Join us for this tour from Oct 18 to Nov 7, 2022!

Book Details:

Book Title:  Hidden Buddha: Lama Rinzen in the Hungry Ghost Realm by Jim Ringel
Category:  Adult Fiction (18+),  298 pages
GenreMystery, Literary 
Publisher:  Black Bee Publishing 
Release date:  October 2022
Content Rating:  PG+M due a section focusing on a woman's miscarriage of her fetus.


Between classic scenes of deduction, complex layers of truth and reality, and skillful red herrings, Ringel freshens up the tropes of mysteries. BookLife Reviews (Editor’s Pick)

Ringel’s prose creates a delightfully unnerving atmosphere… readers are likely to find themselves carried along by the mood and mystery alone.   - Kirkus Reviews
 
… a most enjoyable and engaging mystery. I urge you to take this wild adventure with the seductive lama. Roshi Gerry Shishin Wick, Spiritual Director, Great Mountain Zen Center, Berthoud, CO
Book Description:

In Hidden Buddha Lama Rinzen finds herself reborn as a doctor into the Hungry Ghost Realm in a haunted hospital on Colorado’s eastern plains.

It’s an unfriendly place. The patients do not respect her, the staff ignores her, and there’s rumors of ghosts in the hospital.

Rinzen is afraid of ghosts. She is not even sure they truly exist. Instead she focuses on learning the Hungry Ghost Realm’s lesson about what the Buddha means when he talks about emptiness. If she can only learn that she will escape the hospital and progress along her path to enlightenment.

But nine-year-old patient Claudia says the ghosts are real, and that they are here to trap Rinzen so she might never learn and never escape the hospital. Not in this lifetime, and not in any future lifetimes either.

How can the lama learn without seeing the things she denies?

Maybe that’s what the Buddha means when he talks about emptiness. These little bits of ourselves we keep suppressed and hidden and never admit to? 

BUY THE BOOK:
Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble
BAM ~ indiebound 
and indie bookstores everywhere
add to goodreads

Guest Post
If you could back in time, where would you go?

 I’d go back to 1967 in Newark, NJ where I went to high school and grew up.

I’d go back and say to myself Hey, I know the riots just ended and things look bleak. I know when you take the bus home after dark you feel alone and scared, and girls scare you a too because you’re in an all-boys school. And I know how it feels like something’s going on someplace else and you’re missing out. And the political assassinations nobody can explain. MLK, JFK, Bobby. I know it feels bad. But believe me. It’s going to get weirder than this.

I’d go back and say to myself Nothing’s ever definite. You’ll learn that someday. Everything’s meant to be scary because that’s good. Because scary makes things fun. Not normal. Not to vanilla. Scary’s got a whole lot of shake-up to it. That’s how you survive. You embrace the shake-up. Shake-up can be funny, you know. It’s what makes you funny. It’s how you make people laugh. That’s why when somebody jumps you and tries taking your money and you say something funny, it eases the situation. It keeps it calm. Do you remember when somebody tried jumping you and you made him laugh. Both of them, you made them both laugh and they let you go. Remember that happening to you? Or has it not happened yet? I’m not good at keeping time straight in my head.

Just remember, you’re only 14, and you think everything’s supposed to go a certain well-polished way. Except dad’s laid off. And mom’s serving fish sticks at way too many meals. And it makes you angry because you think it shouldn’t be going this way. It should be more polished.

Except nothing’s ever polished. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, either. What makes it bad is your mind seeing it as something bad. Something that shouldn’t be happening that you stew in and resent. You resent those who love you for things not being polished enough.

Except nothing’s polished.

Until you polish it. Until you stop thinking Hey, things are supposed to be going better than this. There is no “supposed to”.  There is only how things actually go.

It all comes down to how your mind sees it.

You should let your mind see things as they are for the simple reason that that’s how they are. Do that and it wouldn’t eat you up so much.

There is no ideal. There is nothing out there that’s the way it’s supposed to be. There’s only what is now. Not how things should have been in the past. Not how things should be in the future.  Embrace now. The pain gets better once you allow yourself walk into it. Once you accept it.

Make sense? Because, if not, I can always go back to when I came from.

Except I’ve been there. And I been where you are now.

And I just thought I’d tell you.


Meet the Author:


Jim Ringel is an unconventional Buddhist who writes the Lama Rinzen mysteries as part of his own spiritual path.

Each book in the series finds the lama reborn into one of the six Buddhist Realms on a search for deeper understanding along the path toward Nirvana.

Jim practices Zen, skis, hikes, bikes, and visits brew pubs throughout Colorado seeking the Buddha in everyday life.

connect with the author: website ~ facebook ~ bookbub ~ goodreads

Tour Schedule:
Oct 18 – Rockin' Book Reviews – book review / guest post / giveaway
Oct 18 – fundinmental – book spotlight / giveaway
Oct 18 - Viviana MacKade – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Oct 19 – Locks, Hooks and Books – book review / giveaway
Oct 20 – Just Another Mother With Books – book review
Oct 21 – Book Reviews by Taylor - book spotlight / giveaway
Oct 24 – Leanne bookstagram – book review / giveaway
Oct 25 – Olio by Marilyn – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Oct 25 – Olio by Marilyn – book review / giveaway
Oct 26 – Paws.Read.Repeat – book review / giveaway
Oct 27 – Jazzy Book Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Oct 27 - Book Corner News and Reviews - book review / giveaway
Oct 28 – Literary Flits – book review / giveaway
Nov 1 – Gina Rae Mitchell – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Nov 2 – @bookqueenbee – book review / guest post / giveaway
Nov 3 – Deborah-Zenha Adams – book review / guest post / giveaway
Nov 4 – Books for Books – book spotlight
Nov 7 - @onecreativeartist – book review 
Enter the Giveaway: