Rebecca Besser's Blog, page 13
March 15, 2020
Nurse Blood Blurb – Kim Curley
Kim Curley is a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature. She has been published in two nonfiction collections and was a contributing author to Earth’s End (a scifi anthology that won Turning Pages Reader’s Choice Book of the Year award in 2012 in the scifi category); her novella, Faith, was included in the book.
Find her books by following the link below, and see what she has to say about my novel, Nurse Blood!
https://www.amazon.com/Kim-Curley/e/B00727B3F0/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_6?qid=1471828303&sr=8-6
Click here to get Nurse Blood for free on Kindle from March 13-17, 2020!
Nurse Blood Blurb – Monique Snyman
Monique Snyman lives in Pretoria, South Africa, with an adorable Chihuahua that keeps her company and a bloodthirsty lawyer who keeps her sane. She is a full-time author, part-time editor and in-between reviewer of all things entertaining. Her short fiction has been published in a number of small press anthologies, and the Charming Incantations series will continue to be published through Rainstorm Press.
She also just released her new book, Multi Nation! (Find it, buy it, and read it!)
Unfortunately she has recently said goodbye to the site this quote was taken from, but she’s just consolidating so she can focus more on her GREAT writing!
Find her books by following the link below, and see what she has to say about my novel, Nurse Blood!
Click here to get Nurse Blood for free on Kindle from March 13-17, 2020!
March 14, 2020
Nurse Blood Blurb – Brady Allen
Brady Allen is the author of many short stories and the short story collection BACK ROADS & FRONTAL LOBES (2012).
He’s another author who is somewhat local to me. I was honored to meet him a couple years ago when a bunch of us Ohio horror writers got together for a signing… He ended up hanging out and chatting with my hub about the entire time! LOL
Find his books by following the link below, and see what he has to say about my novel, Nurse Blood!
https://www.amazon.com/Brady-Allen/
Click here to get Nurse Blood for free on Kindle from March 13-17, 2020!
Nurse Blood Blurb – Jaidis Shaw
Jaidis Shaw owns and operates Juniper Grove Book Solutions, voted Top Three for Best Promotional Firm, Site, or Resource in the 2013 Preditors & Editors Readers’ Poll. In her spare time, Jaidis maintains her two blogs, Juniper Grove and Blooming with Jaidis.
Find her books by following the link below, and see what she has to say about my novel, Nurse Blood!
Click here to get Nurse Blood for free on Kindle from March 13-17, 2020!
March 13, 2020
Nurse Blood Blurb – Gregory Norris
Gregory L. Norris is a full-time professional writer, with numerous publication credits on his resume, mostly in national magazines and fiction anthologies.
A former writer at Sci Fi, the official magazine of the Sci Fi Channel (before all those ridiculous Ys invaded), he once worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of Paramount’s modern classic, Star Trek: Voyager and am the author of the handbook to all-things-Sunnydale, The Q Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Alyson Books, 2008).
In late 2009, two of his paranormal romance novels for Ravenous Romance (www.ravenousromance.com) were reprinted as special editions by Home Shopping Network as part of their “Escape with Romance” segment – the first time HSN has offered novels to their customers.
In late 2011, his collection of brandy-new terrifying short and long fiction, The Fierce and Unforgiving Muse: A Baker’s Dozen From the Terrifying Mind of Gregory L. Norris was published by Evil Jester Press.
He has fiction forthcoming from the fine people at Cleis Press, STARbooks, EJP, The Library of Horror, and Simon and Shuster, to name a few.
Find his books by following the link below, and see what he has to say about my novel, Nurse Blood!
Click here to get Nurse Blood for free on Kindle from March 13-17, 2020!
Nurse Blood Blurb – David Moody
Author David Moody grew up on a diet of trashy horror and pulp science fiction. He worked as a bank manager before giving up the day job to write about the end of the world for a living.
He has written a number of horror novels, including AUTUMN, which has been downloaded more than half a million times since publication in 2001 and spawned a series of sequels and a movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine. Film rights to HATER were snapped up by Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim) and Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad).
Moody lives with his wife and a houseful of daughters and stepdaughters, which may explain his pre-occupation with Armageddon. Find out more about Moody at www.davidmoody.net and www.infectedbooks.co.uk
Find his books by following the link below (look for his newest release: SCRATCH), and see what he has to say about my novel, Nurse Blood!
Click here to get Nurse Blood on Kindle for free from March 13-17, 2020!
March 12, 2020
Nurse Blood Blurb – Joe McKinney
Author Joe McKinney has his feet in several different worlds.
In his day job, he has worked as a patrol officer for the San Antonio Police Department, a DWI Enforcement officer, a disaster mitigation specialist, a homicide detective, the director of the City of San Antonio’s 911 Call Center, and a patrol supervisor.
He played college baseball for Trinity University, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in American History, and went on to earn a Master’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He was the manager of a Barnes & Noble for a while, where he indulged a lifelong obsession with books. He published his first novel, Dead City, in 2006, a book that has since been recognized as a seminal work in the zombie genre.
Since then, he has gone on to win two Bram Stoker Awards and expanded his oeuvre to cover everything from true crime and writings on police procedure to science fiction to cooking to Texas history.
The author of more than twenty books, he is a frequent guest at horror and mystery conventions. Joe and his wife Tina have two lovely daughters and make their home in a little town just outside of San Antonio, where he pursues his passion for cooking and makes what some consider to be the finest batch of chili in Texas.
Find his books by following the link below, and see what he has to say about my novel, Nurse Blood!
Click here to get Nurse Blood on Kindle for free from March 13-17, 2020!
February 28, 2020
Blind Date A Book 2020 – Full Recap
I hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s Blind Date A Book event. With all the books to choose from, I also hope you’ve found at least one to fall in love with.
In case you’ve missed any of the books featured during the event, here’s a complete list of links to all the first chapters for you to enjoy…and fall in love!
Thank you for visiting my blog and enjoying the Blind Date A Book event!
Blind Date A Book 2020 – Book #34
The material (chapter) in this post is copyrighted by the author and may not be used or copied in any way without the author’s permission.
Chapter 1
“This is going to be epic,” Cane said from the driver’s seat of the van.
“It better be,” Carla said from the passenger’s seat beside him, peering out at the forested landscape that was interspersed with farms.
“I can’t wait to see Hortense Carnival,” Josie said.
Carla turned to look at her friend sitting on the bench seat behind them, unbuckled and snuggling her boyfriend Xander.
“Me too,” she said. “Do you think we’ll meet any members of the band?”
“Probably, and some from the other bands too,” Xander said before kissing Josie on the forehead. “There will be so many bands there it will be impossible not to at least run into a few of our idols.”
“Truth,” Josie agreed. “How many bands are performing again?”
“More than thirty, I think,” Carla said and turned back around to peer out the window again.
“We’re almost there,” Cane announced. “There’s a sign about Unrestival!”
They all looked where Cane was pointing. Along the side of the road was a bright, neon sign with UNRESTIVAL at the top with a bold, black arrow directing them to continue straight ahead. In front of them, the route was filled with RVs, cars, trucks, and vans.
None of the four had told their parents they were blowing off their college courses for a week to go to the festival where they would spend their time listening to bands they loved and protesting corporate America.
A couple of them would be sleeping in the van, the other couple in a tent, and living it up with like-minded people. And together they would change the world through peace and unity. Their vision of the event was one of comradery and sharing—much like the Burning Man Festival on the west coast. Unrestival was to be held in the same place as Woodstock; they’d all heard stories from their parents or grandparents about Woodstock and were excited to have their own place in history to promote their world views.
They’d looked up the event details online and had scraped money together for months so they could attend. They loved most of the bands that would be entertaining at the event, and they had signed up for a number of workshops on living off the grid and going green. The more they could do to reduce their carbon footprint and lessen their dependence on anything that fed into the greed of corporations everywhere was right up their alley.
***
“Is that the last one?” Tara asked as soldiers threw yet another black body bag into the portable incinerator set up for the purpose of burning the infected dead.
“Yes, ma’am,” the solider in charge said.
Tara nodded. “Was anyone injured?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “It was a clean extermination and extraction.”
“Good to hear,” she said with a nod. “If any of your men begin to feel ill at all, let me know right away. But there’s nothing to be concerned about otherwise, since they were all given the vaccine.”
He nodded sharply, turned, and left the tent while she oversaw the burning of the corpses.
She turned the nob of the incinerator up as high as it would go and retreated as far away from the contraption as she could without leaving. She was in charge of containing the super virus she and her past colleague, Dr. Judy Price, had created. It had taken her almost a year, but she’d been able to devise a working vaccine. Unfortunately she had yet to contrive a serum that would heal someone who was exposed. Thus far she, with the help of the military, or rather the military with her help, had been able to keep the spread under control and the word “zombie” out of any press reports. If they would happen to slip up or make a mistake, she knew they wouldn’t be that lucky, going forward, for long.
They were at their furthest locale from where the virus breached the world, Pleasant Gap, Pennsylvania. They’d hoped to keep it from crossing state lines, but human travel had made that impossible. But, luckily, since those exposed had a different heat signature—their body temperature being at least twenty degrees lower than the average human—they could be spotted using military satellites. If it hadn’t been for that, they wouldn’t have been able to track the infection…and the world would have already fallen into ruin.
General Marks came into the tent, startling Tara to attention.
She stood and said, “Sir.”
He’d been with her through the entire ordeal—he’d been the one to threaten to kill her on day one of the super virus’ release. She’d feared him then. Now she respected him. He’d motivated her to do things she never thought possible.
He glanced at the incinerator that was operating in a low growl as it consumed the diseased flesh inside.
“We’ll be scanning again, circling out from this spot,” he said, returning his attention to Tara. “The scan will continue for forty-eight hours or until we find more infected.”
Tara nodded. That was the norm. She prayed this time there would be none found, that they’d finally gotten them all. But she didn’t hold her breath. She knew how fast a virus could spread, and it was a lot faster than their travel, especially with all their equipment.
“Be ready to move as soon as possible,” General Marks barked before he turned and left the tent.
She smirked. She knew he was hoping the same as she was—that this was over. But she also knew he would be prepared, standing at the ready for any sign they needed to strike. And she would be there with him until it was over. After that she was promised her own lab. She prayed she’d be alive to see it…and the world was still a place where it could exist.
***
David pulled up to the gates to present his ticket and parking pass to enter Unrestival. He and his business partner, Ed, were there to give a workshop on wilderness survival. They’d named their workshop “Stayin’ Alive,” since Unrestival was also a music festival. He wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but Ed had insisted attending could open up a new market for them with the hippie, off-grid crowd. Their company’s goods mostly appealed to the hunting, hardcore survivalist crowd. The fact they couldn’t even bring guns to the event said to him that it wasn’t a place for them to be. They just weren’t his crowd and he knew he wasn’t their cup of tea.
“Kinda what I expected,” Ed said from the passenger’s seat of the extended cab pickup.
David smiled and nodded as he pulled through the gate and headed to their campsite.
“I still can’t believe you’re making me do this,” he said.
Ed grinned. “It’ll be worth it. You’ll have a good time and meet a lot of new friends.” He looked out the window at the people meandering around. “Who knows…you might even meet someone! You need to get out there and start dating again.”
“Son-of-a-bitch!” David barked as a group of people who weren’t paying attention walked out in front of him, having been blocked from his view by a monstrously large art piece until they were right in front of him. “God forbid,” he said, giving Ed a sideways scowl as he continued on once the dirt road was clear.
He noticed the pedestrians walked away laughing and happy while he tried to swallow the knot in his throat and calm the snakes that churned in his stomach. Not only was he nervous about being at the festival, but he was stressed from almost mowing down complete strangers.
Ed chuckled and shook his head.
They drove on.
Click here to Blind Date this book!
February 26, 2020
Blind Date A Book 2020 – Book #33
The material (chapter) in this post is copyrighted by the author and may not be used or copied in any way without the author’s permission.
Chapter 1
“Did you sleep at all?” Jon asked, sitting on the bench seat across from Lars at the small dining table beside the kitchenette.
Lars Xanthos turned to Jon Franklin and smiled before he returned his attention to the world beyond their tour buses’ windows.
“No. I’m too excited,” he said, his dark eyes scanning the horizon where the sun was just starting to crest and cast its warming light on the world; it glittered on the surface of the water that could be seen in the distance and on the windows of every building it touched. The world seemed to be alight with the magic of promise, of a new day that held great things.
Jon kept forgetting Lars would be seeing the ocean for the first time, and that he’d never thought he would be alive to do it. He could only imagine how excited he was; the twinkle in Lars’ eyes reminded him of a small child discovering something they loved for the first time. As far as he knew, there were no words that could express the wonderment he thought his friend was experiencing. It warmed his heart to watch. Lars was like a brother to him. They’d grown up together and had been through some rough times together.
Jon, and the band, had a difficult time when Lars was diagnosed with cancer. As the bass player, he was a key member of their band and they’d almost fallen apart complete. Especially when Lars was so sick because of his chemo that he couldn’t even get out of bed. They’d made the hard decision to limit their touring and use an alternate bass player when they had to perform.
Once Lars was in remission and had recovered from the side effects of his treatments, the band had also made a comeback. Now they were on the way to their biggest event ever. It was hard to say if it was the new life Lars’ recovery had breathed into their music, or if it was the excitement of their fans for his return. Honestly, it didn’t matter. They were together again and FLXS was doing great.
Tonight they were performing a concert for a sold out crowd of over nineteen thousand fans at “The Rock” Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. And tomorrow they would be taking a trip to the ocean. Their families were coming by train into Newark Penn Station. They planned to all go together and celebrate being alive in the sand and sun. They were excited to have their families come to visit, since a concert of this magnitude was a dream come true. It seemed to be the perfect time to have everyone together.
“There it is,” said Bob Simmons from behind them as he sat down on the couch that ran six feet along the opposite side of the bus.
They both turned and looked at the newcomer with a smile before focusing on the world beyond the window again.
The tour bus moved along Mulberry Street, exposing them to the grand view of the Prudential Center. The four thousand, eight hundred square foot display—divided into two screens—showed “FLXS” and “Stigmata” in huge, bold lettering over dancing flames.
“Sweet,” Lars said.
“It’s epic,” Jon said in agreement.
“It better be epic,” Jenny said, joining the other members of the band, sitting her tall slender frame down beside Jon, forcing him to move over and give her room. “We didn’t travel all this way for the biggest show of our careers for anything less than epic.”
The guys chuckled their agreement as their eyes darted back and forth, taking in all the sights.
The bus maneuvered around The Rock, heading to their entrance destination.
“Wow, there’s a lot of cars here already,” Bob said, standing to get a better view.
“And fans,” Jenny added, rising up slightly to get a better look around before sitting again.
“Well, I know I always like to get to events early to try and beat the rush, or get a sneak peek of the talent,” Jon said. “And since we’re the talent, we shouldn’t keep our adoring fans waiting.”
They laughed, rose from their seats, and wrestled each other to see who would be the first to get to the small bathroom on the bus to check their appearance. They wanted to look perfect to greet their adoring fans…and the press crews that were coming early to interview them before their performance. From the time they stepped off the bus until the concert was over, they would be going nonstop with interviews, sound checks, a short rehearsal to go over their newest songs once more, and then getting ready for the big event. In between all that, there would be fans, especially those who bought backstage passes and wanted to feel like they were one of the band, or as close as they could be, for the evening.
The three that didn’t make it to the restroom first, sat back down on the couch to wait their turn, continuing to take in the sights.
Cars were already filling the parking areas. There was a line waiting to get into the closest parking garages, and there were people milling about everywhere in FLXS gear. They wore hats, t-shirts, face paint, and wild hairstyles.
The sight brought home what a dream come true it was to have so many fans that wanted to see them perform. It brought home what a big deal tonight would be for them.
The band watched it all with a mixture of nerves and excitement.
This was only the beginning…
***
The bus came to a halt at the entrance Wilson, the bus driver, had been directed to go to when they’d passed through the security gate. But, since the place was huge and there was a lot going on, he wanted to make sure they were indeed in the right place before they started to unload cargo and passengers.
“I’m going to make sure we’re in the right place,” he shouted before he exited through the folding doors. “You guys sit tight until I come back!”
Once he was outside, he pushed a button on a remote he carried to shut them and keep out any desperate fans. He was glad he had when he saw a group spot the bus as they rushed around the corner of the building, screaming.
He darted toward the closest door of the brick building and just made it inside, using the keycard he’d been given by security, before the fans reached him.
Once the door went closed behind him, he sighed. He was glad he’d been at the correct entrance and the keycard had worked.
He went in search of someone who could confirm this is where the band was supposed to be, and where their cargo could be unloaded.
***
“Holy shit!” Jenny said, as she stood and watched the fans run toward the bus. “Wilson barely made it alive.”
Lars laughed. “But will he make it back out in one piece?”
“We’ll see,” Jenny grinned at Lars, her white teeth contrasting with her dark skin.
“Maybe they’ll send security out with him,” Jon said, coming out of the bathroom in time to catch their conversation.
“Maybe,” Lars said.
They stood together at the same window they’d been staring out earlier, looking out on a new sight while Bob took his turn in the bathroom.
Beyond, and about a foot down from the edge of the glass, was a crowd of a little over a hundred adoring fans. They were elbowing and shoving each other, vying for the closest spot and hopefully the bands’ attention. They held handmade signs that read: I LOVE LARS!; JENNY CAN STRUM ME ANYTIME!; POUND ME, BOB!; and JON IS SEXY!
“Intense,” Bob said, coming out of the bathroom to view of the fans.
“Are they biting each other?” Lars asked, pressing up against the window to see the far reaches of the crowd where a fight seemed to have broken out.
The shoving was more intense where he was looking. People weren’t only elbowing, but were grabbing others by the head and practically ripping them off their feet. The victims would disappear for a moment, and a then reappears, struggling with their assailant who seemed to be trying to bite them.
“I can’t tell,” Jon said, squinting at the area. “They’re either biting or having very heated, clipped words with each other.”
“Here comes Wil,” Jenny said, drawing everyone’s attention closer to the goings on close-by the bus. “It looks like Jon was right, he’s coming back with protection.”
Click here to Blind Date this book!
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