Editing by Elizabeth

February 16, 2011

“It’s No Sin to Love a Kindle” by Dave White

Today I am pleased to welcome author Dave White. Dave has a new collection of short stories featuring Jackson Donne, More Sinned Against, available on Kindle. I’ll let Dave tell you how Jackson and the Kindle got together.

I got my Kindle as a wedding gift.

Being honest, the thing was scary. It was one of those ideas that had been drubbed into my mind for so long, I had to believe. I loved the feel, the smell, the sound of books. I loved having the weight of it in my hands. I loved the anticipation as I turned the page, waiting to find out what happens next.

So, when I stretched out on the beach chair during my honeymoon, sun beating down on me, drink in my free hand, and turned on the Kindle for the first time, I was nervous. What if money was just wasted and I hated the thing? What if I didn’t even feel like I was reading a book, but instead someone’s unfinished manuscript?

Turns out, I was wrong. I loved the thing.

I still got the same sensations, while reading. The tension was there, the desire to know what was on the next page, the constant flipping. But here’s what I didn’t expect. →

February 14, 2011

The Terror of Living by Urban Waite

He just wanted someone to tell him he was a good man, that he’d done his job, that somehow it mattered. – Bobby Drake

Deputy Sheriff Bobby Drake is a man with a tremendous chip on his shoulder. Once a promising college football player, his life was turned upside down when his father, Sheriff at the time, was busted for running drugs across the US/Canada border. Drake returned home to his small hometown in Washington State and took a job as a deputy sheriff, determined to restore honor to his name and prove he’s a better man than his father. →

February 11, 2011

Friday Reads: Special Gift For Participants

Fridays Reads If you’re a reader and you’re on Twitter, chances are you already know about Friday Reads. But for those who may not haven heard of this great meme, here’s the low down:

Friday Reads is a community of thousands of people who come together each week to share whatever they’re reading. Our goal is simple: to raise reading’s visibility and encourage more people to join in!

The more people who share what they’re reading, the more people get excited about reading. And when people get excited about reading all sorts of incredible things happen…we get smarter; we think more; we’re entertained; we learn things…the list is endless.

Right now, 20% of American adults are functionally illiterate. The situation is not much better in the UK, with 18% of people illiterate. We all want to make the world a better place. Reading is one thing we can all do to achieve that lofty goal. This is why #fridayreads matters: it bands us together in the shared joy of reading and encourages us all to read more. →

February 08, 2011

Breach of Trust by David Ellis

“You take care of your own, or you can’t look at yourself in the mirror.” – Jason Kolarich

Jason Kolarich was once an up-and-coming young defense attorney at one of Chicago’s highest profile private law firms. Following a case in which his strategy was the key in securing the acquittal of a State Senator from federal murder charges it seemed as if the sky was the limit for his future. Except something went terribly wrong at the end of the trial.

While he was in his office late one winter night waiting for a phone call from an informant, Jason’s wife, tired of waiting for him to come home as promised, packed their infant daughter in the car and headed out for a planned visit to her parents. They never made it. Their car skidded off the icy road along the way, killing both.

Not able to shake the loss – and the thought they’d still be alive if he had been driving – Jason has hit a place in his life where he simply doesn’t care anymore. Not about himself, his business; only his grief matters. He hadn’t taken care of his own and they were dead because of it.

But when he learns that the informant whose call he had been waiting on the night of his family’s deaths was himself killed the same night, Jason is jolted back to life and into action. Believing there’s no way the timing was a coincidence, Jason sets out to learn the true circumstances behind the informant’s death. →

February 02, 2011

The Story Behind the Story: Talking Borrowed Trouble with JB Kohl and Eric Beetner

Ever wondered what it would be like not only to write a book, but to do so with a co-author? That you’ve never actually met? By email? Today’s guest post is from authors JB Kohl and Eric Beetner who’ve done just that…twice. Here’s a peek behind the curtain on how exactly that works.

JB Kohl and Eric Beetner wrote this blog post the way they write their books – by sending a draft back and forth to each other and adding on bit by bit, entirely through email. Turns out they still have a lot of questions about their own book.

Eric Beetner: By now our backstory has gotten out there a fair amount. We live on opposite coasts and have never met. We’ve never even talked on the phone and yet managed to write two books together now. Thinking back to how the new one, Borrowed Trouble, came about I remember the seed of the idea began as an epilogue to the first book, One Too Many Blows To The Head, that contained the basic premise – Ray gets a note from a girl claiming to be his sister in need of help but Ray doesn’t think he has a sister and he enlists Dean for help. Then we cut the epilogue at the eleventh hour just before we went to press. Do you remember why we cut that out?

JB Kohl: I think we decided we didn’t want to be “hemmed in” regarding a plot. An epilogue –when it’s a preview for the next book – can be tricky if you aren’t well into the next novel. The plot idea was there, but we weren’t sure if we were committed to it. It’s so funny to me now, because in the end it was the exact plot idea we went with. So tell me, were you nervous about having Ray and Dean work together? →

February 01, 2011

Snow Angels by James Thompson (PB Release)

Originally released in January of 2010, Snow Angels marked the stunning English language debut of author James Thompson, and the first entry in the Inspector Kari Vaara series.

If for some insane reason you still haven’t picked up Snow Angels now is definitely the time to do it, as today marks its paperback release. And with the second book in the Inspector Kari Vaara series, Lucifer’s Tears, set for release on March 17, 2011, you need to get going now so you’ll be ready to hit the ground running when release day rolls around.

Set in Lapland, Northern Finland during Kaamos, the time of year just before Christmas when temperatures plunge to -40° and night never gives way to day, the exquisite descriptions of man’s crimes and nature’s beauty made Snow Angels one of the most hauntingly atmospheric books I’ve read in quite some time. In fact, it ended up being one of my top reads of the entire year. (Full review here.)

But don’t take my word for it, check out the video below in which Thompson himself talks about Snow Angels.

The paperback release of Snow Angels is available from Berkley Trade (ISBN: 978-0425238837).

Snow Angels is the first book in James Thompson’s Inspector Kari Vaara series. The second book in the series, Lucifer’s Tears, will be released on March 17, 2011. Thompson, American by birth, has lived in Finland for over a decade and currently resides in Helsinki with his wife. To learn more about James Thompson, visit his website.

– Author James Thompson on the inspiration for Snow Angels –

January 24, 2011

Choke On Your Lies: The Cover
by Anthony Neil Smith

Today I am pleased to welcome author Anthony Neil Smith (aka Doc Noir). In addition to his work as co-creator and editor of Plots With Guns, he’s also the author of five novels and dozens of short stories. Today he’s here to talk about his latest novel, Choke On Your Lies.

Choke On Your Lies by Anthony Neil Smith This week, I released my latest novel as an e-original direct to Kindle and Nook, bypassing the publishers. I still have major respect for publishers and would take a deal from them in a second (sellout? Yep), but I really wanted to get this book out as quickly as possible rather than let it swirl around for another year or so.

So, this cover. Gorgeous, ain’t it? I was lucky to find this amazing photo from model Erin Zerbe that reminded me of old sixties and seventies paperback covers. Very alluring, yet very “mysterious” in a way. I had to have it. And luckily, Erin was more than happy to let me use it. Kudos. I originally wanted to make the whole thing retro – fonts, colors, maybe even a bent corner or coffee ring stain. But in the end, I liked the very stark final cover you see here. It did the best job.

Some people won’t like it. Maybe because she’s half-naked. Maybe because she’s a proud plus-sized model. All I know is that I think it’s beautiful. Let’s get a couple of things straight: 1) I find plus-sized women very attractive, and 2) the novel revolves around the character of Octavia, who weighs about three-forty. She’s outrageous, mean, bitter, and sexually aggressive. And I think she’s an amazing woman. →

January 20, 2011

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli Day after day I go out with photographers who are tourists of the war. – Nguyen Pran Linh

One would be hard pressed to think of a war zone as a tourist destination. Yet, for the photojournalists in Tatjana Soli’s The Lotus Eaters that is exactly what, in a perverse way, war-torn Vietnam becomes for them.

Helen Adams, fresh from college and just cutting her teeth as a photographer, finds her way to Vietnam as part of her struggle to understand what her brother, a special forces solider who was killed in action, experienced before his death.

Once in country she meets veteran photojournalist Sam Darrow and his guide/assistant Nguyen Pran Linh. Together they take a journey deep into the horrors of war, finding that even amongst such darkness there still blooms dignity and hope.

The title of the book comes from Homer’s Odyssey, in which those who ate the lotus fruit became so intoxicated by it they lost all desire to return to their homeland. Just like the lotus-eaters, Helen and Sam become so intoxicated by the rush of combat photography that they actually resist the idea of leaving Vietnam. →

January 18, 2011

James Ellroy’s L.A.: City of Demons

Investigation Discovery: James Ellroy's L.A.: City of Demons Investigation Discovery is launching a new series called James Ellroy’s L.A.: City of Demons, in which author James Ellroy (The Black Dahlia, L.A. Confidential) takes a fresh look at some of Hollywood’s most notorious crimes from the past to the present.

The six-part series showcases Ellroy’s larger-than-life personality, and debuts tomorrow night (Wednesday, January 19th at 10PM ET) with the episode “Dead Women Own Me:”

The series begins with a deeply personal account of the genesis of Ellroy’s fascination with crime: the unsolved murder of his mother in 1958. This harrowing event formed his moral and spiritual attachment to devastated women. “Murdered women own me,” he narrates, and after a long downward spiral with drugs, booze and petty crime, the obsession provided him with the fire and fury to write his unprecedentedly praised crime novels and memoirs. “Dead Women Own Me” also highlights the homicides of a young 16-year-old girl murdered in her own home and a woman kidnapped while using an ATM machine.

Future episodes will cover topics including: the mob and the LAPD; LA’s nightclub scene; 1950’s tabloids; serial killers, such as the “Hillside Stranglers”; and notorious celebrities who ended up”strung out, snuffed out, locked up, and lusted over.”

You can learn more about Investigation Discovery and the James Ellroy’s L.A.: City of Demons series by visiting the Investigation Discovery website. You can also find Investigation Discovery on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

James Ellroy is widely recognized as the world’s greatest living crime writer. His L.A. Quartet novels – The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz – have won numerous awards and were international bestsellers. His Underworld U.S.A. novels – American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood’s A Rover – were even more acclaimed. Ellroy’s memoir, My Dark Places, was a Time Best Book and a New York Times Notable Book. Ellroy’s most recent memoir, The Hilliker Curse, was recently published by Alfred A. Knopf. To learn more about Ellroy, visit his website.

– Author James Thompson on the inspiration for Snow Angels –

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