People love to write about zombies. Why? People love to read about zombies.  Basically, people love zombies. The problem is most zombie fiction is very similar to a zombie – rambling about with no clear direction, cause or goal.  This creates another problem.  With so much really bad zombie fiction lurking about, the really good zombie fiction tends to get lost in the horde. Enter The Last Bastion of the Living: A Futuristic Zombie Novel by Rhiannon Frater.  (For the rest of this post I’m going to call the book The Last Bastion.) I stumbled[..]

So you have to love the folks over at Novel Publicity.  They always have something going on.  They also have an incredible knack for finding great new books and authors.  To usher in 2013 they have a wonderful opportunity to not only learn about a new author and books, but to also interact with (other) bloggers, have a chance to win some great prizes and to lrean a bit more about the great folks at Novel Publicity.  So take moment and read all about their latest in the guest post below.  That and have an[..]

Soon after I started reading Bluff by Lenore Skomal someone noticed the book and asked the question, “What kind of bluff – cliff or deception?” Having read all of 10 pages I looked at my inquisitor and answered with a framed air of authority. “Cliff,” I said as turned my attention back to the book. Now I find myself convoluted. It seems that the book is really about both kinds of a bluff. Bluff is about the cliff variety of the moniker, but in ever the most delicately pervasive fashion it is also deception and[..]

All too often people forget the makings of a great story is not how grandiose the plot may be or the size of the stage upon which the novel is set, rather it's the characters and, in reality, how important their story is to them.              I recall a book about a man trying to get home.  That was the essence of the entire story; well except for the fact he was walking home.  Since I read this book I've told many a fellow reader about this literary gem and, purposefully, given them this sparse[..]

It’s been a crazy, exciting, depressing, exhilarating and trying year.   So far anyway, but normalcy seems to have returned and with it a hope to return to regular posting once again.  To start off my return to the blogosphere, I thought I’d post a few thoughts on writing in general. For me, the problem with being a full time writer and a part time anything else is that if the part time anything else is paying the bills the full time writing may end up being conceptual rather than actual.             I’ve been dealing with[..]

So in 2011 I published my first novel, a thriller set primarily in Charleston, South Carolina.  It's called The Trust.   In addition to writing novels, from time to time I review them.  I don't have any set formula as to what books I review - if one interests me, I'll review it.In July of this year I learned a thriller entitled The Trust, set primarily in Charleston, South Carolina, was to be published.  I was quite intrigued.  So I ordered a copy and after reading it I decided to review it because outside of reviewing[..]