P.A. Wilson's Blog, page 27
July 10, 2012
Charity’s Case Files: The Cemetery
“Are you at the cemetery?” I was glad when she said she was. It was only a couple of turns to get me back to her. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Do you remember how to get to Marran’s house?” she asked, panic straining her voice.
I sped up. My leg didn’t like that so I was doing a fast limp, more like a hop than a walk. “No, but I have the GPS. It will find the fastest way there.”
I rounded the corner and saw her standing with the phone to her ear looking into the rows of mausoleums. Perhaps meeting at a cemetery wasn’t the smartest thing to do. “Call him again,” I said then clicked the phone shut.
GREED, Book 2 of the Charity Deacon Investigations, will be released on July 14. You can grab a free copy by entering the Goodreads giveaway ending soon.
HUBRIS, Book 1 in the same series, is only 99c this week!
If you’d like to keep up with other new book releases and promotions, sign up to the mailing list here.
Charity’s Case Files: Marran’s Boat
Matthieu raised an eyebrow and said, “Le Canard Bleu. Marran’s boat.”
“You had already guessed, yes?” Jean-Luc went to the wall and pull down a photograph. “Ladies, this is what the boat looks like. Matthieu knows we have searched it so many times I know it like my own home, better even. We know there is some way that he is smuggling. We cannot prove anything, yet.”
“We have not always cared so much,” Matthieu said. “We used intercept his boat looking for cigarettes and wine, and some designer jewelry. But now, I think he is greedy and making dangerous alliances.”
GREED, Book 2 of the Charity Deacon Investigations, will be released on July 14. You can grab a free copy by entering the Goodreads giveaway ending soon.
HUBRIS, Book 1 in the same series, is only 99c this week!
If you’d like to keep up with other new book releases and promotions, sign up to the mailing list here.
Charity’s Case Files: The Market
“We think she might be in trouble,” I said quietly. “No one has seen her for a week and her house was ransacked.” It was a risk telling him everything, but we needed to get information fast.
“I know nothing about that,” he turned to the next customer, and then seemed to think better of it.
“She was perhaps putting her nose into dangerous things.”
We waited until there was another lull in his business, pretending to be interested in purses hanging on the stall next door. Okay, well since I bought one, it wasn’t really pretending.
I got his attention by standing in front of him until he gave up pretending not to notice me. “I am trying to find her and if you have any information you can give it to me. I won’t tell anyone.”
GREED, Book 2 of the Charity Deacon Investigations, will be released on July 14. You can grab a free copy by entering the Goodreads giveaway ending soon.
HUBRIS, Book 1 in the same series, is only 99c this week!
If you’d like to keep up with other new book releases and promotions, sign up to the mailing list here.
Charity’s Case Files: The Door
The door looked like it hadn’t been opened for years. It faced south and the sun had sucked the life out of the paint, but it matched the picture I held down by my hip. Lu glanced around and asked, “Do you think we might be able to hear what’s going on behind there?”
“Maybe if you stop looking over your shoulder every few seconds, people wouldn’t notice if we hung around long enough to listen.” I was tired and lunch was long burned off, so I didn’t have a lot of niceness left in me. “I didn’t notice any way to get in behind. If we have to check it out from here, we’re stuck doing it under the eye of any neighbors.”
GREED, Book 2 of the Charity Deacon Investigations, will be released on July 14. You can grab a free copy by entering the Goodreads giveaway ending soon.
HUBRIS, Book 1 in the same series, is only 99c this week!
If you’d like to keep up with other new book releases and promotions, sign up to the mailing list here.
Charity’s Case Files: The Gendarmerie
“Mesdames Deacon and Cho?” a male voice called just before we made it outside.
Lu turned and started back. I swore under my breath and joined her.
I assumed this was Matthieu Durand. He was about my height and blond with those icy blue eyes that sometimes looked gray. He carried a weariness in his face that was somehow charming. His clothes were rumpled, in a very French chic way.
He looked at us and smiled and it made him hot—not as hot as Jake—but definitely in the top ten of men I knew.
I turned to say something to Lu. My mouth snapped shut. She was blushing and I saw a shine in her eyes that had been missing since her husband died.
- Charity and Lu’s first meeting with Matthieu
GREED, Book 2 of the Charity Deacon Investigations, will be released on July 14. You can grab a free copy by entering the Goodreads giveaway ending soon.
HUBRIS, Book 1 in the same series, is only 99c this week!
If you’d like to keep up with other new book releases and promotions, sign up to the mailing list here.
July 9, 2012
New Release: Greed
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Book 2 of the Charity Deacon Investigations will be released this Friday on July 14! Subterfuge and mystery follow Charity when she leaves Vancouver for a holiday in rural France with her friend Lu. Watch this space for photos from Charity’s case files over the course of the week.
To celebrate the release of Greed, Book 1 of the Charity Deacon Investigations, HUBRIS, has been reduced to 99c!
You can also enter the GREED giveaway running this week only on Goodreads to get a free copy.
“As we left the town center behind, the streets changed from rows of stores to tightly packed houses then to larger houses with walled front gardens. A few trees showed over the top of the walls, some with pink and some with yellow flowers cascading from the branches.
The only other stop was to have coffee and shared pastry at a tiny bar. I know, I know, walking off the calories was not supposed to include adding calories.”
From the back of the book:
A trip to rural France turns sour when Charity Deacon and her best friend Lu have to trace a missing woman. Charity’s neighbor, Delores, wants to know why her old acquaintance is suddenly out of touch. It seems that Audrey Wylie may have fallen into the hands of the local smuggling ring, and only a handsome lieutenant from the local gendarmerie has any interest in finding her.
Matthieu Durand is instantly drawn to Lu, and he risks his job to help Charity and her even while they’re blocked at every turn by the indifferent contempt of his superiors. The three follow clues around the twisting streets of Pina Sur Midi, searching for Audrey and the dangerous individuals who have taken her. The town’s colorful exterior hides a criminal past and a dark, threatening present, and Charity and company will have to peel back the facade and find the truth before Audrey turns up dead.
With time running short and their adversaries staying one step ahead, it’s not looking too good for her – unless Charity can crack the case and figure out where she’s being held. One thing they’re all sure of…
This will be a holiday to remember.
If you’d like to keep up with new releases and promotions, you can sign up to my mailing list here.
July 7, 2012
The recipe for tension, does it have to include zombies and gore
I’m watching the first season of The Walking Dead and that scene where they have to walk through the zombies – if you don’t know what I mean, check out Guts – is really tense. I don’t think it’s because they are covered in guts and walking with the undead, I think it’s because of all the build up. You don’t need zombies to do that. 
Tension
It’s that moment when you are watching or reading and you suddenly think maybe everything isn’t going to work out okay. That scene that keeps your attention no matter how gross it might be, because you have to experience the moment when everything goes horribly wrong – you know it will. You hope your favorite characters survive, but you want to witness their destruction if it happens.
It’s not easy even with life or death
In The Walking Dead, creating tension might look easy. Life and death is on the line in every scene. The challenge for the writers it to keep the tension real. It would be very easy to slip into farce. Horror is so close to the line that one too many gory scenes can turn the viewers from cringing behind their fingers as they hold their breath in anticipation to gasping for breath as they roll around on the floor laughing.
How does it work?
I don’t claim to get it right every time, even after several re-writes, but I think the tension isn’t created in the tense scene. I think it’s created long before the reader gets there. Just like great bread starts with yeast, The tension on page 250 is started on page 1 with the right ingredients.
Making people care about the characters is the first ingredient. The characters people care about are human. They make mistakes, they have blind spots, they have secrets and they want things. The tension works because we want the character to succeed – either they get what they want, or they get what they need.
Ingredient number two is the build up. The character needs to pay a price for getting what they want. Is it to escape a city full of zombies? Will they risk their own humanity for a chance to make it out of the city?
In less dire circumstances, will a character give up what’s important to their identity to grasp what they have been striving for all their lives? Will the romantic heroine let go of her independence to fall in love? Will the detective walk into a room full of armed criminals to get that final clue so they can get justice?
As a writer I search for ways to build tension for the final scene starting on page one. As a reader, I don’t want to see that process, I want to feel it.
The question of the day
As a reader, what book did you love for the tension? That scene that had you reading fast and turning pages at 3 am.
July 6, 2012
Smashwords Summer/Winter sale – 6 books for $1.50 each
Despite the fact that it seems to be illegal, immoral, and a herald of the Apocalypse to tell you about a promo from my book, I’m going to do it. Is that hoof beats I hear? The four horsemen ride by.
The scoop
Smashwords is running a promo for July (Summer in the north and Winter in the south).
Authors enroll and set the discount. The promotion started July 1 and will disappear midnight July 31.
What I enrolled.
Six of my seven books – Hubris is going to be on a different promo starting on the 8th because book 2 – Greed – will be out on the 14th. Look for new announcements in a few days.
All six books are available for $1.50 in July.
How to buy them
Follow the links below and enter the coupon code you find on the book page. Happy reading – fingers crossed I haven’t called down the rage of the book buyers.
The Quinn Larson Quests. Imperative and Compulsion
The Madeline Journeys. Off Track and The New Normal
July 3, 2012
Survivng the social media random geekiness
I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who tries to figure out places like Reddit as though they were logical worlds. Social media sites like Reddit are amazing places to see what people are thinking – even if sometimes that means rolling your eyes and sighing at the inanity of it all.
One thing I’ve noticed is that forum sites are examples of what is good about the interwebz and what is truly bad about it.
The good
What great places to make your point of view known, to gather like minded people into discussions and groups. No matter how out there your point of view – or how profane your language – or how explict your fantasy, there will be a sub-reddit or Goodreads group or Kindleboards thread where you can at least start a conversation.
Freedom of speech at its best. Regulated by input and up or down voting. Ah utopia.
The Ugly
It gets ugly when someone gets on a high horse. They down vote your comments with no indication of what geek rule you may have violated. This is ugly because there’s no way to fight back, most of these forums are anonymous for voting.
Ugly comments appear in response to any questions and flame outs are initiated almost randomly. If you don’t like the latest trend you are condemned as hopelessly ungeeky.
The bad
No different from any other format of open discussion, people will take stands and expect others to simply agree. Any attempt to put forth a reasoned (okay maybe ‘you stupid’ isn’t that reasoned) argument is met with verbal attacks and bullying. As though some participants are joyfully taking revenge for slights in high school – on anyone who comes within range.
The wonderful
While it does drive me crazy, I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Unlike the physical world, I can completely withdraw when things get too hot for me. I can observe a flaming more safely than I can a riot – not that do much of either.
Part of free speech is being able to air opinions that are not popular, or particularly sane. Engaging in discussions is optional and if you don’t like your current forums, go find or create new ones.
For me the major learning curve has been Reddit, what forums baffle you? Do you keep trying?
July 1, 2012
Have you found some new favorites from free downloads?
There’s a bit of controversy out on the interweb about free books. When I say a bit, it’s like most
controversy in the virtual world, polarized. I download free books if they sound interesting. I find it’s about 50/50 ratio of ones I like versus ones I don’t read through.
How to make the most out of free books
This seems to be an odd subject. Isn’t free always full value? Or, always bad?
I think that readers who label all free books as crap – and these people are out there posting on boards and commenting on blogs – are missing the point. Authors are usually not putting their books out as free because they don’t think the book is worth money. It’s to get your attention, to introduce you – risk free – to their work.
Making the most out free book offers is like dining at an all-you-can-eat buffet. If the buffet has food that you don’t like, do you pile up your plate with food you don’t like just because it’s there? No, you take what you want of the food you love (of course you would take healthy food too, right?).
Downloading every free book on offer is like a vegetarian loading up on fried chicken just because it’s all-you-can-eat.
Be choosy and be surprised
I look at the books on offer and if the blurb looks like something I’ll read, I download the free book. That way my Kindle isn’t choked with books I will never read. I make sure I take a minute to read a bit of each book right after downloading, if the writing is good, I move on to sample the next book. If the writing is bad, I delete to book.
Occasionally I end up deleting a book after reading more than just a few pages. A good story and interesting characters will take me past the odd grammar error or typo, but there are a few books I got for free that I had to give up after reading 3/4 of the story because the writing got worse not better.
I’ve found favorites that I would never have read if I had to pay
This first happened with Ruth Downie’s Medicus series. Kobo had Medicus on for a free promo. I loved the book from page one. I’ve bought every other book in the series.
I found Anna Elliott through a free download – Demon Hunter and Baby. I’ll be picking up more of her books as soon as I’ve cleared a bit of room on the Kindle.
I just finished Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She’s Dead, by Christiana Miller. I’ll be buying more of her work.
How to get list of free Kindle books
Through Facebook and online subscriptions to:
If you know of other places to get free books, comment here and share the buffet.
