Between 1973 and 1978, Michelle “Feather” Jones dominated adult movie theaters as the burgeoning porn industry’s queen. Fans flocked to her screenings, and critics hailed her as the next big thing. By 1980, though, Feather was homeless, hooked on heroin, and prostituting in order to buy drugs. She disappeared from Hollywood’s restless spotlight and died at the age of forty-five from heroin addiction.
Michelle “Shelly” Jones teaches at a small state college in Denver. She dreams of becoming a great novelist, while her colleagues sign big-dollar publishing deals. When Shelly discovers that a deceased porn star shares her name, she becomes obsessed with her life and death and believes she can descend Orpheus-like into the hell of Feather Jones’ world to rescue and perhaps redeem her memory.
In her quest to make sense of Feather’s life, death, and infamous career, she meets Tim Rhodes, aka the legendary Ryder Long, Feather's real life lover and on-screen co-star. There is no doubting the chemistry sparked between them, but is it merely physical or can they build something that lasts longer than a scene? The bigger question remains in both of their minds, though: is this Tim's way of having Feather back?
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Tracer
Z Ellis has always believed he is the twin brother of mass murderer Adam Russo, even though Z was adopted by a loving family when he was five. What he doesn't know is that he and Adam are actually the same person and that a special department of the FBI—the Eradication of Violent Crimes—has overwritten his memories with new ones through a bio-software program called Tracer in the hopes of creating a model citizen out of the Charles Manson-like mass murderer. The experiment has been successful for ten years.
But when Z witnesses a car accident and the woman dies in his arms, the sensory experience triggers shadows of real memories, leaving Z to wonder if he is going as insane as his brother.
Z is contacted by FBI Agent Gage McAlister, an agent who has been on administrative leave for the past three years following the accidental shooting of a teenager. Gage is the architect of the Tracer bio-software and the one responsible for writing Z's new memories. His responsibility for the teenager's death has made him question his judgment about everything, including taking away Adam Russo's free will by overwriting his memories.
Even as Z begins to discover who he is, Gage himself is on a journey to make things right, even if it means restoring the memories and motivations of a mass murderer.
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Wisp
Five intertwined stories each reveal an aspect of humanity under a wisp of smoke curling from the smokestack of the Henry and Green Mortuary and Crematorium. Birth, family, sex, religion, and career all play out against the backdrop of the one thing they all have in common: death.
Wisp is a short story of approximately 11,000 words.
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Bio
Cher Smith began her writing career when she was eight years old, folding over notebook paper to look like a book. While her novel "Lazy Bones" was never finished, she never lost the love of creating characters and placing them in awkward, mysterious, dangerous or romantic situations, sometimes all at once.
She has a master's degree in philosophy and taught philosophy and English for a few years. She has been in marketing and publishing for most of her adult career and designs and maintains websites in her spare time.
Her first published novel, The Falcon and the Serpent (1990), fell in the fantasy genre, but her writing career has grown considerably beyond that single genre into more contemporary and literary works, including Justified Means, a quirky comedy-drama that follows a pastor’s wife along a Robin Hood-like adventure. She has published numerous articles, including three entries for The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (the television show Home Improvement, the Coors mystique, and Playgirl magazine), movie reviews for Infuze Magazine and several feature stories for Colorado Country Life magazine. She also co-authored a nonfiction book about the changing demographics in America.
Cher Smith is the founder, editor and chief instigator at Dead Key Publishing. It is her desire to bring novels—hers and others—to readers who love books.
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Five intertwined stories each reveal an aspect of humanity under a wisp of smoke curling from the smokestack of the Henry and Green Mortuary and Crematorium. Birth, family, sex, religion, and career all play out against the backdrop of the one thing they all have in common: death. Wisp is a short story of approximately 11,000 words.
Purchase Wisp at Smashwords.
Purchase Wisp at Amazon (for Kindle).
Purchase Wisp at Barnes and Noble (for Nook).