumph—or deception? Sometimes it’s all of them, tangled together in moments that refuse to fade.

The Hero of Pamplona and Other Mostly True Stories is a memoir told through twenty-two vividly rendered short stories drawn from the extraordinary life of Len Wechsler. Spanning decades and continents, these deeply personal reflections move effortlessly from New York to Los Angeles, Paris to Pamplona, Lisbon to Tangiers—each place leaving its mark, each moment carrying emotional weight.

With the voice of a philosopher, the instincts of a filmmaker, and the honesty of someone who has lived fully, Wechsler explores friendship and betrayal, risk and reinvention, longing and belonging. These are stories shaped by youthful bravado, artistic pursuit, cultural collision, and the quiet reckonings that come with time.

Sometimes humorous, sometimes haunting, and always human, this memoir invites readers into a life lived on the edge of experience—where truth and memory blur, and where the author believes one simple thing: if a story touches him, it may touch you too.

Whether you read it as travel memoir, coming-of-age reflection, or a meditation on identity and chance, The Hero of Pamplona and Other Mostly True Stories is a journey worth taking.

 

About the Author

Len Wechsler is a writer, filmmaker, and lifelong storyteller whose work spans continents, cultures, and creative disciplines. Raised in New York City and educated in the Midwest, Wechsler studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris before earning a master’s degree from New York University. His early adult years were marked by adventure and movement—from playing professional basketball in France and Italy to traveling across Europe and around the Mediterranean.

In the United States, Wechsler taught in both New York and California before launching a filmmaking career in the mid-1970s. He was among the earliest filmmakers to capture the raw beauty, risk, and exhilaration of surfing and skateboarding on film, later transitioning into screenwriting for feature films. His creative life continued overseas when he lived and worked in Portugal for thirteen years as a teacher and theater director.

More recently, Wechsler co-wrote a stage play exploring the underbelly of Los Angeles, which debuted in New York City. A member of the Writers Guild of America West, he now lives in California, where he continues to write—and still plays basketball when he can, even if the three-pointer no longer falls as easily.

Contact Link

Website

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Cover Reveal: These Secret Years by August Jones

 

THESE SECRET YEARS 

August Jones

Release Date: August 28 

Meet August Jones:

August Jones (She/They) is an author of erotica and a voracious reader of smut. She resides in Texas with her family, pets, and books. However, she reads mostly on her phone because she’s cheap, it has a built in backlight, and it’s almost always in her hand.

If you ever discover her real name, don’t tell her, just read the books she’s published (you’ll like them) and thank her later with a rating or review. Mwah!

Feel free to reach out to her on Instagram or check out her website https://augustjonesbooks.com where you’ll find a link to subscribe to her newsletter and get a sneak peak at any upcoming releases or free shorts.

Connect with August Jones:

https://www.instagram.com/authoraugustjones/ 

Blurb:

Four years of keeping secrets, telling lies, and finding the love of a lifetime

Sullivan

They say I have a gift because music is as easy as breathing for me. The true gift, however, is the first breath of freedom I’ve had in years—college, bought and paid for by the man who holds my future in his greedy, roaming hands. The first weekend away from him is everything I ever dreamed college would be—a chance to live my own life, form true friendships, and then there’s Knight Winters. The incoming quarterback at our new school who grew up in my hometown is a surprise to me in every way. He makes me question everything. My sexuality, my future, and every mistake I’ve ever made.

Knight

Becoming the starting quarterback at this school is all part of a plan set in motion since I was old enough to hold a football. As the son of a football giant, playing in the NFL has always been the dream. Here at the University of Southern Missouri, I’m on my way to making it come true. The only thing I have to give up is who I am. I’ve known I was gay for as long as I can remember, but it’s the secret I have to keep to have the life I’ve always wanted.

Meeting Sullivan wasn’t part of the plan. From that first night, the attraction, the chemistry, the instant connection has been impossible to push aside and pretend none of it matters. He’s brilliant, he’s beautiful, and he has secrets, too, secrets that are on the verge of breaking him. My obsession ebbs and flows with the seasons here at school, but when we’re back in our hometown, I find myself with a choice I never thought I’d have to make: whether football can give me the life I want, or if it’s him.

THESE SECRET YEARS is a high angst MM romance that takes place over four years of college. A forbidden love story featuring a college quarterback and a music prodigy, it contains heavy themes, plenty of spice, found family, hurt/comfort and a grumpy/sunshine dynamic. This coming of age story should be read with caution. Please check triggers prior to reading. 18+

Pre-Order Link: 

https://mybook.to/TSY 

Cover Reveal: Not Another Dark Romance by Lexi Amber & Bec Benson

 

NOT ANOTHER DARK ROMANCE 

Lexi Amber & Bec Benson

Release Date: September 9 

Meet Lexi Amber:

Lexi is an American author who is obsessed with queer happily ever afters. Most of her time is spent with her two kids, but if they’re asleep, then she is either reading, writing, or watching hockey.

Professionally trained as a nurse, Lexi decided to start writing when she became a stay at home mom and the characters in her head haven’t stopped talking since.

Lexi also loves Diet Coke, traveling, and Halloween. Her house is probably obnoxiously decorated for whatever holiday is next because she thinks that little things that make people smile are important.

You can find her attempting to stay up-to-date with all social media under the name Lexi Amber.

Connect with Lexi Amber:

https://www.instagram.com/lexi.ambermm/ 

Meet Bec Benson:

Bec Benson is based in the Northeast, lives for the first sip of hot coffee in the morning, and genuinely believes emo music can make you happy. She's obsessed with mgk, a good uninterrupted writing session, and queer romance novels.

Connect with Bec Benson:

https://www.instagram.com/authorbecbenson/ 

Blurb:

Mason

When I pretend like I’m a main character in one of my favorite dark romances and stalk my hot waiter, I never imagined I’d end up chained to the pole in his basement.

The outcome is better than I could’ve hoped for.

Zane insists he has to kill me because my stalking attempt led to him accidentally committing multiple crimes he thinks he needs to cover up. He keeps talking about loose ends, but I know he'd never really hurt me.

He's just fighting what we both know is inevitable.

We're meant to be together. All I have to do is convince Zane that giving in to his dark side is a lot more fun than resisting it.

Not Another Dark Romance is a dark rom com featuring a reverse corruption arc, an insanely delusional MMC, and an unexpected connection that leads to a dark romance inspired HEA. 

Pre-Order Link: 

https://books2read.com/u/3JzPDQ 

Cover Reveal: Will to Run by Kelly O'Reilly

 

WILL TO RUN 

Kelly O’Reilly

Release Date: September 23 

Meet Kelly O’Reilly:

Kelly has been obsessed with words since she learned to read---pouring over poems, lyrics, magnetic poetry, cutting out words for collages, writing down favorite phrases, you get the idea. As for obsessed with love? Probably longer.

These days, you can find her hoarding all the good pens while writing contemporary romance novels full of heartfelt emotion, epic banter, spicy spice, and laugh-out-loud moments with characters you fall for and plots you get lost in.

And happily ever afters. Always happily ever afters.

When she's not writing, she's collecting moments with her four kids and husband, taking photos, dreaming of seeing the world, loving her 80 pound pitty bull, seeking new, fun experiences, or dancing to late 90s/early 2000s songs. Spoiler Alert: She can no longer Get Low.

Connect with Kelly O’Reilly:

https://www.instagram.com/kellyoreillyauthor/ 

 

Blurb:

Getting involved with a runaway bride is dumb, even for me.

I tell myself that offering a stranger a place to ride out a storm is simple Wyoming hospitality, and I want her to leave my ranch knowing there’s still good in this world.

It has nothing to do with the fact that the world blurs at the edges when I look at her.

But after a few short interactions, I know it’s no longer a question of if I’ll hold out, it’s how long, because whatever is happening between us doesn’t happen twice in this life.

When I accept that Amberheart Valley is more than just a stopover for her, it’s where she’s meant to stay, I quit fighting my feelings, and start fighting for hers.

To secure my family’s stability, I’m supposed to marry the man my father chose for me.

Instead, I run before I make it to church.

When I get stranded for three days in a tiny Western town, the last thing I expect is to be drawn to the gorgeous rancher with warm eyes who offers me a soft place to land.

Turns out, cowboys do it differently.

When he makes me feel desired instead of disdained, and cherished rather than conquered, Jaxon Wills becomes a temptation I simply can’t resist.

Soon my freedom no longer looks like running, and with every sunrise, I discover that losing everything is the key to finding myself.

My future was never mine to begin with, but when the lie it’s built on unravels, will I be brave enough to choose the life I want?

Pre-Order Link:

Release Blitz: Hunt Me by E.M. Lindsey & Cora Rose

 

HUNT ME

E.M. Lindsey & Cora Rose 

Release Date: August 7 

Meet Cora Rose:

Cora Rose loves any kind of romance and consumes way too many books each year. She currently lives in the U.S. and spends her days daydreaming about the characters inside her head.

You can email her at CoraRoseRomance@gmail.com or visit her website at coraroseromance.com

Connect with Cora Rose:

https://www.instagram.com/coraroseauthor/ 

Meet E.M. Lindsey:

E.M. Lindsey is a Romance author, an ancient historian, and avid lover of nerdy things.  EM lives on the East Coast of the United States.  

Connect with E.M. Lindsey:

https://linktr.ee/emlindseyauthor

Blurb:

Doing Deaf drag isn’t supposed to come with threats to my life, damn it. I’ve had a stalker before, and apparently—even after involving my friend from the FBI—he’s decided to come back and make my life hell.

But this time, however, a slightly terrifying stranger shows up to play hero.

He knocked my stalker on his ass and left me with blood smears on my jaw and a kiss on my lips so devastating, it threatened to rearrange my whole life. And then he disappeared into the shadows.

But just when I think I’ll never see him again, I find him haunting my steps everywhere I turn.

It’s not long before I realize hunting me might be his love language, and god help me, I think I’m into it. Especially when each time he catches me, he leaves me breathless and wanting more.

My stalker is still around, but being with Archie is worth whatever the unwelcome blast from my past wants to throw at me.

After all, having a boyfriend with a thing for knives, coffins, and funeral flowers is a great way to protect myself, and if his obsession and love for me isn’t enough to take my stalker down, my determination to get my happily ever after will.

Hunt Me is the first book in the morally grey rom-com series Murder Hearts. It’s a spicy, MM stalker-to-lover romance with forced proximity, coffins as a special interest, an Autistic MC, a Deaf Drag Queen who doesn’t have time for anyone’s BS, stalking as a love language, a set of lovable murder brothers, an unhinged cat café, and a steamy, swoony, happily ever after.

Buy Link:

https://books2read.com/u/388EGa 

Available in KU

Teaser: Turtle Lake by Robert Milne

 

 

Crime Thriller / Suspense

Date Published: 09-07-2026

Publisher: Mission Point Press

Turtle Lake is a gripping tale of revenge, survival, and the intricate interplay between human nature and the natural world. The story follows Jim Peters, the comptroller at Ramsey Motors, who uncovers a corrupt scheme by the company and its insurer, U.S. Underwriters, to defraud employees of their retirement and insurance benefits before moving operations overseas. Infuriated, he devises an elaborate extortion plan to expose their corruption and protect the employees through a spectacular plot that ends up achieving national headlines. To accomplish his plan, Peters uses simple, everyday methods and lessons learned from alpha predators in the natural world.

 

Excerpt

 Life is a dangerous place to be. The woods, skies, lakes, and oceans are filled with creatures bent on killing and eating each other. Nothing in nature dies of old age, as the adage goes. 

Prey animals are taken down by predators. It’s as if prey animals are made to be food. 

Carnivore predators possess razor-sharp canine-like teeth. Carnivores are the watchers from the shadows. All of them, such as lions, tigers, bobcats, and wolves, are wired the same way. They don’t eat lettuce for lunch. To a carnivore, you simply look like another rabbit in the grass. 

There’s another carnivore that is often overlooked – humans. Humans have canine teeth. They are born wired with the same instincts as the alpha predators. 

We’re taught to control it. Supposedly. 

Birds will tell you when the sun is going to come up. At the faintest glimmer of dawn's early light, they begin to converse with each other, presumably to find out where the bugs are that day. Usually, we don't hear them in their earliness. Our day starts later. Usually. 

Frogs and insects do the same during the pre-dawn moments, buzzing and croaking in the woods, fields, and swamps. Presumably they do this to find out where the predators are. It's been said that frogs might be telling each other where the rattlesnakes and blue herons are at any given time. We don't usually hear them croaking away in the early hours of the day. Usually. 

Today, however, as the woods came to life with this early morning serenade, Jim Peters could hear them very clearly. It was August of 1990. He was in his cabin in mid-Michigan, situated on the edge of a quiet, deep-woods nature refuge known as Turtle Lake. Peters was lyingin bed backwards, that is, with his feet at the head of the bed and his head at the foot of the bed, chin resting on his wrists as he looked at a model train set. 

The train set, an ancient Lionel from the 1940s, included buildings, roads, bridges, cars, trucks, a shopping center, and a train running through it. The set looked ordinary enough to the casual passerby or rare visitor to the cabin. But in fact, it was window dressing, a model of the crime scene that was to come. The train had nothing to do with it. 

In a short while, when the birds, frogs, and bugs had quieted down, Peters would push a button and Mozart's opera The Magic Flute would float from the speakers connected to his compact disc machine. Peters liked Mozart. The music was pure and uncluttered. It flowed from one section into another so smoothly that it was hard to tell a transition had taken place. The complexities of its composition flowed as smoothly as pouring oil. 

As smoothly as the diabolical scam he was planning.

 

About the Author

Bob Milne has been hailed throughout his 60-year career as one of the best ragtime/boogie-woogie piano players of all time. A solo concert performer, he traveled all over the world playing for dignitaries and celebrities as well as small town audiences. He was given the title of National Treasure by the Library of Congress and deemed an Ambassador of Music by the U.S. Department of State.

Bob’s extraordinary musical abilities were the subject of numerous brain studies, which have inspired a popular RadioLab podcast.

Little did they know that Bob was also a talented writer.

For years he wrote articles about his saloon-playing days for music publications. Many of these stories were compiled into a book called The Journeyman Piano Player: Adventures in Gracious Dining. Bob has written reams of poetry, some of which became lyrics to songs that he composed. The longest piece of poetry he ever wrote was the lyric book for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a grand opera he composed and orchestrated.

Mr. Milne has been fascinated by nature his entire life. At a young age he realized that instincts are present in all species of birds, mammals (including humans), and literally every living thing in nature. He has used this information countless times over his lifetime to predict what the human species will do in future situations.

Bob is now retired from the long piano tours and is enjoying his woodland home. Today he spends his time studying nature in the woods. Signed copies of his book may be purchased through his website.

Contact Links

Website

Goodreads

Facebook

Purchase Link

https://mybook.to/TurtleLake

Amazon

Book Blitz: The Baal of Shangisha by O. Mez

 

Middle-grade fantasy Adventure, fantasy

Date Published: January 6, 2026

Publisher: MindStir Media

 

 

One boy. One impossible dream. One journey that could change his world forever.

When a mysterious force hurls young Chetanna into the home of an enigmatic old bird, he arrives carrying an extraordinary dream: to bring peace to the wicked and divided world around him.

Even Chetanna is unsure such peace is possible.

But when his mother tells him of a distant land of possibilities—a place where hidden answers may be found—Chetanna finally sees a path forward. As darkness spreads across the island he calls home, he begins a dangerous quest armed with only a slingshot, a mysterious name whispered by his mother, and the ancient power of the Eight.

Chetanna believes that courage, hope, and determination will be enough to complete his mission.

He is wrong.

Halfway through the journey, betrayal changes everything. The companions he trusted most abandon him, convinced that the quest is doomed. Left for dead and stranded in an unforgiving wilderness, Chetanna loses nearly everything he depended upon.

He should turn back.

He should surrender.

Instead, he holds tightly to the one thing no enemy can take from him: his dream of creating a better world.

Driven by resilience, courage, kindness, and an unshakable belief in what might still be possible, Chetanna presses forward. But when he finally reaches the legendary land he has risked everything to find, a devastating truth awaits—one powerful enough to destroy his mission and shatter everything he believes.

The Baal of Shangisha is a lyrical middle-grade fantasy adventure filled with mystery, ancient power, dangerous choices, unexpected betrayal, and unforgettable lessons about hope, sacrifice, selflessness, and perseverance.

Perfect for readers who enjoy:

• Courageous young heroes and epic quests

• Magical lands inspired by rich cultural traditions

• Fantasy adventures filled with danger and discovery

• Stories about friendship, betrayal, and forgiveness

• Meaningful lessons about resilience, love, kindness, and hope

• Young characters who discover that even the smallest voice can inspire extraordinary change

Blending atmospheric storytelling, African cultural echoes, and timeless themes, O. Mez delivers a powerful debut novel for young readers who believe that courage is not the absence of fear—but the decision to keep moving forward.

How far would you go to save your world when everyone else has stopped believing?

Begin Chetanna’s unforgettable journey in The Baal of Shangisha today.

About the Author

 O. Mez is a Nigerian-born author whose storytelling is shaped by the rich oral traditions, cultural rhythms, and imaginative tales that surrounded him while growing up. Inspired by stories passed down through generations, he writes lyrical, atmospheric fantasy that explores courage, resilience, hope, and the quiet strength of those who dare to believe in a better world.

Now based in Colorado, Mez brings together African cultural echoes, timeless life lessons, and immersive fantasy adventure to create meaningful stories for young readers. His debut middle-grade fantasy novel, The Baal of Shangisha, follows a young hero on a dangerous quest filled with mystery, betrayal, ancient power, and the unshakable determination to change his world.

Through his writing, Mez hopes to encourage children to embrace kindness, perseverance, selflessness, and the belief that even the smallest voice can make a lasting difference.

When he is not writing, he enjoys watching football, spending time with his wife and daughters, and reading stories about forgotten lands, brave souls, and extraordinary journeys.

Purchase Links

Amazon

B-A-M

Thrift Books

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