Author spotlight – Page 9 – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Extract Post: The Black Ditch, by Simon J Lancaster

The Black Ditch

LAURIE STERNE feels like he’s been cut adrift in space. His father has been shot dead, caught in the crossfire of a gangland war that has also claimed his boss’s life. Laurie is a refugee who lost his adoptive mum years before and doesn’t know where he was born, let alone who his birth parents were. But he’s not alone in the world: someone is trying to kill him.

This is London, 2050, a dumping ground for climate refugees and dissidents. Gangs rule, murder goes unpunished and the police make sure you can’t escape.

In his struggle to stay alive, he finds an ally: his former boss’s secret daughter.
But with the killer predicting his every move, is the man without a past being betrayed by the woman who seems to offer him a future?

Purchase Links:

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07V1HHTJK/

US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V1HHTJK/

Extract Post: 133 Hours, by Zach Abrams

**133 Hours**
Arriving at work to find she’s lost more than five-and-a-half days (133 hours), Briony Chaplin, has no recollection of where she’d been or what had happened to her. She is distraught. Has she been ill, or had a breakdown, or could she have been drugged and abducted?
Doubting her own sanity, Briony is fearful of what she’ll find. Yet she’s driven to discover the truth. When she trawls her memories, she’s terrified by visions, believing she may have been abused and raped.
Assisted by her friends Alesha and Jenny, and supported by a retired detective, she’s determined to learn where she’s been and why.
**Purchase Links:**
http://mybook.to/133
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZT9VRF3
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZT9VRF3

Novel Extract: Sixty Minutes, by Tony Salter

Sixty Minutes

Five different people. Five separate lives. Sixty minutes to bind them for ever.

Hassan, Jim, Shuna, Dan and Nadia come from very different worlds. If life were straightforward, their paths would never cross. But our lives are rarely that simple and, as the clock ticks away the minutes of a single hour on a July morning, fate draws all five together in a headlong rush towards disaster.

Who are the heroes and who are the villains?

Tony Salter’s latest novel leaves us guessing right up to the last page.

Purchase Links

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sixty-Minutes-nail-biting-race-against-ebook/dp/B07WNRLHGR/US – https://www.amazon.com/Sixty-Minutes-nail-biting-race-against-ebook/dp/B07WNRLHGR/

Promo Post: ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ by Eoghan Egan

Today I’m helping Love Books Tours and Eoghan Egan to celebrate the release of Hiding in Plain Sight by Eoghan Egan. The official launch is on the 11th of January in Ireland and you are cordially invited. Your invitation below, for now here is more information about the book and the author.

The stunning debut from Ireland’s hottest new crime writer
A vicious serial killer roams the Irish Midlands, with his sights set on the next victim.
A successful businessman has found the perfect recipe for getting away with murder.
No bodies, no evidence.
No evidence, no suspect.
High art and low morals collide when graduate Sharona Waters discovers a multi-million euro art scam in play. She delves in, unwittingly putting herself on a direct trajectory with danger as the killer accelerates his murder spree.
When Sharona gets drawn into the killer’s orbit, she peels away his public persona and exposes the psychopath underneath. Suddenly, the small town has no hiding place…

Sounds good doesn’t it?

If you happen to be in or near Ballinasloe, Ireland on Saturday:

A native of Co. Roscommon, Eoghan studied Computer Programming in college, works in Sales Management & Marketing, but his passion for reading and writing remains.

Eoghan’s work got shortlisted for the 2018 Bridport Short Story Prize, and Listowel’s 2019 Bryan McMahon Short Story Award Competition. His novel was a contender in literary agent David Headley’s opening chapter Pitch Competition, and during March 2019, Eoghan’s entry won Litopia’s Pop-Up Submission.

A graduate of Maynooth University’s Creative Writing Curriculum, and Curtis Brown’s Edit & Pitch Your Novel Course, Eoghan’s novel Hiding in Plain Sight – the first in a crime fiction trilogy based around the Irish Midlands – will be available in paperback and audio on January 11^th 2020.

www.eoghaneganwriter.com

Extract and Promo Post: ‘Candy Canes and Buckets of Blood’, by Heide Goody and Iain Grant

Blurb

Christmas is a time for families to come together.

Guin Roberts can’t think of anything worse than visiting a Christmas market with her new family. Guin is perfectly happy with own company and doesn’t want that disrupted by her wisecracking stepbrother and his earnest mum.

Their Christmas celebrations are invaded by a sleigh full of murderous elves. And it doesn’t matter if they’ve been naughty or nice — these elves are out for blood.

Can the family band together to survive the night? Or will Santa’s little helpers make mincemeat of them all?

Extract Post: ‘Injections of Insanity’, by Lorraine Mace

**Purchase Links**
**UK –** https://www.amazon.co.uk/Injections-Insanity-Sterling-Lorraine-Mace/dp/1786156830
US – https://www.amazon.com/Injections-Insanity-Sterling-Lorraine-Mace/dp/1786156830

Injections of Insanity
Detective Inspector Paolo Sterling has just six weeks to solve a series of murders by insulin injection, with nothing to connect the victims except the manner of death and a note left at each crime scene.
The murderer, determined to avenge a wrong from many years earlier, gets close to his prey by assuming various identities.
Can Paolo win in his race against the pretender?

Extract Post: ‘Retriever Of Souls’, by Lorraine Mace

Retriever of Souls

Brought up believing that sex is the devil’s work, a killer only finds release once he has saved his victim’s souls. Abiding by his vision, he marks them as his. A gift to guide his chosen ones on the rightful path to redemption.

Detective Inspector Paolo Sterling is out to stop him, but Paolo has problems of his own. Hunting down the killer as the death toll rises, the lines soon blur between Paolo’s personal and professional lives.

Extract: ‘Sea Babies’, by Tracey Scott-Townsend

Today I’m taking part in the blog tour for Sea Babies. I’ll be sharing an extract from the novel below, and then a little about the author. Enjoy!

Published By: Wild Pressed Books
Buy Link: https://amzn.to/2S4gydb

Blurb
Lauren Wilson is travelling by ferry to the Outer Hebrides, about to begin a new job as a social worker. When somebody sits opposite her at the cafeteria table, she refuses to look up, annoyed at having her privacy disturbed. But a hand is pushing a mug of tea towards her, and a livid scar on the back of the hand releases a flood of memories.
Some people believe in the existence of a parallel universe. Does Lauren have a retrospective choice about the outcome of a terrible recent accident, or is it the bearer of that much older scar who has the power to decide what happens to her now?

Extract: ‘Gap Years’, by Dave Holwill

Gap Years

19 year old Sean hasn’t seen his father since he was twelve. His mother has never really explained why. An argument with her leads to his moving to the other side of the country.

Martin, his father, has his life thrown into turmoil when the son he hasn’t seen in nearly eight years strolls back into his life immediately killing his dog and hospitalising his step-daughter.

The one thing they have in common is the friendship of a girl called Rhiannon.

Over the course of one summer Sean experiences sexual awakenings from all angles, discovers the fleeting nature of friendship and learns to cope with rejection.

Martin, meanwhile, struggles to reconnect with Sean while trying to delicately turn down the increasingly inappropriate advances of a girl he sees as a surrogate daughter and keep a struggling marriage alive.

Gap Years is an exploration of what it means to be a man in the 21st Century seen from two very different perspectives – neatly hidden inside a funny story about bicycles, guitars and unrequited love.

Extract: ‘Spiral Into Darkness’, by Joseph Lewis

*Published By: Black Rose Writing*
*Publication Date: 19th January 2019*
*Format: Kindle*
*Price: Free on Kindle Unlimited/£6.23*

Blurb
He blends in. He is successful, intelligent and methodical. There are no clues. There are no leads. The only thing the FBI and local police have to go on is the method of death: two bullets to the face- gruesome and meant to send a message. But it’s difficult to understand any message coming from a dark and damaged mind. Two adopted boys, struggling in their own world, have no idea they are the next targets. Neither does their family. And neither does local law enforcement.

Purchase Links

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spiral-Into-Darkness-Joseph-Lewis-ebook/dp/B07L15328K

US – https://www.amazon.com/Spiral-Into-Darkness-Joseph-Lewis-ebook/dp/B07L15328K