J B McCauley Talks About Creating a Great Work Area for Inspiration @MccauleyJay #WriteTip

How to Create a Great Work Area for Inspiration

For me, I don’t hold much sway with that Feng Shui stuff. For me writing must be done in your space. Your place. Don’t compromise. Don’t let anyone encroach on your empire. This is after all where you do your work after all. It is not an area for people to decorate with their bits and pieces of flotsam and jetsam. When it comes to how you work that is very personal thing. Because I am also a DJ and like dabbling with audio production my desk is vast and rambling however I set aside a little corner of that world purely for writing. So amongst the clutter and the cables, I have a little bit of peace.

Most importantly for me though it must be comfortable. I sometimes write up to six hours a day so my chair just has to be ergonomically designed. It has to hug my back and support my neck but not be so luxurious that I fall asleep. Secondly I need to be able to shut the door. There is nothing worse than being interrupted when you are mid-flow. Some people don’t understand this and think you are being rude. I go one step further sometimes and stick a do not disturb sign on the door.

Thirdly, despite being so in touch with my social media responsibilities, I turn them all off. The cell phone too. Don’t expect irreverent Facebook or Twitter comments whilst I am thumping the keys. It just doesn’t happen. If I am concentrating on other things then it shows in my writing.

Really this extends to nearly everything associated with the writing process. Don’t get distracted. I can procrastinate with the best of them. I think every writer is capable of that. I think I have attempted chores never previously started by man whilst in the midst of a deadline. All because I had something to challenge me other than a paragraph.

Lastly I write with a musical accompaniment but I try to match the music to the piece I am writing. Music can really affect the words that flutter onto the page. There is no point listening to some hapless pop tune whilst writing a piece that is dark and foreboding. It just doesn’t help. To accomplish this I try to plain out what I am writing that day and match the music accordingly.
Because music plays such an important part in my writing process I have to have the sound system to match. Consequently my music can be heard in the next town as clear as a bell. People know when I am writing because the music is cranking!

At the end of the day though everyone writes differently but I would say feeling comfortable in that writing space is essential. If you feel that you write at your best whilst on top of Mount Everest being stalked by a Yeti, I say climb that peak. Just remember to take some batteries for the lap top.

The King of Sunday Morning is a geezer. Not in the traditional sense of the word as in old man. This geezer is a face, a wannabe, a top notch bloke. He is the greatest DJ that never was. He should have been. Could have been. Would have been. Now becoming a has-been.

Tray McCarthy was born into privilege but with the genetic coding of London’s violent East End. Having broken the underworld’s sacred honour code, it is only his family’s gangland connections that save him. But in return for his life, he must deny that which he has ever known or ever will be and runs to Australia where he is forced to live an inconsequential life.

But trouble never strays far from Tray McCarthy and eventually his past and present collide to put everyone he has ever loved in danger. He must now make a stand and fight against those that are set to destroy him and play their game according to his rules.

Set against the subterfuge and violence of the international drugs trade, The King of Sunday Morning is the tale of what can go wrong when you make bad decisions. Tray McCarthy has made some of the worst. He must now save those he holds dear but in the process gets trapped deeper and deeper into a world where he doesn’t belong.

“I want three pump-action shotguns, about twelve sticks of dynamite and a blowtorch”

THIS BOOK CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE, FREQUENT DRUG USE AND SEX SCENES – NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PEOPLE UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE

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Genre – Thriller, Action, Suspense, Gangster, Crime, Music

Rating – PG-18

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Malpractice! The Novel by William Louis Harvey @sexandlawnovel #AmReading #Legal #Fiction

Despite Paul’s sexual frustration, his high-school years passed relatively happily, as they did for most of the boys in town. Paul gradually discovered his own talents and peculiarities. He had dates with many of the girls in his class, as well as with girls from lower and higher classes. Most dates were chaste, ending with a light kiss at the girl’s door. Girls (and their parents) felt safe with him because he dressed well, was polite and articulate, and never bragged to his friends about how far he got on a date.

In the later years of high school, he began to make a little sexual progress. He learned to tell which girls were interested in going a little further. This started with the French kiss, which was initiated by him and eventually became mutual. When that began to seem dull, Paul found a girl in his class who had a plain face but a well-developed figure; she enjoyed him putting his hands on her breasts, outside her sweater or shirt, and caressing her breasts and nipples. However, although she moaned with pleasure, his attempt to get his hand under her sweater was stopped cold. After several dates with similar results, forcing him to masturbate in the bathroom when he got home, he gave up and moved on, earning nasty looks from her during the next few months. (pp 21-22) Malpractice! the Novel

Malpractice! the Novel is an electrifying work of realistic fiction written by an anonymous insider who worked the frontlines of the clash between the medical and legal professions during the California medical malpractice insurance crisis, which began in the 1960s. William Louis Harvey, a nom de plume, takes readers on a steamy adventure involving power, sex, lies and money in this candid courtroom suspense thriller. While Malpractice! The Novel, is a work of fiction, it is rooted in the personal experiences and firsthand knowledge the author acquired during his decades of working inside the medical industry. 

California in the 1960s and first half of the 1970s had already seen a dramatic increase in medical malpractice lawsuits as juries awarded progressively higher sums for “pain and suffering,” a category that had no concrete limits and caused physicians’ insurance premiums for malpractice to skyrocket. Harvey chaired a committee that reviewed all malpractice claims involving a major California hospital during the crisis. Details of some of the cases he experienced are engraved in his memory, and small portions of these tidbits find their way into Malpractice! the Novel, his first novel. Roused by a recent New York Times article about the American male novelist’s fear of addressing sexuality, Harvey interleaved honest sex histories for his novel’s characters, adding a titillating sensuality to the suspenseful novel.

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Genre – Steamy Courtroom Drama

Rating – R

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J.L. Myers' on What Inspired Her to Write Her Book @BloodBoundJLM #Paranormal #Romance

What Inspired Me to Write My Book

Many people, situations and circumstances brought me to where I am today, and created the person I have become. All these things now drive my need to write.

In the beginning my decision to write a novel, although lighthearted, came from darker and much more desperate place. It was in the months following the birth of my son, the angel of my life and the one thing that makes me continue on each day. Apart from having an emergency C-section, followed by many other issues after his birth, postpartum depression set in.

With a family history of depression, postpartum wasn’t unexpected, especially given my prior history and longstanding struggle with anxiety. But this was monumentally different. Many things made me feel like an inadequate mother, wife, and even human being. I was sinking fast.

Reading became my escape from reality. The only problem was that the stories I was reading didn’t speak to the pain I was feeling. So I had an idea, a last stitch effort to reach out for something to hold on to.

This was my light bulb moment.

I would write my own story, the story I wanted and needed to read, and a story where the turmoil of my current and previous struggles were the driving force.

That day the first words to What Lies Inside were written, and something amazing was started. More than an escape, the determination to write this story gave me a purpose. It became a channel to take everything I was feeling—the anger, the regret, the despair, the betrayal, the disappointment and the loneliness—and turn it into an outlet that helped me through one of the darkest periods of my life.
That pain is behind me now, for the most part, but my need to write has remained. There is a life of experiences that drive my pen to scrawl across paper or my fingers to dance over the computer’s keyboard. So with many years of life left, I don’t see that slowing down any time soon.

This is my story, one of many, and this is where it all began…

Amelia Lamont never asked to unleash her inner vampire

 

Amelia’s normal teen world is shattered when a terrifying nightmare awakens the monster inside her. A newfound, insatiable thirst for blood that leads her to drain the school quarterback is only the beginning; she’s horrified to discover that her family and best friend Kendrick have been harboring the secret all along. And is the strangely alluring boy who seems hell-bent on curbing her murderous, blood-filled desires a friend, or foe? 

To escape detection Amelia and her twin brother Dorian are forced to move to a new town, and the challenge of a new, exclusive high school where nearly every classmate smells like prey. Including the irresistible Ty, who seems hauntingly familiar, yet darkly menacing … 

Amelia’s disturbing dreams and entanglement in a web of forbidden romance render her increasingly powerless against the chilling lies and secrets of vampire power struggles. And, as she soon discovers, vampire politics mixed with outlawed love can be a lethal cocktail. 

Falling in love may just cost Amelia everything: her friends, her family…even her life

 

Move over Twilight, True Blood and Underworld! J.L. Myers’ first book in the Blood Bound series will have you swooning for more! 

Warning – This book contains some language and sexual situations. 

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Genre – YA Paranormal Romance

Rating – PG-13+

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Website http://bloodboundnovels.com

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Peter Simmons and the Vessel of Time by @RamzArtso

Michael - Chapter 1 -

New York City, October 22nd, Nighttime Hours

The gutters of the megalopolis gurgled softly. Pounding sheets of rain washed down the darkened, sewage-stinking pavement as I scrambled silently for cover. Finding none, I rolled over on my back, doing the very best to steady the constant rhythm of my burning lungs.

‘Well, well, well,’ taunted my assailant. The sound of his glistening Italian shoes breached my ears. My bleeding nose detected the stench of his cigarette’s burning tobacco. There was no need to use my special abilities to know that he carried a loaded gun in his gloved hand. ‘What am I to do with you, Michael?’

It was a rhetorical question. Both of us knew perfectly well what it was that he planned to do. What Victor had been sent to do.

He kicked aside a heap of malodorous refuse matter.

‘It’s a pity that you and I have to end our friendship on such an ugly note, Mikey. Really is. I wish you would make this easier on yourself and disclose the location of those flipping documents. But you’re one of those die-hard types. You always have been. I can ply you with questions all night long, but I won’t get to hear a single word out of your mouth, will I?’

Concentrating hard, I tuned out his voice, summing up the last reserves of my strength as I did so. Although it was immensely difficult, considering my horrid physical condition, I managed to glance into the future for a few short seconds.

Nothing there.

Nothing to help me trick death or buy time, Only Victor leveling the gun to my head and squeezing the trigger. Nothing could be done to ameliorate the situation.

My heart accelerated with his every nearing step. Every cell in my body was fraught with rising alarm.

Click.

His golden lighter made a faint sound as he flicked away a cigarette and lit another. A crooked grin spread below his pencil thin moustache. He chuckled to himself, euphorically inhaling the poisonous fumes. He was going to enjoy this.

‘Ah, what a pity,’ he said dramatically. Victor had always been an artist. Since the moment we’d met, I had always opined that he would have been better off freelancing as a dramaturge. ‘This is my last one. I guess I’ll just have to get some more on the way back.’ He crumpled up the empty pack of smokes and chucked it away carelessly.

I knew that I was running out of time. Before Victor was done having his last cancer stick I would most definitely be dead. He took a long drag, carefully and patiently attaching a custom-made silencer to his deadly revolver. He made sure to take his time, savoring every moment.

Click.

This time it was him unlocking the safety catch on his handgun.

That damned revolver had always been his only weapon of choice, the reason probably being that it left no shell casings at the crime scene.

Pure panic washed over me, my mind began to race, injecting fresh waves of adrenaline into my veins. I commanded my exhausted brain to foresee the future. But again, all I managed to extract was a gloved finger pulling at a smooth, vicious trigger.

‘Not trying to play your little tricks on me, are you, Mikey-boy?’ Victor asked. He sounded like he had just caught a small child red-handed in the process of stealing candy. I still didn’t answer, trying to look past the barrel of his gun in order to grasp something, anything which would help me escape the dratted lunatic.

In my mind’s eye, I foresaw a black feral cat scamper across the dirty, empty alley where I lay and Victor sneered. It appeared to be headed our way, looking to scavenge the nearby scuffed garbage cans for food residue. Somewhere in the immediate vicinity, an angry, severely inebriated derelict mishandled his one and only bottle of wine. It slipped from his hands and exploded all over the cold pavement just like a child’s water balloon. Then police sirens undulated in the night, but they were too far off to safely see me out of the quagmire that I found myself in.

My heart sank like a stone at that realization.

All of those readings were useless. With an aching head and unsteady hands, I was about to withdraw and accept defeat, when it suddenly dawned on me exactly how I had to act in order to turn the tables on Victor. Working under pressure, my mind quickly concocted a course of action that couldn’t even be called a plan, for its multiple flaws and drawbacks. All I needed was a touch of good fortune, which was a gamble, really, as I seemed to be out of luck for the day. Victor’s deadly revolver was a testimony to that.

Pulling it off would be a long shot, but despair galvanized me into action. I hesitated a tenth of a second, then filled my chest with air and yelled as loud and cheerily as possible. ‘Money! Money falling from the sky! I can’t believe this! Hundred dollar bills! Lots of them! They are everywhere!’

Victor’s bushy, raven-black eyebrows knitted together in confusion. ‘What? What the heck are you saying? Have you gone mad with fright?’

‘Money! Lots and lots of cash!’ I kept shouting zealously, perhaps sounding like a complete moron, which I dearly hoped only added realism to the note of exuberance in my voice.

‘Good God, man, pull yourself together and summon enough courage to die with dignity!’

My trick had worked.

The homeless drunk I had previsioned came careening into the alley, with a hopeful, out-of-this world expression on his smeared, bulldog-ish face.

‘Wha?’ he demanded.

‘Hundred dolla bills?’ He looked around quizzically, tucking away tufts of disheveled hair behind a pair of begrimed ears, and expecting a heavy shower of promised cash.

‘Where? Where’s the money?’ His eyes glinted with recognition and reason at the unexpected sight of Victor’s gun. Victor, without thinking twice, pulled the trigger before the man had even managed to fully lift his hands in a defensive gesture.

The silencer flashed, whistled and disembogued a trail of white smoke into the dank air. The wino stumbled forward, legs all rickety, one hand clutching at the expanding stain on his grungy old jacket, and the other greedily wrapped around the half-empty bottle of alcohol. With a bloody cough, he fell face forward, shattering the long-neck into glittering slivers and several larger fragments of sharp glass, in close proximity to where I lay sprawled on my back. Victor sneered, the police sirens came into life, probably chasing down some juvenile delinquent–the city never slept. It was an improbable stroke of luck, but the black tramp cat from my recent vision produced a loud yowl, and acted in exact accordance with my calculations. It was scared off a large, silver trashcan by the sound of the breaking bottle, and during its blind flight, had managed to get itself tangled up in between Victor’s feet. Caught by complete surprise, Victor lowered his gun to execute the unexpected guest, not a dreg of pity in his dark eyes.

Using the distraction to my advantage, I snatched the biggest shard of dark, shattered glass glinting close-at-hand and jumped to my feet. With my arm stretched out before me, I accelerated right into Victor like greased lightning. Overcome by a blinding surge of energy as well as the natural instinct of survival, I slashed at his stomach, instantly splitting it open. His neck cords strained and his face became a mottle of red and white shreds as he tried to raise his armed hand for protection, but I grabbed it with my own, and drove the sharp glass into his shoulder.

He misfired a couple of rounds and cried out in pain. The formal black fedora, which had been nestled on his head at a rakish angle, seesawed to the ground in a manner analogous to a falling feather. He himself sagged to his knees, shivering spasmodically as if from ague. For one brief moment, I stared down at him, my bloody hands and the defunct vagrant’s face, which was frozen in a horrible rictus of stunned horror. Being caught up in the moment, I seriously contemplated administering the coup de grace. But then my anger simmered down, and I reevaluated my thoughts, deciding that Michael Fleming wasn’t a murderer. At least, not yet.

My heart thumped with shock, every muscle in my body trembled, every nerve in my system burned. I dropped my makeshift weapon, then doubled back and turned around before floundering over to a concrete wall. I felt sick and waited for the nausea to pass. Once that was out of the way, I broke into a sudden and purposeful sprint. I left the dark alley running like a madman through the driving rain, never daring to look back.

I was worn out, but there was still some urgent business I needed to attend to. And time was of the essence. A person’s life was at stake. All that stood between them and eternal rest was me, and on the dot punctuality.

However, the person in question had no idea of the impending threat to their life.

Peter Simmons thinks he is an ordinary boy, before he is abducted by a man with certain special abilities, learns of his inescapable destiny, befriends immortals and becomes famous wordlwide. Why? Because Peter Simmons is mankind’s last hope for survival.

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Genre – Young-adult, Action and Adventure, Coming of Age, Sci-fi

Rating – PG-13

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Website http://ramzartso.blogspot.com/

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Jennifer Cornet – What to look for in a Critique Buddy @J_Cornet

What to look for in a Critique Buddy
If you are a writer, one of the first things you will discover is that it is easy to find people willing to tell you your writing is awesome. You pass your work out to friends and family and all you receive back are glowing reviews and pats on the back. Now tell me, how helpful is that really? If everything is great, how can you improve? The hard truth is although nice things are great to hear, they don’t help you in the long run.
What you need is someone who can be open and honest with you about both the good and the bad in your work. You need a critique buddy. You can find a buddy almost anywhere. You can enlist someone you already know, perhaps a friend you feel you work well with. Or you can find a fellow writer in a writer’s group. Both options work as long as the person has a few important attributes. They must be honest, constructive, and unattached.
For a person, whether a friend or someone you’ve met at a writers group, to make a good critique buddy they have to be willing to dish out bad news. Ask yourself this: Would they let you walk out of the house looking like a hot mess because they are too nice to say anything, or would they tell you that you can’t pull off that outfit and need to change? I relate it to appearance because it is something just a personal to us as our writing. It’s hard to tell people you don’t like something they’ve done because it is a sensitive subject.
But you need to go beyond finding someone who will be honest. You need someone who is also constructive. If they tell you that your outfit is terrible, do they give you suggestions on a better option or leave you hanging not knowing which direction to go in. A good critique buddy will not only tell you when they don’t like something but will point out specifics and offer a different suggestion. For example instead of saying “I don’t like the main character,” a good buddy would say “I don’t like the way the main character talks down to her best friend. Why would they be friends if they didn’t get along? Maybe you can change some of the dialog.” Do you see the difference?
The last trait I think a good critique buddy needs is one most people don’t think of: they need to be unattached. I don’t mean they shouldn’t care. What I do mean is that they should realize this project is not theirs and be okay with that. No matter how much input they give you, in the end it is up to you as to what you incorporate or change. If you think the person might be offended when you don’t take their suggestions or be upset that the project didn’t turn out the way they envisioned it, that person might not be the best critique buddy.
It is a delicate balance to find just the right person to help you through your writing process. But the right critique buddy can really elevate your work in a way you couldn’t have on your own. So choose wisely!

For Onyx Bay, what started as a cathartic ink session takes an unexpected turn when a specialized blood test at the tattoo parlor reveals her true identity, which threatens to turn her entire world upside down.

When Onyx learns that she is the descendant of a fantastical race of creatures who control the global elements, she discovers that her own blood makes her a valuable prize for competing forces, known as the Orders. As the truth about her bloodline spreads, she finds herself at the center of a supernatural bounty hunt pursued by both human and creature members of the Orders willing to do anything to claim her as their own. The hunt intensifies when a prophet foresees she will tip the balance of power and upset the peace among the Orders. As she attempts to evade capture and survive, Onyx is forced to choose between her humanistic past and a supernatural destiny in order to take control of her own future.

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Genre - Urban Fantasy

Rating – PG - 13

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Website http://www.jennifercornet.com/

Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

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Boys, Books & #Author Ben Woodard @benswoodard #YA #Mystery

Boys and Books
 
I grew up almost living in the local library. Reading was my escape and the library was my portal. I loved boy’s adventure stories and have been amazed at the reports that say boys don’t read. Some articles have said that they do read, but not many novels. They like magazines, comic books, and some nonfiction, especially if it’s gross or violent. But why not novels? Everybody loves a good story. Maybe the type of story is the reason for so many reluctant readers. We do know boys gravitate toward some books. The Wimpy Kid series, Harry Potter, and Percy Jackson are favorites. There are others, but the numbers are limited, especially for teens and young adult boys.

Today, most books for older kids are girl oriented, a complete reversal of what publishing was like when I was a young reader. Then, most writers were male, and agents and editors were male. There were girl books, but books for boys prevailed. I believe that the change to having women editors in the publishing industry is good. Girls now have tons of books to read about strong girl characters written for them by women, and that’s a shift in the right direction. The problem is that boys now have less books that are specifically for them, and there are fewer male writers. The boys also have fewer adult males as role models for reading. Single moms are raising many of our boys, and the traditional female jobs of teachers and librarians are still mostly women.

However, to me, the main problem is story. There aren’t enough fiction stories in the marketplace that appeal to boys. The publishers seemed to think that a boy book is one that deals with bodily functions, and so we get “fart” books. And while some of those are well written and funny, I think we underestimate boys. As the Harry Potter books demonstrated, boys will read great stories. But many of the popular boy books are paranormal. What about realistic fiction like I read as a kid? There are some adventure books similar to that, but there needs to be more.

So I decided to write the kind of stories I remembered. The result is The Shakertown Adventure Series. More edgy than what I read, maybe The Hardy Boys on steroids. They’re probably PG with some mild cursing and violence. Nothing too terrible, but there are guns and dead bodies. But the whole purpose was to offer boys books with nonstop action and, what I hope, is the authentic interaction between boys. While there is teenage angst, it is limited to one of the boys and is based on something that happened in his past. The stories don’t dwell on the boys feelings, and many of the descriptions are minimal. The book is mostly about the story.

My model for the books was my favorite series as a boy, the Rick Brant Science Adventure Books. The first book was written right after World War II and continued until the late sixties. The stories were exciting with great villains, but the key was the interplay between the two boys. I remember laughing at their antics and running to one of my parents to tell them about it. I loved the way they kidded each other, and yet, when they were in trouble (in every book, of course), they worked together, each using their skills to defeat the bad guys. Male bonding at it’s best.

I still have the books and still enjoy reading them, but now I see the sexism and racism that was prevalent at the time they were written. Something my stories won’t have, although they will deal with the situation of women and African Americans in 1923.

I hope all parents will encourage their children to read—both girls and boys, but especially boys who are reluctant readers. Start them with whatever they will read, comic books, “fart” books or magazines. Then, ease them into novels. Don’t forget the classics, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and The Count of Monte Cristo.  Many of these are free as ebooks. And please have them check out my books. I’d love to know what they think.

Explosions, sabotage, caves, deadly warnings and a dangerous red-haired man.

Imagine The Hardy Boys meet Tom Sawyer. Add a layer of teen angst and excitement plus a mysterious group trying to stop a new dam while stirring up racial tensions.

That’s STEPS INTO DARKNESS, the next book in the Shakertown Adventure Series by Ben Woodard.

Fourteen-year-old Tom Wallace again makes plans to escape the small town in the 1923 Kentucky countryside. The town that won’t let him forget his past, when a horrific event changes his mind. He teams with his cousin Will and young FBI agent Rick Sweeney to try to solve a perplexing mystery. Attempts on the boys’ lives and a bewildering list of suspects keep them on edge and confused. An old man gives them a clue that leads to a false accusation and embarrassment until they discover the real villain, and then wish they hadn’t.

STEPS INTO DARKNESS is a fun, page-turning thriller with a hint of romance that delivers adventure and mystery while exploring the fears of a teen living with a frightful memory.

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Genre - YA/Mystery

Rating – PG – 13

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Website http://BooksByBen.com

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Jade Kerrion – Vampires through the ages @JadeKerrion

Vampires through the ages

When asked to name the first vampire novel, many people immediately cite Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897.) The first known vampire novel, however, was The Vampyre, written by John Polidori in 1819.

Early vampires were creatures straight out of nightmares—pale and gaunt with sharp fingernails and long incisors. They could adopt more human appearances when they chose, but their essence remained unchanged. They were monsters, remorseless predators of the humans they had once been.

Nobody wanted to be a vampire.

And then, Anne Rice came along.

Others before her may have painted vampires in more sympathetic terms, but Anne Rice created empathy for vampires where none had existed before. Lestat de Lioncourt wasn’t just gorgeous, his hair the color of the sunlight he was denied, but he was the sun—eternally dazzling and brilliant—in the lives of those around him. One could certainly make the point that he was as destructive as the sun as well.

His fledgling, dark-haired, green-eyed Louis de Pointe du Lac, was as beautiful and subtle as moonlight, and as soulful and melancholic as a Shakespeare tragedy. The love that drew Louis and Lestat together, and the hate that drove them apart, formed the core of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.

Anne Rice humanized vampires and endowed them with both strengths and foibles. More importantly, she romanticized them. Vampires still preyed on humans, but it was hard to feel sorry for the humans when death appeared to be more seduction than murder, and Louis wept over every kill.

A paradigm shift had taken place. It was suddenly okay to feel sorry for vampires. More importantly, it was okay to want to be one.

Vampires would evolve at least once more in fiction. After Anne Rice, vampires continued to morph ever closer to the humans who were once their prey. By the time Stephenie Meyer got to her version of vampires in the popular Twilight series, the vampires were no longer susceptible to sunlight and no longer drank human blood. In other words, vampires were no longer the bad guys. More importantly, it was a given that a vampire boyfriend was a far bigger catch (and ironically a better mate—eternal consequences notwithstanding) than a human boyfriend.

What’s the next evolution for vampires? Vampirism is already here. In my Double Helix series, the alpha empath, Danyael Sabre, was a victim of a live blood transfusion, wherein the circulatory systems of two people were joined. The brain activity in the young person decreased whereas the brain activity in the older person increased. It’s not entirely science fiction. The premise is based on a 2011 study conducted in Stanford University on mice.

I took a different tactic in my fantasy novel, Eternal Night. Yes, there are vampires, but the story isn’t really about vampires. It is instead about the icrathari, the vampires’ demonic overlord. In Eternal Night, humans are trapped in Aeternae Noctis, the domed city of eternal night, and preyed upon by the vampires and the icrathari.

But what if the situation isn’t what it appears to be? Jaden’s only goal is to protect his younger sister, Khiarra, from being taken by the vampires, but his chance encounter with Ashra, the icrathari queen, challenges him to step beyond his trained fear of vampires to uncover the truth behind the city of eternal night.

I hope you enjoy this new perspective of vampires and the night terrors in Eternal Night.

E-books available at Amazon / Amazon UK / Apple / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Smashwords

Paperbacks available at Amazon / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Book Depository

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jade Kerrion developed a loyal reader base with her fan fiction series based on the MMORPG Guild Wars. She was accused of keeping her readers up at night, distracting them from work, housework, homework, and (far worse), from actually playing Guild Wars. And then she wondered why just screw up the time management skills of gamers? Why not aspire to screw everyone else up too?

So here she is, writing books that aspire to keep you from doing anything else useful with your time.

Her debut novel, Perfection Unleashed, spawned the Double Helix series which has won a total of seven science fiction awards, including first place in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2012 and the gold medal in Readers Favorites Awards 2013. She is also the author of Earth-Sim and When the Silence Ends, which placed first and second respectively in the 2013 Royal Palm Literary Awards, Young Adults category.

She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with her wonderfully supportive husband and her two young sons, Saint and Angel, (no, those aren’t their real names, but they are like saints and angels, except when they’re not.)

Connect with Jade: Website / Facebook / Twitter

Alone for a millennium, since a human murdered her beloved consort, Ashra, the immortal icrathari queen, rules over Aeternae Noctis, the domed city of eternal night. Her loneliness appears to be at an end when her consort’s soul is reborn in a human, Jaden Hunter, but their reunion will not be easy.

Icrathari are born, not made. If Ashra infuses Jaden with her immortal blood, he will be a vampire, a lesser creature of the night, a blood-drinker rather than a soul-drinker.

Furthermore, Jaden is sworn to protect his half-sister, five-year-old Khiarra. She is the child of prophecy, destined to end the eternal night and the dominion of the Night Terrors—the icrathari and the vampires.

As Ashra struggles to sustain her crumbling kingdom in the face of enemies without and treachery within, Jaden fights to defend his sister and unravel a greater mystery: what is the city of eternal night, and how did it come to be?

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Genre - Fantasy, Paranormal

Rating – PG-13

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Website http://www.jadekerrion.com

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Michelle Rabe – How to Write by the Seat of Your Pants: Outline or No? @michrabe

How to Write by the Seat of Your Pants: Outline or No?
There are writers I know who do a lot of planning before they start working on their novels. They have character biographies, notes about setting and have every scene planned out. When I first started writing I thought that this was what you had to do. Sure, I’d gotten the idea and started working on the first draft but where was I going to go with it? So, I picked up some books on writing and started reading them, all while I kept working on this directionless thing I had. Almost every book, I don’t remember which ones, said that the writer should start with research and an outline. So, I started researching, focusing on vampire folklore for the most part.
This whole time I was reading and researching I was also writing still with no plan no clue who was in my story or what they were doing there until they showed up on scene and tell me. When I did sit down to come up with my outline I’d written about half of my first draft. It was still an excellent feeling to sit down, see what I had done and had an idea where I was going.
But a strange thing happened once I had this grand plan, I couldn’t write. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten how to or life had taken over it was that every time I sat down to work on the scenes, nothing happened. The characters who were so vibrant and vocal before I made the outline clammed up. I was stuck with about half a book, and a plan for what I thought needed to happen but, I couldn’t finish it. I tried to write the scenes I thought were needed and a lot of them I wrote but deleted and started over because they were, to be honest, crap. After about a week of floundering around trying to make the story fit my idea of how it should go, I tossed the outline out the window and went back to just writing. I finished the draft and was happy with the results. Ever since then I’ve always written by the seat of my pants as it were.
Do I think that every writer should ‘pants it’? Not at all. I think every writer is different and they should find what works for them. I have a writing group made up of about 6-7 members and I think if I took a poll I’d get 6-7 different ways to write.  If it works for you don’t knock it. There’s more than one way to write, find what works and stick with it. If you find yourself blocked, try something different, shake things up. But most important, have fun.

To the outside world, Morgan Blackstone is an eccentric business woman. But, in her chest beats the undead heart of a 21st century vampire. Behind the doors of her nightclub, The Dracul, Morgan rules with an iron fist in a velvet glove.

After a long night of wrangling unruly supernatural customers, she is looking forward to some peace… but unbeknownst to her, there are other vampires who are conspiring against her. Just before dawn, in the deserted parking lot, she comes face-to-face with two old adversaries, one of which she had last seen being sealed in a tomb, 400 years before.

Overpowered by her attackers, Morgan wakes inside the lab of an unscrupulous doctor. Held against her will, subjected to experiments, she soon realizes that something has begun to burn within her veins…

Something that she knows will kill her.

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Genre - Paranormal Urban Fantasy

Rating – PG-13

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Connect with Michelle Rabe on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://paperbackvamp.tumblr.com/

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#Author Rik Stone & How His Story Evolved @stone_rik #Thriller #Crime

How my Story Evolved

Nearly all stories have a general platform from which to launch into exclusivity. I wanted to write something that I felt hadn’t been done or at least something different to what I’ve read. Of course, there’s no such thing as a tale that hasn’t been told. All you can hope for is that you might create a unique twist. Mine was a simple enough idea. I would present a set of non-western characters. How is that different? Well, in the novels I’ve trawled my way through over the years I’ve found that even in the most exotic of settings there is an American or European hero to sort out the mess. If you read Birth of an Assassin you’ll see that needn’t be the case.

But what stage could I use for my story and what genre? Being a thriller addict the genre went without saying, but what about setting? Well, I have an uncle by marriage whose parents fled anti-Semitism under late 19^th century czarism. My uncle passed on little odds and ends relating to the hardships Jewish people had at that time and I thought there might be a story waiting to be told.

I researched the period and there were lots of events that could easily be weaved into a single fictitious account. I’ll give a couple of examples to explain what I mean:

In the second half of the 19^th century, a Jewish boy was conscripted into the army to fight on one of the many battlefronts against The Ottoman Empire. The boy was killed and tsarist police operating in The Pale, a barren stretch of land where the Jewish population was forced to live, came to the house of the boy. They didn’t tell the parents he’d been killed in action. No, they said he was a deserter, and that the family was left responsible for his crime. The parents were fined several hundred roubles. Their belongings were sold for 40 roubles, leaving the family with a debt of, yes several hundred roubles. This became ritual; they rebuilt and their belongings were taken and sold as payment towards the fine.

In the early 1900’s a Russian child was murdered. The Jewish population was blamed and a series of state supported pogroms followed, ending in Kishinev in 1903 where the worst of the persecutions took place. Later, it turned out the child’s family had been responsible for the murder – and police had covered it up.

I could go on, there were a multitude of travesty’s over many years. Enough to say, I collected the makings of a story, but looking into that period, I saw no believable way that anyone Jewish could possibly come out on top, so I worked my way through Russian history looking for a home for my plot. It wasn’t until reaching post war Soviet Russia that I found a window. That isn’t to say my hero wins out in Birth of an Assassin, but I needed a place where he at least had a chance. Unfortunately I had to take my protagonist’s religion away, but his burning ambition to be a part of the Red Army wouldn’t have worked with it.

So, I had someone to represent the Jewish population. Now, I needed a core of anti-Semitism: along came Otto to provide the conduit for my story.

If you read Birth of an Assassin you can be forgiven for not seeing my analogy. When all’s said and done it’s simply an adventure thriller with goodies and baddies. And if I were to itemise now what happens in the book against its past equivalent I would be giving you a series of spoilers.

Set against the backdrop of Soviet, post-war Russia, Birth of an Assassin follows the transformation of Jez Kornfeld from wide-eyed recruit to avenging outlaw. Amidst a murky underworld of flesh-trafficking, prostitution and institutionalized corruption, the elite Jewish soldier is thrown into a world where nothing is what it seems, nobody can be trusted, and everything can be violently torn from him.

Buy Now @ Amazon, B&N, Kobo & Waterstones

Genre - Thriller, Crime, Suspense

Rating – R

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Connect with Rik Stone on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://rik-stone.simdif.com

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How to Make Your Characters Believable – Shanna Hatfield @ShannaHatfield #thechristmascowboy

How to Make Your Characters Believable

My mother gave me a love of reading at an early age when she’d sit on my bed and read books to me. I’ve always been drawn to the characters in stories more than anything else. It’s the way people think and feel, the things they say and do that fascinate me. When I began writing, I knew if I did nothing else right I wanted to develop characters that seem real, have depth and dimension.

One of the best ways to make characters believable is to make them realistic. Create a character that could be a friend or someone you pass on the street.

For me, the process begins by visualizing my characters. I’m a very visual person and I need to “see” my characters before I really get into developing them. I search online until I find a face I can put with my ideas for a character. Sometimes the inspiration comes from an actor or someone in the news. A few family members have even served as unsuspecting character models.

Once I’ve got a clear picture of my character’s appearance, I begin fleshing them out. How tall are they, what is their build? What do they smell like? How do they speak? What does their voice sound like? What does their laugh sound like? What mannerisms are uniquely theirs (cracking knuckles, drumming fingers, humming). Detail everything about their physical presence you can.

After their outward appearance is complete, delve into their inner workings. What makes them tick? Are they insecure? Confident? Happy? Haunted? Are they emotional? Are they friendly or aloof? What makes them smile? What brings them to tears?

Pretend you’ve just met an interesting person you want to get to know and he is willing to answer any question you ask. Then ask those questions of your character.

Another thing I’ve found helpful is studying the profession of my characters. I research whatever work my main characters pursue so I can write about it from a more realistic standpoint.

In my latest contemporary romance, The Christmas Cowboy, the hero is a saddle bronc rider. I grew up going to rodeos and around cowboys, but I spent hours watching YouTube videos of saddle bronc riders because it helped me capture the little details that make my character authentic.

Dialogue is also so important and can be a deal-breaker if you don’t get it right. A rodeo cowboy isn’t going to speak with stiff formality. Someone in 1893 isn’t going to say, “hey, dude, you nailed it.” Think about your character, where they are both in their life and in a physical sense, and construct their thoughts and words accordingly.

As you tell the character’s story, let them creep into your mind, seep into your soul, and take up residence there while you write. Both you and your characters will be better for the experience.

***

For more details about The Christmas Cowboy, visit The Christmas Cowboy page on Shanna’s website. From December 1-24, Shanna will donate 10% of her net proceeds from all her book sales to the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund.

Find The Christmas Cowboy, and her other books at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

Follow Shanna online: ShannaHatfield | Facebook | Pinterest | Goodreads | You Tube

Author Bio: Shanna Hatfield is a hopeless romantic with a bit of sarcasm thrown in for good measure. In addition to blogging, eating too much chocolate, and being smitten with Captain Cavedweller, she writes clean romantic fiction with a healthy dose of humor. She is a member of Western Writers of America, Women Writing the West, and Romance Writers of America.

"10% of the net proceeds from all my book sales December 1-24 will be donated to the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund®"

Flying from city to city in her job as a busy corporate trainer for a successful direct sales company, Kenzie Beckett doesn’t have time for a man. And most certainly not for the handsome cowboy she keeps running into at the airport. Burned twice, she doesn’t trust anyone wearing boots and Wranglers, especially someone as charming and handsome as Tate Morgan.

Among the top saddle bronc riders in the rodeo circuit, easy-going Tate Morgan can handle the toughest horse out there, but trying to deal with the beautiful Kenzie Beckett is a completely different story.

As the holiday season approaches, this Christmas Cowboy is going to need to pull out all the stops if he wants a chance at winning her heart.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Romance (contemporary western)

Rating – PG

More details about the author

Connect with Shanna Hatfield on Facebook and Twitter

Website http://shannahatfield.com

Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

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AFN Clarke – Things They Never Tell You @AFNClarke

Things They Never Tell You About Becoming A Published Author
by AFN Clarke
When someone asks “what do you do?” and I say “I’m an author”, invariably the response is “wow, it must be great to just sit and write all day”.  And of course I nod, but I secretly think “if only you really knew!”
Am I happy to be a writer?  Of course I am.  Am I bursting with creative energy that’s ready to flow onto the page effortlessly giving life to what is sure be the next best seller every day? In my dreams!  So I got to thinking, what are the 10 things that I didn’t know about becoming a published author that I’ve learned the hard way?
1.    Published authors have the privilege of developing really thick skulls.
Who else would work long hours with little sleep, no money, get rejected a million times and drag loved ones through hell and back to just hear that one precious word “yes”.  Our bubble of denial and refusal to see reason actually cultivates miracles – how cool is that?
2.    When people like what you write, they’ll only sometimes tell you so.
We are insecure, sensitive creatures who though we staunchly deny it, measure our own self-worth through someone else’s eyes.  Positive feedback is like life support – so if you like my work put me out of my misery and tell me, so I don’t end up a blabbering mess of insecurity.
3.    When people don’t like what you write, there’s no stopping them telling you so.
My big “aha” is that the moment a writer commits words to paper he/she becomes public property – a target to be criticized, loved, praised, or condemned a hundred times over. Live with it! I wrote my thriller An Unquiet American with a very politically provocative premise that dramatically escalates tension in the book  - and also some people’s blood pressure!  So be it, at least it’s generating heated discussions for them as much with those who love it – isn’t that the point?  It’s all a matter of attitude.
4.    Fame and success erase your battle scars but also common sense.
My first book CONTACT was a best seller. I was on TV, in the newspaper, and felt invincible. When the limelight faded my publisher asked “where’s your next book?” “What book?” Oops, wrong answer!  That rookie mistake took years to correct – so while the fans are still cheering take a bow, stick your ego in a box and quietly get back to work.
5.    You will take your partner to the brink of madness.
After all these years, my wife deserves a medal. As with most authors I can be a self-indulgent hermit who’s rarely truly “present”.  When writing I live in a parallel universe that only intersects hers at mealtimes at best. When I’m not writing I’m grumpy, as I’m upset I’m not writing. So authors – if anyone puts up with you, cherish adore and love them, because they’re a rare species.
6.    Those pesky 140 characters will take you to the brink of madness.
Here’s the deal Twitter – my latest thriller The Orange Moon Affair has 479,180 characters and you want me to do what?  Be meaningful in 140?  You’ve got to be kidding right?
And of course I’m running out of characters already – so here are learnings 7, 8, 9, and 10:
7.    You’ll become best friends with loads of people that you never even get to meet.
8.    You’ll learn to see the silly side of everything life throws at you.
9.    You’ll get to face your greatest fears, reveal the inner depths of your soul, open your heart and mind, become totally vulnerable, learn about things you never heard of and chase your wildest dreams.
10.  And if you learn to get over yourself, you’ll live through it all to celebrate the most wonderfully satisfying and richly rewarding times of your life.
Being an author rocks!
AFN CLARKE is the son of a British MI6 operative, pilot, sailor, screenwriter, father of four who’s lived all over the world, served in the British Army and recovered from the physical/emotional traumas of war.  His bestselling memoir CONTACT was serialized in a British newspaper and made into an award winning BBCTV film.  He’s insatiably curious, loves heated discussions and has a rascally sense of humor. He now writes fiction of various genres – thrillers (The Orange Moon Affair and An Unquiet American); human drama (Dry Tortugas), humor/satire (Dreams from the Death Age; Armageddon), horror (Collisions) with more coming soon.  For more information visit http://www.afnclarke.com, connect on Facebook or Twitter (@AFN Clarke).

The Jonas Trust Deception, another Thomas Gunn thriller by bestselling author AFN Clarke, follows The Orange Moon Affair, a “hard to put down”, “5-star novel by a 5-star author”. Thomas (ex-Special Forces) goes on high alert after a desperate message from his journalist friend, Morgan. She’s in danger. But where? And why? Rushing to her ranch he finds it being torn apart by a highly-trained female assassin of East European descent, with a mysterious butterfly tattoo on her neck. An image that sends his mind reeling. Dread seeping into his soul.

In her ongoing investigations, Morgan may have uncovered something even more explosive and far-reaching than the Orange Moon conspiracy.  If so, her enemies will want both her and her information destroyed. Racing to follow tangled leads, Thomas and his girlfriend Julie are thrust into the deadly path of Mexican drug cartels, corrupt politicians, unscrupulous financial brokers like Jonas T Purdue, the FBI, the UK intelligence services and their arch nemesis Marika Keskküla. What deception binds these unlikely “players” together? What’s their power struggle really about? And even more personally disturbing, why the constant links back to a secret mission in Afghanistan, that Thomas has tried so hard to forget?

Outraged by the feeling of constantly being “played”, Thomas decides to turn the tables on the faceless “puppeteers” by taking an action so bold, so dangerous, and so unexpected, that even his team fear he’s lost his mind. Has he? Or can he expose the “vermin” at the top and finally eliminate them forever?

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Thriller

Rating – PG-13

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Connect with A.F.N. Clarke on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.afnclarke.com/

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Sunspots by Karen S. Bell @KarenSueBell

As soon as we entered, he morphed into the perfect host and made himself busy taking my bags out of the way. He said please sit down, get comfortable, take off your shoes. That sort of thing. He offered a drink. I sipped slowly, grateful for the distraction and looked at the view. He turned on music and joined me on the sofa. Was this his normal routine? He sat beside me close. He pulled me to him, closer. He swallowed my eyes with his. He took the drink out of my grip. We kissed passionately for several minutes. Then he led me hurriedly to the bedroom still kissing me, me kissing him, he kissing me in a furious manifestation of lust. Misgivings? What misgivings? Doubts? What doubts? I was on fire but still noticed the 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, silk duvet, hand-carved teakwood bed. Custom drapes, recessed lighting, brass lamps. I thought of my dumpy apartment. I thought of my mother’s dumpy apartment. I thought of all the cautionary tales of dallying or marrying above your class like Forever Amber, Vanity Fair, and Edith Wharton’s Undine Sprague in Custom of the Country. And then I thought of My Fair Lady, Pretty Woman, An Officer and a Gentleman. And then he expertly brought my arousal to new heights…and I finally stopped thinking.
We made love with an intensity and earnestness that ripped away the outer world as we created a tempest of sensual pleasure. Later, in an exhausted heap, we lay close and he became gentle rubbing my arm and kissing the top of my head. He spoke softly, assuring me, “Aurora, I love you so. Don’t worry about anything, darlin’. You’ll come to love it here. You’ll see. You belong here with me. Look at me.” And he looked deep into my eyes and said, “Your eyes are so beautiful. They remind me of a deep clear lake and you should live near lakes,” he whispered. “I could get lost in your eyes,” and he kissed my eyelids and I began to accept the truth of his love. Kissing my mouth gently, he breathed these words, “Your mouth is like a wildflower in bloom and you should live among wildflowers. I could kiss your mouth forever.” And then he ran his fingers up and down my arm while saying, “Your skin is as soft as the yellow rose of Texas and I will cherish the gift of touching it for the rest of my life. You were meant to be here, Aurora, here with me.”
I believed him. I did belong here… with him…with Jake Stein…Mrs. Jacob Stein. Here in the blistering heat and bats’ haven. Here where cedar trees pollinate all year and make allergy doctors wealthy. Here where mild salsa is an oxymoron. Because Jake was here. And we kissed and kissed and got lost in each other’s souls.
And then suddenly, he jumped up. “It’s time to get dressed for dinner, darlin’,” he said. “Now listen, Aurora honey, don’t pay any attention to anything my mother or sisters might say. Sometimes they can be a little narrow-minded and they get carried away. For them, the sun rises and sets on Texas. So don’t take it personally whatever they do or say or if you get the impression they think all New Yorkers are crass heathens.”

I took a shower, blew my hair dry and could almost feel horse’s hoofs smashing my face as a mighty river bore down with a sudden force carrying me away forever.

Sunspots follows the healing journey of a young woman thrown into the horror of losing a spouse. It is a love story of loss and redemption and the ghosts that haunt our lives and our houses. Skirting the genres of magical realism and romance, Sunspots, explores the existence of the afterlife and the paranormal. The story takes the reader on a path of high emotion as the narrator, Aurora, uncovers her husband Jake’s secret life and her own internal conflicts as she matures to self-awareness. The novel’s tone vacillates from irreverent humor to solemnity as Aurora relates her previous life with Jake and her present challenges. The title refers to the solar maximum which became the backdrop for Aurora’s conception when her hippy parents went to Canada to observe the Aurora Borealis. In name and in spirit, Aurora is connected to the observable and unobservable energy around us. With the help of friends, family, and the ghost of Viola Parker (her home’s original owner), Aurora accepts her fate and the secrets revealed about Jake’s true character. She realizes that in this life she will finally break the cycle of pain caused by her love for this man, Jake Stein, through the centuries.

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Genre – Contemporary romance, Magical Realism

Rating – PG-13

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Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

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Cerece Rennie Murphy – 10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Order of the Seers Trilogy @CereceRMurphy

10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Order of the Seers Trilogy

10. The Order of the Seers Trilogy is about a group of people who can see the future and are enslaved for that ability.  The first book is about how the Seers escape the organization that is trying to exploit their gift, reclaim their power and start fighting back.  Without giving too much away, the second book in the trilogy picks up right where the first one leaves off, has even more action than the first and is a bit darker because you get to know your villains a LOT better. J

9. The biggest influences for the Trilogy are The Star Wars Saga by George Lucas, Dune by Frank Herbert, Wild Seed by Octavia Butler and Chronicles of Riddick for philosophy and mythology, and The Bourne Series by Robert Ludlum for pacing and action.

8. I am a HUGE fan of the FRINGE TV series.  Lilli and Liam Knights last name is a tribute to Peter and Walter Bishop from the series.  I wanted to name Lilli and Liam’s father Walter, but I thought that would have been too much.  In the 2^nd book in the trilogy, Liam wears a peacoat in honor of Peter Bishop’s now legendary and beloved peacoat on the series.

7. Order of the Seers and its sequel, The Red Order, take place in San Francisco, Chicago, rural Tanzania, Iowa and Salem, Oregon, London, Prague, Geneva, Berlin and Cuba.  I have been to all of these places except, Iowa and Salem, Oregon.  Having a personal connection to the locations really helped me visualize the mood and feel for each book.

6.My perfect Alessandra Pino is a younger Monica Bellucci.  My perfect Liam Knight is Wes Bentley. And my perfect Marcus Akida, is Lance Reddick from FRINGE.

5. The my playlist for Order of the Seers includes Crawl by Linkin Park, Scratch Your Name by The Noisettes, Closer by Kings of Leon and Breathe Me by Sia.

4. I love languages and accents so I tried to use as many of them as I could cram into both books in the series.  In the first book alone, you will find Chinese, Portuguese, Swahili, Italian and Japanese.  The second book adds some Russian, Spanish and French to the mix. I am hoping to get Farsi and Hindi, and maybe some Hebrew into the 3^rd book.

3. The idea for Order of the Seers came to me about 3 years ago, while I was washing the dishes.

2.  If you asked me to describe Order of the Seers in three words, I would say Intense.Action.Suspense

1.  I am working on the final book in the Trilogy now, which I hope to release by Summer 2014.    The working title for the 3^rd book is The Last Seer.

What would you do if you held infinite power in the palm of your hand? Part One of the thrilling Order of the Seers trilogy poses this question within a story that fuses action, mystery, romance, and adventure in a science fiction novel that keeps you at the edge of your seat. Captured and enslaved for their extraordinary gift, a group of individuals, known as Seers, are forced to serve a ruthless world organization that uses the power of the Seers to exploit the ultimate advantage: knowing the future. While a brother and his Seer sister fight to evade the group that hunts them, an unlikely captured Seer, plots his escape from within the organization and sets off a chain of events that will change the world.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Science Fiction

Rating – NC-17

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Connect with Cerece Rennie Murphy on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.crmurphybooks.com

 

Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

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J.J. Ward – Fake Reviews on Amazon: my top five ways of spotting (and not spotting) them @MI7Ward

Fake Reviews on Amazon: my top five ways of spotting (and not spotting) them

“I really loved this book! It had me turning the pages all the way until the end! I’m certainly going to recommend it to my friends! I can’t wait till the next one. Five stars!”

We’ve all seen this kind of thing. Quite a lot of self-published books come garnished with a million variants of it. I used to think I could tell which they were, those phonies, but now I’m not so sure. Here are my (former) top five ways, and then why I’ve now changed my mind.

1. Is the review overly general? You loved what? If you can’t even be bothered to tell us what you enjoyed about said book, perhaps you haven’t actually read it.
2. Is it brief but overly gushing? In my experience, people who gush with excitement tend to go on for a long time. Perhaps someone who gushes for the obligatory 20 words Amazon allows for a review, and no more, isn’t really gushing at all. Maybe she’s just pretending!
3. Are there ten or twelve 5*s, all written at one time, and then a long, eerie gap? It looks a little like the author might have corralled his or her friends, and then exhausted his stock of them!
4. Are the one and two star reviews longer and more analytic than the four and five? If so, maybe they felt conned by the latter!
5. When you click on those five star reviewers, have they ever reviewed another book? Are they habitual reviewers? Or is this the only book they’ve ever reviewed? Hmmm!

Now, I know this sounds harsh. What a dim view of human nature! And that’s partly why I’ve abandoned it. Let’s have a look at what’s wrong with it, point by point.

1. Not all readers are natural critics. Just because they can’t write at length about a book they loved, it doesn’t mean they’re not sincere. Not all books invite an extensive response. A lot of people actually read the same sort of book over and over again. They loved it means: it was a super romance/ fantasy/ thriller.
2. Sometimes gushing makes you self-conscious. Especially when you’re immortalising your words in a written review.
3. Maybe the author wrote to ten or twelve Amazon critics, asking them to honestly review his book – something which happens all the time. Then he stopped.
4. Just because the one and two star reviews are longer and more analytic, it doesn’t mean they’re right. Different readers like different things, and even the most intelligent reader can miss something crucial, something that makes the whole novel make sense, instead of being an incoherent mess.
5. The mere fact that these people actually logged on to Amazon and wrote anything at all may be proof that they really did ‘love it’. Maybe it really is the greatest thing since toffee-glazed barbecue popcorn.

Nowadays, I read the reviews for entertainment. I look at a selection of each: five, four, three, two, one. I take into account everything they say, and I still apply the five tests, although alongside the five qualifiers I’ve outlined. Then I do what everyone should. I click on ‘look inside’. There are usually a lot more answers there than any review can possibly provide.

When someone starts assassinating paparazzi in three countries, MI7 sits up. Apparently, the killer is none other than Dmitri Vassyli Kramski, retired SVR field-operative and former Kremlin protégé. True, the Cold War is long finished, but everyone knows Vladimir Putin is as unhappy for Russia to play second fiddle on the international stage as even the most strident of his Communist predecessors. In 2010 therefore, East-West relations remain as tortuous as ever.

Kramski’s trail leads deep into London’s émigré community, forcing his pursuers into conflict with an unknown organisation bent on protecting him. Bit by bit, he begins to look less like a professional assassin and more like someone plotting to scupper the foundations of Western democracy itself. To compound matters, the Russians are as baffled by him as anyone.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – Espionage Thriller

Rating – PG

More details about the author and the book

Connect with J.J. Ward on Twitter

 

Quality Reads UK Book Club Disclosure: Author interview / guest post has been submitted by the author and previously used on other sites.

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