United Indie Book Blog (Excerpt)
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Friday, October 9, 2015
Indie Friday: Ours is the Storm
Guest post by D. Thourson Palmer
Ours Is the Storm is about Revik Lasivar, a very powerful young man trying to save his
kingdom, and Ahi’rea of the plainsfolk, trying to destroy it. It’s about
Ahi’rea’s quest to preserve her way of life and Revik’s task to end it. It’s
about both of them facing their pasts, their parents, and their own people, as
well as the enemies hounding them, and seeing all those things for what they
are. It’s about deceit and redemption and identity. It’s about confronting the
question who am I? and reaching beyond our names and cultures, our pasts
and our dreams, for the answer.
I began writing Ours Is the Storm while I was teaching English in
Japan. I was outside myself in many ways during that time, just as I was
outside of the culture. Even though I was welcomed, I often felt alone,
isolated by distance, language, even my name. Both Revik and Ahi’rea came from that
experience. Moreover, due to the modality of the school year and vacations
there, I had quite a lot of time during which I was required to be at the four
high schools that I served, but had little to do. I started writing, not
entirely certain where I would end up.
The journey to the end of a novel was a lot longer than I was prepared for.
I wrote throughout my time in Japan and continued when I returned to the USA
for graduate school. I started a PhD program and then quit, finding that I was
as suited to the pursuit as a ferret is to neurosurgery. Around that time my
wife and I got an awesome old dog and made the best of things while I was
between jobs. We returned to the state of Ohio, where I grew up. The dog,
Mephit, was big and protective and terrified of storms. When she heard thunder,
she’d wake me up and I’d work on writing and editing. I finished Ours Is the
Storm at last, and Mephit died soon after, between writing and publishing.
As a much finer author than I wrote many times: so it goes. She was a friend,
and the book’s dedication is to her.
I’ve always been a fantasy reader--Lord of the Rings, Discworld, American
Gods, The Name of the Wind--and I also have a big love for many of the
classics, like Crime and Punishment and 1984 and Frankenstein. If I want
anything from my work, it’s that it could exist at the intersection of those
genres and influences--classic feeling with a modern style. Ours Is the
Storm is about identity but it’s also an adventure, an action story, and a
mystery. There are plenty of plot twists and subverted tropes, some obvious and
some less so, and they’re enough to throw even experienced fantasy readers off
the trail and keep them interested. At the end, that’s what I want and what I
hope for most from Ours Is the Storm--that it’s new and exciting to
readers, and, maybe, that it might make them think about their own identity as
well.
~~~~
Ours is the Storm by D. Thourson Palmer
Available on: Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iTunes
Official website: www.dthoursonpalmer.com
Follow the Author on Twitter: @DThoursonPalmer
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
The Weight of a Wing is Free on October 7-11
How did this happen? Well, I blame it on being busy, distracted, and mostly fed up with Kindle Unlimited. June and July were great as far as KU borrows went, but then the borrows dropped to a quarter in August and became close to none in September. This makes no sense because: 1) the book was published in April so it wasn't new; 2) no negative reviews appeared; 3) I did the usual promotion on Facebook and Twitter without making any changes to my marketing strategy. Me thinks this game is rigged.
Anyway, back to the free days. I was fully intending to use the Kindle Countdown Deals feature this time around, but I didn't do my homework in time. It turns out you can't have a price change during the past 30 days before using Kindle Countdown Deals, and you can't use it if your book is priced at $0.99. You see my dilemma. Since the KDP Select term was coming to an end, I decided to change the price and used all the free days at once instead. Hopefully, it will have a positive effect on the KU borrows as well because it can't get much worse at this point.
So if you enjoy reading about wingless, vengeful fairies, chatty, handsome magic users, innocent humans, mysterious wizards, and manipulative bastards, dig in! And please help spread the word and leave a review when you can.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Instincte umane Giveaway
You can enter on Goodreads, and if you're lucky, you'll win a signed paperback copy of "Instincte umane", a post-apocalyptic novella published by Millennium Books in 2013.
The giveaway ends on October 31, and it's open only to Romanian residents.
By the way, it's my last extra copy of "Instincte umane" so you'll be really lucky to have it.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Instincte umane
by Ioana Visan
Giveaway ends October 31, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Friday, October 2, 2015
Indie Friday: Time Has Past - In pursuit of the Ripper
Guest post by Graeme Taylor
I think, like a lot of people, I
always thought that I would love to write a novel. It eventually happened,
although I did wait until I was in my fifties to make it happen. I don't know
where I got the idea from to write a Fictional Story based on Historic events,
it just seemed to pop into my head. It took a little bit of research but that
wasn't a problem as you might expect the World Wide Web is full of information
about the Ripper.
I suppose the inspiration to write my
novel came from the publication of my poetry book, after years of writing the
odd poem here and there and losing some in the process, I decided to
self-publish. It was a great feeling seeing my poetry book on the Amazon
Website. The feeling grew when the novel appeared about 20 months later
My book is a fascinating premise: what if you could go back in time and discover just
who Jack the Ripper really was? And what if you got embroiled in this spate of
gruesome murders and got a whole lot more than you’d bargained for. Time has
Past (good pun I think ) cleverly combines the known facts and timelines about
the Ripper with an evocative and atmospheric tale that explores the darker side
of human nature.
There have been many books written about
Jack the Ripper both Fictional and ones based on Fact. This book takes on the
story with an unusual twist. It involves a man who stumbles onto a Portal, a
gateway to the past, how does he react to such a situation, and how involved
will he let himself get. Would that involvement change History and distort the
timeline?
Peter Haines had such a dilemma, he was a
retired Army Sergeant; his life was uneventful until the day he fell into a
world he could never have imagined. A world that became an obsession. He found
himself in a grim Era of English History, a sordid past shrouded in murder and
terrible atrocities, it was a world he could not dismiss. The year was 1888 in
London’s Victorian Past. It was the time and place where the Ripper carried out
his horrendous deeds. It led Peter into a series of circumstances beyond his
control, circumstances impossible to imagine, it turned into a Nightmare.
~~~~
Time Has Past - In pursuit of the Ripper by Graeme Taylor
Available on: Amazon
Official website: http://www.graytoon.co.uk/
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)