26 April 2011

THIN BLOOD released as an audio book

I’m delighted to announce that Thin Blood has just been released in audio.



Narrated by Basil Sands

Running time: 7 hours, 38 minutes | Unabridged

Produced by Perfect Voices

$34.95 $12.99 (save 63%)

Listen to SAMPLE/purchase at





Craig Edmonds, a successful stockbroker, reports the disappearance of his wife, Kirsty. What starts as a typical missing person’s case soon evolves into a full-blown homicide investigation when forensics uncover blood traces and dark-blonde hairs in the boot of the missing woman’s car. Added to this, is Craig’s adulterous affair with the victim’s younger sister, Narelle Croswell, compounded further by a recently acquired $1,000,000 insurance policy on his wife’s life. He is charged with murder but, with no body and only circumstantial evidence, he walks free when two trials resulting in hung juries fail to convict him.

Ten years later, Jacinta Deller, a newspaper journalist is retrenched. Working on a freelance story about missing persons, she comes across the all but forgotten Edmonds case. When she discovers her boyfriend, Brett Rhodes, works with Narelle Croswell, who is not only the victim’s sister but is now married to the prime suspect, her sister’s husband, she thinks she has found the perfect angle for her article. Instead, her life is turned upside down, as befriending the woman, she becomes embroiled in a warped game of delusion and murder.

12 April 2011

RE-RELEASED: Tracking Perception by Cherri Galbiati

An entertaining and engaging mystery, and one I'd recommend to all mystery fans, but especially those who are dog-lovers. Dogs play an integral part in the story and it is obvious that Galbiati writes from experience. (Tracking Perception was originally published by L & L Dreamspell as The Scent of Money.)

A bloody murder at the Piper Mansion. The only witness, Tasha – a German shepherd dog…

There’s been a murder in Spike, a small Texas town. The bank president and his wife were found in their home with slashed throats. The discovery occurred when four church ladies came to visit for the monthly financials. After stumbling onto the gruesome scene they decided to clean things up before calling the police, to spare the town from seeing the atrocity.

When Becky McAllen, who happens to be married to the chief of police, becomes Tasha’s caretaker, she becomes the killer’s next target… a murderer who’s after much more than blood.

“This is an intriguing mystery, filled with twists and turns that will keep the reader guessing throughout. Galbiati’s small-town descriptive draws the reader into the story with a sense of actually being there. Becca has a feisty nature and is a delightful character, a woman who has no problem standing up for herself and who loves her husband very much. The relationship between Matt and Becca is at the center of the story and offers a sweet touch against the dark premise of murder. Tasha, the German shepherd, is an added bonus among a cast of lovable characters. The Scent of Money easily meets the criteria for a guaranteed good read: engaging characters, realistic dialogue, a galvanizing plot, and action-packed suspense.” – Midwest Book Review

READ AN EXTRACT:


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Cherri Galbiati grew up on the outskirts of a small town in rural Louisiana, but moved to Houston, Texas while still in grade school. By the seventh grade Cherri knew she wanted to be a writer. She attended college at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. After that she traveled throughout Scotland, London, Germany and France before returning to make Houston her home.

Her interests include reading, writing, knitting and crocheting. and she's also a coffee connoisseur. She enjoys her coffee. Really loves her coffee.

CANINE FAMILY - Animals are a huge part in Cherri and her husband's lives, as several German shepherds and a Great Pyrenees reside with them in their home. Two of her German shepherds were active Search and Rescue dogs. One is a retired canine police officer. These animals served their communities well and are retired from duty. Her dogs have inspired her series of books. Visit her at: cherrigalbiati.com

AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON

08 April 2011

NEW: Annalisa's Highway Blues by David Reichart

David Reichart spent eight years writing for newspapers, and another five as a freelance copywriter, but it was his work as an over-the-road truck driver that provided the inspiration for his debut novel, a romance with an anything but stereotypical heroine.



A family crisis forces Annalisa Rochon, a beautiful but inexperienced small-town girl, into the male-dominated world of long-haul trucking, where she finds danger, loneliness, hard work and something unexpected out on the road--the kind of romance she had always dreamed of.

Ex-Marine Mike Cindik, son of a wealthy industrialist, has a contentious meeting with Annalisa while she's delivering a load to one of his father's warehouses and, in the aftermath, becomes completely captivated by this exotic, strange-talking, truck-driving Louisiana girl…




READ EXCERPT:


FROM THE AUTHOR:
I thought about using a pen name for this novel, which I consider a romantic comedy, because a man’s name attached to a romance might have a negative effect. No doubt it would have been a disadvantage if I had gone through the traditional route, trying to interest agents and publishers. But I’m jumping into independent publishing with both feet so I decided to just enjoy being in control. What the heck?

I’m trying to build an audience for future books, so I guess it makes sense to use my own name. Subsequent works won’t be romance novels, necessarily, though romantic encounters are fun to write and will no doubt be a big part of the stories.

People who love romance novels have certain expectations, and they might not find all of them met in Annalisa’s Highway Blues, but I think they–as well as a general audience--will enjoy pulling for my heroine, Annalisa Rochon. It’s a story of two people from vastly different worlds who are actually quite right for each other, finally realize it, and then have to overcome difficult obstacles to eventually get together.

I was an over-the-road truck driver for two years, so this is painstakingly researched. Annalisa’s Highway Blues is the story that kept rolling around in my mind as I was driving around the country. I had to get it out of my system, and I finally did, thanks to Smashwords and Amazon.
It’s an exciting time for people who have stories to tell.

AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON

07 April 2011

Books for your Kindle for US$5 or less

Looking for great reads at bargain prices? Check out DailyCheapReads.

With 750,000+ ebooks now available at Amazon to say readers are spoilt for choice would be an understatement. But with such a huge selection, where do you start? DailyCheapReads search the Kindle Store to find the bargains so Kindlers have more time to read. Each day, they list cheap reads, with a guarantee no book will ever be priced over US$5. And at least once a day, they post a SuperCheap (less than US$2) and/or Free read.

DailyCheapReads have three sites:

05 April 2011

Characterisation and Reader Emotional Involvement

Check out and join Richard Adin's American Editor discussion: Characterization: How Important is Reader Emotional Involvement?

It struck me the other night while I was watching TV that in series like Spooks and NCIS, I remember (and love) the characters, but not the stories. In movies, it’s the storyline that stays with me, never the character. The difference between plot-driven and character-driven perhaps? I’d be really interested to hear others thoughts on this subject.

Does anyone have any recommendations for standalone (versus series) mysteries where the characters get inside the reader's head and stay there long after the book is finished?

01 April 2011

An American Editor on Books Down Under

Review republished courtesy of An American Editor:

ON BOOKS: MURDER DOWN UNDER

My reading habits seem to me to be odd. Why odd? Because I read genres in spurts. The spurts may be months or years, but I haven’t read a genre continuously throughout my reading life.

What I mean is this: Many years ago, the only fiction I read were mysteries written by authors like Ed McBain, Dashiell Hammett, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Martha Grimes, P.D. James, Mickey Spillane, and Arthur Conan Doyle. I read those books for years, then one day I stopped and moved to another genre and didn’t pick up another mystery – that is, until recently.

Several months ago I bought the ebook of Vicki Tyley’s Thin Blood at Smashwords. The synopsis looked interesting, and several people on another forum remarked positively on the ebook. I thought I couldn’t go wrong at the price. Even if I didn’t like the book, it wasn’t much of an investment.

Thin Blood, which is the story of a reporter’s investigation of a decade old murder, reignited my interest in the mystery genre. Thin Blood is a compelling story with a twist, and Tyley keeps the reader’s interest with her articulate prose. The writing style reminded me very much of the Ed McBain/Dashiell Hammett style — sentences that have been stripped down to the barebones.

After reading Thin Blood, I had to read the other mysteries written by Tyley, Sleight Malice and Brittle Shadows. In Sleight Malice, the lead character is devastated by what she thinks is the death in a house fire of her best friend. Then she learns that the body found in the fire is male, not female, and she teams up with a private investigator to discover the truth.

In Brittle Shadows, the body of our heroine’s sister’s fiance is found hanging in his closet, presumably death by accident. Two months later, the heroine’s sister commits suicide, an act that our heroine cannot accept, especially when she learns that at the time of her death, the sister was 6 weeks pregnant.

Each of the three books is different, yet all are united by a single characteristic: strong, female leads. Tyley’s characterizations allow the reader to grasp the mental framework of the lead females. The writing is taut, direct, and without waste. Throughout the three books, there were only a couple minor grammar errors, at least from an American perspective. I admit that I am not familiar with Australian style.

What I find particularly interesting is that even with the very high quality of the writing, Vicki Tyley, as is the case with the exceptionally talented New Zealand writer, Shayne Parkinson (see On Books: The Promises to Keep Quartet), remains unsigned by the major traditional publishing houses. Makes me wonder if there is a Down Under bias.

There is no question in my mind that Vicki Tyley is the Australian P.D. James — a can’t miss read. The writing is outstanding, the stories creative. The one failing is that her female leads are frenetic. Interestingly, although the female leads are as strong a character as any of the males in the story, and often even stronger, they do not comport themselves as well as their male counterparts in stress situations, leaving the impression that they are weaker than their male counterparts. It is almost as if Tyley is suggesting that no matter how strong a woman is, she is still emotionally ruled whereas men are both strong and emotionless, or at least better capable of contolling their emotions and thus more objective under stress.

The significant difference between the Parkinson books and the Tyley books is how the lead female characters – Amy Leith, in the Parkinson books, and Jemma Dalton (Brittle Shadows), Desley James (Sleight Malice), and Jacinta Deller (Thin Blood) — emotionally involve the reader in their story and plight: In the case of Amy Leith, I was greatly engaged, whereas the Tyley characters didn’t rise to that level of reader involvement. My emotional involvement was minimal at best.

That, however, is no reason to not buy, read, and enjoy these books and to anxiously await the next Tyley Down Under murder mystery. On a 5-star rating scale, I would rate each of Tyley’s 3 books as 5 stars. In comparison, for those of you who took my advice and read Parkinson’s Promises to Keep quartet, the quartet’s rating would be 5 stars plus a smidgen more, the difference being the emotional involvement of the reader with the characters.

As I wrote earlier, Vicki Tyley is the Australian P.D. James — a can’t miss read. Her mysteries definitely are in the same class as McBain, Grimes, and James, and like Grimes and James, have that little bit of reserve that distinguishes the English-style mystery from the American-style mystery. And at $2.99 an ebook, the value is greater than that of the better-known but not more capable English-style mystery writers. I highly recommend Tyley’s three ebooks to mystery fans.