Matt Roberts's Blog, page 6

Book Review: Huntress Moon

Never mind that I’m already a huge fan of Alexandra Sokoloff’s work, Huntress Moon is a standout book. It’s absolutely staggering how much research must have gone into writing it, and it totally pays off. This is the kind of book every author should dream of writing, and it is most definitely a must-read for any fan of serial murderers and detective work. Oh man, talk about BLOODY!

While I spent a lot of time researching stuff for Hand One Is Dealt and even spoke about doing research here, I can’t imagine going into the amazing detail she does in this book, both with her investigators and with her factoids of random serial killers. Mental disorders, geography, you name it, she dominated this book. No wonder it was a pick for Best Book of 2012 by Suspense Magazine.

About the first book of the Huntress/FBI Series from her site:

FBI Special Agent Matthew Roarke is closing in on a bust of a major criminal organization in San Francisco when he witnesses an undercover member of his team killed right in front of him on a busy street, an accident Roarke can’t believe is coincidental. His suspicions put him on the trail of a mysterious young woman who appears to have been present at each scene of a years-long string of “accidents” and murders, and who may well be that most rare of killers: a female serial.

The fact that Sokoloff had a career in writing movie scenes plays a huge part in her setting the scenes in her books. Everything is brilliantly painted for you to show you exactly what’s going on at all times. I don’t think I’ve ever had such vivid pictures in mind from reading a book such as with her works. Each scene, each character is a masterpiece, all woven together to bring you a story that could be dropped easily right onto the big screen.

What a great detective novel by one of the great authors in the horror/suspense genre. If you’ve never heard of her before, please do yourself a favor and check out Huntress Moon! You’ll fall in love with her work just as I have. She’s amazing. I can’t wait to read the sequel!

I give this book 5 of 5 stars.

Eaton’s Eatin’ Tee!

For those of you who have enjoyed my stories Skinner and Hand One Is Dealt, you’ve been drawn into a little fictional place called Eaton’s Eatin’, a fancy schmancy mom-and-pop diner located in Eaton, OH. Those who follow my Facebook page or my Twitter feed got to see the design a little early and so far feedback has been good.

If I ever become rich and famous (or just the rich part) I’m going to go to Eaton and open a place called Eaton’s Eatin’ just because that’s a catchy damn name, if I do say so myself. Also, I’d want to eat a burger there, wouldn’t you?

Without further ado, here’s the design for their logo proudly displayed on an old metal box that hangs above the door, no doubt with a Coca-Cola sign just underneath. The letters buzz with the electric display of their neon tubing, illuminating the entrance and sidewalk just below. They portray a warmth that suggests you’ll feel that when you enter for a decent home-cooked meal.

As of now you can only get this on a T-shirt in sized small to 4XL. I’m a hefty guy myself, so that’s why I made sure to have the larger sizes available. Prices start at just $12, so you can get a classic T-shirt for a great price and you can show your love for Eaton’s best place to grub.

If you get a shirt, post a pic of you wearing it below and I’ll display it on my site for all to see. You can also pick up a nice black T-shirt with the cover of Hand One Is Dealt on it, if you’d like to display the blood and gore on your chest. I know I would.

Lastly, I was going to add the Eaton’s Eatin’ logo to a few other things, stuff you might find in a diner, like a wall clock and a coffee mug, but CafePress has recently decided to suck and I couldn’t get the free site they give you to work properly, so I switched to SpreadShirt. The price of the shirts reflects the difference too, in your favor ($18 vs $12).

Let me know what you think of the design! You can click the pictures below to be taken to the shop.

Mind The Gap

How do you prefer to read, with an eReader like a Kindle or Nook, or with an old school paperback in hand?

This is such a touchy subject nowadays, especially since ebooks just recently outsold traditional books.

Sure, the numbers are there, but let’s think about how easy it is to go onto Amazon, buy a ton of ebooks for the price of one hardcover without leaving your chair and then sitting back to read those books all without leaving your house. Sure, that’s easy and completely doable. I’m to blame, I love buying books regardless if they’re electronic or paper. Having material to read is all that’s important.

However, since the debate is to pick one or the other, I’d have to say that I love traditional paper books more. They fill my book case. An ereader doesn’t do that. There’s nothing like walking through a bookstore, or looking at my bookshelf and looking at a bunch of great titles to pick from, picking one up, reading the back cover, flipping through the pages, reading a random excerpt and making a decision that way.

I find that trying to pick the next book to read is just as fun as reading that next book. I also like the feeling that OH NO! I’m down to nothing to read, time to go to the bookstore!

Half Price Books has been a safe haven for me in recent years. Not just to find something new to read, but to find something new to read that has been read by someone else before. That particular story has been told to someone before me. It has been passed down from person to person. It’s a hand-me-down book, and sometimes those are the best too. My dad and I trade books like they’re going out of style, and if I didn’t have a plethora of great books on hand, I wouldn’t be able to do that. Because my dad isn’t going to ever own an ereader, ever. He’s just not technically savvy like that. And if I couldn’t trade books with him, then an entire part of my love of reading would go away.

As an author there’s such an easy way to get your books out there. Alexandra Sokoloff just recently published (and is still publishing the sequels) a set of books, all ebook. She said that she can get the books out to the masses quickly and efficiently that way without having to wait to get them formatted and printed. There’s a plus side there. If you want to get your work out to the masses quickly, ebook is the way to go.

On the flip side, also as an author I love having a physical copy of my own book. I like being able to read it and show it to people. I just recently gave my sister my Author’s copy of my book Hand One Is Dealt so she could read it. She doesn’t have an ereader either and if I didn’t have a paper copy of my book she wouldn’t have been able to read it. Just like my dad.

Also as an author, I can’t sign copies of ebooks for people. I had a book giveaway when Hand One… came out and I got to sign those copies won by people. That was an awesome feeling, because personally I love to have autographed copies of books. It’s a small collection I have, but it’s an amazing collection for me. Those books were held by the author who wrote them, and were signed by those authors. Regardless of how many they’ve signed, I have a minority of that book, because not all of the books that were printed are going to be autographed, period.

The debate will continue to go on as long as both mediums are there. I fear that one day we’ll have no new published paper books. I think that is a very long way off if it even ever happens, but to think that it could scares me.

Everyone likes to say the smell of a paper book is their favorite thing as well as flipping through the pages. I’m one of them, I love those aspects of a book. To be rid of them would be a horrible thing that would only flip all long gone authors over in their graves. Their printed books are their legacy. Sure I can read Treasure Island on ereader, but if I run out of batteries or the power’s out and my ereader is dead, I can’t sit by the window and read an ebook with the light of the sun. I’d rather have Treasure Island in print.

I think the two are necessary. There will always be fans of both mediums and they should both continue to have a life. Just because ebooks outsold hardcovers recently doesn’t mean hardcovers should go away. Wild West books are at a low point in their tenure, but they still come out. Writers still write them because there will always be a market for them.

Let me put it this way, if print books were to become a thing of the past, there would still be bookstores, such as Half Price Books, selling books that have already been printed. New only bookstores might fade away slowly, but I’m sure even most of them would begin selling and trading the old books just to continue to be in business.

Just like with Wild West/Cowboy stories. One day there may not be an author of that genre anymore, but the old stuff will continue to be sold in bookstores and even on ereader to those of us who want to read them. I think the same will be true of books in general if they ever get killed off.

All I can do is hope though, that in my life I never see the end of the printed book. That would be the death of me.

So what do you think dear reader? What do you prefer? I’m sure you’ve answered this a million times already, but I have to ask again. Despite the pitfalls or triumphs of one form over the other, what do you prefer for yourself? Electronic or paper?

I’ve Been Given An Award

While my writing has yet to generate me an award, this site has given me two. This is a strange position to be in, because this particular award that I just got from a very good friend of mine is one I’ve already got on another blog of mine. And in case you don’t know, getting these awards means doing a bunch of extra work, like answering questions, creating new questions and nominating other blogs to get the award. Well, I’ve already nominated every other blogger I know personally for this award, so my strange position is to either nominate some of my new followers for this or to not nominate anybody. One path creates a ton of extra work for me, the other path is my easy path. And I don’t want to leave anybody out, so I’m not sure of what to do.

So to keep things fair and not upset anyone, I won’t be nominating anybody else for this because I don’t want to hurt anybodies feelings. This was a hard decision to make and it truly doesn’t mean I wanted to take the easy way out, although to be honest that was a nice aspect of my decision.

The award, The Liebster Award, ironically enough looks different than the one I was originally given, so how prestigious is that? As far as I know the Oscars have one award and it looks the same every year. Regardless, here’s what I have to do to get the award (aside from creating new questions and handing it out to new people).

I have to give 11 facts about myself. Since I’ve already given 11 facts about myself when I accepted this award before, I’ll give those facts again, some of which you already know.

1. I can play guitar. I’ve been playing it for 18 years now.

2. I have recorded songs with a friend of mine whom I used to play live with.

3. If you ask nicely I’ll let you hear them.

4. I also play bass guitar.

5. I also play saxophone.

6. I also play tuba.

7. I have played the piano.

8. I have also played a violin.

9. I have also played drums.

10. Those songs I recorded, I played every instrument on them. I also mixed and produced them.

11. On one of those songs I even did the singing. It’s a remake of a song that was previously unreleased by one of my favorite bands ever, Bare Jr. The song was given to me by the man himself, Bobby Bare Jr. who also agreed to let me remake the song. Unfortunately we never finished enough songs to have an album, so the song is still unreleased. Twice.

That was ultra easy! Now I’ll answer those 11 questions given to me by Shay Leigh, who gave me the award. Thanks Shay! (you all should definitely check out her blog and her books!)

1. What is your favorite line from a book?

Oh man, so many! I think my personal favorite is from my book because the line I wrote was exceptionally good and it even surprised me. Since I wrote it I’ve heard from various people that it happened to be their favorite line as well. “Mommy, they’re moving now.” Read it in Hand One Is Dealt!

2. Where do you hope to be five years from now? What are you doing to make it happen?

I hate this question because I don’t live for the future. I never have. I live for the here and now. That has been a great way to live as well as a downfall. But I would LOVE to be a more popular author. Maybe not so much a more wealthy author, just more popular. After all, I got into writing books to entertain, not to become rich.

I am currently writing! I hope to have my next book out soon!

3. What is your happiest memory?

I was very young when this happened and it’s one of my earliest memories, but it was of me and my parents standing in our hallway at home hugging each other.

4. What 3 moments from your life do you think has had the greatest impact on who you are now?

Hmmm, interesting. My parents divorce, one way or another influenced who I would become because it changed so much of my life. Also my work in radio. I loved it and it was a huge part of my life. Lastly, meeting my wife. I love her dearly and knowing her has changed me in many ways.

5. What is your favorite scent?

Dragon’s Blood. I just got some incense of it because I missed it too much. What a great scent.

6. If you could change one major thing from your past, what would it be?

There are too many, but on the whole I wouldn’t change anything because everything that has happened to me has made me who I am today. But I think there are a few things I would have done differently if given the chance. The biggest one would have been that I would have done a little better in high school.

7. Have you laughed today?

Not yet, I just woke up. And waking up from a decent sleep is not funny to me.

8. What’s your favorite joke?

Ok, you’ll have to bear with me here. It’s one of my favorites but I don’t really remember it… so here goes. I’ll try to tell you, but I really have no idea how it ends right now. Maybe it’ll come to me.

Three guys are walking through a field. They come upon a pile of bricks. One guy says to the other two, “I bet you I can throw a brick in the air higher than you!” The other two take the challenge. The first guy picks up a brick and throws it up into the air. It goes pretty high.

The second guy picks up a brick and he throws it up in the air. It goes even higher.

The third guy picks up a brick and… now this is where I don’t remember exactly what happens. I know he throws it up in the air, but now I’m at a loss as to what happens. In any case, I know another joke that is just as funny and I DO know it fully, so here it is.

A man is on a plane and he’s smoking a cigar. The lady next to him has a parrot on her shoulder and it’s talking and squawking and making a ruckus. Eventually the woman turns to the man and complains about his cigar. The man says he is NOT putting it out. And then the man turns to the woman and complains about the bird and how it’s annoying. She insists that she isn’t going to shut it up.

They continue complaining to one another for a while until finally the man says, “Okay, I hate your bird and you hate my cigar. How about we take them both into the bathroom and throw them down the toilet and be rid of both of our problems together?”

The woman agrees and they head off to the bathroom. He throws his cigar into the toilet and she throws her parrot into the toilet and they flush. Both problems gone.

They return to their seats and sit down, finally happy. A short while later they look out the window and do you know what they see?

A brick.

9. What 5 places do you want to travel to?

Five?! I’d love to see the world one day, but I don’t know if I can limit it to five places. The nerd in me would LOVE to be a traveler to another planet, so there’s that. I’d love to see California sometime, Alaska, Ireland, Australia, Colorado, Mexico… I could go on and on.

10. What is your greatest fear?

Fear itself.

11. Are you ticklish?

For the longest time I wasn’t, but my wife tickles me all the time and it drives me nuts cause I thought I wasn’t ticklish. Guess I am!

Okay, so there was that. I’m done, whew. Thanks to Shay for the award and I am sorry I didn’t hand it out to others but as I said, I’ve already done this before and I don’t know anybody else to give the award to.

Here it is, in all its splendor!

Daily Prompt: Burning Down The House

Your home is on fire. Grab five items (assume all people and animals are safe). What did you grab?

Let’s see, I think I’m going to cheat at this one too. It’s sort of vague really on what we can grab. So I’m going to bundle things to make it easier. For instance, I would have to grab my movie collection and count that as one of the five things.

I love movies and I’ve spent a lot of time and money collecting my movies. I would definitely want to have those.

I’d also grab my computer, because I have a lot of personal stuff stored on it, such as my writing. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost all of that.

I’d also grab my book collection. Sure everything but my writing is replaceable, but I love my books! I’ve spent a lot of money and time on those as well, not to mention the many happy hours of reading them all. Plus I’ve got some autographed copies that I absolutely must keep.

Fourth, I’d grab my music collection. I love music and I have a lot of it. As you read in my last Daily Prompt, music is my life. If I didn’t have my music collection with me I’d really might as well have nothing.

Lastly I’d pass up grabbing my guitar because I CAN easily get another one of those and I’d take a letter with me. It was written by a best friend of mine the day before he died and it was of course addressed to me. The letter is very special to me and I don’t think I could part with it in any way shape or form. I may be buried with it.

So those are my five things. Of course if you break all of the movies, music and books down it’s actually more like thousands of things, but whatever. I cheated. So either I’m as fast as The Flash, or my house caught the slowest growing fire of all time.

100 Word Writing Challenge

I found an ad on Facebook for a writing challenge and the challenge was for a 100 word short story. I didn’t think it could be done, especially for my love of writing (I find it hard to write a story in under 1000 words let alone 100) but an author friend of mine, Beth Williams, told me she had no problem with it and that it was quite fun. So I decided to try it out myself and actually found it to be fun. Here’s my 100 Word Story (clocked in at 98 words).

Times were tough enough without having to deal with intruders. The man lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood, brought on by Bard’s claw hammer. Bard picked the body up off the floor and placed it on his table. The table hadn’t seen much food in recent weeks but tonight things would be different. Now that the unexpected guest had been taken care of, Bard got to work cutting up his dinner. After all, there was only one way to rid the place of this intruder and fill his stomach at the same time.

Daily Prompt: Musical

What role does music play in your life?

Music is a huge part of my life. Maybe more so than writing. I mean, I can write music but I can’t music writing. Make sense? Now I’m lost.

Since I’ve been old enough to listen to music I’ve loved it. I remember the very first song I fell in love with…

I was maybe 5 and I heard it while driving with my dad and I went home singing it. From then on it was all I could do to get music into my life.

I played a bunch of different instruments in band during school, such as all versions of the saxophone, the tuba, drums, guitar and bass guitar. I’ve been playing the guitar since I was 14 and as a matter of fact I was out last night with a great friend of mine jamming with him. We had a lot of fun.

I used to work in radio, albeit talk radio, but there was a music station in the same building and I’d frequently listen to what they were broadcasting. It was rap and hip hop, but I can get into basically anything that sounds good. Even on the station I worked for we would play a lot of gospel. It was okay by me for the most part, as long as it sounded good.

I ran my own internet radio station for six years playing a random selection of everything that I liked, from The Doors to gospel to Dethklok to country. I had hundreds of listeners each week from all over the world. I’ve thought about bringing the station back. We shall see.

Music is everything to me. I’ve always got a song stuck in my head and I love it. It doesn’t annoy me. I can’t imagine not having music in my head.

And speaking of musical, I was even in one. It was a horrible experience. I don’t want to talk about it.

Aside from everything that’s out there, my favorite music is classic rock. I can listen to that for the rest of my life and be happy. Naturally I get that because of The Doors and the station I heard them on. Back when I was a kid, that station was the greatest station in the world. Now it sucks. That’s just my opinion.

But my favorite bands include AC/DC, Bare Jr., Bobby Bare Jr.’s solo stuff, Nirvana, and The Beatles. Oh yeah, and The Doors.

The only thing about music is, I can’t listen to it while I write or I won’t get any writing done. I’ll be too busy singing along to the music.

So what moves you like that? What sort of music do you like to listen to?

That Feeling

Over at The Daily Post they’ve submitted a writing challenge that I felt the need to participate in. You can read all about it (or participate as well!) here. The prompt is “Starting Over.”

Henry was standing at the door to an all night convenience store. The door was all glass except for the metal frame and the metal handle that stuck out like a giant sideways L. There were stickers all over the door showcasing some tobacco or alcoholic product that was sold inside.

Henry held onto the handle and had a feeling rush over him. That feeling. The one that makes you forget everything for just a second and you question what it is you’re doing and where you’re at. Henry had that feeling before, and deja vu, it seemed as if it had happened in this very spot at exactly this moment. That’s how deja vu works, right?

He opened the door and went inside. The bell above the door jingled and the clerk looked up to see who had just come in. Henry nodded to the clerk and began walking, almost on instinct, towards the back of the store. It was when he was looking on the shelf while walking to the back that he realized what he had come in for, and that feeling he had outside went away.

He had come in for some diapers. His wife had sent him because she thought she had had enough but ran out. Lucky for them this convenience store was just down the street and it was open all night. This wasn’t the first time they had to make a trip like this. Their baby Kevin was only four months old and they were still getting used to having him in the house.

There was a jingle from the bell above the door and someone else came in. As far as Henry knew this new customer and himself were the only two in the store besides the clerk. It was a Tuesday night after all, so no big surprise there.

Henry looked at the small selection of diapers on the shelf and tried to remember which one his wife had sent him for. His wife… she popped into his head suddenly and she was crying. Henry’s face reflected his concern for her, his sadness for her. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt her pain although he didn’t know what her pain was for or why it was there. He didn’t even know how the thought popped into his head. He had just been joking with her before he left to get the diapers.

That’s why he couldn’t remember which diapers to get. They had been joking after she told him what kind. He had been giving her grief about running out of diapers and she was making fun of his age and saying how he should be in diapers himself. He was only four years older than her, but she jokingly made fun of his age all the time.

The two laughed at one another and kissed before he walked out of the house twenty minutes prior. He had walked to the store since it was so close and the neighborhood wasn’t so bad that he felt threatened walking there at night.

Henry heard a commotion near the register but he disregarded it. It sounded as if the cashier and the other customer knew one another and were in a heated argument. Their talking had snapped Henry out of his trance and he got back to why he was there.

He looked at the diapers, thought of calling his wife (although she would no doubt make fun of his memory and his old age for forgetting what brand, or for not knowing what diapers his own child wore) but put his phone away. He grabbed one of the packages and went to the back of the store for a soda. The commotion at the register continued to grow louder and over the store’s speakers CCR was playing their hit “Commotion,” which Henry thought was ironically funny.

He pulled a bottle of Mt. Dew out of the cooler and let the door slam shut. He began walking to the front of the store when the commotion he had been hearing died.

He walked out from between two aisles and saw the other customer, a man wearing a black leather jacket and ripped jeans. His shoes seemed to be rather old as well. He had on a dirty maroon knit cap and his facial hair was a few days old. The man looked at Henry and Henry nodded to him. The man turned back to the counter quickly. “Come on, hurry up!”

Frank the cashier, whom Henry had known from coming into the store off and on, stood up from behind the register and was stuffing something into a bag. He looked at Henry with worry on his face. The other customer looked back at Henry and then again at Frank and slammed his hand on the counter. “Hurry up!”

Henry couldn’t tell what was going on, but suddenly the man lifted his other arm and he was holding a gun. Henry fell into that feeling again, as if everything he had done that night up to that point wasn’t there anymore. None of it was on his mind. He felt confused about the situation, as if it were a dream. Something that had happened long ago, but that he was reliving in the present. Something that no matter what happened he wouldn’t be able to stop.

Henry just stood there watching as Frank was robbed at gun point. Henry realized without realizing it that Frank was stuffing money into the bag. He didn’t look at Frank again though, he just stared at the man in front of him with the gun.

That man turned and saw Henry staring at him. “You saw nothing pal!”

Henry instinctively shrugged.

The man turned to Frank again and snatched the bag out of his hands. A few dollar bills floated from the bag to the floor.

The man turned to the door and then stopped. Henry didn’t hear him so well but he was sure he heard the man say to himself, “Oh fuck it.” The man spun around, lifted his gun and fired at Frank. Frank flew backwards from the shot, slamming into a cigarette display. Cigarette packs fell from the shelves they were stocked on as Frank’s body slid down the display until he was no longer visible from where Henry was.

In slow motion Henry witnessed this all taking place. He once again saw his wife crying hysterically. Sobbing. He felt so bad for her, yet so alone. Because he couldn’t do anything to make her feel better. She was his life, and she was holding their four month old son, rocking him back and forth. Why was he seeing this? She was in such a good mood when he left.

In the continued slow motion, Henry looked from the cigarette display over to the man at the door holding a bag of money and a gun. The man had the gun pointed at Henry. Henry frowned. There was a flash.

He just wanted to rub his hand on her face, let her know everything was going to be okay. He felt bad that he couldn’t get the diapers to her in time. He hoped their son, Kevin, didn’t make too much of a mess.

A mess… Kevin…

Henry was standing at the door to an all night convenience store. The door was all glass except for the metal frame and the metal handle that stuck out like a giant sideways L. There were stickers all over the door showcasing some tobacco or alcoholic product that was sold inside.

Henry held onto the handle and had a feeling rush over him. That feeling. The one that makes you forget everything for just a second and you question what it is you’re doing and where you’re at. Henry had that feeling before, and deja vu, it seemed as if it had happened in this very spot at exactly this moment. That’s how deja vu works, right?

Writing Challenge: Gun In The Meat

Hello once again ladies and gents! I come to you this time with an open challenge. I have quite a few writer friends out there with many different styles and I’d like to see what they, and you, can come up with for this scenario.

I was just looking through the Weird News over at the Huffington Press, and I found a story that intrigued me. Have a look for yourself.

Gun Found In Package Of Frozen Ribs At New Mexico Store

From HuffingtonPost.com

ROSWELL, N.M. — New Mexico authorities say they’re puzzled by what turned up in a package of meat at a Roswell grocery store.

A worker at Albertsons opened a case of frozen ribs Wednesday and found a handgun and ammunition packed with the meat.

Roswell police Sgt. Jim Preston tells Albuquerque television station KRQE ( ) that it would be speculation to say how it got there.

Read More…

Speculation, eh? That sounds like a job for someone with a creative imagination and a love to write! So, if you have any ideas as to how this gun got where it was, write it out! The crazier the better!

This is open to everyone who wants to partake. There’s no deadline and no awards for it, just write it out! How did the gun get into the frozen meat? If you write it up on your blog, respond to this with a link to it so everyone can check it out! Meanwhile I’ll get to work on my own and hopefully have it posted in a couple days!

Book Review: Sins Within

I’ve never been a huge poetry fan unless the poems were funny or meant something. Typically I read poems as a bunch of rhyming words with little thought or emotion tied into them. Lately, however, I have read some work by two friends of mine that have really moved me and showed me that not all poetry is dead and gone and that something worth reading is still out there.

Shay Leigh is one of them with her book Sins Within. From beginning to end I was hooked, and I read it quite fast. At only 33 pages long, it’s not a hard read or even a long read, yet at the end I was drained and had to take a short nap! Her poems grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. Her energy, her emotion was so raw and surreal that I found myself easily moved by them.

Two that stuck out to me, “Slave” and “Uncle” really did it for me, especially the latter. I’ve known people in that situation and it just makes me sick to no end to know that there are people in this world like that.

I’m so very sorry for Shay after reading her book that she (or anyone) had to go through what she did to bring about such great poetry, but sometimes pain is the best muse we as artists can ask for.

I give it 5 of 5 stars.