K.D. Dowdall's Blog, page 62

THE STARLING by Kathy Lauren Miller

The dystopian novel, The Starling, is an exceptionally exciting foray into a world, our world; that may exist in the future. The author, Kathy Lauren Miller, uses real scientific possibilities that are actually on the drawing board of technological advances as we speak. She carefully crafts two characters, like Jamie, a young girl in an emotional crisis and, by a twist of fate, is transported through time to earth’s dystopian future where humans are dominated by a malevolent AI and various degrees of terrifying humanoids. Jamie is used as bait to draw out free humans who live like Outliers on the hidden fringes of society. A secret alliance inside this dystopian world alters the internal program of a guardian humanoid, Quinn, sent to watch Jamie. What happens between them creates in its path a different way of thinking and hope for the future. I highly recommend this intensely satisfying novel of dystopia.

 

Garrett's Bones

Garrett's Bones
Anna and Garrett appear to be ordinary teens growing up in a colonial farming community in New England. One day, they find themselves as suspects in the horrific killing of a young girl named Sarah Smith. Anna and Garrett decide to prove their innocence by conducting their own investigation that puts them dead center in the real murderer’s sights. However, there are dark secrets in their pre-revolutionary community. Anna and Garrett find themselves pulled into a hauntingly dark past that threatens to destroy everything they know and love, including Garrett and Anna.

The Outcast by Glynnis Campbell

Glynnis CampbellThe Outcast

This charming novella is captivating and a very clever fairytale. The characters are so well portrayed in the setting that Ms. Campbell created as a medieval construct for her story. The two main characters meet by chance, a crippled knight with a history and an a accused witch on the run. This romantic story is certainly a story I would not have missed. Recommended for adults.

Featured – Garrett’s Bones

A Mystery, Suspense, Thriller by Karen DeMers Dowdall to be published October 2015 on Amazon.

Anna and Garrett appear to be ordinary teens growing up in an old colonial farming community in New England. Anna and Garrett, who love nothing more than spending time in the large forest preserve near their homes, are suspects in the horrific killing of fourteen-years-old Sarah Smith. The two teenagers decide to prove their innocence by conducting their own investigation that puts them dead center in the real murderer’s sights. However, there are dark secrets in this pre-revolutionary community that go back to the year 1680 when the first settlers arrived to farm the lands. Anna and Garrett find themselves getting closer into a secret past that will soon threaten to destroy everything they know and love, including Anna and Garrett.

Featured

A Mystery, Suspense, Thriller by K.D. DeMers to be published October 2015 on Amazon.

Anna and Garrett appear to be ordinary teens growing up in an old colonial farming community in New England. Anna and Garrett, who love nothing more than spending time in the large forest preserve near their homes, are suspects in the horrific killing of fourteen-years-old Sarah Smith. The two teenagers decide to prove their innocence by conducting their own investigation that puts them dead center in the real murderer’s sights. However, there are dark secrets in this pre-revolutionary community that go back to the year 1680 when the first settlers arrived to farm the lands. Anna and Garrett find themselves getting closer into a secret past that will soon threaten to destroy everything

they know and love.

WICKED GAME

WICKED GAME by Gianluca Piredda and Michael Hudson, NOW ON AMAZON!

Tom Tucker was having a good day. And then he got a mysterious phone call telling him he would need to kill or be killed by a man he’d never met before. And so his nightmare began. Gianluca Piredda and Michael Hudson bring you a psychological thriller in novelette form that will place you right into Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. See if you figure things out faster than Tom Tucker.

About the Author




Gianluca Piredda was born in Sassari, in northern Sardinia. His mother was a teacher and homemaker, his father a police officer. As a child, his mother told him stories of Greek mythology instead of traditional fairy tales and, in elementary school, after visiting the office of the local newspaper and he fell in love with telling stories. Not long after he started his journey in publishing. First published at age fifteen, Piredda began working both as an author and as journalist. By 1997 he had published his first comic book miniseries and in 1999 he arrived in the US market, scripting “Winds of Winter” (Antarctic Press, 2000). Since then, he has written numerous books such as “Warrior Nun Areala”, “Free Fall”, “Airboy”, “Spektral” and several short stories for Image Comics. As a journalist, he has worked in radio, TV and for several newspapers and magazines where he served as editor and editor-in-chief. Today Piredda writes articles about pop- culture, current events, travel, and media and for Italian newspapers like Libero.

Finalist for the Edgar Award

The Resurrectionist by Matthew Guinn

From out of the past, in this intriguing and suspenseful story, comes to light a period of southern history about a time when Medical Colleges often used nefarious ways of collecting bodies for their students. In the middle of this historical period, prior to and during the Civil War, people of color were treated not only as slaves but also as guinea pigs for all kinds of medical “advancements” alive or dead, especially dead.

Into this unsavory mix comes a modern day physician, Dr. Jacob Thacker, who has serious ethic problems of his own and adds to those problems by accidently discovering hundreds of human bones hidden away in the cellar of the oldest part of the medical college that was presently under re-construction.

Dr. Thacker’s intense and dangerous investigation into the past begins to reveal the mystery of the bones and discovers Nemo, an African slave who posthumously reveals the true nature of things. It soon becomes clear that Dr. Thacker not only is risking is medical degree, but his very life. I’m still wondering if this novel reveals more fact than fiction.

 

What Stephen King Taught Me!

WHAT STEPHEN KING TAUGHT ME by K.D. Dowdall

Stephen King wrote a seminal work on fantasy fiction writing—a memoir of the craft on writing by the same name: Stephen King: A memoir of the Craft – On Writing.

When I decided to write fantasy fiction, instead of just dreaming about it, I decided the best place to start would be with Stephen King. Who better to learn from but a master fiction writer?  So, I purchased his book in the year 2005, read it several times, high-lighted tantalizing concepts, tabbed with sticky writable tabs until I had outlined the entire book.  I soon learned that reading about writing, tabing every conceivable point of interest does not necessarily create a master fiction writer or even a mediocre fiction writer.

So, I stopped reading books on writing and just started reading a wide range of books, from soup to nuts.  I happily read on—good, I thought, now I can start writing. Nope.  Even though I saw the world through rose-colored glasses, I had a terrible fear of ineptitude.  I was the student who couldn’t spell, never learned phonics, didn’t know a consonant from a vowel, and a homonym is what? Regardless, I managed to get a Bachelor’s, a Master’s, and even a PhD.  I was a competent mimic.

So, what did Stephen King teach me? Stephen King taught me how to trust my instincts when he wrote, “stories are found things, like fossils in the ground.” “Stories”, writes King, “are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.” Stephen taught me to lean heavily on my intuition, my inner sense of things without the mimicking and sense of ineptitude.

If you walk through this world wearing rose-colored glasses where every nook and cranny is rich with fantastical possibilities—like magical stones, talking trees, whispering air, mumbling water, and things, like humans, who walk the earth, it’s comforting to know someone else has walked that same trembling path before me.