Deceiver by Kelli Owen is a suspense thriller from DarkFuse. While this publisher is known for horror, Deceiver does not quite fit that bill. Nonetheless, it is a dark read with a nifty twist that many people will see coming – but is fun just the same.

I will not recap the plot since many others have already done that and in a considerably better manner than I would accomplish. Suffice to say that Kelli Owen has penned a gripping and emotional read about a young man dealing with his wife’s murder. Matt’s grieving is believably portrayed and you feel every ounce of his despair. As he discovers secrets about his wife, you agonize right along with him.

There are a couple of plot lines which stretched my ability to suspend disbelief. The biggest involves incompetent police work that the author did not intend to portray as such (and unfortunately is very important to the plot), and some occasional over-the-top behavior of the main character. Otherwise, this is a short, dark read that will hold your attention. 

Savage is the latest work of speculative fiction author Gary Fry. The story involves a young academic whose specialty is cognitive psychology. Daryl is driving home from a professional conference when his car runs out of fuel. He had taken an alternative route to avoid a major traffic jam which means he runs out of gas on a rural road well off the beaten path with no cell phone service. After leaving his car to search for help, he spots a small village in the distance and heads in that direction. He discovers that all is not right in this town. What he had hoped would save him turns into a living nightmare.

I enjoy the work of Gary Fry, and while this is not one his best (those honors in my opinion go to Lurker and Menace), Savage casts an eerie spell. The developing story is unusual, and I was driven by a constant sense of “what the heck is going on here”. Just when I thought I had a sense of the plot, the author pulled the rug out from under me.

This is not a dialog-rich novella. The third person point of view is from Daryl, and he thinks and makes observations like a smug university faculty. There are themes of social conformity, rigidity, human flexibility, and openness to new experiences. You don’t have to access these underlying messages to enjoy the plot, although I found them clever additions. I noticed some reviewers did not like the “heady” narrative, but to me this made perfect sense given the character. Similarly, the narrative is ambiguous relative to the explanation of events. Fry leaves you suspended in a world of uncertainty. Again, fine with me because the story stayed with me as I wrestled with the outcome. 

Dark Father by James Cooper is a suspense thriller from DarkFuse, so it represents a bit of a departure from the standard horror fare. The novel’s structure involves three parallel story lines which alternate across chapters. All have a similar theme; namely, individuals trying to deal with brutal events that occur within abusive families. To provide more detail about the narrative would spoil (to some degree) the dramatic plot that propels the reader along a breakneck pace. The unfolding story lines are spellbinding, and the dilemmas faced by the characters are ghastly. The writing is strong, and the characterizations are nicely portrayed. There is a bit of a downside to the work, however. In order to make the parallel lines intersect into a coherent whole at the end, the author is forced to rely on some farfetched contrivances. I thought these strained credibility and found myself muttering, “Oh, come on…” on more than a few occasions. A character suffers an extreme injury and is still able to keep going beyond human limits, characters disappear, and some characters experience trauma that causes them to descend into psychoses (this does not happen). If you are able to overlook these unbelievable set ups, this is a riveting story. I still give it a 3.5 (rounded to 4.0) for being a gripping, entertaining read.

No one seems to have the answer when it comes to book promotion when you are a small press author or a self-published author. Some people do okay, and I wish I knew their secret – at least they seem to be doing okay when I see their sales rank relative to mine on Amazon.

When you come right down to it, a frequent presence on social media is probably the most effective way to promote your work. The only problem is that countless other authors are doing the exact same thing. How many are there? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? I have no idea. But, I will believe whatever large number that anyone throws out.

As many authors know, social media promotion efforts are exhausting and they have a rather small payoff. In my case, I sell a handful of books (150ish) when they’re released and then my ranking goes into freefall on Amazon. I tried one of those twitter services where they blast the world with tweets about your book for $59 or $199 or whatever package you buy. The result: Nothing at all. No impact. Finally, I read a blog where the writer advised not to waste your money on these things. Many tweets land in fake accounts or the accounts of other authors who are trying to sell - not buy - a book. The blogger made a good point when she said, “If you think about it, do you pay attention to these kinds of tweets?” The answer, of course, is “no”. Well, neither does anyone else.

I signed up for another service where you tweet about the works of other authors. In response, you earn points for your efforts. The more you tweet (or advertise) someone else’s work, the higher your own book climbs the site’s ranking – where it is more easily seen by other members who are doing the same thing as you. These other authors are more likely to see the higher ranked items and therefore are more likely to tweet those books in their attempts to earn points. Not a bad idea, really. I felt awkward, however, tweeting about how great another book was when I didn’t even read it. You’re just going through the motions to get a number of tweets out each day to improve your score. In the meantime, you are inundating your twitter follows with tweets about recommended books that you haven’t read and aren’t likely to read. It felt disingenuous. Why mislead your own followers? So, I ended up canceling my membership to that service.

I mentioned before in this blog that I do enjoy, and endorse, Bublish. I’ve had mixed results in terms of sales, but I enjoy my participation. I am able to take excerpts of my books and highlight them in a book bubble. At the same time, I give insights behind that section of the book. It’s a fun activity and the data indicate people do check the site.

I’ve reached a conclusion that the only way become “known” is to build a community. Your social media endeavors should focus on developing a following - one person at a time. You can’t advertise your books constantly. Who wants to follow that? But you offer something to your followers. For instance, in my blog, I review other horror novels of my choosing. I have met some great authors this way. I tweet issues related to science, psychology, and horror (a strange mix, I know). From what I can tell, others seem to enjoy the tweets and reviews. So, you accumulate followers. Ninety-five percent of the time, your followers won’t be purchasing a book. But every now and again, someone does. And then, by God, the labor is worth it.