​Flesh and Coin by Craig Saunders is about a hospice where the dying are being haunted and, in some cases, killed by something called the Shadowman. The main characters include two nurses (one kind and caring, the other sadistic and insensitive), a patient near death who is trying to make sense of the goings-on while barely surviving in a morphine daze, the hospice director, and a police detective. The characters are well-developed for such a short novella and the atmosphere is alive in detail. You experience the sights and smells of elderly patients in their last days. There are a number of interrelated subplots including the origins of the ghostly Shadowman, a patient’s violent and criminal past, an illicit affair between a nasty nurse and the hospice director, and a curse administered by an ancient gypsy woman. The latter was an enjoyable character and her appearance really pushed the story along. While the disparate subplots don’t quite hold together in a seamless narrative, the story was creepy and the plot clever enough to maintain interest – and the pages flowed. 

Well, at the beginning of my Kindle Scout Campaign for The Disembodied, I swore up and down that I would not be checking to see whether I was “hot and trending” or the number of page views per day I had. That plan lasted about 24 hours. Then I started checking daily, then multiple times a day. For the first nine days, I was in “hot and trending” a good chunk of the time. Then day 10 hit. I haven’t been in “hot and trending” since. I’ve been promoting with all kinds of social media. Begging family, friends, colleagues and even students. I have managed some pretty decent page views, but nothing “hot”.
Oh, well.
At the time of this writing, there are 7 days left. We’ll see what happens. I have no clue how this will turn out. Since my campaign started, I have only seen one book selected for publication.
So the odds are against me. In the meantime, I will continue with my social media blitz. If you want to help, here’s the link… all you have to do is hit “nominate me”.

​The Disembodied Kindle Scout page

​Don’t you hate it when the previous owners of your new house trashed the place moving out before you moved in? That’s what happens to Jim Greenwood who moves into a small house on an island off the Scottish coast. The house, centuries old, begins showing signs of mysterious soot marks, as if unseeing visitors wander the interior leaving grimy streaks like young children who haven’t washed their hands after playing outside. When the soot marks start taking the shape of stick figures, often with missing appendages and heads, Jim starts feeling a tad anxious. The islands inhabitants won’t talk about the history of the place in any detail, but do let slip a few hints of something supernatural going on.
William Meikle is a prolific writer who manages to turn out original pieces of fiction that never seem stale or overused.  Tormentor would fall under the category of a haunted house story, but there is no rehashing of old plot lines. His writing always feels unique (at least to me), and Tormentor is filled with creepy images and foreboding events that are cleverly concocted. One minor exception is the supernatural entity’s use of email which stretched the bounds of believability. But, hey, this is a ghost story after all, so I could let this silliness go by without complaint. The Tormentor was a great read, both original and spooky, much of what you’d expect from Mr. Meikle. 4.5 stars.

I just read in Slate that The Shining is now an opera. Is nothing sacred any more?
Actually, the article makes the production sound quite fascinating. Hmmm.
I'd almost be tempted to see it...
It has the creepy little girls and the dead lady in the tub. Check out the pictures in the article.

Well, so much for my intentions not to check on the status of my Kindle Scout campaign for The Disembodied. Full disclosure: I have been checking daily.
And, I mean daily.
The first two days I was listed as “new”. Then, I spent portions of the next six days in “Hot and Trending”. The total number of hours (in H and T) was 88. Not huge, as many authors spend all the time – that is, 24 hours – from the get-go. Sadly, interest in The Disembodied has waned over the last two days as I am no longer in H & T. Sigh. I’m still plugging away, though, with social media. Maybe something will happen.
Overzealous as I tend to be, I misread the instructions for the Kindle Scout campaign. They, the Kindle Scout people, mention to have to have your book professionally edited. I did that—actually I had two different editors—but I thought that meant getting your book formatted in mobi format to upload to the Kindle Scout site.
Nope. It turns out that Kindle wanted a Word version uploaded. I, however, pushed ahead with the whole shebang. Since I wanted a print version as well, the editor prepped the book into pdf format. Then, we started with preparing the book for conversion to Kindle format—the mobi format.
It was at this stage that my editor noticed that Kindle requires you to upload the Word version for the campaign. However, I no longer had that since the manuscript, with all accompanied editorial changes, was now a pdf file.
The folks from The Editorial Department who were doing the line editing tried two different programs to convert pdf files back into Word. There were numerous conversion errors with both, but I took the one with the fewer errors. That didn’t mean, however, that there were only a few conversion errors. For instance, one annoying conversion error was the joining of two lines of dialogue (from two different characters) into one line. So, lines like the following:

“Do you think it’ll snow?”
“Sure feels like it,” Shelley said.

Turned into:                                
“Do you think it’ll snow?” “Sure feels like it,” Shelley said.
​
You’d be surprised how often that happened. Or, maybe you wouldn’t. Anyway, I was able to save the converted Word version as a second Word version—and for some reason that was easier to revise for the Kindle Scout upload.
Lo and behold, though, after I uploaded the book, it turns out I missed some additional conversion errors… right in the first 5000 words that everyone sees. Amazingly, the Kindle people were really helpful. They went into the document and made the changes.
Now, though, I’ve been finding some more…

​James is kind of a loser. He’s a college dropout, works a dead-end menial job, and more or less spends free time getting drunk or high. Things begin to take on a sinister feel when he notices a young woman at a bus stop while driving home after work. His brief glimpse suggests she is behaving strangely and the image of her behavior is unsettling. He hasn’t seen anything yet, though, until he and his roommate come home one evening and find the young woman sitting silently in their living room. Upon their arrival, she gets up and goes into James’ room. Much to the young men’s dismay, the woman dies shortly afterwards. Things then get even crazier with mysterious objects and writings appearing on the street, James’ girlfriend vanishing during the week only to reappear on weekends, pieces of a dog showing up in a garden, and crowds were disappearing from public areas. None of these odd events are helped by James’ regular indulgence of narcotics. Soon the entire episode takes on the trappings of a drug-fueled hallucination. But is it all a hallucination? Is something supernatural occurring or are the events the disturbed ramblings of a drug dependent individual.
The Hallow by Keith Deininger is a short novella with a riveting story line. There are no neat conclusions, and the reader is left with trying to make sense of the plot and the outcome. There are multiple interpretations and I spent a fair amount of time over the next few days trying to tie things up depending on the theory I was entertaining. I enjoyed this process, for it kept the book alive. For those of you who cannot stand ambiguity in your books, this may not be the best selection for you. However, if a complex—and unnerving—plot is your thing, then The Hallow is a good bet.

I struggled with exactly what to do with The Disembodied. When I finished the novel last fall, I was torn among submitting it to the small press which published two of my earlier novels, self-publish it in order to learn the process, or submit it to a Kindle Scout campaign.
My previous publisher, Damnation Books, had just been bought out by Caliburn Press around the time when I finished The Disembodied. I have full confidence in Caliburn after reading about the new owner’s plans for the company. After all, they already had two of my novels and had acquired the rights to my third which had previously been accepted by Damnation Books. I recognized, though, that the new owner would have a lot of details to iron out - so I decided to consider other options for The Disembodied. That left self-publishing or Kindle Scout.
I quickly learned that I needed to hire an editor to work on The Disembodied whether I went the self-published route or with the Kindle Scout. So, after securing my editor and while the editor was working on The Disembodied, I explored Kindle Scout more thoroughly and decided what the heck. Let’s do it. What really intrigued me more than anything was having the Amazon marketing machine behind me if I was successful in being selected at the end of the 30 day campaign window. Self-promotion is a huge drag and I don’t think I do it well, so the idea of being promoted by Amazon was a convincing factor. More money would be nice, but really, who goes into this to make money? More readers was what I was looking for.
The editorial process has taken months, since I went with the whole shebang of story editing, copy editing, and line editing – not to mention proofreading. But Saturday, April 30th, 2016, the Kindle Scout Campaign went live. I have no clue how many people have been nominating it – after all, the campaign just started. I know I nominated myself (narcissism 101). So, at least there is one vote for me.
Authors can check their “progress” by examining  a page called “My Campaigns” on Amazon and see how often their pages have been examined and whether they are considered “hot and trending”. I have no idea what constitutes hot and trending, and I’m not even sure if Amazon tells you. My plan at this stage is to not log into my campaigns to see if I am “hot”. That will only drive me crazy. Instead, I will end up promoting the campaign through social media and try to avoid the temptation of looking. Of course, I say this now. There are 20 some-odd days to go.
I’ll be posting more thoughts on the Kindle Scout process and The Disembodied in the weeks to come.
Do you feel like nominating me? Here is the link: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/38077YOXC700J
​

​A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash is a compelling story about extreme religious fundamentalism and family secrets set in Appalachia in the 1980’s. Twelve year old Christopher (“Stump”) is mysteriously killed during a healing service at a fundamentalist church where snake handling and drinking poison are the norm. The story is told from the point of view of three characters: a woman in her 80’s, the sheriff in his 50’s who is investigating the death, and Stump’s 9-year-old brother Jess. The voices of the narrators are gripping as their experiences with the shady con-artist of a preacher are explored from different perspectives. Adelaide, the elderly woman who served as the town’s midwife and Sunday school teacher, sees the preacher for the sociopath that he truly is. The sheriff uncovers the preacher’s real past but he suffers from the impact of his own personal tragedy which colors his judgment. The boy, Jess, is a fabulous narrator. His level of development limits his understanding of the subtle adult actions, but this viewpoint makes the revelations all the more heartbreaking. Wiley Cash is a fine writer; he captures the cadence and the feeling of a rural North Carolina mountain community without resorting to stereotype. The setting is beautifully portrayed and the language at times is breathtaking. There are moments when his idyllic descriptions get away from him and he goes on for paragraphs about some mundane activity, but his love for his characters and setting is obvious. Portions of this story are disturbing and unnerving, and these do jolt the reader. The authenticity of emotion is nicely portrayed, though, and the narrative arc is extremely satisfying. I strongly recommend the book.

I struggled with exactly what to do with The Disembodied. When I finished the novel last fall, I was torn among submitting it to the small press which published two of my earlier novels, self-publish it in order to learn the process, or submit it to a Kindle Scout campaign.
My previous publisher, Damnation Books, was just bought out by Caliburn Press around the time when I finished The Disembodied. I have full confidence in Caliburn since they have two of my novels already and acquired the rights to my third which had also been accepted by Damnation Books. I figured the new owners had a lot of details to iron out and so I decided I didn’t want to wait for them to get their processes up and running. That left self-publishing or Kindle Scout.
I quickly learned that I needed to hire an editor to work on The Disembodied whether I went the self-published route or with the Kindle Scout. So, while my editor was working on The Disembodied I explored the Kindle Scout more thoroughly and decided what the heck. Let’s do it. What really intrigued me more than anything was having the Amazon marketing machine behind me if I was successful in being selected at the end of the 30 day campaign window. Self-promotion is a huge drag and I don’t think I do it well, so the idea of being promoted by Amazon was a convincing factor. More money would be nice, but really, who goes into this to make money? More readers is what I was looking for.
The editorial process took months, since I went with the whole shebang of story editing, copy editing, and line editing – not to mention proofreading. But today, April 30th, 2016, the Kindle Scout Campaign went live. I have no clue if people are nominating it – after all, it is just the first day. I know I did. So, at least there is one vote for me.
Authors can look at a page called “My Campaigns” on Amazon and see their page views and whether they’re considered “hot and trending”. I have no idea what constitutes hot and trending, and I’m not even sure if Amazon tells you. My plan at this stage is to not log into my campaigns to see if I am “hot”. That will only drive me crazy. Instead, I will end up promoting the campaign through social media and try to avoid the temptation of looking. Of course, I say this now.
I’ll be posting more thoughts on the Kindle Scout process and The Disembodied in the weeks to come.
Do you feel like nominating me? Here is the link: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/38077YOXC700J
​

​I have thoroughly enjoined some of David Mitchell’s previous work (e.g., Bone Clocks, Black Swan Green), so I couldn’t wait to start his latest, Slade House. In many ways, this is a spin-off of his highly successful and very unique Bone Clocks. The latter kind of jolted the literary upper crust when Mitchell embarked on a journey with extensive fantasy, horror, and supernatural themes. This was fine with me—which is why I loved Bone Clocks—but for those expecting a literary effort akin to Cloud Atlas, well, let’s just say they didn’t know what to make of it.
Mitchell’s Slade is about a haunted house that mysteriously “appears” within a labyrinth of back alleys once every nine years. The inhabitants, fraternal twins Norah and Jonah Grayer, are soul “vampires” who must partake in the digestion of souls from unwitting victims in order to maintain their immortality – and the feasting must occur on a nine-year basis. Five different accounts spanning five decades comprise Slade House, with the last in 2015. The tales, while interrelated for the plot line, are strikingly different in terms of content. The targets of the haunted house include a young teenager, a detective, a college student and her older sister, and a psychiatrist. The forays of these characters into the house are riveting, and I found the narratives deliciously spooky. The stories are beautifully told in chilling detail. The impact is frequently creepy and often startling.