Hodge Podge

So as the title indicates, this week is all about a little bit of everything because there’s a lot going on! Let’s begin with…

Promotion

You know I feel like I spend so much time on here promoting and discussing my own work that I thought it would be nice to give something back this week and promote the work of others. And as luck (or fate if you prefer) would have it there is a bumper crop of new releases to go over beginning with...



The saga of Davenport House continues with the latest installment from Marie Silk. Do yourself a favour and snatch this one up so you can say you read her before she graced the New York Times bestseller list!

Up next we have...



Book 2 of the Dark Moon Trilogy; don't wait until Book 3 to dig into this one. It has a place on my kindle and should on yours as well. If you like history this wonderful author has you covered.

Also released recently...



Amazon bestselling author Susan May has given us another reason to skip going to bed with her latest supernatural thriller. Fans of Dean Koontz should love this one!

And if you dig historical fiction with a bit of romance and fantasy how about...



Another second in a series book so why not start with the first before diving into this one? And how's this for a tagline "You know Plato's account of Atlantis...Now find out what really happened."

This brings us to...



The debut novel to be released shortly that I've been anxiously awaiting for months. We all know that feeling you get when you just know a book is going to be great. I have that feeling here. This one is going to be BIG!

And of course I'd be remiss if I didn't make mention of the anthology of short fiction just released by a bunch of talented authors including Mehreen Ahmed, Denise Baer, Alexander Engel-Hodgkinson, myself, and many more.



If I’ve forgotten to mention any others feel free to add a comment below for some free publicity!

Best Laid Plans…

September 1st has come and gone, and as that was my target for the release of 2 novels concurrently you can imagine it’s been a stressful week. And of course if I’m writing here you just know something went awry. For whatever reason there was a technical glitch (we’ll call it) at Amazon that resulted in the oddity of Realm of Shadows (my third book) being available for sale for one day before Taken (my second book) went live. This despite the fact that I submitted Taken for final review 24 hours before Realm of Shadows. It’s never dull in the publishing world.

So…we have a series

Also this week I petitioned the overlords of Goodreads (aka the librarians) to have my 3 novels collected into a series and I would just like to formally thank them for their prompt response. Kudos!

Of course any series needs a name right? I settled on Descent and yes…there is meaning behind that moniker. For me the overall story running through the 3 books is, if taken on the whole, all about the journey that one specific character takes from a place of moral certainty down to one of ambiguity and uncertainty.

Best left unsaid?

I make it a practice to never comment on the reviews for my books, good or bad. I find that it just opens a can of worms and can lead to nowhere good. At most, if I feel I know the reviewer I will send them a message of thanks for their time.

Having said that though, I have received a number of reviews for Stillness now that comment upon the fact that during the height of the outbreak the town was not quarantined. Without addressing any specific review I’d like to comment upon this common suggestion here.

As a writer I greatly respect the intelligence of my readers. What that means is that I don’t feel the need to spoon feed them, to explain every single aspect of the story to them. I believe they’re wholly capable of taking certain deductive leaps on their own. The issue of quarantine, rightly or wrongly on my part, is one of these instances. It’s true that I never make mention anywhere in the book of any quarantine just as it’s also true that I make no mention of a mass media presence covering the story. But does that mean that neither thing happened? It’s also true that I make no mention of anyone leaving the town. If there was no quarantine—why wouldn’t they leave?

At the end of the day my style has always veered more towards allowing the reader to imagine aspects of the story for themselves as opposed to detailing everything for them. Just a personal choice.

Calling all authors

In the vein of giving back and free promotion (who doesn’t like that right?) I’ve been kicking around the notion this week of conducting author interviews once a month depending upon interest. Before I take the time to create a whole list of questions though I’d like to gauge interest. If any authors following me or reading this are interested in participating in a written interview feel free to say so below in the comments section.

Hope to hear from you!