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Women in Horror Month #2 - Billie Sue Mosiman

Billie Sue Mosiman



Recently I edited/compiled a horror anthology called Fresh Fear: Contemporary Horror. Billie Sue Mosiman was one of the first authors I approached as I have been a fan of her work for years. I was very pleased when Billie Sue submitted a story called ‘Verboten’ for my anthology, and what a great story it is too. The first time I ever encountered her work was in Robert Bloch’s anthology ‘Psycho Paths,’ and then again in his next anthology ‘Psychos. ‘A Determined Woman,’ is the first story I read of hers and is still one of my favorites alongside ‘Interview With A Psycho,’ which blew me away. It’s one of the best dark psychological thriller stories I have read to date. The impact of the story stayed with me for a while and not just because of the subject matter, but because of how good the story actually is. Billie Sue can write and it’s no surprise considering that she has so many novels and collections published over the years. As Robert Bloch, author of Psycho and American Gothic, says about her novel Night Cruise[ing]: "A journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind...uncanny, unsettling, unforgettable."



Billie Sue Mosiman is a thriller, suspense, and horror novelist, a short fiction writer, and a lover of words. Her books have received an Edgar Award Nomination for best novel (Night Cruising) and a Bram Stoker Award Nomination for most superior novel (Widow). She has been a regular contributor to a myriad of anthologies and magazines, with over 160 published short stories. Her work has appeared in such diverse publications as Horror Show Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. She taught writing for Writer's Digest and for AOL online. Billie Sue’s latest work in paperback and Kindle digital is SINISTER-Tales of Dread, a compilation of fourteen new short stories all written in 2013.



“Billie Sue Mosiman’s novels are edge-of-the-seat all the way!” Ed Gorman, award winning author of BAD MOON RISING.



February is ‘Women in Horror’ month and Billie Sue is one of the leading ladies in psychological horror; she has kindly agreed to do an interview and without further ado, here it is.

Interview with Billie Sue Mosiman:




Q: When did you first decide to become a writer, in particular a writer of Dark Fiction? Was there any one thing, or person, that influenced you to write your first story?



A: I was thirteen, apparently, since I wrote in my diary at that time, “I want to grow up to be a writer.” There wasn’t any one thing or person that influenced me to write my first story. I found it once. It was written in pencil on lined paper and involved some young people living around Paul, Alabama where I often lived with my grandparents. I think my work might be dark fiction because my childhood was often dark, there were volatile people around me, and of course I was steeped in superstitions and stories from the dark woods of Southern Alabama.



Q: You have been writing for many years now and have had many novels and collections published, do you think that your writing/work is more popular now than it has been in the past? If so/not why do you think that is?


A: I don’t think I’ve ever thought about that. I think my audience has been kind of steady over the years. It’s helped to have digital copies now so more people can find and afford my work. Where before readers had to wait for a new novel to appear every two years or a new magazine I had a story in, now they can go to Amazon and find so much of my work at their fingertips. Also, instead of paying close to ten dollars for a paperback, they can pick up a novel for four. That opens everyone’s work to the large audience of readers out there. I think that’s marvelous.



Q: In 2011 you self-published a novel (‘Banished’), the first novel you have published yourself; why did you decide to follow the self-publishing route? Did you find it a different process than writing for a mass market press/publishing house, like you have done in the past?



A: In 2011 it was a revolution. Literature and the method of conveying it to the reader had changed. I’d written a novel that was unlike what I’d done before. If it wasn’t suspense or horror I knew publishers would be reluctant to take it. I decided to join the revolution and see what happened. I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I went straight for the readers and it was a lot of fun. I had a professional cover made and the book looked over by a professional and just hit that button! It was a completely different process than working with mass market publishers out of New York. I had more freedom. I didn’t have to worry about the book appearing in bookstores and outlets maybe for a month and disappearing. I’d have that book [appear] before the public in a way [that was] easy for them to purchase day and night, for as long as I wanted it out there. I had more control. It was an interesting and profitable venture.



Q: As it is ‘Women in Horror’ month, who are your favorite female authors of dark fiction? Do any of your favorites have an influence on your own work or inspire you in any way?



A: Mary Shelley was the goddess of all things dark with FRANKENSTEIN. (I wrote a novella continuing her great novel in FRANKENSTEIN: Return From the Wasteland.) She was an influence. Then along came Flannery O’Connor, who isn’t thought of as a horror writer and she really isn’t, but she writes dark fiction and her way of writing it highly influenced me. I wanted to grow up to be Flannery. Next was Patricia Highsmith, who wrote some of the best darkest fiction of suspense-bordering-on-horror that I’d read. She was a “quiet” writer, intellectual, and she spoke to me. When I first started writing horror stories I didn’t see many women writing it in the horror magazines where I was sending my stories. Due to that I’m afraid I didn’t feel an influence from them; rather, we were all jumping into the Horror Sea and paddling our little lifeboats as fast as we could. At that point Stephen King began to influence me. And some of the best writers in suspense like Robert Bloch, Lawrence Sanders, Richard Matheson. Plus the old names like Jim Thompson, Patricia Highsmith, and others. Today I’m watching the blooming careers of new writers in horror and like many of them very much, seeing talent that is much better than I saw back in the 1980s when I started getting published with dark fiction.



Q: What/who influenced you to switch to self-publishing and/or do you still publish with others (publishers)?  Is the self-publishing market more lucrative for a veteran author such as yourself who has been published by all manner of publishing houses, both big and small?



A: I saw Joe Konrath doing it and some other traditionally published authors doing it and I just leaped in. After BANISHED I just self-published my stories, some old and some new. I made sure my legacy novels, most of which you couldn’t buy anymore, were available as e-books. With short stories it’s very lucrative. Many markets today don’t pay enough to waste my time submitting to, but if I self-publish I go directly to readers and make more that way than for a one-payment deal. I’m not all about money, but I’m no fool either. I collected several of my stories into collections to make it easier and a little cheaper than readers having to buy individual stories. Now for my next novel (the only one I’ve done since BANISHED in 2011) titled THE GREY MATTER, I went back to looking for publishers. Mainly because it is not outside my usual type of novel I’ve been known for writing. It’s a suspense novel with a touch of speculative future events in it and I wanted to have someone else, an editor and a publisher, handle the whole thing for me. It was taken by Post Mortem Press, who will bring it out in April or May this year. I’m very excited about it and feel it’s some of my best work. In this way I’m more of a “hybrid” writer these days—self-publishing shorts and collections from those shorts, and going with a publisher for novels.



Q: You write in many genres but predominantly ‘Dark Fiction; do you consider yourself a "horror" writer, a genre (thriller, dark fiction, mystery etc) writer, or a writer in general? How does the type of writer you perceive yourself to be have an effect on the way you approach writing, if at all?



A: It would probably be best to think of me as a dark and speculative fiction writer. I’ve been known as a suspense/mystery writer and in my long work, the novel, that’s predominately what I’ve written. Of fifteen novels I only got off that path a couple of times, once with a Western (because a publisher asked for one and bought it on a short synopsis) and Banished, the horror-fantasy novel. I really think of myself in two ways—as a horror writer of short fiction and a suspense writer of novels. Straddling genres that way may seem odd, but my short work just tends toward horror.



Q: Quite often you write about serial killers and psychopathic personalities; how do you prepare/research for these stories and how much influence do other sources (i.e. True Crime, Non-fiction texts, Newspaper, Media etc) play upon/inform the development of your characters’ behaviors?



A: I spent years studying serial killers, the real ones, and abnormal psychology. I informed myself on the character and typical actions of those killers. From the writing of WIREMAN forward the serial killer intrigued me so I wrote several more novels about them. Male and female serial killers (WIDOW), killers who were so damaged and deluded they thought they had been abused and yet who had only been loved and couldn’t accept being a person who was loved (SLICE, which I retitled KILLING CARLA), killers who wanted revenge (STILETTO), killers who were young and psychotic (DEADLY AFFECTIONS, which I retitled MOON LAKE), and so forth. Damaged and disturbed personalities was the well from which I drank, trying to understand them, seeing them without blinders, and getting into their heads. I read tons of non-fiction books on people who kill, on psychopaths, and on family dynamics when there is a disturbed person affecting the unit. Now, with THE GREY MATTER, I have a serial killer, but he isn’t the focus of the novel. It’s focused on four young people who are castoffs from society who come together as a family and are menaced by the serial killer.  I am on my familiar stomping ground, with some very wicked twists.



Q: Before you published ‘Banished’ in 2011 you have stated elsewhere that you had “finally overcome the dreadful writer's block that left me impotent to write.” Can you please tell us what led to your writer’s block and how you overcame it and also why you switched from traditional to self-publishing at this point? Were the two events (beating writer’s block and switching to SP) a result/consequence of each other?



A: My parents moved in with us. They’d sold their marina, which they couldn’t handle any longer, and were looking for a house near where I lived. My mother, who was a master manipulator, began suggesting they spend their money expanding my home for them to live with me. I had a lifetime of trying to understand my mother, who was mentally ill. She was an untreated victim of bi-polar and narcissistic personality. Once they moved in next door, as we separated our house into two distinct living spaces, my life became hell. I tried to write. I wrote several different novels and an autobiography that died halfway and went unfinished. My emotional state was not strong enough to write and at the same time deal with my parent, who were slowly having worsening health problems. My dad had Alzheimer’s and diabetes. I had to start taking him to doctor visits and help Mom with him. My mother’s furious episodes of anger grew worse. She finally was diagnosed with lung cancer and didn’t get treatment. My father died, and then my mother’s cancer worsened and I was her caretaker. It was seven or eight years of pure unadulterated hellish nightmare. I simply got blocked when trying to write by about page 150. Novels died and were put away. I stalled. I think I was just trying to survive and there was no room there for my writing life.



Jumping into self-publishing with BANISHED had nothing to do with the block. Once my mother died and I slowly came back to myself and my work, the whole digital revolution was happening, people all over Facebook, which I’d just discovered, were excited and publishing works, some good, some not. I wrote my book, published it, and I have been happy about that decision ever since.



Those who tell you there is no such thing as writer’s block just haven’t experienced one yet. I defy any writer anywhere to have lived here in my home with my insane mother and my poor, sweet, sad father, take care of them, and still find motivation to write. I dare them.



Q: Many of your recent titles/collections are self-published; one would think with a prolific career such as yours that traditional publishers would be waiting in line to offer you contracts. Do you still get offers of publication or interest from the more mainstream publishers?



A: I left the mainstream –NEW YORK- publishers behind once I realized they would demand to own, like forever, my digital rights. I understood my digital rights were worth a lot, perhaps more than any of us know today. If I gave them away, for just about any amount of money, I’d kick myself later. I’d have given away rights my family can profit from long after my demise. I went with a publisher for THE GREY MATTER that would not keep my rights forever. I had determined by that time I would never let them go for longer than a certain, spelled-out amount of time. I own those rights. I won’t give them away. I might share them, but I will never give them away.  I would rather go with my mainstream smaller publisher any day than let that happen. Writers today still want deals with the 5 NY publishers who are left. Once they realize they can’t negotiate those digital rights for themselves I would think they’d know it’s a raw deal. I never go for raw deals. I protect my creative rights. I’ve no hope NY publishing will relinquish those rights for years yet. One day they might start making more reasonable deals with writers for them, sharing some of the rights, but until them I’m just not interested.



Q: Recently you bravely and publicly announced that you are battling cancer, has your illness caused any reflection upon your career as a writer of dark fiction or your direction ahead as an author?



A: It has. I look back and haven’t regrets. I wrote from my deepest place, from what interested me and inspired me. I wrote as well as I could. I must leave it at that. As for the future, I’m looking forward and hope to do more noir and suspense writing, even in the short form than in supernatural horror. My direction is changing slightly and I think that’s fine. Writer’s change and if they don’t they stagnate. I write what comes to me and I’m happy with what I’ve done and what I hope to do.



Q: Who or what has influenced your writing the most, and in what way?



A: Oh, I can’t really name names so much because I’ve learned so many different things from so many writers. But good dark fiction in any genre does influence me. I read them and think how wonderful is that? Can I do anything compared to it? I challenge myself to move forward and try new things in both the way I write and in what I write.



Q: I have read a couple of your novels and a few of your collections but feel that I haven’t even scraped the surface of your prolific bibliography/back list; what one work would you recommend to prospective Billie-Sue Mosiman readers and why? What do you consider your best novel and your best short fiction work?



A: Too hard, too hard. How does one pick out an individual baby she’s created from her flesh and from her mind? You might as well ask which of my daughters I love best. I love them both equally.



I can tell you the ones I like a lot. I like BAD TRIP SOUTH, because it is about crime, but has a supernatural element.  I like BANISHED because I stretched and tried something new. I like NIGHT CRUISE (now titled NIGHTCRUISING) because it was nominated for an Edgar and it’s got a killer in it you grow to understand, and a girl who grows up and faces the horrors of the real world. I like WIDOW because I tackled something new in having a female and male serial killer, then the female comes to her senses while the male begins to commit copycat killings pointing toward her. In stories I like FRANKENSTEIN: From out the Wasteland because I dropped into Mary Shelley’s world and tried to see where it went after the end of her novel. I like INTERVIEW WITH A PSYCHO, that was in Robert Bloch’s PSYCHOS, because I wrote it in homage to the great man. And I like my new collection, SINISTER-Tales of Dread, because I was on fire last year in 2013 and the stories just poured out—all sorts of stories, but all of them dark. That’s where my writing Muse has lived from since the beginning, firmly in the dark fiction dungeon.





Thank you Billie Sue for such an insightful and informative interview.






Billie Sue Mosiman links:




Billie Sue Mosiman's Books


Read about and buy ALABAMA GIRL-PART 1 -On This Link-

Read about and Buy CREATURES  -On This Link- 
 
Read about and Buy ZOM ALIVE: 2110     -On This Link-
Read about and Buy DiaboliQ     -On This Link-

Read about and Buy LEGIONS OF THE DARK   - On This Link-


Read about and Buy RISE OF THE LEGEND -On This Link-

Read about and Buy HUNTER OF THE DEAD  -On this Link-


Read about and Buy RABBIT HUNTER   -On This Link-

 

Women in Horror Month, Billie Sue Mosiman, Horror, Writing, Feature, interview, books, Facebook, Amazon, Goodreads, Twitter, Shelfari, Youtube

Women in Horror Month #1 - Chantal Noordeloos

Chantal Noordeloos

 

Chantal's Amazon Bio:




Chantal Noordeloos (born in the Hague, and not found in a cabbage as some people may suggest) lives in the Netherlands, where she spends her time with her wacky, supportive husband, and outrageously cunning daughter, who is growing up to be a supervillain. When she is not busy exploring interesting new realities, or arguing with characters (aka writing), she likes to dabble in drawing. In 1999 she graduated from the Norwich School of Art and Design, where she focused mostly on creative writing.
 

There are many genres that Chantal likes to explore in her writing. Currently Sci-fi Steampunk is one of her favorites, but her 'go to' genre will always be horror. "It helps being scared of everything; that gives me plenty of inspiration," she says.

Chantal likes to write for all ages, and storytelling is the element of writing that she enjoys most. "Writing should be an escape from everyday life, and I like to provide people with new places to escape to, and new people to meet."

Chantal started her career writing short stories for various anthologies, and in 2012 she won an award for ‘Best Original Story’ for her short ‘the Deal’. Coyote is her first big project.

(See below for Chantal's books and more info)

A bit more about herself from Chantal:

"As many may know, it’s ‘Women in Horror’ month, and I happen to be a woman… who writes horror. Fancy that? The lovely William Cook offered to showcase my horror work on his blog, so *strikes a dramatic pose* here I am! Between you and me, I have to admit, I write more than just horror, but apparently I’m a ‘creepy’ sort of lady, and horror comes very natural to me.

On Halloween of 2013 I published my horror collection ‘Deeply Twisted’. It’s been well received and even landed on the Bram Stoker award ballot (am still keeping everything crossed that I’ll make it to a nomination). This year I have several other horror projects in mind. 

Right now I’m working on a new collection… though series might be a better way to describe it, because all the stories are interlinked. The collection /series will be called ‘Even Hell Has Standards’ and it’ll contain 7 short stories, each representing one of the 7 sins. The theme will be ‘the horrors of humanity’, and this is quite a challenge to write. 

Another horror project for 2014 will be my haunted house novel that I’ve started to outline. I can’t wait to write that. I’ve always been partial to a good ghost story, and haunted houses are –in my humble mind- the perfect setting for such tales.

But enough about me! Go and explore some lady writers in Horror fiction. Don’t let stereotypes of ‘women only write romance’ fool you, there are some dark and brutal ladies out there that will prove those stereotypes are wrong! It’s a tough genre for women to make a name for themselves in, so maybe give them a hand by reading their work and giving them honest reviews.

 
May you find many books that scare and entertain you! Thanks for reading, and if you want to get to know more about me, you can find me at the following places:



Chantal's Books:


Coyote – the Outlander


No one knows where or when the rips will appear, but they do, and from them, Outlanders walk the earth. Coyote travels the territories with Caesar, her mysterious partner in the bounty hunter business, and together they confront these alien threats to humanity. Along the way, Coyote discovers a secret that threatens to shatter everything she believes about herself, her father, and her sworn enemy, James Westwood.
Whether Outlander or inner demons, some things can’t be solved with a six shooter…


 

Buy the e-book version on Smashwords

Buy the e-book version on Amazon.com

Buy the paper version on Amazon.com

Dutch Version - (paper) on bol.com


Deeply Twisted


Deeply Twisted: twenty dark tales with a twist. A mother murders her eldest daughter. A clock appears in the middle of a park. A one-eyed man with a raven on his shoulder joins three homeless men on a chilly night…
Embrace the night and all its terrors in this macabre gallery of monsters. The living and the dead, the spectral and the material—horrifying visions from the tormented mind of Chantal Noordeloos. Your nightmares will never be the same.

http://www.amazon.com/Deeply-Twisted-Twenty-tales-twist/dp/9491864041/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390165413&sr=8-1&keywords=deeply+twisted

 Buy now from Amazon.com.

 Women in Horror Month, Chantal Noordeloos, Deeply Twisted, Coyote - the Outlander, Horror, Writing, Feature, interview, books, Facebook, Amazon, Goodreads, Twitter

New Release - Kim Cresswell's 'Lethal Journey'.



Recently a friend of mine, award-winning author Kim Cresswell, told me about her upcoming release 'Lethal Journey,' and I quickly volunteered to do a feature on her and her book. Kim is a lovely person and her writing is of a quality and standard worthy of praise, so it is without hesitation that I present her and her latest work to you.

 
Kim lives in Ontario, Canada and has been a story-teller all her life. After working in legal and adult education for most of her adult life she has thankfully returned to her first love, writing.

Her debut thriller, REFLECTION, has won numerous awards, including the UP Authors Fiction Challenge Winner (2013), Silicon Valley's Romance Writers of America (RWA) "Gotcha!" Romantic Suspense Winner (2004) and an Honourable Mention in Calgary's (RWA) The Writer's Voice Contest (2006).

LETHAL JOURNEY was a finalist in From the Heart Romance Writers (FTHRW) Golden Gate Contest (2003).

Her action-packed thrillers have been highly praised by reviewers and readers worldwide. As one reviewer said, "Buckle up, Hang on tight!"

Kim also recently entered the True Crime arena. Her latest story about accused Canadian killer, Cody Legebokoff, will be featured in Serial Killer Quarterly, a new e-magazine published by Grinning Man Press which debuts in December 2013. Her short story collection, Real Life Evil - A True Crime Quickie will release in January 2014.


 LETHAL JOURNEY 


Lethal Journey is a novella inspired by Kim's fascination with the Mafia and her love of action-packed thrillers.


 Lethal Journey900 

A killer lurks in the shadows of Hyde Park, New York…waiting.

Manhattan District Attorney, Lauren Taylor, is about to take on the most important case of her career, prosecuting Gino Valdina, acting mob boss of New York’s most influential crime syndicate.

For three decades, Gino Valdina has led New York’s Valdina crime family. Since his recent indictment for murder, the leadership of the family is in turmoil, appalled by the death of one of their own, Gino’s wife, Madelina. Without the support of the family behind him, Valdina will do anything to save himself.

But Lauren soon discovers, things aren’t always as they seem when she’s tossed into a mystery, a deadly conspiracy that reaches far beyond the criminal underworld and a journey into the past makes her a target…and anyone she’s ever loved.


Holiday Special! On Sale for a limited time for $0.99!


NEWRELEASE2 

Purchase a copy now!
Also available in paperback at Amazon and Createspace!

Praise

“An entertaining and complex novella with some solid twists at the end.” Cheryl Kaye Tardif, international bestselling author of SUBMERGED

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“High tension, high intrigue, and an angry mob boss put young Assistant DA Lauren Taylor on the defensive as she prepares for the biggest courtroom case of her life. All she has to do is stay alive long enough to put the head of one of New York’s biggest crime families behind bars, and the jury is out on whether she can pull that off. Her greatest ally is a man she knew and loved long ago, who shredded her heart as his own demons of guilt tried to drown him in an alcohol induced haze.  
Lethal Journey by Kim Cresswell hits the ground running and does not stop! Are people as they seem or is there more to them? As the attempts on her life escalate and people close to her go missing, Lauren doesn’t have many options on who to trust. Enter the one man who broke her heart, Eric, a homicide detective who has also felt the burn of getting too close to the mob. Can Lauren trust him? Does she have a choice? It would be so much easier if her heart would stay out of it, wouldn’t it?
 
Kim Cresswell’s talent shines through again! With a talent for setting the stage, bringing in the characters and cuing the action, she held me from page one. She is not afraid to write a tale that is real, where the good guys do not go unscathed and they are not perfect. There is grit in her style, and when she says you are in a warehouse with a stench, you smell it. The romantic tension runs high, and using character flashbacks to the past not only builds on the development of each character as a flesh and blood entity, but serve to eventually bring everything full circle with an ending that you will NOT see coming!”Tome Tender’s Book Blog 


65600-grey-divider-no-background-hi

“Lethal Journey, a fast-paced novella hits all the points of a romantic murder mystery. The protagonist is Lauren Taylor, the prosecutor in the trial of a Mafia crime boss who once before slid out from under the punishment he so deserves. Her father is the district attorney, both enmeshed in a tragic family history they can’t leave behind. Eric Brennan is the tough police detective, who moves in and out of Lauren’s life as their sometimes love connection flourishes and then falls apart. There are other great characters in this drama who deftly fill in the blanks as the plot of murder, deception and tenuous connections twist into a knot that defies the reader to solve the mystery and unearth the true antagonist. Be prepared for a surprise ending that will blow you away. It’s a quick read that will keep your attention. Kudos to Kim Cresswell for a job well done.” - Review by Fran Orenstein, Sunwriter


Need more convincing? Here's an excerpt from Lethal Journey

"Eric slowed the Mustang to a crawl and searched the street for his informant, Jimmy Flame. This part of Brooklyn had it all — garbage, graffiti and gangs — a snake pit where debts were paid in blood. As it turned out, he spotted the lanky twenty-something-drug-dealer strolling up the sidewalk.


Eric didn’t trust the scar-faced kid dressed in clothes three sizes too big, but Jimmy knew the streets and somehow stayed clear of the gangs. A real miracle. He also knew Jimmy would be discreet, if he knew what was good for him.


Eric pulled the car over and stopped. Jimmy looked him square in the eye, turned, and kept walking. Eric jumped out of the car and snatched the back of Jimmy’s shirt. “We need to talk.” He whirled him around.

“Hey, you promised you’d only come around at night.” Jimmy scanned up and down the street clearly worried someone might see him with a cop.
“It’s important. Get in.”

Jimmy hopped into the car and scrunched down low in the passenger seat. Eric started the engine and glanced at Jimmy’s low riding jeans. “How the hell can you wear those baggy ass pants? They should be outlawed.”

“What man? You don’t like my gear? These pants are cool.” Jimmy ran his hand over his knee. “What’s so important?”
“Heard anything about prosecutor Stephen Taylor or the new district attorney?” Jimmy kept one hand clutched on the door handle.

Convinced the kid might bolt if he had the chance, Eric sped up.


“I ain’t heard nothing on the DA, but—”

“If you know something, spit it out. I’m not in the mood for games.” Eric looked at him. 

Jimmy’s shaved head glistened with sweat in the early morning sun.


“Man you’re gonna get me killed.” Jimmy sank back into the seat, his fingers tightened around the handle of the door. “Some dude was looking for someone to put the scare into Taylor and the DA. I never saw him, but one of my boys told the guy to hit the road. The deal didn’t smell right. Something was way off.”

“How did Paul Cassico end up dead?”


Jimmy lit a cigarette and took an extra-long drag. “Cassico is a small-time bookie, you know, neighborhood shit, horse races and fights. Valdina learned the guy would be cooperating with the feds so Valdina had one of his crew take him out.”

“Did Cassico ever mention who killed my father?”

“The stupid shit went around flappin’ his gums. Said he knew who shot the cop in the warehouse drug deal. He also said he’d make a large stash when he went to the cops.”


Eric’s heart pounded. “Did he give a name, Jimmy?”

“Nope.”

“Shit. I need to find the shooter.”

“I don’t wanna get involved with Valdina’s crew. You’re talking Mafia.” Jimmy shook his head. “Man. I’m too young to die.”


Eric could tell by the quiver in the kid’s voice, he was scared. Something he’d never seen before. “Has someone threatened you?”

“Not yet. They will as soon as I start asking questions.”

“You’re smart. You’ll find a way to get the info. Besides, if you piss me off, I’ll drag your drug-pedalling ass off to jail. You understand?”


Jimmy remained silent for a moment. “Man, you’re a hard-ass.”

“Find out what you can.” Eric steered the car into an empty parking lot and tossed fifty bucks at him. “I’ll be back in a couple of days and watch your back.”


As Eric pulled away, he heard Jimmy call him an asshole. Okay, he deserved that. And yeah, he was tough on the kid when he needed to be. It was all part of the job. He liked Jimmy, but he’d never admit it. From what he just witnessed, Jimmy was scared shitless and that worried Eric even more."

Buy Lethal Journey now at the special introductory price of $0.99 and SAVE $3.00!




http://kimberleycresswell.wordpress.com/lethal-journey/



Kim Cresswell, New Release, Books, Author, Press Release, Feature, Reflection, Lethal Journey, Amazon, Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook, Barnes & Noble, Itunes, Smashwords 

MARK EDWARD HALL - 'SOUL THIEF' - NEW RELEASE ANNOUNCED

I'd like to introduce Mark Edward Hall, a wonderful author of fast-paced thrillers and beautifully haunting horror stories. 


I first met (albeit online) Mark when we shared a TOC in a horror anthology (Masters of Horror) back in 2010. Since then, we have remained online friends and I'm pleased to announce he has a new novel out called Soul Thief, which is the follow up to his fantastic novel Apocalypse Island. Anyway, without further ado here is the lowdown on the enigma that is Mark Edward Hall.

Mark Edward Hall has worked at a variety of professions including hunting and fishing guide, owner of a recording studio, singer/songwriter in several rock n' roll bands. He also worked in the aerospace industry on a variety of projects including the space shuttle and the Viking Project, the first Mars lander, of which the project manager was one of his idols, Carl Sagan. He went to grammar school in Durham, Maine with Stephen King, and in the early 1990s decided to get serious with his own desire to write fiction. His first short story, Bug Shot was published in 1995. His critically acclaimed supernatural thriller, The Lost Village was published in 2003. Since then he has published many books including his bestselling novella, The Haunting of Sam Cabot, his bestselling independent ebook, Servants of Darkness and his acclaimed thriller novel, Apocalypse Island. Soul Thief is his latest novel and is available now.

http://www.markedwardhall.com/




Soul Thief is the second novel in the Blue Light series. The first novel is Apocalypse Island. Although Soul Thief is a stand alone novel, it would be best if you read Apocalypse Island first.


http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Thief-Supernatural-Thriller-Light-ebook/dp/B00F3IZ6IA/ref=la_B002X7W2BI_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1385153695&sr=1-1


Here’s a description of Soul Thief:

The Brotherhood of the Order is one of the oldest and most mysterious organizations on earth. Its primary mission is to protect one of the most carefully guarded secrets in human history, an object so enigmatic and powerful that in the wrong hands it could wreak havoc upon the earth. In the right hands it just might have the power to save humanity from its own destructive impulses.

Doug McArthur, hit in the face by a young friend at the age of seven, is suddenly able to see a supernatural creature who calls itself Collector. Doug’s life is turned upside down when he realizes that it’s not just the creature he sees, but the atrocities it commits.

Since marrying Annie his visions have been quiet and Doug is grateful. Now Annie is pregnant with their first child—a child that promises to be special—and their world is in the process of coming apart, beginning with the destruction of their home and forcing them to run for their lives, back into the world of Annie’s childhood, the De RochĆ© dynasty, to a murdered mother and a cruel and enigmatic father.

Doug, whose love for Annie borders on the obsessive, has a deep and abiding hate for her father. He is nearly insane with grief over their plight, but soon finds that De RochĆ© is the least of his worries when he begins to hear the pleading voice of a lost child that he cannot possibly save. And then, in the midst of Annie’s mother’s funeral, Doug is given a strange artifact, along with a dire warning by a dying priest. He must leave Annie and his unborn child and begin a sojourn into the darkest regions of the human heart.

In his attempt to save his wife and unborn child, Doug finds that there is much more at stake than the lives of two people, perhaps the very salvation of the human soul.

Soul Thief is the second novel in the Blue Light Series, a supernatural thriller that will keep you guessing until the stunning conclusion.

Look for On the Night Wind, the third book in the Blue Light Series, scheduled for publication in 2014.



 
Check out the following links for other great titles and interesting information about the man himself.


 Apocalypse Island 
 



Mark Edward Hall, Writer, Author, Feature, New Release, Amazon, Kindle, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace


 

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