Jennifer Thomson's Blog, page 16

Monolith by horror giant Shaun Hutson is a scary read

Was this book scary? Well, put it this way, I was reading it at 4am and I became convinced there was a dark entity like the one in the book in my house.

I was preparing to defend myself when I discovered it was my partner up for a glass of water.

And that folks is Shaun Hutson. He writes horror that gets under your skin and raises the hair on the back of your neck and you don't realise until 4 in the morning when you think one of the monsters in his books is out to get you.

Monolith is available on Amazon and published by Caffeine Nights. 

Don't Let the Bullies Win - How to Get your confidence back is out now

Out now on Amazon Don’t Let the Bullies Win: How to get your confidence, back is aimed at a much neglected group, the adult survivors of bullying, whether that bullying took place at school, in the workplace or in the confines of a relationship.
This book was written by a bully survivor and is part misery memoir/self-help and will aim to do exactly what the title suggests.
The emphasis is firmly on dealing with the aftermath of bullying, whether it’s still going on or happened years ago, and making the bullied person feel more confident using a mixture of chatty advice, humour and fun exercises.
Inside this book there are tips and strategies on:•           How to stop blaming yourself for what happened•           How to stop bullying and bullying behaviour from ruining your life and your relationships•           Learning to like yourself •           Standing up for yourself, including how to say no to people•           Learning to let go of what happened to you•           Helping yourself to feel better without relying on others•           Facing up to the bully
Also includes tips on dealing with difficult people.

Note - to keep the cost down so the book can help as many people as possible, Don't Let the Bullies Win is currently only available in eBook form. 

The wacky world of the pop out cake

Hopefully the person jumping out of your cake won't look as bored as these two!
For a major scene in my book, How Kirsty Gets Her Kicks, I wanted my main character Kirsty to try and get close enough to someone who would immediately have her killed if he saw her.
I racked my brains about how to do this without her being found out and when it emerged he was having a birthday party, I thought it would be awesome if she could hide in a cake.
I don’t know about you, but I have never seen anyone jump out of a cake before, so I didn’t know where to start.  That’s when the good old Internet came to the rescue.   


Here are some things I discovered -
It's actually quite straightforward to hire a pop out cake, as cakes designed for jumping out of are called.  Pop out cake are usually three tier cakes that resemble wedding cakes, you can even make your own. They can also be square. Note, I said make and not bake your own because the only similarity between these cakes and real ones is the edible frosting they may have on the outside.  Quite often, a table cloth is placed over the bottom of the cake to hide the fact there is no bottom and that’s how the person inside gets inside. Other cakes sit on a kind of platter like this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-xtjrR5Dc8 and have wheels so that the cake can be wheeled in with the person inside. A section of the cake can be like a door to allow the person to get inside with ease.The top comes off and that’s how the person inside jumps out. A pop out cake even featured in Xena Warrior Princess. You can watch the footage by clicking here To hire a cake, it’s best to approach a prop hire company like this one
I'm delighted to announce that How Kirsty Gets Her Kicks about a one-legged Glasgow barmaid who goes on the run from with a gangster's cash and gun, will be published soon. Details to follow. 

Stay tuned for details, including the cover reveal, as you finally get to find out why Kirsty jumps out of a cake and how she gets on:)

Editing for authors - Have you bawled at the muddle with your puddle?

Going through your work, bit by bit can be a long and laborious process, but you have to get it right. 

Who wants to press that SEND button and then discover after that you've used there instead of their, or changed character names halfway through a chapter? 

Here's some examples from my latest book, the 2nd Detective in a Coma book, Cannibal City. Read them and weep with laughter fellow writers and readers -

His fist bawled into a fist.

Oops, sounds like his fist was crying.


It's not a puddle it's a muddle.
He landed his size 12 loafers in a muddle.

It was me that got in a muddle because I meant puddle. 

He shoved tape over her mouth and she could hardly breathe and she screamed.

That takes some doing screaming when you're gagged. Of course, she could scream under the gag.

I've also had people coming out of doors they never went in. My personal favourite was a dead man coming back to life and, no it wasn't my zombie novel The Restless Dead. This was another crime novel:) 

I'd love to hear what mistakes you've spotted in your work. Have you bawled at the muddle with your puddle? 

Please leave a comment so we can chortle away together. 

At £10.52 is this the most expensive bottle of mineral water ever?

Internet Shopping's great, isn't it? The convenience. Being able to browse in your own home, at your own leisure.

It is great, until things go wrong and the retailer you're dealing with are Amazon.

I ordered 24x 50cl of Vittel mineral water from Amazon.co.UK
The price was £10.52.

Today, I received "my order." A box with ONE tiny 50cl bottle. Yep, one, not the 24 I ordered that I was meant to be receiving, but one single, solitary, lonely bottle.

I contacted Amazon on live chat. I expected to get a profuse apology. Instead, I was told "oh, that item is no longer available," although I'd ordered it. There was no offer of a refund.

Then I was told "oh, you only ordered one bottle," probably because the customer service woman was too lazy to check my full order showing a quantity of one in this case meant 24 bottles and not one.

How I felt when Amazon messed up my order
I tried to leave a review. It was polite and factual. Amazon rejected it. Maybe because it pointed out that I'd been charged £10.52 for one tiny bottle of water.

Finally, I did get my refund, but that's not the point. Amazon made the mistake, yet I'm the one who had to waste some of my Saturday trying to fix it (most of that time I spent getting more and more stressed out).

So, that's my story of the most expensive bottle of water on Amazon.

Here's a screen grab of the chat with the ever helpful Amazon

I'd love to hear you're messed around by Amazon stories.
Come on, share your misery.

The new threat in The Walking Dead - two headed walkers.

The new threat in The Walking Dead next season - two headed walkers.

Rick Grimes and Daryl Dixon say, "Bring it on!"

Get Hell to Pay (Crime Files Book 1) by Jenny Thomson FREE for a limited time

Starting on the 29th of June and lasting 5 days, Hell to Pay is FREE to download on Amazon. 
 Cometh the hour

Cometh the woman. 


Cometh the revenge




Glasgow's about to get meaner with Nancy hell-bent on revenge. 

You won't believe what she does.



It’s the first book in a 3 book series called the Crime Files. Books 2 and 3, Throwaways and Don’t Come For Me, are already published.

Click HERE to take you to your country's Amazon. 

Thanks for reading my post! And if you do download the book, I would be really delighted if you'd leave a review even if its to say you thought the book sucked:) 

Everybody Say EE - my Nightmare with my EE mobile phone

Finally, after a nightmare three years with Orange after they became EE. Or, was it longer?

When they were Orange, the mobile phone company's service was good, then EE came along. Uh, uh. Cue the horror music.

1. Topping up became almost impossible. Couldn't do it by text. It wouldn't recognise the credit card I'd been topping my phone up with for two years.

2. Getting a balance became impossible. "Sorry, we can't tell you your balance at the moment" became the stock response.

3. Their website where you can top up and check your balance was ALWAYS down. It never worked properly in 2 whole years.

4. I was on the Dolphin plan. Regularly top up by ten pounds and you're meant to get free texts. On too many occasions to count, I didn't get my free texts. Sometimes they were days late.

5. My boyfriend's phone (bought under my name) was stolen. I reported it to EE and they cancelled it. They were meant to transfer the remaining balance to his new phone. They didn't. He had £7.50 left. Not tonnes of money, but £7.50 is better in his pocket than EE's.

Think about how much cash EE must have in their bank account from the phones of customers whose phones have been lost or stolen. Say 10, 000 customers lose/have their phones stolen with a balance of £7.50. That's £75k they've got of OUR MONEY!



6. I phoned to top up my boyfriend's PAYG phone. I got the Indian call centre, explained his phone had been stolen and he had a new phone from EE and I wanted to top that up. THEY TOPPED UP THE WRONG PHONE!

I got my own Nokia 5800 PAYG phone unlocked from their network, but only after a big song and dance.

After a week, they told me I didn't have enough credit in my phone to cover the unlocking fee when I did. TWICE. I topped up before I put in my order. So, two weeks were wasted because of EE's mistake.

I contacted them on Twitter and through the form on their website. Twitter EE were hopeless. I had to wait two weeks to finally get a reply.



I had to phone customer service. Oh no! I got their overseas call centre (India, I think). After several times of being cut off by them or waiting 30 minutes and losing the will to live, I finally got through.

The person didn't know what unlocking meant. When I explained, he couldn't believe I would want to leave their "fine network." Finally, after lots of waiting, he said he'd email me the unlock code.

The code didn't arrive.

They sent me the wrong code. They missed out vital instructions.

Everybody say EE! 

Psychological thriller Don't Come For Me by Jenny Thomson is out now

You're in the bathroom
You hear a noise
You come out and your boyfriend is gone
There's a pool of blood on the floor and a knife



The police think you've killed him
You need to prove your innocence


But how?
When you're not sure you didn't kill him?



Don't Come For Me by Jenny Thomson is out now on Kindle and paperback http://myBook.to/Dontcomeforme

Introducing The Seeker Series by Amy Reece

✢✢✢ THE SEEKER SERIES ✢✢✢Author: Amy ReecePublisher: LIMITLESS PUBLISHINGGenre: YA | Paranormal | Romance | Suspense •*´¨* )¸.•*´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨)(¸.•´ (¸.•`RELEASED JUNE 9th`*)                                                           • *  
DREAMERAuthor: Amy ReeceSeries: The Seeker Series, #2Genre: YA | Paranormal | Romance | Suspense ~ SYNOPSIS ~Meet Ally, a 17 year-old who also happens to be psychic. Oh, and she’s getting more psychic with every passing day, so much so that she’s been sent to Ireland to check in with the Seer Council to see what’s up with her freaky new powers.
Jack is her 19 year-old boyfriend, a former trouble-maker who is back on track and trying desperately to graduate. His plans did not include falling in love with psychic trouble-magnet.
Just last month they worked together to save a friend in deep trouble and ended up exposing a steroid ring at their school. Now there’s a new guy at school who seems just a little bit too interested in Ally for Jack’s liking. And why does Ally keep dreaming about a kidnapping? Last month seems like a cakewalk compared to this semester. Ally's trying to solve a mystery, but Jack is just trying to keep her alive.
~ PURCHASE ~AMAZON US | PAPERBACK
~ TEASERS ~

~ EXCERPT ~“Ally? Hey, what’s up? You got real quiet all of a sudden. Not a good quiet, either. What are you thinking?”I shook my head. “No, it’s nothing. I get it. I understand.”He looked at me for minute and then sighed. He got up and came around to my side of the booth and took me in his arms and kissed the top of my head. “You’ve got that look on your face. You know, the one that says you think I’m not going to be able to handle any more weird stuff and this is it for us. Huh? Admit it—it’s what you were thinking, isn’t it?” I nodded, trying to keep the tears in. “Okay, look at me.” He pulled my face up to look directly in my eyes. I could stare into his beautiful, deep brown eyes all day. “First, and most importantly, I love you, Ally. I’m in this for the long haul, no matter how freaky things get. If it means I get you, then count me in. You gotta start believing in us, babe.” He stopped to kiss me briefly and thank the waitress for refilling our coffee cups. “Secondly, you’re giving me, and all guys in general actually, way too much credit for deep thinking. When I say ‘what the hell is an oracle?’ that’s all I mean. No hidden meaning. I just want to know what it is. Guys are actually pretty simple and we tend to say exactly what we mean.” He kissed me again and then returned to his side of the table, placing a napkin in my hand so I could mop my face. Poor guy: it seems like all he ever did was watch me cry. I was such a girl. “Now let’s finish eating while you tell me all about this oracle stuff, okay?”So I wiped my eyes and told him about how the Seer Council had tricked me into believing they were simply a group of innocent little old lady gardeners, but they actually held my fate in their hands. I told him about the last Oracle being stolen away from her people by the Gaulish clan, never to be heard from again. And I told him how the council was very interested in my abilities to see the future and seemed to think it was possible evidence of my oracle-ness or whatever. I finished with, “And they didn’t want to even let me go. They made me promise to come back over spring break and in the summer.”“Spring break? Ah, Ally, no. I can’t stand not having our last school vacation together. You gotta tell them no, querida. I’ll probably go nuts if you’re gone.”“Don’t worry. There is no way I’m going back over spring break. I’ll go in the summer as long as it’s while you’re gone to basic training.” I grabbed his hand across the table and rubbed my thumb over his knuckles. I told him what the council had told me about oracles, how they were messengers between worlds or something.“Ally, what do you think? Do you think you could be this oracle?” He looked at me with concern.“I don’t know, Jack. I think there’s a lot more to the story than what they’re telling me. I don’t trust those little old garden-seer ladies. I can’t even think about being an Oracle before I know what’s really going on.”“That was a very Oracle-like thing to say,” he said with a laugh.“Shut up.” I smiled. “Does this lunch include pie?”

SEEKERAuthor: Amy ReeceSeries: The Seeker Series, #1Genre: YA | Paranormal | Romance | Suspense ~ SYNOPSIS ~Ally Moran has always just known about things—things she shouldn’t really be able to know…

Suddenly when she starts having vivid visions about a former friend who is in desperate trouble, the adults in her life think she might hold the key to an ancient mystery.

Jack Ruiz has a troubled past, but is trying to make a fresh start at a new high school…

He just wants to keep his head down and graduate, hopefully before he turns 20. The last thing he needs is to get involved with a feisty redhead and her psychic visions.

While Jack valiantly attempts to keep Ally at arm’s length, she is equally determined to be a part of his life. Who will win this battle of wills?

More importantly…

Can this unlikely couple work together to find answers to Ally’s visions before someone gets killed?
The Seeker is Book One is a Series
~ PURCHASE ~AMAZON US | PAPERBACK~ TEASERS ~


~ EXCERPT ~
It was time to pull myself together and slink out of this bathroom to face Jack; if he was even waiting for me. He most likely lost interest and retreated back to class. I splashed water on my face and tried vainly to tame my obnoxious, curly red hair and exited the bathroom. To my surprise, Jack was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, staring at the ground. He looked up and smiled slightly at me, one corner of his attractive mouth inching higher than the other. His big, nearly black eyes were full of concern as he asked, “You feeling better? I thought maybe you were gonna puke all over the place back there.”Perfect. Exactly what I wanted him to think of in connection with me: the girl who looked like she was going to puke. “No, I’m fine. I needed to get away from the Wikipedia re-hash, that’s all. Thanks for the escape.” I tried to scoot by him.He laughed a bit under his breath and reached out, gently grabbing my arm as I passed. “Hey, don’t run off. You looked really upset. I want to make sure you’re all right. Besides, Ms. Gonzalez thinks we’re at the nurse. No need to rush back for more coma-inducing book reports. I’m Jack, by the way. Jack Ruiz.” He pulled me directly in front of him and again examined my face. An intoxicating aroma wafted to me from his warm skin; a sort of warm, spicy scent that instantly became my new favorite. I might have swayed toward him a bit.“Yeah, I know, Jack. I’ve been handing your papers back all semester.” I struggled to sound unaffected.He nodded. “You still look really pale, Ally. And you seem a bit unsteady. Sure you’re not gonna puke?”Really? Why me, God? I stood up straight and gently shrugged off his hand. “Yes. I had a, uh…a moment. I’m okay. Thanks for getting me out of there.” His dark eyes looked like melted dark chocolate. Life is so not fair. On the bright side, he actually knows my name. I wouldn’t have bet on that. I’m not the kind of girl who stands out—well, except for the crazy red hair—or attracts much attention. I’m short and small, wear really plain clothes, and I don’t say very much at school. I have a few good friends and we pretty much fly below the radar and try to stay out of the limelight. I like it that way. High school seriously sucks and I just want to get through it quietly and without a lot of drama. Please, God, life will be better in college.“So, this is gonna sound pretty weird,” Jack started hesitantly, “but, uh, when it got really hot in the classroom, it, well it kinda felt like it was, uh, emanating from you.” He laughed once, quietly. “That’s crazy, huh?”Wow. Did he just use the word “emanating” in a sentence? Who does that? I mean, in high school? I wonder what he got on his ACT? I had always had the sense there was more to him than meets the eye, and this cemented that feeling. 
~ ABOUT THE AUTHOR ~
•*¨*•*´¨)¸.•´¸.•*´¨) ¸.•*¨)       (¸.•´ (¸.•` Amy Reece
Amy Reece lives in Albuquerque, NM, with her husband and family. She loves to read and travel and has an unhealthy addiction to dogs. She loves wine and friends, in that order. Stay tuned for the rest of The Seeker Series, coming Summer and Fall 2015

Social media links:FACEBOOK |  TWITTER | AMAZON



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