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    Media Frenzy (The Rose Garden Arena Incident, Book 2): The Rose Garden Arena Incident, #2
    Media Frenzy (The Rose Garden Arena Incident, Book 2): The Rose Garden Arena Incident, #2
    Media Frenzy (The Rose Garden Arena Incident, Book 2): The Rose Garden Arena Incident, #2
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Media Frenzy (The Rose Garden Arena Incident, Book 2): The Rose Garden Arena Incident, #2

    By Michael Hiebert

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    About this ebook

    Stephanie Banner is twenty years old the night Dakota Shane stands center stage while six bullets ring out through the stadium. Five deaths occur from those shots, although only four ever go on record. 

    All four are women. 

    It happens in Portland, Oregon, at the Rose Garden Arena. The show is a sellout. Twenty-two thousand seats gone in less than four hours. 

    For the eight days leading up to the concert, a handful of disparate lives intertwine as their world unravels. Their sanity, their relationships, their work, their children, the law, and even death hangs in the balance. Among them are: the learning-disabled black kid from East St. Louis trying to move past having his little sister die in his arms when she and his Momma become collateral damage during a drive-by; the quick-witted black man who, after losing control of his car on his way to visit family in Portland, finds himself duct-taped to a chair, a hostage to a meth-addled lunatic wanted for a double homicide; the Latino son now desperately struggling to rise above his abusive father and help his mother and sister move on to a better life, while unable to let go of the tremendous guilt he bears over the fate of the other sister he once had; the slash-punk singer who manages to score her band the best gig of its career, only to learn she may not have a band left to play it; the Korean psychiatrist finally confronting how much of her life has slipped by her—how many years she lost—while focussing on far less important things; the ex-LAPD detective now working for the Portland PD finally facing the ghosts that still linger from the time of the Rodney King riots—a past that forced him to drag his family up out of LA; the bitter ex-wife of a disc jockey who still secretly listens to her ex-husband’s midnight radio show as she drinks herself into a whiskey coma; the out of control daughter having unprotected sex with strangers hoping that pregnancy might draw the attention of parents unable to see past themselves… 

    And then, Dakota Shane: chart-topping superstar with a dark secret, caught in a media and tabloid frenzy full of rumor, speculation, and lies. She’s off her meds and grappling to find any semblance of herself that might still exist inside an identity forged over the past five years by an extremely successful record company’s marketing department. 

    Each of these lives is a story and the stories collide with each other like silver balls bouncing off bumpers on a pinball machine. 


    But in the end, The Rose Garden Arena Incident is a tale about passion, about bravery, about redemption, about fixing those things in the world that are fixable and learning to live with the things that are not—A heartbreaking story of tragedy, despair, and loss that still somehow leaves you with a glimmer of faith, love, and hope. 

    The Rose Garden Arena Incident is a “serial thriller." The story takes place over seven separate books, each encompassing a full day or more leading up to the Dakota Shane concert.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael Hiebert
    Release dateOct 16, 2016
    ISBN9781927600115
    Media Frenzy (The Rose Garden Arena Incident, Book 2): The Rose Garden Arena Incident, #2

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      Book preview

      Media Frenzy (The Rose Garden Arena Incident, Book 2) - Michael Hiebert

      Contents

      Introduction

      Previously in Rose Garden

      Saturday, April 3

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Coming Up Next

      Book 3: 80 PROOF

      Sneak Preview

      Acknowledgments

      About Michael Hiebert

      MEDIA FRENZY

      (THE ROSE GARDEN ARENA INCIDENT, BOOK 2)

      Copyright © 2016 by Michael Hiebert.

      All rights reserved.

      Published by Dangerbooks, British Columbia, Canada.

      No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblances to persons living or dead is coincidental.

      Edited by Dawn James Walker

      Cover Design by / © DangerBoy & DogMan, Inc.

      Baby Billy Ray cover image © Andre Sergei Kolesnikov

      Dakota Shane cover image © Zoom Team

      Josef Hyatt cover image © ZoneCreative

      ISBN-13: 978-1-927600-11-5

      ISBN-10: 1-927600-11-1

      The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

      Dangerbooks First Edition

      First Printing, October 2016.

      RG2-027

      Also by Michael Hiebert

      Sometimes the Angels Weep—Short Fiction

      Nashville Beaumont (and The Hyperbole Engine)

      DOLLS

      Alvin, Alabama Mystery Novels

      Dream with Little Angels

      Close to the Broken Hearted

      A Thorn Among the Lilies

      Sticks and Stones

      Previously in The Rose Garden Arena Incident

      Mosh Pit

      Introduction

      HERE WE ARE, BOOK two of The Rose Garden Arena Incident, a book called Media Frenzy. I’m glad you’re here for the ride. As I mentioned in book 1, the story gets better and better as we go. There are a lot of characters, so I had to take an awful lot of care making sure you can keep track of them. It’s far too easy to just toss out a bunch of names in a reader’s direction and expect him or her to remember or even care about who’s who.

      You’ll see a lot of faces from the first installment in this book and some new ones. There are tragic parts, there are funny parts, and there are outright crazy parts. The crazy parts are where things shine as far as I’m concerned.

      As I write this introduction, I’m starting out working on book four, Ballads. It’s interesting to look back at the story and see how all the characters have evolved since my original concept into what is, by far, the most ambitious work I’ve done to date. Everybody’s personalities are emerging. When a new chapter comes up, you can almost tell which character’s point of view it is being told from just by the way the words are phrased. This is especially true in some of the exceptionally strong characters like Marshall, Tommy, Dawn, and Reggie. So far, I think Reggie’s character has been the most fun part to write. Why this is should be evident by the time you come to the end of this book. It will likely become even more evident over the next couple of installments. Writing Marshall’s parts are fun, too, only they come with their own set of challenges. It’s hard to write convincingly from the point of view a character with a learning disability and not have it come off as hokey or campy. Faulkner did an awesome job of it in The Sound and the Fury. I think I did all right. You know what? Fire me off an email to michael@michaelhiebert.com and let me know what you think.

      Another interesting thing about publishing a book this way is that it almost feels as though I am building little time capsules. I’m writing the books and Eric’s recording the audiobooks a month or two ahead of when you’ll actually get your hands on them, so I will probably have the fourth book finished before anybody gets the opportunity to read the first one, which, in case you missed it, was called Mosh Pit. I will be halfway through the story before I read any reviews or get any response from those precious first readers. And if you’re one of them and you haven’t yet, please send me your feedback. I absolutely love hearing from my readers, the good stuff and the bad. I’ve already told you my email, but you can also hit me through my website at www.michaelhiebert.com. If you’re listening to the audiobook version, you can contact Eric through his site located at www.ericbrianmoore.com.

      So, welcome to Media Frenzy. A lot of plot elements are being set up in this and the previous book that will come to huge fruition later on. But that’s not to say you shouldn’t enjoy the story. Indeed, as I said in the Introduction to the first book, this is probably the overall the best work I’ve yet done. Not sure if I’m at the top of my game, but I’m definitely at the highest point in it so far.

      I hope you continue to enjoy the books. As I’m sure you can tell, they mean a lot to me. Well, everything I write that’s any good means a lot to me, but these are special. I’ve been working on this story for so many years there can’t help but be pieces of my heart strewn throughout it. And with that crazy visual, I will bid you adieu and let you get back into the story already in progress . . .

      Michael Hiebert

      British Columbia, Canada

      August, 2016

      Previously in Rose Garden

      KARMA ACKERMAN IS SIXTEEN and rebelling. Using her new fake ID, she sneaks into Uma, Portland’s newest night club, with her older friends, Stephanie and Brenda. The whole thing makes Karma wonder if maybe her friends aren’t the greatest of influences, but she goes into the club anyway. Problem is, the bouncer turns up to be the guy she babysits for. She’s so busted. She does manage to drink a fair amount of tequila before that happens, though, and once she gets home to her mother, Trinity Shaw, she shares the rest of Mom’s bottle of Chivas while Mom pines away for her ex-husband, radio DJ Lewis Ackerman. In the biz, he goes by Lex. Lex the Axeman.

      Lex has a big show coming up Monday. A live interview with pop and country superstar Dakota Shane. Lex used to do big shows all the time, but these days he’s been relegated to the midnight hour. It’s a step down, but he’s gotten used to taking steps down in his life.

      Back at Uma, Alexis Thorn, guitarist for a slash punk band called The Posey Dolls, is outside of the club while Karma sits inside getting trashed. Alexis is pretty sure she invented the term slash punk, but that isn’t the main focus of her mind right now. Right now, she’s watching her boyfriend fight some other guy. And the other guy has a knife. Two detectives, Tony Benedetti and Dennis

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