Dusty Sharp's Blog, page 2

Video Blog #004: The Authors Who Shaped Me

In this video I pay my respects to a handful of authors who have influenced my own writing. Sorry it’s so long. I got carried away.  I actually recorded this over a month ago and shelved it because I thought it got too long.  Then I found it and thought what the hell.  Somebody might be willing to sit through it.

Signed Copies Now Available!

I’ve been fascinated with how this writing thing has taken off, and struck a chord with a few of my readers.  It started out as just an experiment to see if I could write something.  Then I learned all about how to publish it.  Next was finding readers and learning how to get my books some visibility.  But for most of that process it’s been a bit of a selfish journey–just me doing it to see if I could.  But somewhere along the way I actually managed to gain a few fans, people who have enjoyed the books and even look forward to more.  For that I am immensely grateful.  But what has seriously blown my mind is that a few have even asked for signed copies of my books.  It’s such an amazing feeling to know that they enjoyed the story so much that they’d like a permanent token of it.  It’s overwhelming.

I’ve been able to fulfill a few of these in person, family and friends in close proximity who I was able to just sign their copy of the book during the normal course of life.  But I’ve also had several inquiries for signed copies from my more far-flung fans around the country, which until now I had not devised a simple way to fulfill.  So I’m happy to announce that I now have a mechanism set up for doing this.  If you would like a signed copy of one (or more) of my books, simply head over to my website and check out the brand spankin’ new “Shop” section (its in the menu at the top of the page, or just Click Here).

In my new Shop you’ll find listings for signed copies of each of my books so far.  (or use these direct links for Blood Brothers and No Time To Bleed).  The way it works is you simply buy the book directly from me (rather than the hassle of buying it at Amazon and sending it to me), then I sign it and send it to you.  And I’m throwing in a bonus: one of my killer new Rattlers MC Decals!  These decals are 4.5″ X 6″, printed and die-cut exterior automotive grade vinyl, suitable for displaying on your chopper, car, tool box, beer fridge, riding mower, etc.  Each signed copy comes with one.

Finally, if you’re on my email list, in my next newsletter (due out next week sometime), I’ll be including a discount code so members of my Sharp Readers can get signed copies of my books at a special price.

 

Blood Brothers – Signed Paperback

No Time To Bleed – Signed Paperback

Video Blog #003: Blood Brothers – Story Origins

Blood Brothers was my second book, but it comes first in the Austin Conrad series. Find out how this came about, and a ton of extra inside information about the book, the characters and setting, and a little bit about myself in this week’s video blog!

Video Blog #002: No Time To Bleed – Story Origins

No Time To Bleed was my first book. But it wasn’t the first book I set out to write. NTTB came about as the result of a rather convoluted set of circumstances. Learn all about it and more in the second edition of my Video Blog.

Video Blog #001: Random Thoughts on My Books So Far

My apologies for how raw this is. I pushed record just to do a test, but I kept rambling and I think there’s some pretty good stuff in there, so I kept it. Sorry the audio sucks (I found out I need a better mic than the one on the web cam). And yeah, looking back I also should have shaved, and swapped my shirt out since I’d just finished wrestling with one of my dogs and my shirt’s all doggied-up. I thought about ditching the whole clip and re-recording it after I got my shit together but hey, this is real, raw and unfiltered. Despite the piss-poor presentation I hope there’s something in there you find interesting, if you’ve enjoyed my books so far. Please let me know if you found it worthwhile or if I should have scrapped it LOL

Blood Brothers Has Launched!

For some of you this is old news but since I’ve announced it everywhere else, I suppose I’d better post it here on my blog for the two of you who are following my RSS feed: Blood Brothers, my second book, has launched!  It’s now available on Amazon and most other eBook retailers, so please go there and pick up a copy and/or leave a review for it

Book Review: Commune 3 by Joshua Gayou

As this is the third book in Joshua Gayou’s Commune Series, I thought I’d take a look back at my reviews of the first two installments. Of the first book I said it was an “excellent first book by a new author.” By the second book, I had dropped the “by a new author” caveat and said that it was simply remarkable. And now, with Commune Book 3, I can faithfully say it is extraordinary. And I’ll add that I believe it is on par with some of the best writers I’ve read, and easily surpasses just about anything else I’ve ever read in the post-apacolyptic genre.

[image error]That was a long-winded way of saying C3 is the best one so far. In this one, Mr. Gayou shakes things up a bit with a shift in perspective, switching to third-person narrative versus the multiple-POV first person format of the first two books. It’s immediately evident why he has done so. The story world has expanded, to include narrative threads from people and groups beyond the titular commune. But the change in format also gives Gayou the opportunity to fully stretch his wings as a storyteller. And the result is…well, as I said, nothing short of extraordinary. In addition to the commune members we already know, we’re introduced to a host of new characters (and wow, what characters they are!). With the third-person perspective, the author is no longer stuck inside the head of the POV character. This allows him to paint a picture of every scene that is crisp, vivid, and memorable. And the characters are brought to life in technicolor. Now we, the reader, get to see their own narrow perspectives (or their unreliable memories of events, as the previous books were fashioned as re-tellings by each character), and see every side of each conversation, including a drone’s-eye-view of the POV character, his/her behavior, mannerisms and appearance. And Gayou seems to have an inexhaustible supply of character material to draw on, as the depth and detail of these varied personalities is astonishing. And my god are these characters entertaining! From heart-wrenching moments that leave you on the brink of tears, to hilariously disgusting antics that will leave your sides splitting. These are some of the most memorable characters I’ve read.

One gets the sense that Mr. Gayou isn’t simply showing off. He has a rare talent in sketching these people, but there seems to be a profound reason for this, which we can feel ratcheting up tighter and tigher as the story progresses. Everything is coming to a head at some point. And Mr. Gayou is setting us all up for a fall. He’s doing a masterful job of investing us in these people (both the good guys and bad, I might add), so that the stakes are ever higher when the proverbial feces finally hits the fan.

I won’t spoil any of the plot for you (surely you’ve already read C1 and C2 if you’re considering reading Commune 3). I’ll just say that C3 is a riveting continuation of the story line, expands the cast and , stress-tests a few of the characters (both old and new), and gives more background on some of the more mysterious cast members.

Commune 3 is extraordinary. If I could give it 6 stars, I would.

LINKS: Buy Commune: Book Two ׀ Joshua Gayou’s Blog

No Time To Bleed Now Available in Audio!

I’m excited to announce that my first novella, No Time To Bleed, is now available as an Audiobook!  I know quite a few of you prefer to listen to books these days.  I’ve started to supplement my own reading with the twice-daily listen to a few chapters on my way to and from work (I recently finished the latest Jack Reacher book, The Midnight Line, and just started the new Andy Weir book, Artemis).

So now you can listen to Austin Conrad’s adventures while driving, working out, or just chilling with your headphones on.  The No Time To Bleed Audiobook is priced pretty low too (only $5-$7, depending on which retailer you use), so if you use a subscription service like Audible you might be better off buying it and saving those almighty credits for the $20+ audiobooks from the big names.  So here’s the Big List of retailers you can get it at so far:

Amazon | Audible | Audiobooks | Apple | Nook | Google Play (coming soon) | Downpour | Scribd | 24symbols

Writing and publishing is a series of satisfying milestones.  Each one seems like a watershed moment:  The time you decided to start writing.  The day you finished your first book.  The day you “launched” the eBook on Amazon.  And now I can add publishing an audiobook to that list.  Like everything else I’ve done so far in this endeavor, doing the audiobook has been another great learning experience.  I already have ideas and plans for improving the next one and streamlining the process.

Lastly, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be GIVING AWAY a few FREE downloads of the No Time To Bleed audiobook.  The give-aways will be conducted on my Sharp Readers group on Facebook, so head over there and join the group if you haven’t yet (click here).  It’s a ghost town in there right now but I hope it eventually becomes an active community of readers who love thrillers and action/suspense stories as much as I do!

An Excerpt from the next Austin Conrad Novel!

Merry Christmas, Austin Conrad fans! Today I have a small gift for you, to thank you for your support in having read my first book, No Time To Bleed, and for your patience in waiting for the next installment in Austin’s adventures. Below is an excerpt from the next book, Blood Out, which I’m working on now and hope to have finished within a few months. Many of you have sent me comments or written in your reviews that you can’t wait to read what happens next. Hopefully this small taste will tide you over.

This passage is taken from the prologue of Blood Out. It’s actually set before the end of No Time To Bleed’s timeline, at the moment Austin Conrad hangs up on Tillman (when he spoke with him on the phone after beating up “Goatee” AKA Dice), but from the other end of that conversation. While it won’t tell you much about what happens next in the story, there are some hints. But the most interesting thing about the passage is that it fleshes out more background. We learn more about Tillman, and a little bit about Wayne Conrad, Austin’s father who died years ago. It’s a fun look into a small slice of the history of the Rattlers MC, and does a bit more table-setting for the mayhem that’s coming when the adventures in Blood Out get going in full swing!

Note that this excerpt is grabbed from the draft manuscript, its not fully edited, and some things may change before the final version in the published book. But I thought you might enjoy this sneak peak. And if you haven’t read No Time To Bleed yet, I’d recommend doing that first (although you can still enjoy this short passage by itself). No Time To Bleed is available on Amazon or through all the other eBook retailers. Or you can download it for FREE by joining my email list at this link!

I hope you enjoy it, and would love to hear your feedback on it (feel free to drop me a line with your thoughts, at dusty@dustysharp.com).

Thanks for reading, and once again Merry Christmas! Now, let’s unwrap that gift…

An Excerpt from

BLOOD OUT
Prologue

“God damn that Austin Conrad!” Tillman yelled as he flung the phone across the room.Sunny ducked as it flew past his head and struck the wall behind him, exploding into a dozen pieces and knocking a framed Easyriders magazine cover off the wall. Glass shattered as the frame struck the floor of the clubhouse

“What the fuck, boss? It’s me! You coulda took an eye out!” Sunny reached down, picked up the broken picture frame, and placed it on the meeting table.

Tillman’s eyes were full of rage, but focused on something a hundred miles away. Sunny was a tough man, but that look on the boss’s face always gave him the chills. He looked like he was trying to bore a hole in the cinder block wall with his eyes, his lids twitching but unblinking. When Tillman had that look, things could blow up in a heartbeat. And when that happened, you didn’t want to be anywhere near ground zero.

The Rattlers’ clubhouse occupied a nondescript building on the back lot of Simpson’s Ready-Mix, in the industrial outskirts of Riverside. It was flanked on one side by a large metal maintenance building, and on the other by a row of broken down cement trucks awaiting repairs. The front half of the clubhouse consisted of a dimly lit social area with a bar, a few stools and tables, dart boards and a small stage. Sunny and Tillman were in the meeting room, which was down a hall at the back of the building along with a couple of flop rooms, a shitter and shower, storage room and a small kitchen. The rest of the building was empty at this hour of the morning.

“Boss?” Sunny asked, trying not to sound too pushy.

After a moment Tillman’s gaze swam back into the room. His eyes swept left and right, and finally focused on the broken picture frame sitting on the table. He picked it up and studied the magazine cover within it, the features on his unshaven face softening just a little. He cleared away a few broken shards of glass, then sank into his chair at the head of the table.

“Wayne and I built this bike,” he said in a somewhat milder tone, placing the broken frame back onto the table.

Sunny breathed a sigh of relief, as the worst of the storm seemed to have passed—for now. He reached over and picked up the frame to look at the magazine cover. It showed a sparkling chopper parked on a desert highway, with a voluptuous, bikini-clad Latina draped over it. “Austin’s old man?”

“Yeah. Fucking Wayne…” Tillman shook his head slightly as his voice trailed off. After a moment he sighed, then continued. “Neither of us knew what the hell we were doing. We’d never built a bike before. But we had this old hardtail frame layin’ around, and we got a wild hair one day. So we bolted it to the top of a workbench in Wayne’s garage and just went at it.”

“What’s that got to do with the shit that went down out in Amboy, boss? We takin’ a trip down memory lane?”

Tillman looked up, his eyes beginning to smolder once again. Sunny shrank slightly, as Tillman said, still in a somewhat calm voice, but now laced with venom, “Shut. The fuck. Up.” Sunny took one of the seats along the table

After a moment, Tillman continued. “Austin was still just a kid at the time. But his old man and I were just coming up in the MC. Both of us thought we needed to do something—something big—to establish some cred. I mean, what kind of hard core biker rode around on a store-bought bike?”

Tillman’s fingers grazed the surface of the photo, testing the sharp edges of the broken glass. “Wayne had that old FLH that he’d been tinkerin’ on, and I had some shit-box, I can’t even remember what it was. But I remember that I HAD to wrench on it constantly just to keep it running. So we started working on this chopper.”

Sunny stayed quiet. Maybe the old man would get to some sort of point soon. He knew there was shit to do, not the least of which was mopping up that mess out in Amboy he’d overheard Tillman talking to Austin about on the phone. And of course, Austin himself was another mess that needed to be cleaned up, for good this time. But Tillman had the floor, so all Sunny could do was sit back and let him spill.

“We’d drool over the bikes in that rag every month, and thought we could build something worthy of some ink. We had all kinds of crazy ideas. Twisted wrought-iron, huge-ass chrome sissy bar, ape hangers, whole nine yards. Problem was neither of us had a clue what we were doing and figured we’d just fuck it up if we tried to get into too much heavy fabrication. So we settled on raking the forks a few extra degrees, bought a fancy springer front-end for it, and built that rat’s nest of exhaust pipes you see there in the photo. We had to use Earl over in Rubidoux for that because neither of us could weld for shit. But we fucked with that thing for about six months before we finally called it good enough. Then we tore it down to paint.”

Sunny was staring at the bike on the magazine cover, sitting in the twisted picture frame under broken glass. He could almost see a younger Tillman and Wayne Conrad fussing over that bike as they were building it.

Tillman stood up and walked to the cabinet at the back of the meeting room. He pulled a bottle of 12-year Glenfiddich from a shelf and dropped a few cubes of ice into a rocks glass. “Scotch?”

Sunny shook his head, so Tillman poured just one drink, walked back to his chair and sat. He savored a sip before continuing.

“The bike itself was nothing special, but we scraped together enough cabbage to have ol’ Sloan give it what we thought would be an epic paint job. Huge metal flake had gone out of style back in the 70’s. By the mid-80’s only hillbillies were painting their bass boats like that. But we had this bright idea to bring it back. Retro before retro was cool. So that’s what we did. And I’ll be damned if that ain’t what got it onto that cover.”

Sunny was growing impatient. “I get it, boss! It’s a ‘teachable moment.’ Life lessons and all that shit. You did something big and got some props, and everyone finally took you seriously—it’s a beautiful story.” Sunny stood up, his eyes wide, as if to say can we go now?

Tillman leaned forward, staring Sunny in the face. “You don’t fucking listen. That’s always been your problem. Now sit the fuck down.”

Sunny did.

Tillman took another sip of Scotch, set the glass back on the table, and leaned back in his chair. “That bike didn’t do shit for us. It was a fluke we even made it on the cover of that fucking rag. Everyone just laughed and called it the “glitter bike”. It didn’t buy us shit for cred. We were fools to think it would.” Tillman looked up, his eyes fixed on Sunny.

“But we were naive, so it took us a while to figure out the joke was on us. We took that piece of shit to Laughlin that year to show it off. We had to take turns riding it, it was so god-damn uncomfortable. We’d swap between it and Wayne’s FLH whenever we’d stop for gas or a piss. Like idiots, we thought we might get some pats on the back for it over there at the River Run. But we were wrong. Everyone just laughed at it there too, even our own brothers.” Tillman mocked the last word with air quotes.

“It was just a big fucking joke. We tried to laugh along with them. I could tell Wayne was just waving it all off. It slid off his back like water off a duck. But not me. I’d laugh it off to their faces, but inside I was boiling.”

Tillman drained the rest of his scotch, and jiggled the glass to make the ice clink against the sides. He thought a moment, staring at the glass, before continuing.

“After a few days of eatin’ shit, we finally headed for home. Wayne was just like Austin is now, always wanting to take those fucking back roads. So we were somewhere out in butt-fuck Egypt, I don’t remember where, exactly. Maybe out on Rice Road or something, when that piece of shit glitter bike starts giving us fits, coughing and fartin’, acting like it had a fuel line clog or something. I was riding it at the time, so I pulled over. There were only three of us: me and Wayne and some prospect on a Sportster. But everybody with half a brain had taken the freeway. Anyhow I was hunkered down next to the glitter bike with my head poked into the carburetor, when these two Satan’s Bastards rode up next to us. At first I figured they were just stopping to see if we were OK. There’d never been any beef between the Rattlers and the Bastards. At least not back then.”

“But when they came to a stop, they weren’t asking what was wrong. They were laughing, and pointing at the glitter bike.”

Sunny was now listening intently. Tillman’s voice had dropped an octave, but the bitterness in it had ratcheted up a notch.

“I stood up from the bike and turned toward them. Pulled out my shitty little Lorcin .380 and shot one of them in the face. Put a hole right between that shit-eatin’ grin and his fucking nose. Dropped him like a sack of rocks. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

Sunny was still.

“The other one went for his knife, but Wayne had stepped up behind him and put him in a choke hold. He was yellin’ ‘what the fuck Tillman?’ But like a good brother he had the guy trussed up tight. So I pulled out my own knife and gutted the Bastard like a hog in a slaughterhouse.”

Sunny’s eyes were wide. Tillman was staring down at the photo in the broken frame.

Tillman laughed, a quiet little sound that made Sunny’s skin crawl. “Wayne and the prospect were shitting bricks. Hollerin’ why’d I do it and what are we gonna do now. Whining like a couple of bitches. I looked ‘em both in the eye and said we weren’t gonna do nothin’ but leave ‘em to the vultures. We dragged them and their bikes off the road, out into the desert a little bit. But we knew they’d be found. I wanted them to be found.”

Tillman looked up from the picture. “And that got us some cred. Well, me anyhow. The pigs never figured out who wasted those two Bastards out there. Probably didn’t really care, to tell the truth. But the Rattlers knew, the ones what mattered, anyhow. And they looked at me differently after that, now that they knew what I was made of.”

Tillman set the broken picture frame back down on the table, looked up at Sunny and said, “Some of ‘em were proud. The rest were scared.” Tillman leaned forward. “Which are you? Sunny?”

Sunny held his gaze a moment, swallowed, then said “Proud.” It was a lie.

“Good. Now find me another phone, I need to call up to Barstow.”

Book Review: Jebediah’s Crime by Vincent Phan Tran

5 out of 5 stars.

Publishing my own first book has been a rewarding—and challenging—experience. Facing those challenges alone would have been difficult enough, but I’ve been helped through the process by several other new, or fairly new, independent authors (you’ve seen me mention—and sing the praises of—Joshua Gayou, and his excellent debut Commune book series).

Vincent Phan Tran has been another new author that I’ve been lucky enough to confide in, bounce ideas off of, and trade war stories of the trials of publishing books. Like Joshua, Vincent also writes in a different genre from my own, however there are some elements that are common to all three of our styles, such as great action, unforgettable characters, and a fresh perspective on the subject matter each us is tackling.

[image error]Vince recently released his debut novel, Jebediah’s Crime. This is the first in his planned “Hinge Series” of heroic supernatural thrillers. The last term in that rather rambling genre designation is where we find the most common ground between our stories, as this is indeed a thriller. If you’ve read, and liked, my debut novella No Time to Bleed, I believe you’ll find a lot to like in Jebediah’s Crime, as I did. Even if you’re not traditionally a reader of supernatural thrillers or “urban fantasy”, you’ll be taken in by the fast pace, intricate action sequences and interesting settings. Jebediah’s Crime is a painstakingly well-crafted story, set within an expertly developed world, with interesting characters and lots of satisfying action.

Those of you who know me, or have read my work, know that I love history. And here, smack-dab in the middle of an urban fantasy story set among dragons, magic and fantastic locations, there’s a morsel of real history that is poignant, moving and captivating. It’s a sequence where one of the main families of the story are escaping Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war. Here is where, at least for this reader, the author has made his most indelible mark. While its treated as a flashback, it takes skill to to weave such an iconic moment in actual, real world history, into a tale of fantasy and magic. And we get a definite sense of the affect those events have had on the author in real life, and how it has wrought the themes that have taken form in his stories. The Vietnam sequence is skillfully crafted, and lends weight and credibility to the rest of the story.

The book concludes satisfactorily, with no major cliffhangers. But it ends with the promise of much more to come from Vincent Phan Tran, and with these characters we’ve come to know. I’m looking forward to the next installment!

Disclaimer: I was provided an Advanced Reader Copy by the author at no cost. I was only asked for initial feedback, though there was no requirement to post an official review in exchange for the ARC. However, I enjoyed the book so much that I gladly purchased it upon release, and am proud to offer my thoughts in this review as a verified purchaser of the book.

LINKS: Buy Jebediah’s Crime ׀ Vincent Phan Tran’s Website