Jason J. Nugent's Blog, page 7

Book Review: Dark Hollow Road

I was so excited to get my hands on the newest novel from Pamela Morris. Want to know what I thought? Read on for my review!

Pamela Morris’ latest novel Dark Hollow Road is a psychological horror story that grips you from the start.

The novel follows Mary Alice Brown who we’re introduced to early on as the oldest of four children. They live with their abusive and alcoholic father Clay Brown in rural Pennsylvania. The poor family lives far away from outsiders and sticks to their own.

[image error]When we first meet Mary, we find she’s the victim of abuse at the hands of her father and this sets the dark, eerie tone for the entire novel. Mary comes across as both victim and monster (as the story progresses) and it’s not hard to sympathize with her plight. I loathed her while wanting to help her. Mary fights for everything she has and wants nothing more than to have her family whole. This passion drives her to do what she does though the madness consumes her.

We’re also introduced to a family that moves in next door. Renee, her son Brandon, and her partner Samantha find a house near the old Brown house and soon experience weird situations, culminating with a visit from the Sugar Lady. Contrary to her sweet name, the Sugar Lady is not someone you want to meet.

One of the unique aspects of Dark Hollow Road is the alternating view points. The chapters from Mary’s point of view are in first person and the chapters dealing with Renee’s son Brandon are in third person. Pamela handles this back and forth with great skill and the chapters are fluid and entertaining.

The overall tone of the novel is dark and foreboding. The abuse Mary suffers early in life dominates everything she does. She’s so wrapped up in preserving her family she doesn’t realize how she’s destroying it herself.

I absolutely loved this book! The characters were well crafted and believable. The setting was perfect for the story. The tone and pace were spot on. Do yourself a favor, if you like creepy psychological horror that makes you squirm, try Dark Hollow Road by Pamela Morris.

Self-Doubt Sucks

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll know I’ve been kinda down on myself the past few weeks. I’m not normally one to share a lot of personal info (like do you really care that I ate nothing but fruit for breakfast or how work is going?) however I did take the time to share how discouraged I’ve been with my writing.

[image error]Like most writers or creatives, I doubted myself and my skills. I doubted if I should even continue writing. It’s not like many people are reading it! But an amazing thing happened.

I had support.

By sharing my doubts about my craft, many others (maybe even you!) stepped in and told me to slow my roll. You encouraged me to continue what I’m doing because I do indeed have a tiniest clue as to what I’m doing. I do not suck as bad as I thought I did.

I think I go through this mentality about once a year or more. When it passes, I blissfully continue what I’m doing and spend my time writing new stories that will one day entertain and delight readers.

I’d love to make writing a full-time paying gig, but for now it’s not there yet. It may never be, but with encouragement from those brave enough to try my work and like it, I know I’ve got support from those who truly care about the next adventure I write.

It helped me so much to see how many people believed in me. I don’t like sharing my doubts because I don’t want others to see my weakness. I don’t want them to pity me. I have a hard time accepting help and encouragement, a trait I know is not the best. But sometimes, it just needs to come out.

If you’re experiencing something like this, I’m here to talk if you need it.

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Guest Post: Simon Bleaken

Hi there, my name is Simon Bleaken and Jason has very kindly given me the chance to say a few words on his blog. Firstly I thought I’d tell you a little bit about myself, and then I’d like to share an excerpt from a work in progress.

[image error]I live in the UK and write in the horror, sci-fi and fantasy genres. I’ve had work appear in Tales of the Talisman, Lovecraft’s Disciples, Strange Sorcery and in several anthologies including Eldritch Embraces and Space Horrors: Full Throttle Space Tales #4.

Last year I brought out my first collection of short stories A Touch of Silence and Other Tales, and I am currently working on a second collection, which I hope to release later this year.

My biggest influences have to be my favourite authors, among them: Stephen King, Clark Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. I am in awe of the worlds those guys built. I’ve always found the boundaries between sci-fi and fantasy often merge with the horror genre, and I’ve never tried to restrict myself to either – but to tell the story that needs to be told.

[image error]By day I work for an Infection Control Team in a hospital, and it’s a job that keeps me pretty busy – but I always try and make time for writing in the evenings all the same. It was this job, and my constant promise to my colleagues to ‘write an infection control horror story’ that was the origin of the idea for the excerpt of my work-in-progress I’d like to share with you now. This story is planned for inclusion in my forthcoming collection, and is about a survey team who encounter a deadly infection on an alien world. The idea was – what if the disease was utterly deadly, but the cure was utterly unthinkable?

The shovel scraped metal. I froze, crouching in the dirt down inside the grave pit. My heart was racing, and despite the cool breeze coming up from the valley below I was dripping in sweat, my sodden shirt clinging to my skin. I sucked in a shivering breath, fighting the dizziness creeping through my body. I wanted to curl up in a small corner somewhere, to close my aching eyes and sleep. But to do that would be to die.

The fever had started an hour ago, a steady burning at the base of the spine that had spread to the limbs and up the neck into the brain with terrifying speed. I had seen it kill over twenty people in the last thirty hours, and now it was my turn.

I straightened with a wince, craning my neck to glance over at the lander. There was no sign of Gregson. For all I knew he had already passed out, maybe even died.  His infection had been far more advanced than my own, and I had left him writhing and thrashing in the throes of delirium. A flicker of guilt fluttered through me at abandoning him, until I remembered my own predicament. Falling to my knees, I clawed away the remaining dirt until I uncovered the metal casing of the storage unit. A fresh wave of dizziness washed over me as I wiped a shaking hand across my brow.

Come on, keep it together. You can do this.

Fear quickened my heart – both of what I was about to do, and of the disease now consuming my trembling sweat-soaked body. Sliding off the top of the unit, I squeezed myself between the side of it and the wall of dirt to my right. We had used one of the worker units to dig this pit just over a day ago, and I wished we still had them around to help me exhume it again.

I held my breath as I hauled the lid open. It didn’t make much difference. The smell was unbearable in the confined space. Inside the makeshift coffin the corpse was already beginning to liquefy, undergoing some kind of accelerated decomposition. Despite the state of the corpse, I could clearly see the strange fungal growths covering it. They had turned from blue to brown after death.

This foul rotting thing had been a friend once, Jason Cain, to be exact. I probably stared at his bloated discoloured face for a good twenty seconds, part morbid fascination and part shocked revulsion. Here was the brutal reality of death. We put people in the ground and then tried to forget what came next, tried to remember them as we had known them, as if that was how they would stay forever. But there was no time for any of this. I knew I was trying to put off what I had come here to do, but time was no longer on my side.

The hand tore clean away as I pulled it free of the body.

Somehow I managed to keep my breakfast down.

I crawled out of the pit, skidding down the slope beyond in a cloud of dust and grit. I collapsed at the bottom, my whole body shaking as I dragged myself weakly forwards, dry heaving painfully until my stomach and sides ached. Finally, I crawled up against a large boulder and huddled against it, filthy and shaking, drenched in sweat. Every part of my body hurt, and my vision was beginning to blur.

I looked down at the hand I held. It had been a part of my friend once. Now it was just a thing, an object, or that’s what I tried to tell myself. I just wondered how much of it I would have to eat. My stomach churned at the thought.

It’s just meat, I told myself.

If you want to read the rest of the story, keep an eye out for my next book The Basement of Dreams and Other Tales later this year.

[image error][image error]If you can’t wait that long, A Touch of Silence and Other Tales is out now in paperback and for the Kindle, and contains ten short stories (nine previously published, and one new one). You can also find my stories (and lots more by other great authors) in the brilliant Kepler’s Cowboys anthology and in Twilight Madhouse Vol 2. from Schreyer Ink Publishing.

I’ll sign off here, but a huge thank-you to Jason for giving me this chance to say hello. If you’d like to get updates on my work, I don’t have a blog yet (it’s on my to-do list!) but you can find me on Facebook at the group: ‘The Stories of Simon Bleaken’.

Why not drop by and say hello?

Book Promos

Hey everyone, I wanted to bring your attention to a few book promos I’m currently running.

The first one is for my book The Selection. I’ve joined with Art of the Arcane to offer over 40 books for only .99 each. You can get The Selection right now for less than $1! Go to Art of the Aracane to see all the amazing titles or go here for The Selection.

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The next promo is for my newest book Rise of the Forgotten. This is the second in the Forgotten Chronicles series and depending on the day you buy it, can be .99 or $1.99. I’m running a Kindle Countdown deal so grab it early on the cheap. If you’ve read The Selection and want to know what happens next, this is what happens next! Get while it’s on sale here: Rise of the Forgotten.

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Finally, my short story collection Moments of Darkness is part of a free selection of books available at Book Funnel. There are over 40 horror/dark fiction novels and collections available for free here: Things That Go Bump In the Night.

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Feel free to grab the discounted (or free) books and share with others. I sure would appreciate it. If you have a book on sale or for free, please leave it in the comments below so others can find out.

Thanks!

Excerpt: Master Fantastic by JS Frankel

JS Frankel is an amazing writer who writes primarily young adult scifi and fantasy. He’s been gracious enough to share an excerpt from his book Master Fantastic. Read on and please check out the book and his other books as well.

Synopsis:
High school student Paul Coleman’s life is an ordinary one. His existence takes a turn for the extraordinary when he and his best friend, Rory, are attacked by a winged demon one day. The demon, which calls itself Hekla, possesses the power of sound, and kills Rory with its scream. Paul survives, but the force from the blast has left him mainly deaf.

A year later, Paul is out of school, working part-time, and is fearful of going deaf forever. Although he has learned sign language well, he wonders where his life will go. All that changes when Montague (Monty) Trillian, also known as Master Fantastic, enters his life and requests his services as a sign language teacher for his daughter, Myrna.

Paul accepts, and soon finds out that Trillian is not just any magician, but an Elementalist, one capable of wielding the four elements of Earth with ease. He can also open portals to other worlds, and often does so, visiting those of earth, water, and fire.

Many adventures follow, and Paul and Myrna grow close, but Hekla returns and demands Myrna be given to her. It seems that Myrna is the product of a union between Monty and Hekla, and like all mothers, she desires to protect her own.

Now, Paul must do everything he can to save Myrna from being used for a fate far worse than death, and only the abilities of Master Fantastic can save them all—or can they?

Excerpt from Master Fantastic

Trillian excused himself to make a brief call. He walked out of the room, and I engaged in navel-gazing, but did take a quick peek to see whether his daughter had moved from her position. She hadn’t. My employer then came back wearing an expression of satisfaction. “It’s all taken care of,” he said with a satisfied air. He’d already sold the house?

“I have,” he informed me. “My real-estate agent, Larry Bloom, will go over to your house tomorrow morning, appraise it, and then come here at three-thirty to go over the details with you.” He then cocked his head to one side. “So, are you ready to go?”

“Go where, sir, er, Mr. Trillian?” “We’re going to see what’s behind door number one.”

Come again? His face had a mysterious smile on it. He walked over to Myrna, waved his hand in front of her face to get her attention, and then signed we should go back to the basement. She nodded, put down her book, and dutifully followed.

[image error]Downstairs, Trillian ducked behind a partition and changed into his tux. I stared into the mirror he had down there and saw my face. Can you say confused? I didn’t know what to think. Was this some kind of kinky joke? After coming out to face us, he gave me a reassuring smile. “Paul, I know this will come as a shock to you, but since you’re going to be part of this family from now on, it’s only right you should know everything.”

Know what? What was this part of the family stuff he’d started feeding me? I knew it. I’d just signed on to a white slavery ring, and images of being someone’s plaything did a tap dance in my head. “What do you mean, sir?”

Trillian didn’t answer, merely turned and muttered something under his breath, cast his arms out and… holy… oh you gotta be kidding me! A door, bluish-green and pulsating, opened in the air. Around five feet in diameter, it was a door to… where? I cast a quick glance at Myrna’s face, and it looked calm enough as if she’d been expecting it to happen. Me, I was about to drop a load right then and there. “What… what’s going on?”

This couldn’t be real, could it? Trillian turned to us, his smile still in place, something that offered the promise of adventure. “Paul, I’m a performer. If my talents are appreciated here, they can also be appreciated elsewhere.”

Uh, yeah, but this is… weird. “Sir, what is that thing? I mean, you’re not tossing an illusion at me… are you?” Right now, this whole experience gave me an out-of-my body feeling. I was seeing this, but not really believing it. My hand came up to touch my ear, as if to make sure I was hearing the entire truth. He gestured to the portal. It remained open, inviting us in.

“Oh, you mean that? You’d call it a gateway or a door, or maybe even an entry point. It doesn’t matter what you call it. For me, it’s a chance to explore other worlds and show the people there what I can do. I don’t do it for the money. It’s the adventurist in me, yes? Besides, if anyone finds out what I can really do, then I’d never have any privacy. Shall we go?”

Myrna signed to me, It will be fun and then rolled her eyes. What are you waiting for, a bloody invitation?

Holy crap, she’d been playing me the whole time!

 

Pick up Master Fantastic on Amazon today!

Sometimes Ya Gotta Change

Writing a book is an exercise in patience and resolve. At some point the end comes and whether it’s good or not, it’s time for revision after revision before it’s time to share it with someone else. At least, that’s been my experience.

With my Forgotten Chronicles Series, each book has been written with different methods that may or may not turn out for the best. You the reader will be the judge of that.

When I wrote The Selection, it was a NaNoWriMo novel written with very little planning ahead. If you’ve read it, you might pick up on some of the rambling sections or plot points that might not be as solid as I would’ve liked. I wholeheartedly believe it’s still an amazing story worth a read. The action is there and much of the world building was alive in my mind and continues to be so today. It was a story based off an idea I pitched to my wife and son. They thought it sounded interesting and that was that.

After it’s release and the positive response I received from the twenty or so brave souls who tried an unknown author, I started work on Rise of the Forgotten (my latest release). For that book, I wrote a three page outline detailing what and where I wanted the story to take place. The book is much more in-depth than The Selection and explores more of the world I introduced in the first book. The characters have more depth and the story follows four main storylines. Was the change in my approach worth it? You’ll have to tell me.

Sine right around Christmas, I’ve been working on the third book in the series, The War for Truth. This one has been tough so far. I wrote an outline like I did with Rise of the Forgotten, but several chapters in, I needed to change it. I then rewrote the outline, rewrote some of what I’d already done, and continued. A few chapters later, I had to revisit the outline and rearrange chapters to flow better. I also feel I’ve grabbed hold of plot issues early enough to work through them with greater efficiency and skill. I like the process I’ve developed with this book. It doesn’t feel like full-on plotting, but maybe it is. I still feel like I can be creative and not pigeonholed into the outline. It’s something I intend on using with future books.

I share all this because as a writer, it’s imperative to grow. I cannot stagnate with what used to work unless it was phenomenal. I tend to not believe I write the greatest books in the world, therefore I have to improve. Through this series alone, I’ve tinkered with my process so I can write the best story possible at the time.

I encourage you to re-evaluate your process and seek ways to improve. We can all be better.

If you wanna see my progress, feel free to pick up my books The Selection: The Forgotten Chronicles Book 1 (in ebook, paperback, or audiobook) and follow it up with Rise of the Forgotten: The Forgotten Chronicles Book 2 (in ebook or paperback). Let me know what you think.

 

Book Review: “A Time of Need”

For 2018, I want to try something different. I’m planning on creating one video book review per month of new and indie authors. You’re in luck because I start off this new segment with a review of the alternative history novel “A Time of Need” by author and friend Brent A. Harris. It’s taken me too long to read this, but as the saying goes, good things come to those that wait.

Here’s the video with my review. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of this new feature of my blog. Thanks!

New Release This Week!

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Hey everyone, this week is gonna be great! My new book Rise of the Forgotten: The Forgotten Chronicles Book 2 releases this Friday January 19th! I’m so excited about moving the story forward and hope you enjoy your next visit to the world of Anastasia.

You can pre-order the book for only .99 on Amazon. I do hope you take advantage of the pre-order price. After release, it will go to $2.99.

[image error]In support of the new book, The Selection: The Forgotten Chronicles Book 1 is on sale for .99 all through the week. Feel free to grab a copy. If you get both books, that’s less than $2!

I’m also super excited to share that The Selection is now available on audiobook! Narrated by Paul Jenkins, he does an amazing job of bringing the world to life. It’s available on Audible, Amazon, or iTunes.

[image error]I’m running a Facebook giveaway of the audiobook for 10 lucky readers who pre-order Rise of the Forgotten and send in a screenshot of the sales page showing they bought it. I want to extend that contest to the blog. So…if you pre-order Rise of the Forgotten for only .99, send me a screenshot of your purchase page (or add it as a comment below) and you’ll be entered to win a download code for the audiobook of The Selection. The contest ends at 5pm CST on Thursday Jan. 18th.

That’s it for this week. I hope you join me as we continue the story!

 

2017 Year in Reading

Every year in January I revisit the past year in reading and share my books with you. What follows is the list of books and magazines I read in 2017. At a quick glance, I noticed my year was dominated by indie authors (a topic I’d like to revisit in a future post).

I continued to read Daily Science Fiction and Every Day Fiction in 2017, though in all honesty, I don’t read them much anymore. With all the longer work commitments I made, I don’t write short stories. I may on occasion turn back to the short form but I haven’t written any in a while. What that means is my reading tastes have changed. I now read more novels and I think that’s due in part to what I’m writing.

I did get a subscription to Nightmare Magazine, but I’d always lose my place because as new issues were released and I’d download them to my iPad, I couldn’t tell what month they were. So..I ended up not reading as much as I wanted. I still have some catching up to do and most likely won’t renew my subscription because of how far behind I am. It’s well worth the money if you have the time to stay in top of the current issues.

Here is my 2017 reading list.

Magazines

SciFan Magazine, Issue 1

SciFan Magazine, Issue 2

SciFan Magazine, Issue 3

Nightmare Magazine, May 2017 

 

Novels/Short Stories

John Scalzi, The Human Division

Callum Wallace, The Walker

Christa Yelich-Koth, Illusion

Nicole Lutrell, Station 86

Nate Southard, Scavengers

Crystal Lake Publishing, Writers on Writing Omnibus

Joe Chianakas, Nightmares Under the Moonlight

Kevin T. Johns, The Page Turners: Blood

Harriet Darling, The Haunting of Wicker House

Stan Faryna, Francesco Augustine Bernadone

Ryan Holiday, Perennial Seller

Iain Robb Wright, Animal Kingdom

R.J. Batla, Fire Eyes Awakened

Schreyer Ink Publishing, Twilight Madhouse, Vol. 1

Bryan Caron, Year of the Songbird

D.L. Richardson, Poison In the Pond

Greg Alldredge, Lights In the Night

Hellbound Books, The Big Book of Bootleg Horror, Vol.2

Miranda Nading, Eldorado Gold

Michael Bray, Meat

Schreyer Ink Publishing, Twilight Madhouse, Vol.2

Philip K. Dick, Second Variety

Crystal Lake Publishing, Where Nightmares Come From

Derek Murphy, Guerrilla Publishing

Leland Lydecker, Necrotic City

MD Parker, The Ghosts Between

Joanne Van Leerdam, The Silver Feather

Jim Driver, How to Write a Novel the Easy Way Using the Pulp Fiction Method

A.K. Taylor, The Newbie Author’s Survival Guide

Philip K. Dick, The Crystal Crypt

 

Beta Reading

R.J. Batla, Tempus (Beta Reading)

Aaron Hamilton, To Die One Death (Beta Reading)

Have you read any of these? What did you think? What are some titles I need to add to my 2018 reading list?

New Year, Better Plans

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you can take the best of 2017 and carry that over to this year. Let’s leave all that negativity and hate in the past and move forward with a purpose and a bright future ahead.

[image error]2017 saw the release of my first novel, The Selection. It has since been rebranded as The Selection: The Forgotten Chronicles Book 1. It’s now the first in what I’m planning as a trilogy, set on the planet Anastasia and following Eron as he moves beyond the Selection. As the series title suggests, the Forgotten play an immense role in all of this.

I’ve had mostly positive responses to the book and it’s brought me more readers which I hope to continue into 2018.

To further that, the audiobook release of The Selection: The Forgotten Chronicles Book 1 is due within a week or so of this post. It’s narrated by Paul Jenkins and sounds AMAZING! I cannot wait for its release. I think you’ll love it!

[image error]The second book in the trilogy, Rise of the Forgotten comes out on January 19th. You can pre-order the ebook now for only .99. ( A little under the radar pro-tip: if you really don’t wanna wait, the paperback is actually live and available to purchase now.)

I’m working on the third book of the trilogy, The War for Truth. I’m about 8,000 words into it and I’m planning a late Summer release, maybe July. If all goes well, you may also get the release of a series of novellas in the Fall that relates to 4-5 characters from the series.

Other than the scifi series, I’m planning on releasing two horror novels in 2018. One is titled Brown’s Sacrifice and the other is Soul Windows. Both are set in Brownsville, my pseudonym for Murphysboro, where I live. I’ve thought about branding those as Brownsville Oddities Novels and see how that goes. I have a possible third novel to include in that series, however I’m not certain about that yet.

[image error]In May, my book The Selection: The Forgotten Chronicles Book 1, will be re-released as part of the On the Horizon book bundle which includes 22 full-length scifi and fantasy novels with the theme “little to no tech.” My book fits perfectly with the theme and to make it enticing to those that have already read my book, I’m going to include an exclusive short story that’s only part of this bundle. The best part is you can pre-order it for only .99! I highly encourage you to check it out and pre-order your copy today. Even if you’ve read my book, that’s still 21 other full-length novels for less than a $1!

Finally, I’ll be working on a fantasy novel for a 2019 release as part of a larger shared world project. I think at last count we had something like 20-25 authors committed to the project. Our plan is to release a book a month, all tied into the same world. It’s a fascinating concept and will finally get me to write the fantasy novel I’ve been wanting to write since I started creating stories.

This is what you can look forward to from me in 2018. I’m grateful to those of you who’ve supported me by buying a book, sharing my posts, or offering words of encouragement. It’s lonely sometimes as a writer and you make it all worthwhile. Thanks again for everything! Let’s crush 2018 and make it the best yet!