FIGHTCARD Books Sale!

 

These are great books, short reads perfect for trying out that new ereader you got for Christmas!

Reviewed: THE SILVER STRIKE by James Reasoner

 

Review here.

Free Winter Frost

 

 

 Upon her arrival in Shoal Harbor, Maine, Lily Jackson hears eerie moans that the locals claim are the ghostly cries of the unfortunate Breckenridge women. Running from loss and setback in Cincinnati, Lily needs the job as semi-psychiatric caregiver for Andrew Breckenridge, but the storm she has to weather from the oldest Breckenridge brother is severe. Clinton Breckenridge is a brooding man used to getting his own way, and he’s not convinced Lily is the right person to help his troubled younger brother.

Even as Lily starts picking up the pieces of Andrew’s tortured psyche and finding out his dark secrets, another mystery looms before her. Andrew’s lover has gone missing in recent months and no one knows what has happened to her, or if her voice has joined those of the other Breckenridge women. Before she knows it, Lily finds herself in danger—thrust directly into the eye of the raging storm.

 

 

 

New Western series coming soon!

Free Books For Christmas!

FREE Kindle Books!!! 12 different authors - 12 different books. Free today and tomorrow on Kindle. Contemporary, Historical, Suspense, Gothic Mystery, Erotica...  Click on each book to download FREE! Merry Christmas!

http://aliciadean.com/alicias-blog/

Judge Earl Stark Is Back!

 

 

My buddy James Reasoner has a new Judge Earl Stark story out there!  If you haven't read the other books in the series, it doesn't matter.  This is a fine addition to the series and new readers can jump right in.

 

 

 

Big Earl rides again!

Earl Stark was once a fast-shooting stagecoach guard in Texas before taking up the study of law, becoming an attorney, and eventually being appointed a federal district court judge. Now he combines a keen legal mind with a frontiersman's gun-handy toughness to bring justice to the Old West.

One of New York Times bestselling author James Reasoner's most popular characters, Judge Earl Stark is back in a brand-new 27,000 word short novel full of action and mystery. THE SILVER ALIBI finds him dealing with feuding mine owners, bushwhackers, cold-blooded murder, and a wild ruckus that lands Judge Stark himself behind bars before he can nab a ruthless killer.

If you haven't met Big Earl yet, now's your chance!

 

 

Doc Savage Mashup!

 

 

 

My teen self would have hated these because I was a Doc Savage purist, but I think they're great these days!

For more Doc Savage mashups, go here.

New Dead Man!

 

 

Matt journeys to a tiny Adirondack town where the entire population is infected with evil, a horrific phenomenon possibly related to a hydro-fracking operation that's stirring up community outrage...and resurrecting a blood-thirsty terror deadlier than anything he's ever faced. He soon finds himself pitted against his nemesis Mr. Dark in an epic battle that stretches back to the lost colony Roanoke... and could change the fate of mankind.

Hangrope Law and Hallam FREE for a Limited Time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diesel Punk and World War II Zombies!

 

 

I picked this one up and am looking forward to settling in with it soon!  Just in time for Christmas!

 

Black Sun Reich: Part One of three in The Spear of Destiny, the first novel in a new steampunk, horror, alternate history, action-adventure series set in a 1920s where the Nazis have begun their subjugation of the world using the occult, advanced science, and a holy relic with awesome powers.

And don’t miss the other parts of this serialized novel - Part Two: Death’s Head Legion and Part Three: Shadows Will Fall.

Trey Garrison recaptures the unapologetic adventure, wonder and excitement of the classic pulp fiction of the 1930s and 1940s, blending elements of steampunk with deeply-researched historical fiction and a good dose of humor. The novel also explores major philosophical and moral issues relevant to our contemporary world: the trade-off between security and liberty, the morality of pre-emptive war, and what fundamentally separates good from evil.

The North American continent is made up of several rival nations, and a Cold War is building between them. The Nazis rose to power a decade earlier. People travel by airship and powerful organizations calculate with Babbage’s Difference Engine. The Nazis have hatched a plot to raise a legion of undead soldiers.

Enter Sean Fox Rucker, Jesus D’Anconia Lago, two Great War veterans and freelance pilots who are pulled into the quest. They are joined by a brash Greek merchant, a brilliant Jewish cowboy, and the woman who once broke Rucker’s heart. This ragtag band of reluctant, bickering, swashbuckling heroes soon is locked in a globe-spanning race against Nazi occultists, clockwork assassins, and a darkly charismatic commando. In a world where science and the supernatural co-exist, and the monsters of legend are as real necromancers who summon them from dark realms, our heroes alone stand before the rising darkness. But all their efforts may not be enough.

 

 

 

Gangster Squad

Really looking forward to this one in January!

Tales of the Scrimshaw Doll

 

 

 

ROMANCE WITH A TOUCH OF SUPERNATURAL

 

Time has not been kind to me. I once was very beautiful. I once was cherished.

Now?

I’m a scrimshaw doll. I was created for a child and cursed to protect a woman. I’ve been protecting those seeking true love well before 1716 when my story began being recorded. It all began with a gypsy man named Enzo, and his wife Rosa, whom I was made in the memory of.

I have been many places and seen many countries. I have traveled by ship, horse and automobile.

Read about the adventures here.

Newest book:

 

 

 Sometimes, secrets refuse to stay buried--

A ten-year-old accidental killing and an ancient cursed doll are only part of Julia Bennett's problems. When she returns to her hometown of Covington, Oklahoma for an old friend's funeral, she's thrust into the middle of a murder case--and discovers she never stopped loving her high school sweetheart.

Jake Devlin is now the sheriff of Covington and faced with solving a murder. He isn't surprised to find Julia in the middle of things. She still seems like the troublemaker whose reckless mistake caused a man's death years ago--and who broke his heart when she left him without so much as a goodbye.

Jake makes it clear he's over her, and Julia can't wait to leave Covington behind. But when another friend dies, she knows she must stay. Can they put the past behind them and stop a killer before he claims another victim?

 

New Book Caught My Eye!

 

Love the cover!!!!

 

In the year 2030, a meteor the size of Manhattan impacted the central United States. Thirty years and billions of dead later, humanity's extinction is only beginning...

When he is ejected from his home, sixteen-year-old Alex Keener is forced to survive in a blighted wasteland that threatens to take everyone and everything he holds dear. He must survive against the elements, against raiders, and much, much worse...

In the hopelessness of the wastes, Alex must find a reason to live. Joined by a butt-kicking, pistol-wielding heroine, the stakes get even higher when Alex discovers he might be the only one standing between the world and a second apocalypse...

 

 

Steampunk Charlie's Angels!

Set in London at the turn of the last century, the novel follows the stories of three intelligent and very talented young women, all of whom are assistants to very powerful men: Cora, lab assistant to a member of parliament; Michiko, Japanese fight assistant to a martial arts guru; and Nellie, a magician’s assistant. The three young women’s lives become inexorably intertwined after a chance meeting at a ball that ends with the discovery of a murdered mystery man.

It’s up to these three, in their own charming but bold way, to solve the murder—and the crimes they believe may be connected to it??without calling too much attention to themselves.

Told with Adrienne Kress’s sharp wit and a great deal of irreverence, this Steampunk whodunit introduces three unforgettable and very ladylike–well, relatively ladylike–heroines poised for more dangerous adventures.

FightCard: Knockout

 

Out now!  Robert J. Randisi's main event in the FightCard series.

 

 

Brooklyn, 1954

Frankie ‘The Piston’ Corleone was an up-and-coming light heavyweight fighter until a broken hand took him out of contention. Now, Frankie works as a private eye, occasionally taking sparring work to stay in shape make ends meet.

Cappy O’Brien has trained a lot of fighters, including Frankie. But Cappy has never had a real contender until now ... Candy Marquez is the real deal, and after being battered by Marquez during several rounds of sparring, Frankie has to agree. But the fight game is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, and other trainers and the mob all want a piece of Cappy’s best prospect.

When Cappy winds up dead, it’s time for Frankie to take off the gloves and take The Piston’s punching power to the street to knockout a killer ...

 

 

Love This Cover!

 

The Old West feel of it, whether intentional or not, is awesome.  I'm behind on Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books.  Now I gotta catch up!

BODY COUNT by Wayne D. Dundee for only 99¢

 

My good buddy Wayne D. Dundee has a new anthology out that collects his Joe Hannibal short stories, including one new story written just for this book.  The stories cover Hannibal's career over the last 30 years, making the detective one of the longest-lived in the annals of criminal investigation.

 

Wayne's got quite a spread in these six stories, taking Hannibal from Illinois to Nebraska, where he's currently living.  Look for his new Joe Hannibal novel, Blade of the Tiger, coming soon!

 

 

 

 

Covers That Pop!

 

 

 

Covers like this make me pick up books every time.  Love the dark atmosphere.  Evidently there were a few covers for this book, but this is the one that sold me.

 

  

 

New Wind River Book!

 

Been so busy with deadlines and college that I plumb missed this one.  Making up for it now.  This is by my buddy James Reasoner (one of the writers on the Rancho Diablo series) and his wife.  It's the seventh book in their long-running Wind River series.

 

The Wyoming Territory town of Wind River has gotten so peaceful that some people think it's downright civilized. But they don't know that a gang of vicious outlaws is planning a military-style raid on the settlement that will clean out the bank and the other businesses. Anyone who gets in their way will be cut down in a hail of bullets.

Through a twist of fate, a beautiful young woman finds herself taken prisoner by the outlaws, and it's up to Marshal Cole Tyler and Texas cowboy Lon Rogers to pursue the desperadoes and rescue Brenda Durand . . . if they don't wind up on the receiving end of some outlaw lead first!

RANSOM VALLEY is a brand-new 42,000 word novel from award-winning authors James Reasoner and L.J. Washburn. It's the first new entry in more than a decade in the bestselling Wind River series and is filled with the same blend of action, humor, drama, and compelling characters as the first six novels. If you haven't paid a visit to Wind River yet, now's the time!

 

 

 

Caught My Eye

 

Don't get yourself noticed and you won't get yourself hanged.

In the faery slums of Bath, Bartholomew Kettle and his sister Hettie live by these words. Bartholomew and Hettie are changelings--Peculiars--and neither faeries nor humans want anything to do with them.

One day a mysterious lady in a plum-colored dress comes gliding down Old Crow Alley. Bartholomew watches her through his window. Who is she? What does she want? And when Bartholomew witnesses the lady whisking away, in a whirling ring of feathers, the boy who lives across the alley--Bartholomew forgets the rules and gets himself noticed.

First he's noticed by the lady in plum herself, then by something darkly magical and mysterious, by Jack Box and the Raggedy Man, by the powerful Mr. Lickerish . . . and by Arthur Jelliby, a young man trying to slip through the world unnoticed, too, and who, against all odds, offers Bartholomew friendship and a way to belong.

Part murder mystery, part gothic fantasy, part steampunk adventure, "The Peculiar" is Stefan Bachmann's riveting, inventive, and unforgettable debut novel.

 

 

New Rancho Diablo Out Now!

 

When Randy Post, a young cowboy riding for the Rancho Diablo brand, gets accused of murdering a saloon girl, Sam Blaylock saddles up to get to the bottom of the matter before they fit him for a hangman's noose. Sam doesn't know that the murder has set off a chain of events that will end up with him swapping lead with a murderous gang of robbers eyeing one of the banks in Shooter's Cross.

In the past, Marshal Everett Tolliver and Sam Blaylock haven't seen exactly eye-to-eye on things involving the ranch hands. Tolliver intends to hold the peace in town no matter what the cost. But he's going to need help if he's going to find out who murdered Jessie Holden in cold blood.

Even after they've set there differences aside for the time being, Sam and Tolliver still have to put their lives at risk to hold the line in Shooter's Cross in a gundown on Main Street that will become a legend.

 

 

All New X-Men #1

 

This one really caught my eye.  I remember reading the original X-Men and couldn't get enough.  Then Chris Claremont came along and blew everything out of this world.

 

Love the art on this one, so I'm excited to see how this works out.  I'll be buying a digital copy for my iPad when this one comes out.

Back in the Ring!

 

Dublin, Ireland 1951

After winning his latest bout in Berlin, US Army boxing champ Sergeant Kevin Crowley is on military leave in Ireland. Raised in St. Vincent's Asylum For Boys in Chicago, he has finally returned to the place of his birth, where he is sure he will find the family he never knew and lay claim to his dream of a royal fortune.

What Crowley actually finds is the fight of his life... A near destitute grandmother, crippling debt left by a father he never knew, a feisty redhead with hatred in her heart, a villainous landlord and his gang who'll stop at nothing to settle a score going back a generation...

Kevin Crowlwy has never backed down in the ring or out... The treasures and truth awaiting him in Dublin are not what he first imagined. But with his past, his family, and his future at stake, Crowley will put up his dukes and fight like never before...

 

 

King of the Dead

 

One of my writer buddies has a new book out Nov. 27.  Love the cover!

 

Joseph Nassise shook up the urban fantasy genre with Eyes to See, a novel New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry called “heartbreaking, deeply insightful, powerful and genuinely thrilling.” In a devil’s deal, Jeremiah Hunt sacrificed his human sight in exchange for the power to see the hidden world of ghosts and all of the darker spirits that prowl the streets. Hunt uncovered a world of murder and magic that took his daughter from him and nearly cost him his life, but that was only the beginning....

Now Hunt is on the run from the FBI, who have pegged him as a mass-murdering dark sorcerer. His flight from the law is diverted to New Orleans when his companion, a potent witch, has a horrific vision of the city under magical siege. When they arrive, they realize that the situation is more dire than they could have imagined: the world of the living faces a terrifying attack by forces from beyond the grave. King of the Dead, the second book in this groundbreaking series, promises more of Nassise’s electrifying writing that will enthrall readers looking for a supercharged, supernatural thrill.

 

 

Why I Teach!

 

I had lunch today with a charming young lady.  Not a bad thing for an old codger to do.  :)

 

Go here.

A Fight Card Interview with Paul Bishop and Mel Odom

 

For the interview, go here.

RANCHO DIABLO Coming Soon!

 

After a young saloon girl is murdered in cold blood, Sam Black and the hands of Rancho Diablo find themselves caught in a lethal crossfire in the streets of Shooter's Cross.

New FATHOMLESS ABYSS Entry!

 

A Seed on the Wind is the first part of Cat Rambo’s lyrical exploration of the bottomless world of the Fathomless Abyss.

When the people of a million worlds and a million times fall into the Abyss, they bring with them not only the better angels of their natures, but their worst. And there are some who find solace in a fantasy within a fantasy, a dream within a dream … what usually becomes a nightmare within a nightmare, a hell within a hell…

When the slightest misplaced step can send you falling forever and ever, there can be a compulsion to get high, and stay that way. And Bill has come in to a little bit of money, and a lot of lost time. And he discovers that in an impossible place that goes forever downward, the deepest abyss may be in his own heart.

 

 

 

Just found this and I'm gonna save it up for a chill autumn night for a time when I want goose bumps and to be scared of the things outside in the dark.

 

In an exquisitely chilling debut novel, four children unravel the mystery of a family curse — and a ghostly creature known in folklore as Long Lankin.

When Cora and her younger sister, Mimi, are sent to stay with their elderly aunt in the isolated village of Byers Guerdon, they receive a less-than-warm welcome. Auntie Ida is eccentric and rigid, and the girls are desperate to go back to London. But what they don’t know is that their aunt’s life was devastated the last time two young sisters were at Guerdon Hall, and she is determined to protect her nieces from an evil that has lain hidden for years. Along with Roger and Peter, two village boys, Cora must uncover the horrifying truth that has held Bryers Guerdon in its dark grip for centuries — before it’s too late for little Mimi. Riveting and intensely atmospheric, this stunning debut will hold readers in its spell long after the last page is turned.

 

 

Cover Art

 

Hands down, cover art sells books.  The better the cover art, the more a book sells.  The downside is that it also raises reader expectations.  I've picked up some books that have had outstanding cover art, only to be seriously disappointed.

 

I know some writers who seriously wished they could have picked their book cover artists.  Cover artists don't much care, to an extent.  They get paid a flat raid in this business.  But I'm sure there have been some artists who got really embarrassed over some of the books they've been on.

 

But I digress.  I love the cover above.  It's a basic black and white shot of an interesting, aggressive female in a spooky fog-shrouded forest.  Love the big tree with added copy stuck on it.  And that's interesting because if the copy hadn't been there, the tree would have balanced the woman out and been distracting.  We the copy on it, we kind of ignore the tree because the copy pushes it back into the background once you've digested the message.

 

Then there's the mixs of colors (orange and green) which don't always go well together on book covers, but in this case serve to bring that "dead" looking forest to life a little by warming up the page.

 

I like the author and picked up the book based on past reads, but that cover would have sold me even if this had been someone new.

 

 

New Fight Card Novel Out Now

 

San Francisco 1951

Conall O’Quinn grew up at St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys, a Chicago orphanage where he learned the sweet science of boxing from Father Tim, the battling priest. After a stint in the Army, Conall finds work on the docks of San Francisco – a place where his fists make him the dock champion. Soon, however, he gets on the bad side of a union boss and is set up for a dock side brawl designed to knockout his fighting career. When Conall comes out on top, things go from bad to worse when he is framed for the docks going up in flames.

Along with Benson, his best friend and trainer, Conall heads for the hills in search of a lost treasure in the vicinity of a mine controlled by the union boss. However, where Conall goes trouble follows and he is quickly embroiled in a heated grudge match between fist-happy miners and lumberjacks.

Championing the miners in an all out slugfest, Conall is about to find out there is more to fighting than just swinging fists … giant, hammer-fisted lumberjacks, the mine owner’s beautiful daughter, union flunkies, and mob thugs all want a piece of him … and when the opening bell rings, the entire world appears to be against him …

 

 

FREE SATURDAY!

 

When I moved from Texas to New York to take my chances as a yarnspinner for the pulps, I knew I was entering into a whole new world. As the author of the LINCOLN LANDRY, SPACE RANGER tales for the science fiction pulps, I know a thing or two about new worlds.

But what I wanted most of all was to get a story in BLACK MASK magazine, the same pulp that launched the careers of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, to name a few.

In order to do that, I pulled in a few favors. Who knew the chief of police was a Lincoln Landry fan? Once I found out, though, I had him hook me up with his best homicide detective: Jim McLane, a tough no-nonsense cop that Hammett and Chandler might have admired.

Together, McLane and I sort through murders in the Big Apple in 1935. I didn't know I was going to learn so much, or that the price would be so high. But between McLane and me, we generally get to the bottom of murder, blackmail, and kidnappings.

 

 

Preview

 

Soon.

Covers That Sell Me

 

The first cover was okay, but the second cover sealed the deal.

 

Arrow Hits Target!

 

I gotta admit, I was really leery of this television show.  Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) has long been one of my favorite heroes.  After he got the makeover and the attitude adjustment in the 1970s by Denny O'Neill and Neal Adams.

 

Bleeding heart, social gadfly, serial romantic, Ollie was a lot to deal with for anybody.  He'd win me over, then break my heart.  The man never had an easy life.  His love life was a mess, his ward became a junkie (one of the first heroes to succumb in comics), and he didn't know if he wanted to rage against the machine or remake the machine in his own image.  He stepped over the line as a vigilante more than once and earned the ire of his family and his friends.

 

His death didn't get any easier.  Yeah, DC killed him to create Connor Hawke, the new Green Arrow -- and DC later destroyed him, and now he's been retconned completely out of existence in the New 52 brand.

 

To be fair, I think that Green Lantern's death was much worse.  He came back as the Spectre for a time, which was entirely weird.

 

The television show is a guilty pleasure.  My wife is even interested in it.  The series has set Ollie up as a Batman like vigilante, which stands to reason because Green Arrow was kind of like a Batman knockoff back in the day (Batmobile = ArrowCar, Batplane = ArrowPlane [get it?]).  But this version of Ollie is mean and tough and physically capable in hand-to-hand combat.  He's struggling with the whole dual identity thing, only it's taking shape right in front of our eyes.

 

Before Ollie supposedly "died" five years ago, he was an irresponsible playboy.  He took his girlfriend's sister out on a cruise for some illicit romance and got her killed.  See?  The showrunners are making sure Ollie's love life is screwed up.  Then he comes back from this island a changed man, no longer the playboy and now every ounce a man willing to put his life on the line.

 

It's a big change.  His body is covered in scars.  He's learned archery, martial arts, Russian, some kind of parkour/free running, and a whole new way of looking at life.  Instead of giving viewers an "origin" story, the series is parsing out the information in brief, tantalizing flashbacks in the middle of a cornucopia of plot problems and all-out action.

 

If you haven't caught the series yet, you should.  Do it now before the plotlines get more tricky and more advanced and you don't get to see the battlelines being drawn or the group of avengers come together.

 

 

My Buddy Bill Crider Has A New eBook Out There

 

 

"I can just imagine the questions in history," Fox said. "Who was our first of it, maybe the second one's too hard. But you get the idea!"

"Yeah," Burns said. "I get the idea."

Hartley Gorman College, in Pecan City, Texas, is hardly a bastion of serious scholarship. The little Baptist school is more interested in shielding its students from the evil influence of The World, The Flesh, and The Devil than in turning out future Nobelists. But its staff, by and large, is worthy of a more demanding institution; they are victims of a glutted market in Ph.D.s and they do the best they can. So it is they who are most upset at Dean Elmore's "secret plan" to award credit hours for "undirected study" by "independent scholars"—in plain words, to turn the school into a diploma mill.

Which may be why Dean Elmore, shortly after unveiling his plan, is found bludgeoned to death at his desk. It is certainly why, at his funeral, there is not a wet eye in the house.

Or so observes Carl Burns, Hartley Gorman professor of English literature, through whose eyes we see both the crime and the larger picture of this wacky denominational Texas school.

Those readers familiar with Bill Crider's books about Sheriff Dan Rhodes of Blacklin County, Texas, knows how wryly witty this author can be; here the humor is revved up a few notches, and the resulting account of Elmore's murder, Sheriff "Boss" Napier's investigation, Bums's well-meant meddling, and the people and doings at Hartley Gorman are the exactly-right mix of realism and wackiness to make the book a delight as well as a suspenseful mystery.


ABOUT BILL CRIDER : "I was born and brought up in Mexia (that's pronounced Muh-HAY-uh by the natives), Texas. The town's most famous former citizen is Anna Nicole Smith, whom my brother taught in biology class when she was in the ninth grade. I've always lived in small Texas towns, unless you count Austin as a large town. It wasn't so large when I lived there, though. I attended The University of Texas at Austin for many, many years. My wife (the lovely Judy) says that I would never have left grad school if she hadn't forced me to get out and get a real job. I eventually earned my Ph.D. there, writing a dissertation on the hardboiled detective novel, and thereby putting my mystery-reading habit to good use. Before that, I'd gotten my M.A. at the University of North Texas (in Denton), and afterward I taught English at Howard Payne University for twelve years. Then I moved to scenic Alvin, Texas, where until 2002 I was the Chair of the Division of English and Fine Arts. I retired in August 2002 to become a either a full-time writer or a part-time bum. Take your pick."

 

New Crime Television Show Coming

 

Man, I just really like the look of this one.  More info here.

Savage Blood by James Reasoner!

 

 

The Civil War took nearly everything from Brodie. A beautiful redhead named Eva took what was left. When she turned to him for help, he had every reason in the world to tell her to go to hell.

Instead he strapped on his gun and walked right into a blazing hell himself.

SAVAGE BLOOD is a brand-new hardboiled Western novella from James Reasoner, bestselling author of the Wind River series, the Judge Earl Stark series, and co-author of the Rancho Diablo series. It's 16,000 words of action and excitement from a master storyteller.

 

 

My newest book is waiting on you!

New Ebook Authors

 

People often ask me how to layout books for ebook publication.  I recommend both of these books, depending on your computer preference.  They're succinct and dead on the money as far as tips and tricks go.

 

 

 

 

 

Recommended: Richard Castle

YA Caught My Eye

 

The Lost Colony of Roanoke—even having written a novel inspired by this piece of history, which happened hundreds of years ago, typing the words still gives me a shiver. And why not? It's shivery stuff. In the 1580s, Sir Walter Raleigh got Queen Elizabeth I's permission to found a permanent colony in the New World. After an initial failed attempt, more than 100 men, women, and children signed on to a 1587 voyage—only to find themselves in dire conditions before long. Their leader, Governor John White, was sent back to England for help. He returned three years later to find no trace of the colonists, save the legendary CROATOAN carved into the bark of a tree.

There are few stories in American history that hold more allure than this one. So it's no wonder that it's a mystery people are still trying to definitively solve. In fact, just this year a new potential clue was found embedded in one of White's painted maps. And I wanted to solve the mystery, too. As I did research, I came across the name John Dee, a famed alchemist and advisor to the Queen, who it turns out was involved in planning the colonists' voyage… My story clicked into place. But my solution didn't involve going into the past. Instead I decided to bring the past to us. In Blackwood, when a mass disappearance occurs on modern day Roanoke Island it turns out two very smart—and very modern—17-year-olds are tied to the original mystery, and that they're the only ones who can uncover the truth, at last.

The Affair of the Wooden Boy

 

I just discovered today that I can't upload and sell an audiobook at Amazon.com.  I had to call CreateSpace to verify that.  They can sell music mp3s but not audiobook mp3s.  I'm really confused about that.  Doesn't make sense.

 

One of my students recorded WOODEN BOY and I think she did an awesome job, so I'm hunting a place where I can put the audiobook up.  I may have to set up a site and go into the audiobook business myself.  We live in interesting times where I can do that.

 

At any rate, I wanted to upload Jaimie Krycho's version of the first chapter of the story just so people could hear her.  She did a fabulous job.  She's also a fabulous writer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listen here.