J.C. Martin's Blog, page 33

#REN3 Longlist Announced!

I know it took us longer to agree on a list of finalists than we intended, but we now have a longlist! Check out the main #REN3 site HERE to find out who made the cut!

Prize Winners Announced & Writer Wednesday: A Double Bill!

Before I introduce today's guests, I am pleased to announce that I have picked the winners for my Trick or Treat Spooktacular! The top prize remains a US$20 (or £15) Amazon gift voucher. No Amazon Kindle Touch. Boo… But 400 sales in less than a month was a pretty ambitious target. Nothing to lose in aiming a bit high, though. Sales for The Doll is still going steady, and for that I am thankful.

Massive thank you to everyone who has shown their support by reading, reviewing or even spreading the word about the e-book and contest! It's my first ever self-publishing venture, and a bit of an experiment, so I'm glad it's been a  positive experience so far!

Now, enough prattling. It's time to announce the winners, by the authority of Random.org:

3 x Runners-up, who will each get to choose a book of their choice from the Book Depository (of up to US$10 or £7 in value):

Cesar Noel Quinon
Erin Danzer
Autumn Shelley

And the Grand Prize winner of the US$20 (£15) Amazon gift voucher is…

Cherie Reich!!

Congratulations, guys, and thank you so much for participating in the contest! I will be getting in touch shortly with your prizes…

And now, on to WW:

Today sees the return of Writer Wednesday after a period of absence, when the feature took a holiday whilst I helped run the Rule of 3 Blogfest. Now it's back with a double whammy:

S.B. Stewart-Laing  & Michael J. Chernicoff

The dynamic duo of S.B. Stewart-Laing and Michael J. Chernicoff are the co-authors of the historical fantasy Forgotten Gods, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. S.B. is an ecologist and history enthusiast living in Glasgow, who can be found blogging at Writing the Other, and Tweeting @sbstewartlaing. Michael is a Physics postgraduate at Boston University.

The pair are currently running a Forgotten Gods Scavenger Hunt with prizes up for grabs. Find out how to enter HERE. Contest ends December 4th.

When did you start writing?

SBS-L: My parents have video of me at about 3 narrating stories about my stuffed animals, Owl and Purple Pony. It took me a while longer to catch on to the physical act of writing down said stories.

MJC: As an actual project and not just for class or personal amusement, February 2010. For my fun, late 2004.

What genres do you write?

SBS-L: I used to be a hardcore lit-fic person, but now I almost exclusively write historical fantasy and non-fiction (for work).

MJC: Historical fantasy.

Sum up your current WiP in 10 words or less.

SBS-L: Alternate-history 18th century medicine, politics and faerie magic.

MJC: (Scary) faeries helped 18th century Scotland win independence. Now what?

What's your ultimate goal as a writer?

SBS-L: To both entertain people and get them to think more deeply about ingrained oppression.

MJC: To have lots of people read my books and like them. What else would it be?

How close are you to achieving this goal?

SBS-L: We're certainly gotten positive feedback so far, but the more readers the better. So on some level, that goal will always be just out of reach, which is good, because it keeps me writing.

MJC: Well, I just published my first book, so I would say that I am both much closer yet still far away from that goal.

Any quirky writing habits?

SBS-L: I usually wear headphones, even if I'm not listening to anything (although I like some sort of distraction in the background to keep me from feeling too self-conscious as I work — I listen to Radio Nan Gael a lot).  The habit started when I had a slacker flatmate with zero respect for the fact I was clearly working (on either Forgotten Gods or my dissertation) and the only way to get her to stop pestering me was to pretend I couldn't hear her.

MJC: I like to have some kind of noise on in the background. Music, a movie, TV, &c. Also, I use &c. instead of etc.

Best writing snack?

SBS-L: Miso soup (with a teaspoon of chilli sauce mixed in).

MJC: Cheese and crackers.

Kung Fu KAPOW!  Question:

Name one of your biggest writing strengths, and one of your biggest writing weaknesses.

SBS-L: I've stopped twice. Once when I was in high school, due to illness. I didn't take it up again until my senior year in college, at which point I got extremely frustrated with my then-WiP (literary fiction) and Quit Writing Forever. That lasted for several months, until I got the idea for Forgotten Gods. The realisations I had were 1) my former frustration came from being in the wrong genre, 2) having a co-author is awesome, and 3) I'm most functional and happy in the rest of my life when I'm writing.

MJC: Basically every time I get stuck or frustrated, for obvious reasons. Or any day that my grad school work is so intense that I think I will never have time to write again. Then I realize that if I did not finish what I started, I would have wasted all of the time that I had already put into writing. Also, my current collaborator and co-author would probably not appreciate it if I dropped out of our project.

—

I will be making a change in Writer Wednesday. It will continue to feature author interviews (and as usual, e-mail me HERE if you're an author and would like to be in the hot seat), but some weeks I will instead be spotlighting a writer who has inspired/encouraged me in some way. Consider it my way of paying forward some of the kindness I've been extended in my time online!

#keepingOPENMINDS Virtual Launch Party

Big congratulations to Susan Kaye Quinn, whose debut novel releases TODAY!

Open Minds is book one of the Mind Jack Trilogy, and with over 40 party hosts celebrating the launch of the book, there is a lot of virtual fun to be had today, including posts about #keepingOPENMINDS, reviews of Open Minds, and guest posts by Susan.

And there will be PRIZES!! (because seriously, what's a party without party favours?)

For Party Hoppers who join in the fun, Susan will be giving away Open Books Encourage Open Minds gear (because opening a book can truly open your mind).

GRAND PRIZE: T-shirt (in the male or female variety)

Not Quite Grand, But Still Cool Prize: Mug

Fashionable and Fun Prize(s): 19 Open Books, Open Minds wrist bands

(the wristbands support TheLiteracySite and contributed to the purchase of books for a school in Rwanda. Yay!)

HOW DO I ENTER TO WIN?

Leave a comment in this blog post.
Hop over to Launch Party HQ for the list of participating blogs. Every comment left on a host blog, or on the HQ post, is an entry!
Tweet (be sure to tag @susankayequinn) or FB (tag @authorSusanKayeQuinn) about the party! Every one of these counts as an entry, too!

Now, more about the book:

Open Minds

Blurb:

When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.  lurb:

Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can't read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can't be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf's mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she's dragged deep into a hidden world of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her. 

Purchase Links:

E-book: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble

Print: Amazon US | Createspace

About the Author:

Susan Kaye Quinn grew up in California, where she wrote snippets of stories and passed them to her friends during class. She pursued a bunch of engineering degrees and worked a lot of geeky jobs, including turns at GE Aircraft Engines, NASA, and NCAR. Now that she writes novels, her business card says "Author and Rocket Scientist" and she doesn't have to sneak her notes anymore. All that engineering comes in handy when dreaming up paranormal powers in future worlds or mixing science with fantasy to conjure slightly plausible inventions. Susan writes from the Chicago suburbs with her three boys, two cats, and one husband. Which, it turns out, is exactly as much as she can handle.

Susan will be on tour around the blogosphere to talk about her book and her writing. Here is the full schedule:

Ch 1: Where Ideas Come From: A Mind Reading World

Ch 2: A Study in Voice, or Silencing Your Inner Critic

Ch 3: I'm finished! Oh wait. Maybe not.

Ch 4: Write First, Then Outline – Wait, That's Backwards?

Ch 5: Why My Critique Partners Are Smarter Than Me

Ch 6: Facing Revisions When It Feels Like Being on the Rack

Ch 7: How to Know When to Query

Ch 8: A Writer's Journey – Deciding to Self-Publish Open Minds (Part One)

Ch 9: Owning the Writerly Path – Deciding to Self-Publish Open Minds (Part Two)

Epilogue: Finding Time to Write the Sequel

And now, on to my party offering. I chose to write a blog post on the importance of #keepingOPENMINDS:

The Benefits of Keeping an Open Mind

"The mind is like a parachute; it works better when it's open."

– Frank Zappa

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I grew up in Malaysia, a small South East Asian country that is an ethnic melting pot of different cultures and religions. Malays, Chinese and Indians co-exist in a society where churches, mosques, kuils and Buddhist temples can all be found on the same street. And let's not forget the rich variety of indigenous tribes living in relative isolation in our jungles and mountains: the Ibans, Dayaks, Kadazans, Dusuns and many more. In fact, peoples have integrated so much that we now have hybrid cultures, like the Malay-Chinese Peranakan, the Eurasians (European-Asians), and the Portuguese-Malays.

Major religious dates are public holidays: Eid, Chinese New Year, Diwali, Christmas. When I was at school, my circle of best girlfriends (who I keep in touch with till today) include two Malays, an Indian, two mixed-race girls, and a homosexual Chinese boy. You can't get more diverse than that!

Now although what we did together was normal enough for teenage girls everywhere: hang out, have sleepovers, gossip about boys and crushes…we did it with a difference. We dressed up in each other's traditional clothes, incorporated bits of each other's languages into our everyday conversation, and bemoaned lost young love over an array of different foods.

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The food! My goodness, that demands a blog post all its own! Malaysian cuisine is like nowhere else on Earth, with the amalgamation of Chinese, Malay and Indian foods creating a whole new level of gastronomic fusion cuisine! Satay, laksa, rojak, char kway teow, nasi lemak, ais kacang…the best of all worlds! I'm getting hungry and homesick just thinking about the variety on offer back home!

I count myself fortunate that I was able to grow up in such a diverse community. It is an enriching opportunity, to not only learn about a different culture, but to be able to experience it first hand, not as an outsider, but as a friend. Sure, the cultural differences have caused a couple of problems: I gave my Muslim friend ham-flavoured crisps, and fed my vegetarian Hindu friend jelly with beef gelatin in it, but after the initial horror ("Oh my God, you've damned me to Hell!"), we laugh about it today.

And I bet not many people can boast about having attended a Christian, Chinese, Malay and Indian wedding!

Of course, for such different cultures to co-exist, there must be give and take, and therein lies the source of some friction, especially with the more selfish and close-minded individuals of all parties. Whilst outright racism is rare, deep-rooted racial prejudices are not. I have encountered a handful of this in my time in Malaysia, and it upsets me each time how someone can be so narrow-minded as to judge another by the colour of their skin, or by their belief system.

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Even in London, one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse cities in the world, I see people avoiding people, or confining themselves within a community of their own people, such that after years in the country, many of them still have no grasp of conversational English!

Where is the fun of living in a monochromatic world, of seeing, hearing and experiencing the same thing day in, day out? I understand there could be security in familiarity, but it's like eating cheeseburgers everyday. It's nice, but after a while, you're going to get tired of it.

Me and the hubster on our wedding day (photographed by John Chan @ Yin Photography, Penang, Malaysia)

I am thankful my upbringing exposed me to the richness of various cultures and religions, and I urge everyone to reach out towards a different coloured neighbour. With understanding comes tolerance, and with that, peace, friendship…and perhaps even love.

Black, white, yellow, red, brown…what does it matter? Only by being colour-blind, will you see the full kaleidoscope of the rainbow of diversity.

So till tomorrow, selamat tinggal, zàijiàn, sayonara, au revoir, adios, auf widersehen, namaste, kwaheri…and goodbye! Don't forget to check out the other parties for the Open Minds launch HERE!

#CoffinHop Giveaway Winners Announced

*phew* Have I had a busy month! What with the Rule of 3 Blogfest, Coffin Hop, Halloween Hop, and promo Mythology 101 features for the Seducing the Myth anthology, I've been posting near-daily! I'm looking forward to a quieter November, since I'm not doing NaNoWriMo. (Good luck to anyone attempting it this year; you're a braver and more masochistic individual than me!)

Anyway, the moment of truth:

Thanks to everyone who popped by to participate in my Coffin Hop giveaway, and to everyone who entered my Facebook page giveaway. Both contests have now ended, and after consulting the great oracle at Random.org, I can now reveal to you…

The winners!

The three winners of the Coffin Hop, and the one lucky fan of my Facebook page will each receive an e-book copy of The Doll:

Jay Noel
Paul D. Dail
Shadow
Mitchell Giles

Congratulations, guys! I will be getting in touch soon with your prize!

Fret not if you have not won: today is the final day to enter my Trick or Treat Spooktacular, with more prizes up for grabs! Go on, you have but a few more hours…

Weekly Writer's Round-Up + DARKSPELL Release

*For my Coffin Hop post, click HERE.

*For my Halloween Hop post, click HERE.

Yee-haw! Welcome to the Weekly Writer's Round-up, where I lasso up the week's latest news and rootin'-tootin' writers' articles on the Net!

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Happy Halloween! Before I move on to the news haunting the online world this week, I'm thrilled to have hit 500 blog followers! Yippieee…!! I know it's just a fraction of the followers on really popular blogs, but I'm grateful for small achievements.

So thank you, thank you, thank you, guys! This calls for a celebratory giveaway, in conjunction with a milestone birthday I have coming up in November. Watch this space. I'll be scheming…

Darkspell

First and foremost, Darkspell, by the awesome Elizabeth Mueller, launches TODAY! Pop by her blog, where she has a celebration planned with lots of giveaways!

Blurb:

Winter Sky believes she is everything ordinary . . . until she is kissed by Alex Stormhold. As seer of Stormhold Coven, Alex is sworn to be Winter's protector against the darkness that hunts her. Violently thrust into a magical realm she always thought impossible, she stumbles upon a disturbing secret of her own.

Will love prove thicker than magick?

Purchase link: Get your copy from Amazon HERE

An interesting article from FutureBook: should publishers sell their own e-readers? Some pros and cons are discussed.

Also on FutureBook, a book on how the new Kindle Fire could aid cross-platform publishing.

More from FutureBook: how lucrative is free-mium fiction? This first in a series of blog posts on publishing in China looks at the popularity of serialised online fiction.

Book trailers: are they fun or function? Publishing Perspectives discusses.

Here's a writing contest some of you may be interested in entering: organised the East India Press, the contest is open to stories of no more than 2,500 words. There are no submission fees, and the winner gets $1,000, the opportunity to have their story featured as the opener to a novel by David Farland, and it will be published as a standalone e-book. Click HERE for more details, as well as tips on writing prize-winning fiction. Contest deadline: March 1st, 2012.

Today's the last day of the Coffin Hop and the Halloween Hop. Go there now to meet some new and talented fellow writers! Competitions-wise, I'm holding a giveaway in conjunction with Coffin Hop. Find it HERE. It ends tonight, with winners announced tomorrow.

I'm also running a Facebook contest: 'Like' my FB author page for the chance to win an e-book copy of The Doll. Also ends today.

Finally, there's one day to enter the Trick or Treat Spooktacular! I do appreciate everyone's support so far, so this is the final push to send The Doll's sales, and the prize pot value, up!

Six Sentence Sunday

This is a weekly feature whereby participants post six (6) sentences of their work, published or otherwise, to be read (and possibly critiqued) by everyone else. Thank you to all regular commenters for your return visit, and welcome to all new visitors!

For a list of this week's participants, click here.

This week's contribution is from my horror novelette, The Doll.

—

"Does Don Santa still live here?" Taylor asked again.

Pablo laughed, but he didn't correct her. "That is the strangest thing, niña," he said. "Just a few years ago, they found his body floating in one of the canals. Just over there." The guide pointed to a spot in the distance, obscured by a carpet of reeds. "He had died at the very spot where Salvadora was thought to have drowned."

—

Now click HERE for more SSS goodness!

Halloween Hop!

*For my Coffin Hop post, click HERE.

Right, I've been a dimbulb. Was supposed to have drawn and announced the winner of Lucy Felthouse's Writer Wednesday Giveaway last Friday, but well…I kinda forgot…sorry!

So without any further delay, the winner, who will receive a copy of Lucy's latest book, Weekend at Wilderhope Manor, is…

Desi the Blonde

Congratulations, Desi! We will be getting in touch shortly with your prize!

Now, on with the scheduled programme…

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I'm participating in yet another blog hop. Overstretched, moi? Never!

Anyways, for this blog hop, organised by Jeremy Bates, I have to answer the following questions:

What is your favourite monster movie/book?

This is a tough one, but I have to say that Dead Silence is one under-rated horror film. The notion of spooky dolls is brought to the next level by the fact that this creepy old ventriloquist lady has not one, but hundreds of them, and that her undead spirit manisfests itself through these puppets. And if you like The Saw (it's made my the same people), then you'll enjoy the grand final twist at the end!

In the film, there is a haunting rhyme warning little children about the ghost. It really gives me the shivers:

Beware the stare of Mary Shaw,

She had no children — only dolls;

And if you see her in your dreams,

Be sure you never, ever scream.

Why can't you scream? Well, you'll have to watch the film to find out…

What is your Halloween costume this year?

I'm not going to any Halloween party this year, but as I've just been gifted an awesome pair of READ samurai swords, I'd like to go as a zombie ninja or something, and see how  long I'll last before getting arrested with them babies!

Oh, and a big BOO! to all my new visitors! Help yourself to the toffee apples and candy corn! And if you like, follow me! I have a couple of giveaways running, so if you're interested, do check them out:

Trick-or-Treat Spooktacular

Coffin Hop

(On Facebook) Halloween Giveaway

Be sure to visit the other Halloween hoppers HERE. And, if you'd like, you can answer the questions above, too:

What is your favourite monster movie/book?

What is your Halloween costume this year?

MonsterFest 2011: Penanggalan

*For my Coffin Hop post, please click HERE.

The MonsterFest League of Monstrologists, led by Sommer Leigh @ Tell Great Stories, is dedicated to research into all things creepy and paranormal. Our mission: to compile an encyclopaedia of world monsters, and to introduce them to you throughout the month of October.

Last Thursday, I wrote about the Pontianak,  a South East Asian ghoul/vampire lady. Today, keeping to my exotic South East Asian theme (I posted a Halloween Special on Ghosts of Malaysia last October, so you may recognise this ghoulie from then), I present to you…

Penanggalan

Penanggalan in Malay is literally translated as 'detachment.' A penanggalan is a disembodied, flying female head trailing internal organs. It can use its entrails like tentacles to grab and constrict prey. Considering the human body has over 25 feet of intestines, that is a lot of manoeuvrability!

The penanggalan is said to feed on human blood or flesh, but it generally prefers the blood of a newborn infant, or that of a woman who recently gave birth. It is also partial to eating the placenta. When a baby is born at night, it perches on the roof of the house where the woman is in labour, screeching like a banshee when the child is born. The penanggalan will feed on the blood of the new mother, who then contracts a wasting disease that is almost always fatal. Anyone brushed by the trailing guts dripping with venom will suffer painful open sores that will not heal without a bomoh's (witch doctor's) help. Other, perhaps more chilling, descriptions say that the penanggalan can ooze up through the cracks in the floorboards of a house, rising up into the room where an infant or woman is sleeping.

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Becoming a penanggalan

There are numerous stories of how a penanggalan comes into existence. The most common belief is that a woman makes a pact with the Devil or a bomoh. In return for unearthly beauty in the day, the woman becomes a penanggalan at night, performing the Devil's deeds.

In some versions, a woman gains immortal beauty from the Devil in return for some favours. When she reneges on the deal, the Devil reveals her demonic pact, and the woman is hanged as a Devil worshipper. Her corpse remains hanging for so long that her body tears off from at the neck, leaving a trail of organs dangling from a severed head.

Yet other stories warn of how you should never disturb a woman in fervent prayer; if you startle her, she may turn and jump so violently that she might snap her head right off her body!

Life as a penanggalan

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Life as a penanggalan is no bed of roses. It spends the day either hidden away, or attached in the guise of a beautiful woman. At night, the head detaches and flies off in search of human flesh. Left unattended, the body is vulnerable to attack, and some say that destruction of its body will also destroy the head. Some penanggalan appoint minions to guard their vacant torsos at night.

A woman suspected of being a penanggalan will reek of vinegar. This is because, to re-attach the head onto the body, the penanggalan must first dip its organs into a vat of vinegar, shrinking them so that they can re-enter the body more easily.

Other facts

The toxic ichor dripping off the penanggalan's entrails will cause a thorny briar to grow. One can follow this trail of briar to a penanggalan's lair.

Placing briar or mengkuang, a thorny bush, around the entrances and windows to a house will deter a penanggalan's entry, as it is believed the creature's entrails will get entangled in the thorns. However, this does not explain how it would stop the more resourceful penanggalan that can rise up through floorboards.

Some places use the terms penanggalan, pontianak and langsuir (a banshee-vampire) interchangeably, combining all three creatures into one super-scary uber-monster–a blood-sucking, flesh-eating apparition capable of detaching its head from its body at will.

Now that you're suitably spooked, do check out the other monsters in our monstropedia HERE.

#REN3: Phoenix Tears, Part 4

Gah! Darn combination of head cold and 11-hour work day! Curse youuu…

Please excuse the lack of polish, but I had to whip this together and post it in the space of an hour.

(Click HERE for Part 3)

Prompts used: The misfortune is resolved/accepted; relationships mend/are torn asunder; the final event becomes another secret for generations to come; there is a new arrival in town.

—

Phoenix Tears, Part 4
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"Phoenix Tears" by Renee LeCompte (Rene! Coincidence or what?) (click for picture source)

Rene ignored the stitch in his side as they ploughed down the mountain. Whether intentionally or not, the Phoenix had left a convenient trail of feathers for them to follow. Encumbered by the heavy cage, Cortez couldn't be much further. They should catch up with him soon.

He gasped as he slipped on some loose stones, narrowly escaping a thirty foot fall.

That is, if one of them didn't break their neck first.

Ana panted beside him, porcelain cheeks flushed, eyes flashing with grim determination. Considering the circumstances, he supposed she was taking the news of his impending demise pretty well.

As Ana turned a blind corner, she ran straight into the solid bulk of Cortez. Rene heard her utter a startled gasp, the wet sound of metal sinking into soft flesh. Ana crumpled to the ground. Cortez loomed over her, bloodied knife gleaming in his hand.

"Heard you guys coming from miles away," Cortez snickered. "So much for stealth and subtlety. You townspeople are like lost sheep in the wilderness. Easy pickings for wolves." He ran the blade across Ana's lifeless jaw. "And I, my friend, am a wolf."

"NOOO!!" Rene's own primal scream snapped him from his paralysis. He lunged at Cortez, who easily sidestepped him, tripping him up as he passed. Rene sprawled to the ground, skidding on loose gravel, inches from the cliff edge. Cortez was behind him, coming up fast. Grabbing a fistful of pebbles, he turned and flung them at Cortez. The man cried out, surprised and blinded. Rene grabbed his foot and pulled. Cortez slipped and fell on the shifting stones, his momentum sending him sliding off the precipice.

The man's screamed as he plunged to his death rose and fell like the mournful yowls of an injured wolf.

Rene rushed to Ana's side. Blood soaked the front of her shirt. Her complexion held a deathlike pallor.

"Oh Ana, what have I done?" This was all his fault.

A squawk drew his attention to the Phoenix, still imprisoned in its cage. It spread its fiery wings as soon as he released it, ready to take off, but seemed to hesitate. With eyes reflecting uncanny intelligence, it looked from Rene to Ana.

"Please," Rene said, his voice quivering but firm, "if you can spare any tears at all, use them to save her."

Feathers shimmering, the Phoenix approached Ana's body, its graceful neck curved, head bowed.

Then it shed crystal tears.

As Ana's chest rose with a flutter of breath, the Phoenix soared off towards the setting sun.

*          *          *

Ana placed the lone rose on the freshly turned soil of Rene's grave. The other mourners were gone, his fellow academics, all bemoaning a brilliant mind, who wasted his life pursuing a baseless myth.

But they shall never know how real the myth was, how Rene had destroyed his papers, photographs, even the feathers – all evidence of the existence of the Renaissance Phoenix.

Freedom from being hunted by greedy humans. That was the least they could do for a creature that once saved their town – and that had saved her.

She ran her fingers across the inscription on his headstone:

To live on in the hearts of others is to never die.

What Rene never knew – what even Ana hadn't known – was when he'd begged the Phoenix to heal Ana, he'd inadvertently saved more than one life.

Ana's hand dropped to her belly.

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Rene, if it was a boy; Renata for a girl. Both names mean "born again."

Ana smiled. In a way, Rene had captured his Phoenix.

He will be reborn.

—

The end! And now comes the hardest part: the judging!

Click HERE to check out everyone else's entries!

Internet Book Fair Blogfest

*For Alex J. Cavanaugh's interview, click HERE.

Today I'm participating in the Internet Book Fair Blogfest organised by dynamic writing duo M.A. Leslie. The aim of the blogfest is to recreate a good old-fashioned book fair online, a place where browsing visitors can discover new books and writers.

So step up to my stall and have a look at what I have to offer:

The Doll

Blurb:

The Island of the Dolls is a strange and eerie tourist destination in Mexico, where hundreds of decomposing dolls hang from trees like grisly Christmas ornaments. On a trip to the island, Joyce Parker's daughter falls in love with a beautiful but sinister doll. Soon after, she starts developing strange mannerisms that concerns Joyce. Her research into the doll's past reveals a dark history, and the curse of a lonely child spirit. 

The Doll is a short novelette that blends fact and fiction into a chilling tale about black magic and a creepy doll. It will appeal to anyone who enjoys Stephen King and psychological horror.

But don't take my word for it; check out these independent reviews:

"Move over, Chuckie, there's a new doll in town!" — Cherie Reich @ Surrounded by Books

"I don't think that I'm ever going to look at dolls the same way again." — JBronder Book Reviews

You can read more 4- and 5-star reviews in the purchase links below:

Purchase links: Smashwords | Amazon US | Amazon UK| Barnes & Noble | Amazon DE | Amazon FR

Here are some related promotional events:

There is exactly a week left to sign up for the Trick or Treat Spooktacular! Help me spread the word about The Doll and you could win books, Amazon gift vouchers…perhaps even an Amazon Kindle Touch?

For your chance to win a copy of The Doll, the following giveaways are currently running:

'Like' my Facebook page by October 31st and you will be entered into the draw to win a copy of The Doll. Help me reach 200 followers by then, and I'll give away three copies!
Comment on my Coffin Hop blog post HERE. Answer the given question to win one of three copies of The Doll. You can also check out the other Coffin Hop participants while you're at it!

Now it's time to browse the other stalls at this book fair! Click HERE for the full list of exhibitors!