Showing posts with label World Castle Publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World Castle Publishing. Show all posts

Saturday, December 4, 2021

How Books Are Made: With Patience...

Here's a story I ran across in the Saint Peter's school newspaper about my book signing event when FATAL POSE came out. It slipped my mind when the story ran and I wanted to share it here for an amusing example of how long certain books can gestate before finally finding publication. 

As I discuss in the article, FATAL POSE had originally started rattling around in my head way back...in college. So, that actually would be in the, well, let's say early 1990s. No, age is not making it slip my mind! But the point is that when you realize that the kernel of a good idea for a story exists, don't worry about needing to work with it, reshaping it, putting aside and coming back to it, or just taking it completely apart and rewriting it from word number one.

As I discuss in the article, I actually do outline all that I write very carefully and always know exactly where a story is supposed to end up. Except when the story is finished, I might realize that something - or a number of things - might still not work. Such was the case with FATAL POSE.

After a lot of life getting in the way, other books getting published, agents and editors coming and going, many of them passing on the book, FATAL POSE finally found life at World Castle Publishing.

So hang in there and keep punching away at that keyboard.


Saturday, May 8, 2021

MUSCLES! MAYHEM! MURDER! And the FATAL POSE plot reveal!

 


September 14 is the date! My new novel, the murder mystery FATAL POSE is dropping from World Castle Publishing and Gunnar Marino and Erika Lindstad are investigating the deadly side of professional bodybuilding! And check out this sneak peek at the plot...


Venice, California: Where you’ll find the hottest beaches, hottest gyms, and hottest bodies. This is where ex-bodybuilder turned private investigator, Gunnar Marino, runs his business.

The World BodyBuilding Federation: The most successful health and fitness empire in the world. But WBBF President of Operations, Laura Preston, suddenly finds herself in the middle of a blackmail scheme, with bodybuilder Brad Holt threatening to expose a shattering secret from her past.

Where two adversaries meet: After Holt dies at a contest from what appears to be a dangerously unhealthy dieting regimen, Marino is hired to look into whether or not his demise might have been the perfect act of murder. But the deeper Marino digs into the case—pressed by a personal obligation to Holt's sister—the more unsettled he is by Holt’s background, questioning the morality of seeking justice for a corrupt murder victim and pursuing a prime suspect who might have been a victim herself.

A showdown no one might walk away from:  Finding himself in an escalating battle of wills and wits with Laura Preston, Marino is aided by a group of athletes he employs as an investigative staff, and Dr. Erika Lindstad, his former lover and ex-bodybuilder in her own right. But the more troubled Marino gets by the case, he realizes that he has no choice but to see the investigation to its conclusion...because suddenly he and everyone he cares for are targeted for death.

Saturday, October 10, 2020

My New Novel in 2021: FATAL POSE



Well, since I don't like to stop while I'm ahead, in the midst of all the preparations for the "From 9/11 to Covid-19" conference, I'd still like to make a new book announcement. My publisher, World Castle Publishing, will be releasing my third novel, FATAL POSE, in 2021. I'm excited to have gotten the chance to work in a new genre, too: the mystery. So here's a sneak peak at the plot:


Imagine "Pumping Iron meets Columbo." In Venice, California, you'll find the hottest beaches, the hottest gyms, and the hottest bodies. This is where ex-bodybuilder turned private investigator, Gunnar Marino, runs his business. But when a murder and blackmail scheme reaches to the top of the high-powered World BodyBuilding Federation, Marino finds himself in a battle of wits with a clever adversary that could end in mayhem no one might be able to contain.

 

But while you wait for FATAL POSE, I hope you'll give my newest book, THE CEDAR VALLEY COVENANT, a read!

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

9/28/20 - Learn the Secret of the Covenant!


The release date has been set! On September 28, my new novel, "The Cedar Valley Covenant" will be released by World Castle Publishing. In the meantime, however, take an exclusive look at the book's jacket copy!

A TOWN OF BRILLIANT MINDS…

Jessica Lafayette, best-selling relationship author and soon-to-be radio personality, had a near-perfect life. But she dreamed of reconnecting with her estranged father. Then an accident along a dark stretch of highway shattered everything. Instead of making peace, Jessica comes to attend a funeral in the idyllic Southern Illinois college-town of Cedar Valley.

A PACT WITH A MIND-BENDING EVIL…

After claiming her father’s ashes from the local funeral home, Jessica begins to suspect the unthinkable. The urn she had been given does not contain ashes, and the remains of the dead might be used in the savage rites of an otherworldly power that has taken control of the town.

Pursued by a murderer in thrall to the evil controlling the town, Jessica finds herself involved with an esteemed scientist and shadowed by an enigmatic outsider, all the while struggling to understand the corruption haunting this town. From eminent thinkers to a rising political power broker, Cedar Valley’s best and brightest should have the resources to fight back. Except somehow, some of them have chosen to collude with an Apocalyptic force that will soon alter the course of all life on Earth. 

With no way out, Jessica must fight back and uncover the devastating secret of…The Cedar Valley Covenant.

Sunday, March 8, 2020

Cover reveal!



So check out the cover for my forthcoming science-fiction/thriller, THE CEDAR VALLEY COVENANT, coming later this year from World Castle Publishing!

The exact release date, plot details, and all kinds of other goodies will be posted very soon. I just need to keep the suspense alive. So keep an eye on this blog and more about the shattering secret of THE CEDAR VALLEY COVENANT!

Friday, November 29, 2019

New Book Announcement: THE CEDAR VALLEY COVENANT


I recently participated in science fiction literature conventions like the World Fantasy Convention in Los Angeles and the Philcon in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where I have been making an announcement at various panels, readings, and book-signing sessions (like the one above at in L.A.). So it’s about time I should let the world know here as well!

In 2020, my second novel, THE CEDAR VALLEY COVENANT, will be published by World Castle Publishing. If a combination of science fiction, horror, mystery, and action/adventure excite you – and how can they not? – then you’ll need to put this book on your reading list. Trust me!

Monday, December 10, 2018

Book sale!



For about the price of a medium cup of coffee at Starbuck's, you can get the electronic version of my novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED at the World Castle Bookstore. Check out this link to my publisher's bookstore page! Because there's nothing like treating yourself to the gift of a book!

Sunday, April 29, 2018

My first novel to be released on July 16

While this is something that has been in the works for a while, I now wanted to announce that my first novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED, will be released this July 16 by World Castle Publishing. It will be available in both print and electronic formats from all booksellers.

This is a project that I am particularly excited by because World Castle Publishing gave me the opportunity to combine several of my main interests from fictional entertainment to concerns I have written about as an academic and media commentator. A science fiction/suspense hybrid, the story focuses on an unexplainable event that shocks the world and the chaotic ripple effects it sends through societies everywhere. Much of the chaos is caused by the fear-mongering of unscrupulous conspiracy theorists.

So keep an eye open for more updates on the book, a cover-reveal coming soon, excerpts, and more cool things.

But as the jacket copy will read:

THE EVIDENCE OF ANOTHER WORLD IS HERE...

In Mount Shasta City, California. In San Francisco. In New Jersey. In San Diego. Then in Scotland, in Italy, and Cairo. In dozens of locations around the world, 20-ton granite globes suddenly appear. They usually turn up overnight, sometimes in remote locations and other times in the middle of cities in places no one could have put them without detection. For the first time, the world is witnessing a truly unexplainable phenomenon.

AND THE THREAT IS REAL...

As Rick Ballantine and Cornelia Oxenburg, cast members of the low-rent supernatural reality show "Confirmation: Investigations of the Unexplained," quickly realize, the globes' greatest effect is the way they make people speculate about their origins and purpose. Some think the globes are placed by aliens. Others think it's all a hoax. Many more fear sinister government conspiracies behind it all. But each of these points of view believes they're absolutely right...and others who disagree are dead wrong...and dangerous...and must be dealt with by any means necessary! Before the true, incredible origins of the globes is finally revealed, the "Confirmation" cast comes to see the extremes people are capable of when their beliefs are challenged and threatened...even in their own group.