Cover Mock-up for Through the In Between, Hell Awaits

My debut release Through the In Between, Hell Awaits is coming along nicely. Here's the cover mock-up.  There may be some minor alterations before publication, but I have to say I'm very pleased with it.  We're looking at a few weeks before uploading the files and debuting this bad boy.

I'm excited about the book's release, and curious about how readers and reviewers are going to respond to it. I hope to schedule some local book signings and hopefully make it to a convention or two next year to promote the book. I will report here with further news.

Cheers!

The Skin Trade

The question is, what would happen in a post apocalyptic world...set in the Wild West? Read Skin Trade by Tonia Brown and find out. You most certainly will not be disappointed.

This is more than a horror story set in the west, and certainly more than your average zombie book. In fact, the Great Undead Uprising of 1870 is the perfect backdrop for a tale about a young woman's coming of age through peril, perseverance, and grit. Samantha Martin, our heroine narrator, is one tough cookie!

Skin Trade is a well crafted book that will stick with you long after you finish reading it. The characters breathe, they live, and you want to know what happens to them. In a Wild West made only wilder with the onslaught of a zompocalypse, Samantha must be weary and careful with whom she places trust, because she has a secret that is more valuable in the Badlands than the zombie hides harvested in the skin trade, and a past that she desperately wants to get away from.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

Sleepless Night

We all have sleepless nights from time to time, often times due to something burning in our mind, throbbing like an infected sore.  And then there are the times when sleep is just unobtainable for no good reason at all.  You wake up way too early and, well, you're awake...and it's the middle of the night.  Not midnight, not even one in the morning, but that dismal, quiet time of night when drunks are swerving home from the bar and the TV is a flourish of infomercials.

I had a sleepless night the other night.  Went to bed at ten thirty, which is a little early for me, and woke up two hours later.  I tried to sleep, glancing at the clock, drinking water because it was hot in the house, using the bathroom because I drank too much water, looking at the clock, tossing and turning, and looking at the clock some more.  Soon it was three AM and I wasn't the least bit tired.  "But I have to get some sleep before work," I told myself, and I realized then and there that the Sandman had skipped my house that night.

So I turned on the television, pulled out my laptop, and wrote a thousand words on my latest work-in-progress.  I wrote for an hour, glancing at the Olympics on TV here and there, and still I wasn't tired.  I went to bed around four-thirty, woke up at seven, and I felt great all day.  I think I know why.

This isn't scientific, it's just a theory I came up with.  I've long heard that when you can't sleep, get up and be productive.  Do something.  Read a book, watch a movie, gaze at the stars--something.  Lying there staring at the clock and worrying about getting the proper sleep will wear you out.  I think it's stressful to toss and turn, and I think it's that stress that causes one to feel like shit during the day after a sleepless night.  I always feel terrible when I lay in bed staring at the clock and stressing myself out about work and sleep, sleep and work.  Get the fact that you can't sleep off your mind, and perhaps you'll be able to go to sleep.  Works for me. 

Insomnia, on the other hand, is a completely different monster.

May you sleep well.

Cheers!

My Favorite Villain

I have been listening to the Anthrax album State of Euphoria non-stop in my car lately. Great record a friend of mine just turned me on to. There's a song titled "Now It's Dark" on the album. I immediately said to myself, "That's a Blue Velvet quote." Sure enough, the song is about the movie, and the chorus quotes Frank Booth, the villain in Blue Velvet, one of the most bizarre film's I've ever seen. This got me thinking about villains.

There are a lot of memorable villains in both cinematic and literary history. Perhaps due to my age and the fact that film was a big part of my life at one time, the most memorable villains are ones I watched on old VHS tapes time and time again.  The greatest of them all is Frank Booth as played by Dennis Hopper in the David Lynch film Blue Velvet.

I could give a brief two sentence synopsis of the film, but that just wouldn't do it justice. If you haven't seen it, then you simply must. I am going to assume that most people reading this are familiar with the film, as it is required viewing for those of us who enjoy dark, edgy themes.  If you haven't seen it yet, I'm sure Netflix has it.

For years I considered Randal Flagg, from the Stephen King novel The Stand,  to be my favorite villain, but with much deliberation I have decided that Frank Booth is the most memorable and greatest villain of them all. He's sadistic, murderous, violent and unpredictable. He's a drug addict, a gangster, a rapist, confused, insane, and frightening. And, on top of all that, he delivers some of the most memorable one-liners, most of them littered with the incessant use of his favorite four-letter expletive. My favorite line: "Don't you fucking look at me." His Heineken rant is classic as well: "Heineken. Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!"

So, I raise a Pabst for Frank Booth, may your celluloid soul rot in Hell, you evil fuck!

The Love of the Dead by Craig Saunders

Another great release from Craig Saunders and Evil Jester Press!

With The Love of the Dead Craig Saunders delivers a brilliant blending of horror and mystery that sticks its fangs in and holds on until the mind-bending conclusion.  With deeply human characterization and precise wording, Saunders weaves a tale of life and death, hurt and sadness, all revolving around a bizarre string of murders that only Beth Willis, a medium balancing on the frayed ends of her tumultuous mind, and Detective Coleridge, an overweight, no nonsense policeman, can hope to stop.  But sometimes things aren’t what they appear to be.  Some things transcend good and evil, space and time.

Any one who has read Craig Saunders knows that his words flow like blood from a severed jugular.  The Love of the Dead is no exception.  This book is all horror, though it will entertain any fan of detective mystery stories.  Do yourself a favor and get this book.  Read it, and then find Craig’s other books and read them.

Available for kindle in the US & UK.

Some Words on Dark Hollow by Brian Keene

I finished Brian Keene's Dark Hollow the other day, solidifying my fandom. I'd read four of his novels before this one, all of them good with the exception of The Rising (just didn't do it for me), but Dark Hollow is in a class all its own. With a great cast of characters that are are so real you feel you've known them at some point in your life, a protagonist that you may know of from ancient mythology but never read about in such a way, and a driving plot that demands your attention, you get one hell of a great read.

The story is a first person narrative told by up and coming novelist Adam Senft who discovers something strange and unearthly in the woods, plunging him into a world of wonder and worry that is only amplified as several women in town disappear to the tune of eerie piping music. With little help from the police, Adam and his neighbors are forced to investigate and solve the mystery of LeHorn's Hollow themselves.

This story is a prime example of what makes a great novel, as exercised by the wonderful characterization, particularly of our narrator. I found myself pondering my own town and my neighbors, of whom, sadly, I have little affiliation with. I found that I liked Adam and his neighbors. For the period of time that I read this book, I cared about them and wanted the best for them, which made for a very satisfying read. I'm already looking forward to the next Keene novel sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.

I'm certainly late to the party on this one considering it was originally published in 2008, but when it comes to reading great novels you're never too late as long as you get on board, and now is just as good a time as any. Dark Hollow is available through Deadite Press. Do yourself a favor and get a copy. You will not be disappointed.

Anatomy of Gone?

I recently made the decision to remove my self published collection of short stories Anatomy of Fear from amazon.com. The reason for this is two-fold.

The initial intent of this project was to promote my forthcoming novel People of the Ethereal Realm, which was supposed to be released this year from Twisted Library Press. Included with the short stories was a three-chapter preview that I hoped would entice readers to buy the book when it came out. Well, due to the recent inactivity at TLP, my contract expired, and PotER is now without a publisher. That was one reason I decided to pull Anatomy of Fear.

The other reason I decided to pull the plug was that, as it turns out, I am no fan of self publishing my material. I knew this going in, but I figured I would give it a shot anyway, more for promotional purposes than anything else. It didn't do all that great. Looking at the sales figures, it did all right during the period that I promoted it, which was only for about two weeks. As soon as I stopped promoting the book, the sales dropped off, which is to be expected. If no one knows a book is out, how the hell are they going to buy it?

For the most part, I'm finished with self publishing. I believe I did it the right way--I had an editor edit the material, and I created a decent cover--but it's just not my cuppa tea. I may do this sort of thing again for the strict purpose of promoting a novel in the future...or maybe not.

That being said, there are a lot of established authors who are self publishing their backlog, and that seems to be working out great for some of them. I'm nowhere near that established an author, but perhaps in the future I will consider that option.

Until next time...