On the Reef is a series featuring fabulous indie authors from around the blogosphere and beyond. Titles, covers, and blurbs that catch my eye, new releases, great reads… Basically, authors I’d like to highlight and works I’d like to share with my fellow book-loving word nerds. Happy Reading!

New Release

Justice in a Bottle by Pete Fanning

Justice in a Bottle

All thirteen-year old Nita Simmons has ever wanted is to be a journalist, but when she flubs a piece for her middle school newspaper she becomes a laughingstock at school and risks losing her coveted membership to the Junior Journalists Club. Nita’s confidence is at an all-time low when Earl Melvin, her reclusive neighbor and the town’s most notorious criminal–picks that day to speak to her. Mr. Melvin offers Nita a story–some old books he refers to as his memoirs. Nita can’t help but read the books, and what she finds is not violence but a tale of secret love and heartbreak in the Virginia back roads. Still dealing with her recent failure, Nita can’t believe that no one’s ever questioned such injustice in her own town. Sensing redemption, she dives into the research, getting to know the neighbor her mother warned her about.

You can get your copy here: 🙂

Amazon US | Amazon UK

About Pete:

If it weren’t for my two dogs, I’d have no stories to tell. The dogs need walks, lots of walks, and it’s on these walks where most of these ideas come to life. So it’s a fair arrangement for both of us.

The ideas usually hit mid-walk, at that point where I’m too far down the trail to run back to the house after realizing I’ve left a notepad or pen or stone tablet back home. So I can usually be spotted on the creekside trail, muttering and mumbling and otherwise conjuring up dialogue.

While a few of my stories have appeared in online publications, a handful of anthologies, and even a couple of writing contests, but I’m probably proudest of my letters to the editor of our local newspaper, involving trash and litter on those beloved trails.

Lunch Break Fiction. Well, life is busy. I have to work that pesky job, and so I’m thankful to have such a supportive wife and kid and those dog walks to work out my ideas. I usually find time to write in the mornings. Or evenings. Or my lunch break, in the car, a closet, or wherever else I can carve out a moment of spare time.

I’ve written more than one manuscript and used them to start more than one fire. But I’m thrilled to announce that both my debut novel, JUSTICE IN A BOTTLE, and my middle-grade road romp, RUNAWAY BLUES, are set to be published by Immortal-Works Press in 2020, followed by a third middle grade novel, BRICKTOWN BOYS, in January of 2021.

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