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My Next Read

Posted on September 26, 2011 by in General | 23 Comments

I love indie authors not only because I am one, but because I believe that the next Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, or Michael Connelly is currently slaving over a laptop trying to make a mark on their own. To be indie means supporting indie and I’m ready to put my wallet where my mouth is – again.

I am looking for my next read. Here’s a chance for an indie author to make one more sale and potentially garner a glowing review. Please leave a blurb about your book in the comments for this post. The one (or two) that I find most interesting I will buy and make my next read. Good luck authors.

Thanks to all who participated. It’s my opinion that an author who can craft a concise and compelling blurb can also write concise and compelling narrative. All the entries were strong which made the choice that much harder, but two stuck out for me.

Congratulations to Debra Brenegan, author of Shame the Devil, and Rob Walker, author of Titanic 2012. I downloaded your books last night. I plan to read Shame the Devil first.

Debra, non-fiction/biographical fiction is not a genre I normally read. However, your synopsis was so compelling, I had to know more. The quality of writing in the blurb assured me that you would hold my interest through the end of your book despite the fact that it isn’t one of my usual genres. Fantastic work.

Rob, the concept of a monster aboard the Titanic in 1914, and still in 2012 awaiting salvage crew was too much to resist. Two stories in one and such a novel concept I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it.

To those not selected, you caught my attention and I may still pay a visit to the world you created for my next set of reads.

-Mark

  • http://www.debrabrenegan.com Debra

    Have you ever heard of Fanny Fern?  Most people haven’t.  She was the highest-paid, most-popular writer of her era (1850s-60s), was admired by Nathaniel Hawthorne, served as Walt Whitman’s literary mentor, outsold Harriet Beecher Stowe and acted as the 19th century “Oprah” to her hundreds of thousands of fans in the U.S. and Europe.  Not only did Fanny Fern have an amazing writing career, but her personal life was a rollercoaster of highs and lows, all of which she wrote about.  She scrabbled in extreme poverty before becoming a multi-millionaire; was widowed, left a second abusive husband, then married a third man, eleven years her junior, after they penned one of the country’s first prenuptial agreements.  You can read all about Fanny Fern’s life in my well-researched historical novel SHAME THE DEVIL, newly released with SUNY Press.  You can read reviews (including a good one in ForeWord) and media mentions on my website:  http://www.debrabrenegan.com  My goal is to bring Fanny Fern back to life for the generations of people who haven’t heard of her before.  I hope you will read the novel!  Thanks for supporting Indie and small presses. 

    Best,
    Debra Brenegan

  • Mark Souza

    Wow, what a nice start. You came out of the gate pistols blazing. I can honestly say regardless of whatever other book(s) I select, I am reading this one. Great job Debra, it sounds like a fascinating and lively read.

  • http://twitter.com/glenkrisch Glen Krisch

    Where Darkness Dwells:
    During a hot summer night in 1934, tragedy strikes when two local boys search for the truth behind a local legend. They stumble upon the Underground, a network of uncharted caverns just below the surface of Coal Hollow. Time holds no sway in the Underground. People no longer age and their wounds heal as if by magic. By morning, one boy is murdered, while the other never returns home.The Underground is hidden for a reason. Certain locals want to keep their lair secret, no matter the cost.After learning a long-held family secret, Theodore Cooper is set adrift. Once well off and set in his ways, he is no longer sure of his role in society. He leaves his comfortable life in Chicago to tramp the countryside, searching for meaning in this new context. During his travels, he’s drawn to an abandoned house in Coal Hollow and impulsively buys it.Cooper doesn’t know that a massacre had taken place in his new house. In 1851, a group of bounty hunters tracked a family of runaway slaves to the home. They wound up killing the homeowners as conspirators, then chased the runaways into a cellar tunnel leading to the Underground. The bounty hunters cornered the slaves and killed them. To everyone’s astonishment, the slaves then rose from the dead. Over time, the bounty hunters chose to stay below ground, taking advantage of their new slave labor to build what they term “Paradise.”Their numbers are augmented by deathbed miners who are offered immorality in exchange for their subservience and labor.Below a town struggling to survive both the Great Depression and the closing of the local coal mine, there lives an immortal society built on the backs of slavery and pervasive immorality.

  • http://twitter.com/casejackets David Swinson

    Will be out around November.

  • Mark Souza

    I am fascinated by the world of the Underground and how the dwellers have maintained a slave state there – hmm.

  • http://arkstories.com Annwerner

    Dreams and Nightmares by Ann Werner
    available in paperback, on Kindle and Smashwords

    On what feels like the worst day of her life, instead of getting an expected marriage proposal, Decker Jones is dumped by her boyfriend of three years. Her heartbreak is tempered with joy when she receives the news that after ten long years of trying to get
    noticed, top literary agent Lillian Cardone has agreed to represent her, moving her a giant leap forward towards the dream of becoming a bestselling author. Albert Crawford is a career bank robber who is planning to retire to live the good life in Mexico after pulling one last job. Things go horribly wrong when a bank guard is killed. Three time loser Albert is arrested and sent to spend the rest of his life in prison.

    Two different people. Two different futures on a collision course. Neither can imagine what the future holds.

  • Mark Souza

    Collision course of two such disparate lives, very interesting. I love the literary aspect too.

  • Rob Walker

    Titanic 2012 – Curse of RMS Titanic takes you back to Belfast 1914 when the ship slips into the waters of Northern Ireland with a strange creature on board; two young interns and a police detective chase Titanic, attempt to quarantine the ship but too late. All the errors that supposedly contributed to the ship’s demise were in fact intentional to destroy the thing aboard Titanic. Every other chapter however is set in 2012 – as salvage divers are going into the corridors and rooms of the sunken ship unaware that something of the creature survives.

    This is a Kindle title located on Amazon.com. For any who would care to review the novel contact me for a Gift Copy.

    Robert W. Walker
    http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com

  • http://worderella.com Belinda Kroll

    Haunting Miss Trentwood by Belinda Kroll
    Available in Paperback and all eBook Formats

    Mary Trentwood is horrified when she watches her father crawl from
    his grave the day of his funeral. Mistaking the newly-arrived
    Alexander Hartwell to be her father’s solicitor, Mary welcomes him
    into her home, not realizing he hunts a blackmailer. Why is Trentwood’s ghost determined to make everyone think Mary is
    insane? Why is Hartwell snooping around Mary’s home rather than
    looking over Trentwood’s papers? Who is the blackmailer, and what are
    they doing in Mary’s home?

  • Rebeccaforster

    Before Her Eyes by Rebecca Forster
    Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords.com
    An execution of a mountain grocer and the abduction of a beautiful woman from the crime scene leave the local sheriff looking for a motive, a killer and a woman on the run. What he doesn’t know is that death is still stalking each of them. The question is, what’s the last thing they will see before their eyes when death lays his hand upon them.

  • Mark Souza

     I write horror and am a fan of alternate histories, add a good monster and yum, this sounds delicious.

  • Ginoarcaro

    Soul of a Lifter. by Gino Arcaro http://www.soulofalifter.com

  • Mark Souza

    Relatives crawling from the grave is always a strong start.

  • Mark Souza

    Impending doom and a chase, I like both of those things. You guys are making this hard.

  • Jak Locke

    Frog Dell’s Junkyard by Jak Locke
    Available in paperback via Amazon.com

    The charismatic Frog Dell has spent the last four years in government-decreed exile at a junkyard having lively discussions with a length of pipe he addresses as “Mr. President.”  When the recently framed and deposed Senator Aphid takes refuge at the junkyard, Frog Dell is inspired to defy his sentence and return to the city, bringing him into a fast-moving series of intricate plots involving dozens of eccentric characters including failed psychiatrist/inventor Weasel McKenzie, enigmatic Dead Fish who appears to exist in his own empty universe, and the menacing leader of the country, Chancellor Wirevine.

  • Mark Souza

    I do like a well done satire and this sounds like it has the makings.

  • Dixie Goode

    I like your blog and the way you are supportive of other writer’s.  I recently joined a cool facebook group where we retweet each others books and triumph’s, it is called Author Central, and it isn’t my site but I love it.

    Best of luck with your writing

    Dixie Goode

  • Belinda Kroll

    Thanks for considering my book! Hope you enjoy the reads you chose.

  • Mark Souza

    Thanks Dixie. I just sent a request to join the Author Central group on Facebook.

  • http://www.debrabrenegan.com Debra

    Yay!  I’m so glad . . . and I really hope you like it! 

  • Graveyard Greg

    Even though I’m late to the game, I want toi pimp my novella DEATHLESS!

    Ivan wanted to study, but a phone call from
    his mother drastically changed everything. Now he’s on the run from
    supernatural forces. Fortunately he’s not alone, but can he trust an
    individual who knows more about fighting monstrous forces than a
    rational man should? Does he have any choice?

    If you get interested, I’ll link ya!

  • Graveyard Greg

    Even though I’m late to the party, here’s my blurb from my novella DEATHLESS:

    Ivan wanted to study, but a phone call from
    his mother drastically changed everything. Now he’s on the run from
    supernatural forces. Fortunately he’s not alone, but can he trust an
    individual who knows more about fighting monstrous forces than a
    rational man should? Does he have any choice?

  • Debra

    Hi Mark — Have you had a chance to take a look at Shame the Devil? I’m curious to see what you think of it.  And, thanks to your follower, Dixie, for the good info. about facebook’s Author Central!