Houston, TX, September 16, 2011... The Department Thirteen Tour was launched successfully with excellent attendance September 14th and 15th at the Booker-Lowe Art Gallery and the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Wine and cheese were provided by tour sponsors Jacob's Creek and King Island Dairy. Mr. Turner signed copies of his new thriller and spoke to the audience on both occasions, which were covered by local Houston Media.

Houston, TX, August 8, 2011...Comfort Publishing and The Honorable Nana Booker, AM, Australia‟s Honorary Consul of the State of Texas, are proud to announce that the Booker-Lowe Gallery in Houston, Texas, will host an exclusive reception on Wednesday, September 14th at 6 PM to launch James Houston Turner's North American tour for Department Thirteen.

This prestigious invitation-only event will include media, as well as many prominent Australian-Americans in the community. The gallery features Aboriginal Australian art, which makes it an ideal place for Mr. Turner, a resident of Australia, to begin his tour. Turner once lived in Houston and studied at the University of Houston - Clear Lake.

Thirty minutes before the event, Mr. Turner will make himself available to the media for interviews.

The following day, a public launch will take place at University of Houston-Clear Lake, when the book officially becomes available in the United States.

Department Thirteen is a fast-moving thriller about ex-KGB informant Aleksandr Talanov and his attempts to move on with life after his work with the KGB. Now living in Australia, Talanov and dozens of dinner guests are suddenly the target of assassins. Talanov and his wife escape, but soon find themselves running for their lives, hunted by the killers, blamed by the police, increasingly pivotal to an invisible network of death about which they know nothing.

The book has been met with critical acclaim and much fanfare. Mr. Turner has received praise and support from the likes of 24 master villain, Adoni Maropis, NCIS: Los Angeles star, LL Cool J, Avatar star, Sam Worthington, the Dallas Morning News, Who magazine, and 2-time Emmy Award nominee, Glenda Shaw.

What really adds intrigue and takes this book beyond your typical spy-thriller is the author himself. As a former smuggler and courier in the days of the Iron Curtain, Turner has firsthand experiences that lend credence to the story. Important details and authentic nuances abound, leaving readers unveiled to a longtime-secret world. Says Turner, “Although Department Thirteen is a work of fiction, Talanov himself is based on an actual KGB informant who leaked word out of Moscow that I was on a KGB watchlist and being followed in San Diego, where I was living at the time. That informant is what gave me the idea of a good-guy KGB agent who helped America during the Cold War, and my „Talanov Thriller Series‟ is a dedication to him and the incredible work that he did for me and countless others. When people follow Talanov‟s exploits in my books, they can know the man behind the man really does exist.”

Throughout the book tour, Mr. Turner will also be holding motivational speaking engagements for what he calls his "Too Ugly Tour" into schools and other organizations, where he discusses his triumph over cancer and his newfound success as an author when so many others wrote him off in life.

Sponsors of the tour include Qantas Airways, King Island Dairy, Jacob's Creek wine, Chopin Vodka, and the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

James Houston Turner holds a Bachelor‟s Degree from Baker University and a Master‟s Degree from the University of Houston - Clear Lake. Originally from Kansas, he has worked as a journalist in Los Angeles, and currently divides his time between Australia and California.
Turner also wrote The Identity Factor, which has its roots at the University of Houston - Clear Lake, where he stumbled on the unique literary construction of the biblical book of Genesis, which forms the backbone of his modern-day thriller in the form of an ancient Egyptian tablet that has explosive implications for the Middle East today. The book met with critical acclaim upon its release in Australia, where is scooped finalist awards in four US book competitions, including the National Best Books Awards and the Eric Hoffer Award . It has been released internationally as an e-book, has been adapted for film, and its physical release in the United States is set for this autumn in conjunction with his US tour.

For more information on Mr. Turner, visit www.jameshoustonturner.com or www.toouglytour.com. For these and other Comfort Publishing titles, visit www.comfortpublishing.com.

Concord, NC, July 6, 2011...Comfort Publishing is proud to announce Qantas Airways as a primary sponsor for successful Australian author James Houston Turner‟s Department Thirteen book tour, as well as his "Too Ugly" motivational speaking tour into schools, where he shares lessons from his years as a struggling writer, his successful battle against cancer, and his experiences as a smuggler behind the old Iron Curtain.

New Orleans, LA  (June 28, 2011) –Comfort Publishing announces that The Time of Eddie Noel (ISBN: 978-1-935361-0-46),  by Al Povall, has received an Honorable Mention at the Foreword Reviews Book of the year Awards, held  at the American Library Association Conference inNew Orleans last week. This is the latest in a string of critical acclaims for the telling of this popular true story from Mississippi’s history. 

“Eddie Noel” is a story of murder and racial segregation in 1950’s Mississippi is gaining big reviews and accolades from book experts all over the country. written by Mr. Al Povall, is a true story that many Mississippians are familiar with.

The book tells the story of a young black man named Eddie Noel who shot and killed a white honky-tonk operator named Willie Ramon Dickard.  The killing took place in southwest Mississippi, a place drenched with violence and soaked with moonshine whiskey, where a black man could be killed just for looking at a white man “wrong.”  Dickard’s killing by Noel led to formation of perhaps the largest posse in Mississippi history, its members fueled by hatred, outrage, and in some cases, white lightning.  Noel took on elements of the posse in two gunfights, killing two more white men and wounding three others.  Then he disappeared into the woods of southwest Holmes County, as one reporter said, “Like a whippoorwill.” 

Noel was never caught, never tried, never convicted, and never went to prison.  And though he confessed to the three killings, he avoided both a lynching and a date with “Old Sparky,” Mississippi’s venerable, and grisly, electric chair.   In the end, he spent the last 22 years of his life living peacefully in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Reviewers like Regis Schilken, who reviews books for Blogcrtics.com and The Midwest Book Review, couldn’t get enough of “Eddie Noel”.  “By now, I have written reviews for over one hundred books,” Schilken wrote.  “I would highly recommend The Time of Eddie Noel as one of the top five books I’ve reviewed to this date.”
Curtis Wilkie, author of Dixie and Arkansas Mischief, as well as longtime Boston Globe reporter said, “In The Time of Eddie Noel,Allie Povall captures the passions and conflicts of Mississippi in the 1950’s.  This is a fascinating tale of a racially-charged murder spree, a manhunt, and the emergence of Hazel Brannon Smith as a brazen editor of a small-town newspaper who challenged local authorities and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.”
 
Sam Haskell, author of Promises I Made My Mother and former Worldwide Head of Television for the William Morris Agency stated “Allie Povall transports us back in time through a series of long-forgotten incidents with absolute clarity and understanding.  He reminds us of what is most important:  truth and character.”
 
A native of Lexington, Mississippi, Al Povall grew up there during the racially-charged 1950’s.  After graduation from Ole Miss, Povall served as a Naval Officer during the Vietnam conflict and then earned a law degree form Ole Miss and an LL.M. form the Yale Law School.  He practiced law in Jackson, Mississippi; St. Louis, Birmingham, Alabama; Washington, DC and Charlotte, NC before his retirement.  Povall is the father of three grown children and, with his wife Janet and their two cats, lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Comfort Publishing is proud to announce the dates and locations of James Houston Turner’sDepartment Thirteen 2011 North American Book Tour, which will be launched September 15 at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Dates and locations are as follows:

9/15-9/17.................... Houston, TX

9/19....................... San Antonio, TX

9/21................................ Austin, TX

9/23-9/26 ..... Dallas-Fort Worth, TX

9/28-9/29 ....................Lawton, OK

10/1-10/2..........Oklahoma City, OK

10/4-10/5........................ Tulsa, OK

10/7-10/9..............Kansas City, MO

10/11............................Omaha, NE

10/13.......................Des Moines, IA

10/15-10/17 ..................Chicago, IL

10/19.....................Indianapolis, IN

10/21-10/23.............Columbus, OH

10/25........................Pittsburgh, PA

10/27-10/30.......... Washington, DC

11/1......................... Baltimore, MD

11/3...................... Philadelphia, PA

11/5-11/9 ..................New York, NY

11/11-11/16........... Los Angeles, CA

11/18-11/27 ........San Francisco, CA

11/29..................... Los Angeles, CA

Department Thirteen is a gripping tale about ex-KGB Colonel Aleksandr Talanov and his attempts to move on with life after his work with the KGB. Now living in Australia, Talanov and dozens of dinner guests are suddenly the target of assassins. Talanov and his wife escape, but soon find themselves

running for their lives, hunted by the killers, blamed by the police, increasingly pivotal to an invisible network of death about which they know nothing.

The book has been met with critical acclaim and much fanfare. Mr. Turner has received praise and support from the likes of 24 master villain, Adoni Maropis, NCIS: Los Angeles star LL Cool J, Avatar star, Sam Worthington, the Dallas Morning News, Who magazine, and 2-time Emmy Award nominee, Glenda Shaw.

What really adds intrigue and takes this book beyond your typical spy-thriller is the author himself. As a former smuggler and courier in the days of the Iron Curtain, Turner has firsthand experiences that lend the story of Department Thirteen real credence. Important details and authentic nuances abound, leaving readers unveiled to a longtime-secret world.

Throughout the book tour, Mr. Turner will also be holding motivational speaking engagements for what he calls his "The Too Ugly Tour" into schools and other organizations, where he discusses his triumph over cancer and his newfound success as an author when so many others wrote him off in life.

Sponsors of the tour include Qantas Airways, King Island Dairy, Jacob's Creek, Chopin Vodka, and the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

James Houston Turner holds a bachelor’s degree from Baker University and a master’s degree from the University of Houston - Clear Lake. Originally from Kansas, he has worked as a journalist in Los Angeles, and currently divides his time between Australia and California.

Turner also wrote The Identity Factor, which met with critical acclaim upon its release in Australia, where is scooped finalist awards in four prestigious book competitions, including the National Best Books Awards and the Eric Hoffer Award .. It has been released internationally as an e-book, has been adapted for film, and its physical release in the United States is set for this autumn in conjunction with his US tour.

Exact locations of events and appearances will be announced later this summer.

For more information on Mr. Turner, visit www.jameshoustonturner.com or www.toouglytour.com. For these and other Comfort Publishing titles, visit www.comfortpublishing.com .

Comfort Publishing is hosting a giveaway through Goodread's for Max Elliot Anderson's upcoming title When the Lights Go Out.  This title will be avalible for sale August 1, 2011.  For more information please visit GOODREADS.  You have until June 10th to enter!

May 11, 2011 – Esteemed internationally as a man of peace, Jerusalem’s Rabbi David Rosen praised Adelaide novelist James Houston Turner for the way he balanced religious and political sensitivities with unrelenting suspense in his latest thriller, The Identity Factor (Comfort Publishing).  Rabbi Rosen is an International President of the World Council of Religions for Peace; an Honorary President of the International Council of Christians and Jews; has served as a member of the Advisory Committee of the World Congress of Imams and Rabbis of the World Economic Forum's C-100 (a council of 100 leaders formed for the purpose of improving relations and cooperation between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds); was made a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to interfaith relations in the Middle East and between Israel and the U.K.; and serves on the Executive of the World Council of Religious Leaders. In a personal letter to the author, Rabbi Rosen said, “Dear James. I enjoy a good thriller when I get the opportunity. Your entertaining book has a hopeful, reconciliatory subtext and I applaud your spirit. I am sure you have considered it, but I think it would make a very good movie.”

“I knew I was walking a tightrope when I wrote The Identity Factor,” says Turner of his novel, which not only addresses current Arab/Israeli tensions in the Middle East, but challenges the traditional view about the origin of Genesis. “Normally credited to Moses, Genesis is actually a collection of more ancient documents,” he goes on to explain. “By comparing Genesis to other ancient Near Eastern documents such as ‘The Code of Hammurabi’ and ‘Epic of Gilgamesh,’ Genesis divides itself naturally into separate historical documents, with the author of each document identified in its colophon, which is a specific type of internal literary phrase.”

And this is where Turner's research provides the basis for an explosive thriller that is already being compared to Jason Bourne and The DaVinci Code (Blogcritics Magazine, Apex Reviews, LA’s the Place magazine). Even the notorious Abu Fayed, played to perfection by the accomplished actor, Adoni Maropis, in the hit television series, 24, lauded Turner's book: "I love a great villain. Great villains demand great heroes and The Identity Factor has both."

"Adoni was right," says Turner from his home in South Australia. "The villain defines the hero, and because the villain in my book is Middle Eastern, I paid special attention not to make him a fanatical stereotype responding to a hackneyed stereotype of the current political and religious climate. And yet I can't ignore those realities. They need to be addressed, yet in a way that is fresh and not contentious. Rabbi Rosen’s endorsement is confirmation that I’ve succeeded, at least to a degree. My novel postulates how a terrorist like bin Laden could escape the clutches of the US military time and again. It raises the bar of possibilities from fiction to fact in light of repeated claims that he actually had help in Washington."

The Identity Factor opens with the discovery of the tablet by British archaeologist Sir Edmund Clayton in the Sinai Peninsula in 1919. Clayton is then murdered and the tablet disappears, only to resurface in modern-day Cairo, where the CIA learns the phantom terrorist, Abu Nazer, plans to steal it. Because the tablet could detonate war between the Arabs and Jews over the ownership of Palestine, the CIA is understandably keen to identify and stop Abu Nazer. But no one knows where he is, much less who he is. A headstrong rookie profiler is hot on Abu Nazer’s trail, but soon discovers her worst enemy may actually be herself. The Advertiser's Samela Harris (News Ltd) calls The Identity Factor, "One of those searing, cliffhanger books that simply defy you to put the thing down."

 

Concord, NC (May 6,, 2011) – Concord-based Comfort Publishing, an independent general trade publisher, is proud to announce that is has been named a recipient of Silver Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) for one of its titles, Days of Yore: Jack and the Giant Killer (ISBN: 978-1935361145), by Arin Kambitsis, in the fantasy/science fiction category. More categories winners will be announced soon and Comfort may receive nods for more IPPYs this year.

This isn’t the only award Comfort Publishing could win this season. In March it was announced that another title from Comfort, “The Time of Eddie Noel”, is a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year award.

Concord, NC – (May 4, 2011) Comfort Publishing, an award-winning publisher based in North Carolina, is proud to announce the upcoming release of “Department 13” from accalaimed author, James Houston Turner. A national tour is set to launch September 15 at the University of Houston - Clear Lake and include stops in major markets all over the country, including New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

Concord, NC Comfort Publishing announces today that is has signed popular children’s adventure and mystery author, Max Elliot Anderson, to a contract that involves re-publishing seven of his very successful youth mysteries, as well as a new addition to the series!

Comfort Publishing, located in Concord, North Carolina, is picking up where Elliot’s previous publisher left off due to economic pressures.

titles to be republished by Comfort Publishing include Newspaper Caper, Terror at WolfLake, North Woods Poachers, Mountain Cabin Mystery, Big Rig Rustlers, Secret of Abbott’s Cave, and Legend of the White Wolf. A new book, Barney and the Runaway, will also be published.  All titles will have new cover art and look upon their re-release.

“We are excited to have Max as part of the Comfort Publishing family of authors,” said Jason Huddle, Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing.  “Mr. Anderson has already proven himself as a successful author in his genre and we look forward to being a part of that success as he moves forward with this series of books for young men!”

“Over a period of three-and-a-half years,” Mr. Anderson added, “I wrote 35 manuscripts. Now I’m glad I did that.” Each book has different characters, locations, and plots.

“I began writing in 2001 because I grew up hating to read,” Anderson said. “Now, with a recent study released by the Center on Education Policy, which spotlights the difficulties boys have with reading, my books seem to be coming out at just the right time.” 

Mr. Anderson began writing his action-adventures and mysteries geared toward boys ages 8 – 13. They are equally enjoyed by girls. Even adults find his books hard to put down.  One child recently noted, “Reading one of your books is like being in an exciting movie.”

Further details can be found on Mr. Anderson’s blog, Books for Boys, at http://booksandboys.blogspot.com This blog consistently ranks # 1 on Google, when searching for information about books for boys.  Comfort Publishing will announce the publishing dates for these books soon.

"The Thrifty Author's Guide to Launching Your Book Without Losing Your Mind," a new series for authors on book marketing by Gail Z. Martin, launches in January, 2010.

The book provides a concise, step-by-step proven approach to marketing a new book. It is designed for authors to create effective buzz using traditional and online marketing as well a social media tools. It is the first in the Thrifty Author's series on book marketing strategies. The book is designed to be a resource for authors of fiction or nonfiction, and to be useful for authors who are traditionally published or who self-published.

Comfort Publishing began its line of books in 2008. It also publishes Cabarrus Business Magazine and Lake Norman Business Magazine.

Gail Z. Martin is a marketing expert and the bestselling author of The Chronicles of the Necromancer series from Rebellion, Ltd. (formerly Solaris Books). The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven and Dark Lady's Chosen. Ms. Martin's fiction is handled by the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency in New York City. Learn more at www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com. Her marketing resources are available at www.GailMartinMarketing.com.

The staff at www.imperfectwoman.com took the time to read and review Star Crossed.  They also interviewed author Margared Hastings-James.  To read the full story click on this LINK.

Charlotte, NC: Gail Martin, Founder of DreamSpinner Communications and author of the bestselling Chronicles of the Necromancer dark fantasy adventure series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven and Dark Lady's Chosen) has sold a book on marketing strategies for authors to Comfort Publishing.  

The Thrifty Author's Guide to "Launching Your Book Without Losing Your Mind" sold to Concord-based Comfort Publishing for a September 2009 release date.  The book provides a concise, step-by-step proven approach to marketing a new book. It is designed for authors to create effective buzz using traditional and online marketing as well a social media tools.  It is the first in the Thrifty Author's series on book marketing strategies.

Comfort Publishing began its line of books in 2008. It also publishes Cabarrus Business Magazine and Lake Norman Business Magazine.

The Chronicles of the Necromancer series is published by Solaris Books, the a UK-based fantasy and science fiction imprint from BL Publishing, the publishing division of industry-leading tabletop games company, Games Workshop. The Summoner, The Blood King and Dark Haven are part of The Chronicles of The Necromancer fantasy adventure series distributed in the U.S. by Simon & Schuster.  Ms. Martin is handled by the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency in New York City. Learn more at www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com.

Blogcritics offers their review on Street Business by Ernest Lijoi and Larry Matthews.

You can see the full review by clicking HERE

Blogcritics Magazine Blog recently posted a review for a new release "Searching for Blue Mercury".  To read the review click HERE

Comfort Publishing was featured in an article that appeared in the Charlotte Observer on March 15th.

Click to check it out.

BC Books post a review of The Journey Home by Gary Long

To read the review Click HERE