Saturday, January 14, 2017
Thursday, December 1, 2016
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.
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.
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
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