Shadowed cover by Ken Hughes

He can hear a whisper a block away… and can’t remember why.

Open your mind, to a city where mystery chases up and down office back stairways, turns brother against brother, and plays out on frozen sidewalks where lives may be shattered if the enemy even looks at the ragged man passing by in the crowd—and even that man cannot guess what memory will be next to batter his mind.

Paul was no detective, no thief, only a student trying to get some distance from his father and brother. When he found himself marked by the power to enhance his senses, he had only that treacherous gift and what few tricks he dared to teach himself, to search for some explanation—or at least the chance to give it meaning by exposing a few petty corruptions.

Paul thought if he lived in poverty to keep his existence secret from the world, at least nobody could force him to use that gift as a weapon against others. But just when he thought he was untouchable, the last thing he expected shakes his world and drags him into the perils of his family, his power, and two women who each have a different claim on his life.

As Paul begins to play cat and mouse with enemies he can’t even name, he must break every rule that’s kept him alive, in every frantic chase and every gamble he makes to break his family free. And all the while, he knows his greatest enemy may still be what lies behind his own secrets.

If you think you know everything a paranormal thriller can do, take a closer look.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0076OU90O

About the Author:

Ken Hughes has been living for storytelling since his father first read him The Wind In The Willows, and everything from Stephen King’s edge to Hayao Miyazaki’s sense of wonder has only fed that fire. He has worked as a technical writer in Los Angeles at positions from medical research to online gaming to mission proposals for a flight to Mars. For more about his stories, songs, and his Unified Writing Field Theory, see www.kenhughesauthor.com

Blood Line by Lynn Ward

Lauren Pell is chief of security for the Terran station on Krhyllan, a planet wracked by ancient feuds and hatreds. When the king’s young son Deran is attacked by the savage Blood Painter assassins, the feared Blood Painters, Lauren fights, schemes, defies—whatever it takes to rescue him.
Convinced she failed to save the life of her own child, she will save this one, even if revealing some secrets endangers Krhyllan itself.

–click for more

About the Author:

Lynn Ward is a native Texan recently transplanted to California. A speech pathologist in her day job, she reads, does martial arts and humors a neurotic cat. Blood Line is her first novel, after having sold short fiction in the past. Currently, she is working on a new novel

Mama by Robin Morris

As the Conover family drives from L.A. to Chicago strange things begin to happen. Nine year old Michael sees a face form in the window of the family car. Two creepy children stare at fourteen year old Alison at a motel. A car follows the family for many miles, then hits their car and drives away.

Wherever the Conover family goes, wherever they look, they see a large woman and her children coming closer. The woman and her children are superhumanly strong. They can enter a locked room without opening the door.

Confused and scared, the Conovers can’t comprehend what is happening to them. Everywhere they turn they see the woman and her children. The woman is Mama, and as she teaches her children, like a lioness teaching her cubs to hunt, the Conovers realize that they are the prey.

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About the author:

Robin Morris has had stories published in print anthologies and on the web. She collected many of her stories in “Halloween Sky and Other Nightmares.” This is her first novel.

Cover for Ace Antonio-Hall’s Syvla Slasher

SPRING BREAK GETS WILD ON THE LIVELIEST CRUISE IN THE PACIFIC UNTIL THE UNDEAD CRASH THE PARTY.
Eighteen-year-old Sylva Fleischer and her friends raise the dead for a living for police investigations and mourning families. Two years after her high school crush, a hot guy named Brandon, is assumed dead, Sylva’s friends convince her to go on a spring break cruise in an effort to suppress her depression over him. But when passengers mysteriously die and reanimate into flesheating zombies like she’s never seen before, Sylva plunges into a horrifying struggle between a ship infested with the undead and the scariest thing of all: a second chance with Brandon after she discovers he’s still alive. This is a zombie story that eats right to the core and leaves you licking your chops for more.
Got zombies? Sylva Slasher does…

–click for more

About the author:

Ace Antonio Hall is the author of the novel, Confessions of Sylva Slasher. His short stories They and Raising Mary: Frankenstein have been awarded Honorable Mention for the Writers of the Future Awards 2013 and 2014. He published his short story Dead Chick Walking in Calliope Magazine Fall 2013 #141.

In 2015, Hall has sold his short stories to be published with Weasel Press/The Haunted Traveler, Bride of Chaos/9 Tales, Pure Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vol. 4, Jitter/Prolific Press, and Night to Dawn Magazine #29.

Hall received a BFA from Long Island University and taught English for more than a decade. He is a native New Yorker who now resides in Los Angeles, CA.

Scary dog, SDRandCo via morgueFile

One of my friends claims I repel technology. Nothing personal, but things just go wrong when I’m around.  TV’s flick off, I take my computer down to the Geek Squad at Best Buy every three weeks, etc.

Since I am a writer, this is inconvenient. I need to have a working computer in order to write my books, right?

Last weekend my mouse stopped working.  The built-in mouse on the keyboard worked, but the electronic hand-held mouse did not.

So I packed up my computer (again) and lugged it down to Best Buy. They confirmed that the mouse I bought one year and three weeks ago did not work and suggested I buy a new one.

I went to pick out a new mouse and also checked out the Kindle covers. I selected a Kindle cover that was on sale and got in line with my mouse and Kindle cover.

Mind you, this is inside of a Best Buy store.

When I got in line, a pit bull jumped on me.

Yes.  Someone had brought their pit bull into Best Buy.  Why not, right?  The guy pulled the dog down (it had its paws almost on my shoulders) and went back to talking to his friend.

WTF?

I called for a manager but in the end, because this man said the animal was a service dog, there was nothing she could or would do since the dog didn’t bite me.

But she did give me the Kindle cover for free.

The next day, my friend said it was a sign from God, who apparently didn’t want me to even buy electronics, much less use them.

Cerberus in a Best Buy.  Not a good sign.  But as Cerberus is supposed to be guarding the entrance to the underworld, maybe not so bad.  Maybe I should look into investing in a good quality pen.  But not from Best Buy.

Prey by Katy Mann, book cover

I am pleased to announce that my book Prey is now available on Amazon.

Christa, a shy college student, is interning at a Chicago law firm. One morning, she spots a mysterious stranger across the street from her office. This seemingly casual event tears Christa from her world and sends her into a terrifying struggle with the remorseless immortal, Mack.

Mack comes from another time and place, not so long ago in years, but very far from Christa’s urban world. Mack came of age in the era of bootlegging, where the strong took what they needed to survive, and he has become interested in Christa.

On a trip to Europe, Christa comes across evidence of the supernatural, which she tries hard to ignore, but on her return she ends up being trapped in a clandestine network where human blood is farmed to satisfy vampire thirst.

Soon she becomes caught in a power struggle between two covens, a fight that threatens her mortal existence and forces her to make choices leading her into a deeper understanding of humanity and her own soul.

This is not a love story.

Prey is a novella with a word count of 35,000 words.

Link to Prey on Amazon: http://goo.gl/6M433F

Link:  http://goo.gl/6M433F

Book dinosaur, reading

When I first started telling my friends about the book I was writing, I was surprised to learn that only one of them had an e-reader.  The rest read printed books.

I read both print and ebooks.

I find that I primarily buy print books that I want to make notes in and plan to keep.  And of course, the impulse buys in bookstores are printed books.  Right now, I think that about one third of my new books are hard copies, and the other two-thirds are digital.

I believe that e-readers, like all technology, will stop working and become outdated at some point in the future, and the “content,” as the books are often called, we have loaded onto them will be lost.

Plus there is the troublesome fact that we don’t actually own this “content” we purchase.  We are renting digital rights, which can be withdrawn at any time.

But still I was surprised to find that only one of all the people I knew read regularly on an e-reader.

My audience had just become very much like these friends I have never met in person, the ones out there reading and writing in this ether, in the space between us.  Transmitting thoughts, words and ideas over an invisible electronic ocean.

So my book will being transmitted through space via waves and frequencies I don’t fully comprehend, through the magic of Internet retailers.

Yet I will trust my finished work to it, a balancing act between the new and old worlds of reading.

And I will keep print copies.

Meeting A Character in the Real World

Part of a writer’s mission is to create characters, someone a reader can relate to and feel passionate about.  I find I need to have a clear image of these fictional friends in my head, so it helps to write out physical descriptions of each one in a style sheet.

Imagine meeting one of your characters in the real world!

I met Millicent, a lawyer from one of my stories, the other day in an elevator.  I recognized her immediately.  Fortunately she was on her cellphone, so I doubt she noticed me staring at her.

She was a little older, maybe tweny years older, than I expected.  Her hair was styled more simply than I had imagined, and her suit was a bit more flamboyant, with a fish-tail cut skirt in a tweed pattern.  Her affect not quite as warm, but then, this was a real person, after all.  She also had a longer face than I had expected.  She was about 5 foot5 inches.  Not quite as tall as I imagined.

But she was Millicent, from head to toe.

To my surprise, the real life model I saw that day got off of the elevator at a law firm.

I went home and made the necessary adjustments to the character of my story.

Stay strong, Millicent!

Have you ever had a surprise meeting with one of your fictional characters?  Please share below.