Sacred Ground & Holy Water: One Man’s Adventures in the Wild (198 pp, $15.95/paper ISBN: 978-1-60381-118-7), by Lyn Fuchs, is the ultimate collection of adventure stories for armchair and active travelers. Although written from a male perspective, these humorous, insightful accounts of Fuchs’ travels are bound to captivate readers of both sexes.

If you are looking for the book subtitled “Travel Tales of Enlightenment,” you have come to the right place. This is simply a new edition in a brighter, shinier 5 x 8 package.

Robert Martin, Editor of Canada’s The Dalhousie Review, has called Fuchs’s travel writing, “Gonzo razzle-dazzle verbal fireworks!”

5 Stars from Mystee:

“I loved how raw and honest this book is. I picked this up to read for a while on a Saturday night before tossing a movie in the DVD player. Needless to say, I never made the movie. I read this whole book, start to finish, right then. Ladies, even if this isn’t for you, pick it up for a free-spirited man in your life. He’ll love it.”  Read more …

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Also available on Kindle ($6.95)

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“No one since Hunter S. Thompson has loved the wild and woolly world with as much intensity, insight, passion and gusto as Lyn Fuchs in his new collection of travel writing Sacred Ground & Holy Water: Travel Tales of Enlightenment. From Africa, Central America, India, the Pacific Northwest, and back again, Lyn’s rambunctious dispatches from the far corners of our strange globe arrive with the full force of whitewater plunging from mountains, lava burning the very soles from our hiking boots. So delicious are the bountiful meals he eats, so beautiful the foreign lasses he dallies with, nothing is left for the reader but a searing jealousy, an aching desire to be out there ourselves. Thompson, rest his soul, would be proud.”

—Tony D’Souza, Author of Whiteman, The Konkans, and the forthcoming Mule

“Fuchs is a deft raconteur, and he shows he can paint a compelling romantic description.”   Read more …

—Gary Klinga, ForeWord Reviews

“Spicy writing with a strong male perspective with more than an ample dash of wit and humour make the Sacred Ground & Holy Water, a very enjoyable read. Though reading it as I did in one sitting, one might wish that there were more of a flow from chapter to chapter. But by the end of the book, the only thing the voice in my head was saying was, ‘Please Sir, I want some more.’ ”
Read more …

—Shweta Ganesh Kumar, writer and freelance travel journalist

“With no shortage of stories making for a fun read, Sacred Ground & Holy Water shouldn’t be missed.”

—Small Press Bookwatch

“Funny, literary, and hard-hitting. Professor Fuchs combines the humor of Twain, the alpha adventure of Hemingway, and the romantic sensitivity of Steinbeck. Just wish I was the one publishing it.”

—John Kemmerly, Bluefoot Publishing

“One thing that really struck a chord with me in this book is Lyn’s extensive amount of weird, odd, and downright unusual travel experiences. An example is his ‘beach vacation’ in the middle of the pirates’ home base in Belize. We all know that there is that area where pirates hang out. But who knew you could even go there, or why you would want to? Lyn includes some fascinating details in his trip reports, such as pointing out that pirates have made this part of the world their home since the 1700s … I loved this book, and if Sacred Ground and Holy Water sounds like your cup of tea—it certainly will inspire you to see more of the world.”

—Andy Hayes, SharingTravelExperiences.com

“An extraordinary travelogue. Lyn Fuchs seems to be up for anything, and is an exhausting companion. I feel as if I have been bumped round the world in a week, waking only for the occasional surreal encounter, before bouncing on in a cloud of wacky ideas.”

—John Gimlette, Author of At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels in Paraguay, Theatre of Fish: Travels in Newfoundland and Labrador, and Panther Soup: A European Journey in War and Peace

“Alternating between profundity and lunacy, Lyn Fuchs delivers a highly readable romp in his own search for the meaning of the universe.”

—Sean O’Reilly, President and Founder, Auriga Distribution Group

“I found Sacred Ground & Holy Water quite a tonic—a mixture of enjoyment and irreverence. Many teachers say that enlightenment doesn’t come to those who deliberately set out to find it. If you are open, it finds you. One of the main feelings I got from this book is that Lyn Fuchs is an open traveler.”

—Ben Box, Author of Footprint Travel Guides

The first book by writer and Professor Lyn Fuchs, Sacred Ground is a collection of travel stories filled with humor, tragedy, adventure, sexual innuendo, and spiritual insight. Lyn should be called Lyndiana Jones. He has survived enraged grizzlies, erupting volcanoes, Japanese swordfights, and giant squid tentacles. He has been entrapped by FBI agents and held at gunpoint by renegade soldiers. He has sung with Bulgaria’s bluesmaster Vasko the Patch and met with Mexico’s Zapatista Army commander Marcos. He has been thrown out of forbidden temples in southern India and passed out in sweat lodges off the Alaskan coast. His navel has been inhabited by beetles and his genitals have been cursed by eunuchs. He has shared coffee with presidents, beer with pirates, and goat guts with polygamists. He has contracted malaria, typhoid, salmonella, and lovesickness around the world.

“My writing habit began when heavy snow sealed me for weeks into a log cabin amidst the thick timber of Canada’s craggy mountains,” says Fuchs. “Life was forever changed. With nothing to do but observe minute details and reflect upon them, I spent silent solitary hours grasping for exact words to convey my experience to others, for when that connection would be restored. Meditations transformed into magazine articles. From eye to mind to pen, the journeys of my life were distilled into the stories that make up this collection, to the very last one written on an isolated Mexican ranch under a fiery sunset and the influence of tequila. My spirit is in these pages too. When a girlfriend’s father once asked about my religion, I responded, ‘After traveling the world, I still believe in four things: God, love, nature, and children, but everything else seems like bullshit.’ He welcomed my weary but honest soul into his home. This book is the same spirit—hoping for a few hours in your hands and maybe even a place in your heart. If you aren’t currently holed up at a snowy cabin or a sunny ranch but wish you were, consider letting Sacred Ground & Holy Water take you there.”

Fuchs’ travel writing has appeared in Outdoor Canada, Monday Magazine, Canadian Ethnic Studies, The Dalhousie Review, Eclectica Literary Journal, Rose and Thorn, Gam Magazine, Paperplates Literary Journal, Travel Rag, 3:AM Magazine, artist-at-large, Long Trip Home, Crank Literary Journal, The Kinte Space, Travelmag, Hack Writers, Trip 101, Raging Face, Traveling Stories, The Best of Bluefoot Publishing and others. For more information, go to LynFuchs.blogspot.com.

Fuchs is a professor of communication at the University of Papaloapan and has earned his Associate’s, Bachelor’s, and Master’s degrees in communication and philosophy.

Sacred Ground & Holy Water is available in trade paperback, Kindle ($6.95) and will soon be available in cloth ($23.95) editions on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and Amazon.fr. Other ebook versions will be sold on Smashwords and available through most major ebook retailers. Bookstores and libraries can order through Coffeetownpress.com, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor.

Entry-Level, by Bobby Casella

Entry-Level, by Bobby Casella
ISBN: 978-1-60381-058-6 (Paperback)

** Also Available in Kindle version on Amazon and other ebook versions on Smashwords **

“I love how the readers are allowed to experience the character of Robert.  We get to share his views as he narrates the story.  In many ways, it seems he never grew up, yet it is obvious he has the abilities and skills to succeed in life if he puts forth the effort.  He spends more time working to develop schemes to make quick money instead of working hard at the job he has been given.  Even though Robert seems like a lazy and immature low-life, I somehow found him likable and I wanted him to become somebody … Entry-Level will appeal to males between the ages of eighteen and thirty.  They will probably be able to relate to Robert on some level.  There is a great deal of humor throughout the story, especially in Robert’s encounters (both real and imagined) with his mother …. Entry-Level is a fun escape from everyday life.  The unexpected ending will leave the reader rethinking what constitutes being successful.”

—Leslie Granier for Reader Views Read More ….

A “deranged young professional” is hell-bent on making a million bucks because he thinks life without money is not worth living.  Entry-Level is an outrageous and ultimately heart-warming adventure comedy about a young man’s battle with cynicism. Here’s how the novel begins:

I was pinned face-down in a pool of my own blood—in a bank vault. My cell phone lay just a few feet from my mouth, so she could still hear me if I projected my voice. “I just want some peace,” I agonized.

“Can you see the bullet?”

“Yeah, it’s over there in the corner. My skin’s on it.”

“I want you to stand up, honey, and I want you to get the fuck out of that vault. Then I want you to get out of there before the cops come. Do you hear me?”

“I do, Dawn. I really do. But the money, Dawn: it’s sitting right here.”

“Honey, a bullet went through you. You have an exit wound, and you need a doctor.”

“There’s a piece of my skin sitting on the floor. It looks like a strawberry.”

“You’re not thinking, honey…Am I losing you?”

“No…I feel fine. I just want to sit here and look at my money. I want to sit here and look at it a little while longer.”

“Listen to me honey. You’ve got to get out of there. You’ll bleed to death before the cops find you!”

“But I’m fine!” I snapped. I was delirious. I labored over to my back and I sat up. “See, I can put the blood back in.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m scooping the blood back in. I’m putting it back in the hole so I can escape with it.” I was slipping hard. My blood wasn’t really going back in the hole. It was just smearing all over my sweaty PVC suit. Ironic, the PVC suit. I’d suffered through wearing the hot thing throughout this whole ordeal in an effort to avoid leaving behind DNA. But now look. My DNA was a big puddle on the vault floor.

I wanted to tell Dawn how ironic this was—Dawn, the nice sex chat operator. But my mouth just fluttered. It made no sound.

“You there? Hello? Honey? You still there?” On Dawn’s end of the line, there was a frighteningly long silence. I was drifting. But I somehow managed to speak, “I’m still here, Dawn.”

“Listen to me. You have to get it together.”

“I’ll be fine Dawn, I’m with my money.”

“Honey, everybody in the world would want that money, but most of us are too scared to go after it. But not you: you went after it. I just met you, but I can already see that you have real courage. So all you need to do is pick yourself up and walk out of that vault, ALIVE, and a free man!”