Saturday, July 30, 2016

New Release - UNDO

If you like upper-YA, time travel, and books like Me and Earl and the Dying Girl ...

... then maybe you'll like my latest, UNDO.

Here's the part where most authors will pitch you on why you should read their latest release. I'm not going to do that. My father was a great salesman, but I am not my father ;-)

What I will do is tell you about this book. It's a passion project. I've tinkered with it for several years. It's changed significantly over time. I could never seem to get it exactly the way I wanted. The idea of the story always seemed just out of reach and what I was writing was just an attempt at describing this thing in my brain that kept mocking me. Stories take on a life of their own sometimes, to the point where they feel almost out of the control of the author. This is one of those rebellious, recalcitrant stories which makes a kind of sense, since it's about teens.

UNDO was both maddening and a joy to write. The prose is highly-stylized, filled with made-up lingo, slang straight out of the Urban Dictionary, and other impenetrable argot in the vein of A Clockwork Orange. That was the best part of writing the book.

The plot is more convoluted than a Raymond Chandler novel. That was the worst part of writing the book.

The main characters are teens. I tried to avoid filling them with angst but ... their teens, for God's sake, and that's what they're usually filled with. At least in my experience.

It's a time travel book, which will have many people rolling their eyes. But it's a new take on time travel, so hopefully those who haven't rolled their eyes yet will give it a chance.

There are no zombies, vampires, fairies, trolls, or any paranormal critters running around. There are no dystopias, mutants, superheroes, mysteries, or world-ending threats only our teens can solve. There is a lot of pining, brooding, high school drama, and ambivalence as the characters try to walk the dangerous, contradictory tightrope that is adolescence.

This book attacks what I think is the most fundamental question we all have: who am I? What is self? Do people change? What makes us change? If we grow, are we no longer the people we used to be?

Those are the questions at the heart of the narrative. So if you find those sorts of philosophical wanderings of interest, then you might enjoy UNDO.

Friday, March 11, 2016

Eddie McCloskey #3 is FREE RIGHT NOW ON AMAZON

ZOMG! You can get The Accused and the Damned for free right now. Don't wait - this deal will be over real soon.

When people ask me which is the best book I've written, it's difficult to answer. They're all my babies so I can't in good conscience pick one over the other. The Unearthed will always hold a special place in my heart because it's the first, while my collaborations with Nate Green in historical fiction I consider my best-written (and bad-ass) novels to date.

But among my Eddie books, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to answer the impossible question, I'd probably tell you The Accused and the Damned is my favorite of the series (so far).

Why, you ask?

Creatively, it was such a fun book to write. I mashed two genres together that nobody in their right mind would have tried to mix: paranormal suspense and the legal thriller.

This is also the book where Eddie comes into his own as a character, finally assuming the role of a true hero. He's still flawed, still struggles with those flaws, but he overcomes those personal shortcomings to emerge a better person. Even though everybody and their mother counts him out, he finds that hidden reserve of self-belief and figures out a way to get the job done.

And, this is also the book where I came into my own as a thriller writer. Don't get me wrong. I think books 1 and 2 are good page-turners, but with TAATD, I feel like I took things to the next level. It's fast, it's fun, it's scary, it's holy-shit-did-that-just-happen crazy, and most of all, it was a challenge. I dared myself to write something that had never been tried before (AFAIK): a paranormal legal thriller. Based on the feedback I'm getting, I think I pulled it off.

So grab it while it's free - I know the premise is off-the-wall. But you might just dig it ;-)

*******

In other crazy news, one of the best writers working in post-apocalyptic / prepper genres, Boyd Craven, was kind enough to give my new story, After the Fall, a read and leave a review on his website. I wrote After the Fall under a pen name, Elliott Ryan. It's only $0.99 and also enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. If you like end of the world as we know it stories populated with every day characters, you might dig it.




Monday, February 1, 2016

Special Offer - $0.99 for The Unearthed


Hey folks - Just a quick announcement that the first book in my paranormal series, The Unearthed, is available for the low, low price of $0.99 but for a limited time only.

Plenty of readers took advantage of this great deal yesterday, bringing the book all the way down to #232 on the Amazon bestseller list! Can't believe it? I took a screen shot -->


Already read The Unearthed? I've also got a deal running on Book 4, The Hysteria right now. It'll be $0.99 for a few more hours...

And last--but certainly not least--Book 6, The Dream Machine, releases today. It's still at its pre-order price but not for long...







Friday, January 22, 2016

PREORDER The Dream Machine Now for $0.99

Well, well, well. The Dream Machine  is finally here (almost).

Right now, you can preorder the sixth book in my paranormal mystery series starring everybody's favorite everyman, Eddie McCloskey, for less than a buck!

The preorder discount is over when the book releases, February 1st. I'll also be running some other deals on January 31st in case you're still playing catch-up. More to come on that soon ;-)

***

I've wanted to write this particular book for many years, but only just got around to it. When the idea first came to me, though, it was a standalone horror novel and did not feature Eddie McCloskey. It was a very different book.

I put that idea aside, tried some other things, got cranking on the Eddie books, did some short fiction, worked on historical novels, and one day had an epiphany, realizing I could take this older idea and turn it into one of Eddie's adventures.

It took me longer than I wanted to write this one for many reasons, most of them good. In 2015, I tried to get some other books (under pen names) out there and worked on collaborative projects with fellow author, Nathanael Green. I spent a lot of time working on shorter, serialized fiction (which has yet to see the light of day!). I decided to rebrand my Eddie books too with new blurbs and covers and some marketing...

Long story short, I tried doing too many different things in 2015 and as a result The Dream Machine kept getting pushed back.

***

I'm real excited for this book. It takes Eddie in a different direction but stays firmly in paranormal territory. Characters from a previous book return. And I really pushed myself to make this the fastest read in the series. I'm excited to get feedback here.

I'm also hard at work on the seventh book in the series, tentatively titled The Possessed. I'm loving this one too and plan to have much less of a gap between #6 and #7 than there was between #5 and #6.

If you do pick up The Dream Machine, please consider leaving me a review on Amazon! And stay tuned for some upcoming deals!