Mondays are normally a quiet affair, nothing much happening; tumbleweed junction. Not today however. Today however a few things did happen.
First I had a post I’d written for Work At Home Wisdom was published.
Secondly a promo I’d written was released.
Finally Jon Katz released a new book, an ebook original, available in both standard and enhanced (available 13th August) version. He talks about it in the video below.
The garden is looking pretty hard done by at the moment. Mostly the result of near relentless rain over the last six or more weeks. Plants are looking battered and flattened, so there are only a few that are flowering sufficiently well to share.
Anyway, first up; Hydrangea.
This bush was in the garden when we first moved in, and it sits against the wall to our neighbours property. If you didn’t know it was there it would be easy to miss, even when it’s in flower.
Followed by Pelargonium.
Add a Moon Daisy or two for good measure.
Plenty of Nasturtiums in flower now.
Fuchsias too…
And not forgetting of course, Roses:
Finally our black Hollyhock continues to flower. A few years ago we grew some from seed, and now they have self-seeded and peppered the garden with their vibrant dark blooms.
Here’s hoping that next month is a little drier and there is even more in bloom.
Synopsis:
A thrilling suspense novel about a man’s dark past, his daughter’s mysterious visions, and a psychopath who wants to kill them both.
After scattering her mother’s ashes in Vietnam, photojournalist Xandra Carrick moves home to New York to rebuild her life and career. When she experiences supernatural visions that reveal atrocities perpetrated by American soldiers during the Vietnam War, she finds herself entangled in a forty-year-old conspiracy that could bring the nation into political turmoil.
Launching headlong into a quest to learn the truth from her father, a Pulitzer Prize winner who served as an embedded photographer during the war, Xandra confronts him about a dark secret he has kept—one that has devastated their family.
About the author:
Winner of the 2011 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS, and Amazon.com #1 bestselling author Joshua Graham’s Barnes & Noble #1 bestselling novel BEYOND JUSTICE is taking the world by storm, one reader at a time. Many of his readers blame him for sleepless nights, arriving to work late, neglected dishes and family members, and not allowing them to put the book down.
BEYOND JUSTICE, THE ACCIDENTAL EXORCIST, THE ACCIDENTAL HERO, THE ACCIDENTAL HEALER, and DEATH AND TAXES, have reached the top of multiple bestseller list on Barnes & Noble topping titles by John Grisham, Linda Fairstein, Scott Turrow and James Lee Burke, Ted Dekker and Steven James. Soaring to the top of the Barnes & Noble lists, BEYOND JUSTICE recently hit #1 in the Legal Thriller and Christian Thriller categories, topping by John Grisham, Joel C. Rosenberg, and Michael Connelly. It has also remained on the Amazon.com top 100 bestselling Kindle bestseller list months after its release.
Suspense Magazine listed BEYOND JUSTICE in its BEST OF 2010, alongside titles by Scott Turrow, Ted Dekker, Steven James and Brad Thor.
His short story THE DOOR’S OPEN won the HarperCollins Authonomy Competition (Christmas 2010.)
Publishers Weekly described BEYOND JUSTICE as:
“…A riveting legal thriller…. breaking new ground with a vengeance… demonically entertaining and surprisingly inspiring.”
Pursued across the continent, Xandra comes face-to-face with powerful forces that will stop at nothing to prevent her from revealing the truth. But not before government agencies arrest her for murder, domestic terrorism, and an assassination attempt on the newly elected president of the United States.
Darkroom is a riveting tale of suspense that tears the covers off the human struggle for truth in a world imprisoned by lies.
My Review:
Darkroom stayed in my head for several days after I’d finished it, a good book is always one that stays with the reader after the last page. Darkroom spans time, with part of the book set during the Vietnam War and other parts in more modern times. It is able to render the historical parts into vivid life, so that you feel and smell what is going on. Some parts are a little unpalatable, but no less real in terms of recreating some of atrocities of the time.
The characters are well drawn, I struggled a little with the main character of Xandra, but I think that’s probably because she was so real, that we wouldn’t get on if we were to ever meet! The darkness of others, particularly Richard Colson, and in his case never really being able to work out until the final pages, whether he will change, was a real hook.
At one point I thought the ending was going to be very different, and I guess the book could easily have ended a number of ways. I wonder if the author considered different endings when he wrote the book, and why he opted for the one he did?
Overall, and having now read a number of Joshua Graham’s books, I wouldn’t describe them as a light read. They are intricate creations of both reality, with a little of spirituality and fiction thrown in for good measure. You can easily imagine the stories have reality within their pages.
My Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars; I really liked it.
Bloomday June 2012, a set on Flickr.
This is the second post of my experience at CrimeFest; Part I is here.
So Pitch-An-Agent was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to CrimeFest this year. The writer part of me, as opposed to the crime fiction reader getting the chance for ten minutes each with three literary agents to ‘pitch’ my book. Ahead of the meetings I was asked to submit a one thousand five hundred word synopsis, and the first three thousand words of the book I was pitching. In my case ‘Killer Bytes’.
The best way I can describe how I felt prior to going into the room was akin to waiting for a job interview. It’s been seven years since I last had a formal job interview, but you never forget those nerves. Once in the room though it was nothing like a job interview, in fact it was a very positive experience, with constructive feedback from all three agents. Questions about me, my book and my plans. I’d deliberately not gone into that room with any preconceptions, at least other than a healthy set of nerves! I wasn’t expecting to come out with promises of representation, I was hoping to come away inspired to write more. I got exactly that.
From the three interviews, I received honest and constructive feedback. Perhaps the harshest was that novellas are not commercially viable (unless you’re already a big name author or prepared to solely self-publish). Now Killer Bytes has been selling okay, but if I’m looking for a commercial publishing contract, Killer Bytes won’t be the book that does it, at least not in its current format. I received lots of other comments, tips and ideas, all of which I’m intending to take on board and act upon.
One of the agents would like to read the whole manuscript; another would like to read the whole thing, if I can bring it up to a full length novel; the final agent gave me some incredible feedback, but ‘Bytes’ just wasn’t her thing.
Now there was a lot of detail in what I was told, which I am not going to go into as it would take a lot of time, and would probably be pretty boring to anyone other than me. I have however reached a decision as to what I am going to do with Killer Bytes.
Simply put, I am going to stop my work on the sequel to Killer Bytes, and go back to my original manuscript. I’m going to see if I can bring it up to a full length novel, which will be about another fifty-thousand words. There are some ideas that I dropped from the original, plus some of the tips that I received at CrimeFest; it’s probably also going to need a sub-plot. I’m not sure where this will get to, I’ll see.
I’m also going to be withdrawing Killer Bytes from sale. At least until I see where I’ve gotten to with revisions and further development. If I can bring it up to full-length, I will give anyone who has already bought the novella a free copy of the full length version. It will also probably change titles; that was another piece of feedback.
I haven’t felt more inspired with Killer Bytes, than perhaps the day I originally clicked the publish button on-line in January, so I think this is the right thing to do. I’m sure not everyone will agree with me, but I have to give it a go. Wil Jackson and Detective Chief Inspector Gavin Price deserve it.
Yesterday I was in Bristol for CrimeFest 2012. I’ve wanted to attend CrimeFest for a few years but have never quite gotten around to it before. This year, I had the added incentive of pitching Killer Bytes to literary agents, as well as encouragement from several internet acquaintances, so I’d booked my tickets back in January, and the day had finally arrived.
I’ve decided to split this post into two, as what happened at Pitch-an-agent, has had quite a profound influence on what I’ve decided to do next with Killer Bytes, so I’ll cover that in a separate post, later. This post I’m going to try to cover the panels, social side of what happened and anything else I can think of.
My day started early, I’d only chosen to have a one-day pass; I couldn’t really stretch to the whole weekend, and the hotel accommodation. Next time, I might stay longer, but Bristol is a bit too far to multi-commute several times in a weekend, so staying over somewhere is going to be a must. Also given the number of books I bought in one-day, some serious luggage will be required if I attend the whole weekend! I decided to drive, to give myself more flexibility over travel arrangements, and I’m glad I did, but the difference in cost and time between driving and the train was marginal.
With the panels starting at nine, and a two hour drive to get there, I made it just in time, sneaking in the back of the first panel of the day – idiosyncratic protagonists. A very entertaining panel with the likes of authors Declan Burke, Alex Walters, Anne Zouroudi, Martin Walker and Michael Stanley. As a result of listening to these authors speak this led to my first purchases of the day!
Next up was a feature interview with Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series. By now I needed a caffeine fix too, having missed out on my usual dose with the early start. Fortunately there was a small coffee bar outside the next location, so I joined the queue. Much to my surprise so did the special guest for the next event, who was gracious in letting me buy him a coffee too (he later signed one of my books accordingly – see below). Anyway we both went into the auditorium, he took his place on the dais and me in the audience, of course.
Now for those who don’t know anything about Lee Child and Jack Reacher, I need to explain a little before I say what happened next. As a character, Jack Reacher is a larger than life hero, he has a tremendous following, and he is described in the books as a very large man, both in height and build; physically strong, fast, sharp of mind, and with a strong moral compass. The first movie of the series has been made and should be released in the near future. In the lead role is Tom Cruise, who shall we say is not known for his height. This has caused quite a furore amongst the Reacher fans, there’s even a Facebook page, “Tom Cruise is not Jack Reacher“.
Not surprisingly then the first question Lee Child was asked; “Tom Cruise?”
Personally I’m prepared to give Cruise the benefit of the doubt, the height thing is not there, but I think he can carry it off in all the other aspects. Lee Child’s own comment was that:
“For the First five minutes of the movie you’re gonna think ‘What the f***’, and then you’ll forget about it.”
So we’ll see.
Lee Child has a cameo in the film, he said where, but I think I’m going to keep that to myself, so if you’re already a fan, you’ll have to watch the film.
I queued to get a book signed by Lee Child, so I missed most of the next panel. He’s a popular guy, but takes time with everyone, which is fantastic.
Next was P D James. She’s in her nineties, still writing, still doing panels. Amazing doesn’t even begin to describe it, and the queue to get her to sign books was phenomenal, and she signed every one. I’m not a huge P D James fan myself, but she is inspiring in what she has done with her career.
Pitch-an-agent was next for me, but as I’ve said, I will post separately about that. After my slot, I had enough time to catch Sue Grafton being interviewed. Again another inspiration. Currently at the letter V in her alphabet series.
The penultimate panel was with authors Paul Doherty and Philip Kerr, and amazing insight into what you can draw from historical archives and facts and turn into a fictional narrative. Fascinating stuff, and I only wish I’d taken more notes, but I was listening so closely I managed to take hardly any.
The last panel of the day, and the keynote for Saturday was the launch of the novel of The Killing. The extremely popular television series, has been turned into a novel by author David Hewson, and the official launch was a CrimeFest. Now I ‘know’ David from twitter, and his blog, so I was really looking forward to this. Surprise guest was Soren Sveistrup who wrote the original tv series, and was there to be interviewed and take questions from the audience. I have to say that while I was waiting outside and talking to fellow delegates, there seemed to be an apprehension about the novel, everyone loved the tv series, but they weren’t quite sure about the book. From what I’ve read of it so far, I don’t think they’ll be disappointed, but as a fan of David Hewson’s other books I have to say, that this is completely different in approach and style.
This was the last panel of the day, but my day in Bristol ended with a drink on the hotel terrace with David Hewson, who was very generous with his time (thank you David), and our topics ranged from writing (quite rightly) to gardening. I also had the pleasure to meet other authors in person, including Steve Mosby, and the actor, and narrator of audio books Saul Reichlin.
I had an amazing, and very full day. I will definitely be going back to CrimeFest another year, and who knows what will happen. My post for pitch-an-agent will follow soon.
Many people will be familiar with the woolly jumpers of The Killing’s Sarah Lund, and this week sees the release of the book version of the first season of the TV programme.
My copy is on the way from an amazon depot somewhere in theUK, and therefore I have yet to read how bestselling author David Hewson, has transferred many hours of TV into the book. One thing I do know however is that it is by no means a straightforward transfer, and the reader can expect a few interesting differences to the TV series.
Second up is another “adaptation” from David Hewson. This time it’s an adaptation of an audiobook.
The audiobook of Macbeth written by David Hewson and A J Hartley and narrated by Alan Cumming was released in June last year, and is a complete recreation of the original Shakespeare tale. Here’s what I said about the audiobook:
This retelling of the tale by David Hewson and A J Hartley is just simply amazing. Bringing a new depth to the story, this is no repeating the original Shakespeare but an inspired reworking, incredibly bought to life by the vocal talents of Alan Cumming.
Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, King Duncan and The Witches are all brought vividly to life.
The writing is amazing and the narration is one of the best that I have heard on audible.
If you think Shakespeare is too stuffy or full of flowery words then this interpretation will give you a new appreciation of classic literature bought up to date by modern audiobooks.
Now this audiobook comes to you as a novel. Confused? Well ultimately this is the book of the audio, which is not Shakespeare.
Finally there is Kim Stanley Robinson’s, 2312.
Now I have to admit here, that I know virtually nothing about this at all, other than it has been written by one of my all time favourite authors, and I preordered it months ago. Here’s some of the publicity:
The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity’s only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present and its future.
The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen. For Swan Er Hong, it is an event that will change her life. Swan was once a woman who designed worlds. Now she will be led into a plot to destroy them.
All will arrive this week, my biggest problem; which one to read first!
Electronic Scrapbook 