About the book, The Bones of Amoret
- Genre: Mystery /Suspense
- Publisher: Stitched Smile Publications
- Date of Publication: April 1, 2022
- Number of Pages: 323 pages
- Scroll down for Giveaway!
In this enigmatic follow up to his critically acclaimed debut novel The Cuts that Cure, Arthur Herbert returns to the Texas-Mexico border with this saga of a small town’s bloody loss of innocence.
Amoret,Texas, 1982. Life along the border is harsh, but in a world where cultures work together to carve a living from the desert landscape, Blaine Beckett lives a life of isolation. A transplanted Boston intellectual, for twenty years locals have viewed him as a snob, a misanthrope, an outsider. He seems content to stand apart until one night when he vanishes into thin air amid signs of foul play.
Noah Grady, the town doctor, is a charming and popular good ol’ boy. He’s also a keeper of secrets, both the town’s and his own. He watches from afar as the mystery of Blaine’s disappearance unravels and rumors fly. Were the incipient cartels responsible? Was it a local with a grudge? Or did Blaine himself orchestrate his own disappearance? Then the unthinkable happens, and Noah begins to realize he’s considered a suspect.
Paced like a lit fuse and full of dizzying plot twists, The Bones of Amoret is a riveting whodunit that will keep you guessing all the way to its shocking conclusion.
Buy, read, and discuss this book:
About the author, Arthur Herbert
Arthur Herbert was born and raised in small town Texas. He worked on offshore oil rigs, as a bartender, a landscaper at a trailer park, and as a social worker before going to medical school. For the last eighteen years, he’s worked as a trauma and burn surgeon, operating on all ages of injured patients. He continues to run a thriving practice.
He’s won multiple awards for his scientific writing, and his first novel, The Cuts that Cure, spent ten days as an Amazon #1 Best Seller. His second novel, The Bones of Amoret, will be released on April 1, 2022 through Stitched Smile Publishers. Arthur currently lives in New Orleans, with his wife Amy and their dogs.
Arthur loves hearing from readers, so don’t hesitate to email him at arthur@arthurherbertwriter.com.
Connect with Arthur:
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | AMAZON | GOODREADS | BOOKBUB
My Thoughts
I have not read Arthur Herbert’s first novel, and I’m really sorry about that, because this author’s voice caught me from the first page. (I’ve since purchased a the Kindle version.) The Bones of Amoret, which is not a sequel, but a second, stand-alone story, is the kind of thriller that I love to read. It’s gritty and earthy, and there are dangerous acts of questionable legality, but at it’s heart this is a novel about love – between friends, between parents and children, between brothers-by-choice – and it’s also about family and about loss. As well, it’s a pages-long proof that doing what is right is not always easy, and that even good people sometimes do terrible things.
Told from the POV of country (well, US border) doctor, Noah Grady, this book opens with dialogue and description that immediately put the reader in the Southwest Texas landscape. You can feel the heat from the road, and taste the dust in the air, and while the conversation isn’t one most of us would ever be party to – first, the number of people being helped across the border, and then the discovery of another man, seriously dehydrated and carrying quite a lot of cocaine – the cadences of the speakers, casual language about far-from-casual events – are familiar.
As the novel progresses the main plot unfolds – Blaine Beckett has disappeared. It’s difficult to feel sympathy for him, as he’s pretty universally disliked by the community, but his disappearance leads to other, darker events, that do cause anger, tears, frustration, and eventually, satisfaction. It’s this ability to elicit deeper emotional responses from the reader that is author Herbert’s greatest skill, because he does it with plain prose that is reminiscent of Hemingway seasoned with a dash of Twain.
I also appreciated the author’s commitment to period authenticity. The Bones of Amoret takes place in 1982, when AIDS was still called GRID, and sonogram machines fill half a room. Herbert never hits us over the head with his “vintage” setting, but he also ensures that there are no obvious anachronisms pulling us out of the novel.
Bottom line: If you like stories that are both compelling and compassionate, while also being incredibly relevant, The Bones of Amoret is a worthy choice.
Goes well with: chicken mole, dirty rice, and negra Modelo.
Giveaway
THREE WINNERS!
Autographed Copies of The Bones of Amoret
(US Only. Ends midnight, CDT, 4/15/2022.)
y
Check out the Other Great Blogs on This Tour
Click to visit the Tour Page at Lone Star Literary Life
| 4/5/22 | Review | The Clueless Gent |
| 4/5/22 | Review | Bibliotica |
| 4/5/22 | BONUS Promo | Hall Ways Blog |
| 4/6/22 | Review | Boys’ Mom Reads |
| 4/6/22 | Review | Julia Picks 1 |
| 4/7/22 | Review | The Book’s Delight |
| 4/7/22 | BONUS Promo | LSBBT Blog |
| 4/8/22 | Review | The Plain-Spoken Pen |
| 4/8/22 | Review | Writing and Music |
| 4/9/22 | Review | The Obsessed Reader |
| 4/10/22 | Review | Missus Gonzo |
| 4/11/22 | Review | Chapter Break Book Blog |
| 4/11/22 | Review | Book Fidelity |
| 4/12/22 | Review | It’s Not All Gravy |
| 4/12/22 | BONUS Promo | All the Ups and Downs |
| 4/13/22 | Review | Forgotten Winds |
| 4/13/22 | Review | Shelf Life Blog |
| 4/14/22 | Review | Reading by Moonlight |
Blog tour services provided by
An interplanetary mystery and a searing critique of the contemporary billionaire quest for Mars. The year is (still) 2188 and Crucial Larsen is officially done with Mars. But just as he’s set to head back to his beloved Earth, meteors crash into the orbital platforms, ravage the luxury domes and knock Halo—the powerful AI running Mars and Earth—offline. And this is no random cosmic event. An invading force has the technology to redirect space rocks at will and intends to level the Five Families.
Clark and Kathleen wrote their first book together in 1999 as a test for marriage. They passed. Mars Adrift is their tenth co-authored book.
The last time I reviewed a McFall & Hays novel it was Gates of Mars, the first book of this trilogy. (I somehow missed book two, but doing so didn’t seem to adversely effect my understanding or enjoyment of book three.) Back then (July, 2020) I wrote, “It takes a lot of talent to combine a detective plot with a sci-fi setting, and make us care about the characters even when their flaws are all too visible, but McFall and Hays have that talent. They also infuse their work with just enough wry humor to keep things from being overwhelming.”
With her vision and his know-how, this thing just might work . . .
Tari Faris is the author of You Belong with Me and Until I Met You. A member of American Christian Fiction Writers and My Book Therapy, she is the projects manager for My Book Therapy, writes for learnhowtowriteanovel.com, and is a 2017 Genesis Award winner. She has an MDiv from Asbury Theological Seminary and lives in the Phoenix, Arizona, area with her husband and their three children. Although she lives in the Southwest now, she lived in a small town in Michigan for 25 years.
Love abounds in Heritage, MI, in Since You’ve Been Gone, the latest addition to Tari Faris’s engaging “Restoring Heritage” series of romances. There’s love between old friends, new friends, a treasured family business, and even love for the town itself, and it’s all wrapped in a package that manages to be sincere without being sickly-sweet.
I am a 63 year old Accountant who semi-retired to explore my love of creative writing. In my career I held Board level jobs for over twenty five years, in private, public and third sector organisations. I was born in Coventry, a city then dominated by the car industry and high volume manufacturing. Jaguar, Triumph, Talbot, Rolls Royce, Courtaulds, Massey Ferguson were the major employers, to name but a few.
At breaking point Jo deserts her dysfunctional family and possessive boyfriend, making an uncharacteristic escape to the Himalayas in a bid for freedom and self-knowledge. The peace she finds there helps her to unravel her turmoil, but unexpected challenges test her new-found equilibrium to the limit.
A career as a journalist/PR led to health writing for UK nationals newspapers and consumer magazines. Out of the blue I was inspired to write a novel, Finding Jo, which has taken some years to come to fruition, self-publishing in January 2021. I travelled a lot in my 20s and I have drawn on my three months’ trip to India in Finding Jo.
Many times during my read of Frances Ive’s Finding Jo, I felt like I was reading a real-life travelogue and not a novel. This is not a bad thing, as it only makes Jo and the rest of the characters feel more dynamic.
After a rough mission in Rome involving the discovery of a devastating bioweapon, Company spy Ben Calix returns to Paris to find his perfectly ordered world has collapsed. A sniper attack. An ambush. A call for help that brings French SWAT forces down on his head. Ben is out. This is a severance–reserved for incompetents and traitors.
James R. Hannibal is no stranger to secrets and adventure. This former stealth pilot from Houston, Texas, has been shot at, locked up with surface-to-air missiles, and chased down a winding German road by an armed terrorist. He is a two-time Silver Falchion Award winner for his children’s mysteries, a former Thriller Award nominee, and a 2020 Selah and Carol Award finalist for The Gryphon Heist–the opener for the CIA series that now includes Chasing the White Lion. James is a rare multisense synesthete, meaning all of his senses intersect. He sees and feels sounds and smells, and he hears flashes of light. If he tells you the chocolate cake you offered smells blue and sticky, take it as a compliment.
Opening in Rome and then moving to Paris, this novel is a feast of action-adventure, spy games, murder, intrigue, and chess-like strategy and a hint (but only a hint) of romance on a global table, and its protagonist, Ben Calix is the main dish, competent, likeable, and extremely dedicated to a job that doesn’t always offer positive rewards.
Ellie’s brand new enterprise, the True Loaf Bakery, is finally open and classes are due to start. But when Katja’s ski-ing holiday ends in disaster, a new teacher must be found very quickly. Anita is up for the challenge, but – fresh from a break-up and an operation that’s left her feeling physically and emotionally vulnerable – the last thing she’s looking for when she moves to Sunnybrook is a new relationship. So it’s Sod’s law that she should find herself with not one but two guys vying for her attention. Sven, from Denmark, is a bit of an enigma – but maybe passion lurks beneath his cool reserve? And as for twenty-five-year-old football coach Ross – surely she’d be asking for trouble getting involved with a gorgeous man a decade her junior? (Although her football-mad son Rufus seems to love him.)
Rosie has been scribbling stories ever since she was little.
Sweet Pastries and Sourdough at the Little Duck Pond Cafe is the fifteenth Little Duck Pond Cafe Book, but it’s the first I’ve read. Nevertheless, the characters and setting were all so vivid that I felt as though I’d been visiting the cafe for years.
Rodent Roger, a popular Galveston Island exterminator, goes missing the day after he tells private investigator and spy shop owner Xena Cali about a concerning uptick in green iguana sightings on the island. They’re crapping in people’s boats and falling from trees. Are the lizards swimming over from Florida to escape the pythons, or is it something more nefarious? Can Xena help untangle the mess before the raucous reptiles take over Galveston?
Lisa Haneberg loves to explore Galveston Island’s gritty back streets, stellar seafood joints, magnificent natural areas, and all points in between. In addition to the Spy Shop Mysteries, she’s a 
Each of the flawed, fully human characters we meet in these twelve stories faces a moment of life-altering transformation. Most are newcomers to the scenic, rolling countryside of central Texas whose charms they romanticize, even as the troubles they hoped to leave behind persist.
Babette Fraser Hale’s fiction has won the Meyerson Award from Southwest Review, a creative artist award from the Cultural Arts Council of Houston, and been recognized among the “other distinguished stories” in Best American Short Stories, 2015. Her story “Drouth” is part of the New York Public Library’s digital collection. Her nonfiction has appeared in Texas Monthly, Houston City, and the Houston Chronicle. She writes a personal essay column for the Fayette County Record.
Though John J. Jacobson didn’t join the French Foreign Legion after being jilted by a girlfriend, or over his displeasure of missing the last great cattle drive, he has, borrowing Churchill’s phrase, lived a rather variegated life. He was born in Nevada, grew up in the West, surfed big waves in Hawaii, circled the world thrice, survived the sixties and seventies, corporate America, and grad school. Among other degrees he has an MA in Renaissance literature from Claremont Graduate University.