$100 Gift Card or a Kindle Paperwhite? Hmm, Difficult Choice.

The free draw at Marble City Publishing is closing on Sunday 31st May, two days from now, and the choice of prize has been expanded to add a $100 (or local currency equivalent) gift card. This is due to popular demand because a lot of people already have a Kindle but everyone can use a $100 gift card! So spread the word and make sure you've entered the draw here.

Marble City have a few special offers coming up on Ruby Barnes and Jim Williams books, so keep an eye out for those, not to mention the upcoming release of book 1 in my Zombies versus Ninjas series. Here's a sneak peek at the cover...

Let's Get Under the Covers Together!

It's time to breathe new life into a couple of my book covers. Much as I love the cover for Peril, the way it sums up the MC anti-hero and his isolation, it doesn't really convey crime fiction. I also love the sequel cover for Getting Out of Dodge, with its mix of red-blooded murder and sex, but some have said it's derivative and the book has been refused ads on occasion. Another factor is these titles are the first two of a series and the covers don't have a series feel (see existing covers on the right side bar of this blog). So I've shortened the second title to Dodge and commissioned some new cover options. Now I need your help, by giving your feedback on which of the cover sets below do it for you (oh, and feel free to enter my publisher's draw to win a Kindle Paperwhite).

A - that dark, noir feeling?

 

B - a softer, more colourful look?

C - a crisper, more colourful look?

Please drop a comment below on this blog post, email me or leave your thoughts as a note if you enter Marble City's free prize draw for a Kindle Paperwhite plus leather cover. Much appreciated!

Ruby

How to Recover Your Dojo Mojo - Book Review

I've joined the team at BookMuse.co.uk and here's my first review of a contemporary fiction novel, The Ground Will Catch You by David Powning. Please head on over and have a read of my review. Here are the first couple of lines.

A thought-provoking, character-driven novel. The main character and narrator, Steve Hollis, is an anti-hero who has difficulty fitting into the world around him. He’s successful at his advertising sales job but feels no pride from it and dislikes his work colleagues. His former interest in Judo was put aside when he abused the martial art for purposes of revenge, and guilt denies him a return to the sport. A passion for life is something that he keeps locked away, like a miser saving up money with no foreseeable hope of ever spending it. Life picks Steve up and slams him down on the mat. He lets the ground catch him and bounces back for more punishment. Rinse and repeat. Steve haphazardly wanders through existence without making any real life-choice decisions. Until he meets two new, very different people: Jack and Emily. .... Read the rest at BookMuse.co.uk

Ruby Reviews The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

I picked up this hardback after Mrs R had left it lying around. Her book club has been going through a Misery Lit phase (like forever) and she had chosen The Age of Miracles as a little light relief. I noticed that she fairly flew through the book and thought it must be lightweight, but something piqued my interest – probably the cover. I read the blurb and gave it a go.

Well, several exhausted days later I’m glad that I’ve finished reading this book. Reviewers on Amazon variously describe it as a coming of age novel or YA. Genre schmenre, this book freaked me out. The premise of uncontrollable changes to planet Earth is not unique, but the way it was handled captivated me. The narrator is a young girl who is a bit of an ugly duckling. She describes the slowing of the Earth’s rotation and the multitude of impacts it has on everyday life. Through it all she remains fixated on a boy around whom her world revolves. The changes to the Earth are gradual, not apocalyptic, although there are disastrous consequences for the other animals with which we share the planet. More central to the story are the social divisions and the impact of extended daylight and darkness hours upon characters and relationships.

It was only on day three of reading this book (my free reading time is at breakfast and lunch) that I realised what it was doing to me. I was watching the early morning sky as dawn broke in winter Ireland and wondering if it was a few minutes later than the previous day, although we’re heading into spring and the day should be gaining on the night. Then, as I let the dog out before bed, it seemed that the day had lengthened. In the mornings I thought my sleep had been extended, my circadian rhythms challenged. I was living through the slowing of the Earth’s revolution. If by Bread kept playing in my head. If the world should stop revolving, spinning slowly down to die, then I did want to spend it with my wife and family. I wouldn’t desert them: as all the stars went out, one by one, we would simply fly away.

When the book was done I breathed a sigh of escape and could reflect upon the distorted behaviour of those characters in The Age of Miracles as they dealt with the inevitable. More music, this time Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden, flooded my head. Faced with “The Slowing” would we be able to keep our act together? People sometimes ask what you would do if you had three minutes to live. Or one last day? What if you knew the end was coming but you didn’t know when? It would be gradual and creeping.

I highly recommend The Age of Miracles. If you’re looking for planet-splitting, cataclysmic apocalyptic disaster then this isn’t the book for you. If you’re interested in an honest and guileless perspective on what people really value and how to decide the important things in life for however long we have left on this Earth, then this is a thought-provoking read.

Is Your Glass Half Full or Half Empty? #ASMSG

Last summer we received my son’s school report. End of Year 4 in the primary school, he was ten years old. His marks per subject were pretty much what we had grown to expect – very strong academically, just about getting by in activities. However, the overall commentary from the teacher came as a bit of a shock. He was labelled as something of a sociopath (my word, not the teacher's) – "needs to be more tactful, is uncooperative, a loner". We thought this might have been mentioned during the school year, at PT meetings, in notes home to us, maybe even a phone call or an email, but it hadn’t.

I know my son pretty well. He’s a chip off the old block. Very attentive to detail, studious but impatient, strong with figures and language but reacts badly to criticism, mediocre at all sports - (focusses intently on one thing at a time), not too interested in investing energy in friendships. A bit of a lone ranger. Well, as they say here in Ireland, he didn’t lick it off the stones. He and I, we may well both be somewhere on a behavioural spectrum but life has been, is and will continue to be good. After a few minutes of “that’s my boy” we went hunting for his report for the previous year.

The individual subject performance was virtually identical, although it had been a different teacher. The overall commentary was full of positivity, encouragement and hope. Strangely it said exactly the same thing as this year. Except for last year’s teacher the glass had been half full. This year’s teacher was a glass half empty character. We asked our son what his opinion was of this year's teacher versus last: “She didn’t like me, the one this year. Last year’s teacher was much nicer.”