Hello, hello!
Every season brings something exciting to the table and this December I am excited to celebrate, no matter the current situation. What's your favorite part of the holidays? My family enjoys making cookies and mulled wine, watching movies. Hmmm, we like those all through the year, too!!
If you are looking for holiday gifts, books make great presents. *wink* I am offering autographed copies of Inside Voices along with a bookmark and a polar bear figurine. Drop me a message if you are interested.
A bit of exciting news...I hit my 50,000-word goal for November (NaNoWriMo.org). Whoop Whoop! What did I write? I would love to shout it out and share my title. But I won't. Inside Voices took six years. I don't want to jinx myself by spilling the beans too soon, eh?
As you might guess, I read a lot. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, too. If it is alright with you, I'll add some recommendations below.
Speaking of recommendations, reviews are a great way to give an author a virtual hug if you enjoyed their book. Notice I said "virtual" hug. Gotta stay within those socially distanced guidelines. 😉 There are many places to leave reviews. Amazon, Goodreads, and Bookbub. The word is that once an author reaches 100 reviews on Amazon, they receive a unicorn. 🦄 I am five reviews away...I'll keep you posted. 🤞
I hope you all find a bit of peace and happiness during these crazy times. Keep the sunny side up!
Smiles,
Sarah
A FEW BOOKS TO CONSIDER
Darkstroke Books publishes a lot of great books. I can't shout out of them at once, so I'll start with these three.
The Dark Chorus by Ashley Meggitt - A stellar debut novel!
Oblivio salvationem Angelis opperitur
Oblivion awaits the Angel’s salvation The Boy can see lost souls. He has never questioned the fact that he can see them. He thinks of them as the Dark Chorus. When he sets out to restore the soul of his dead mother it becomes clear that his ability comes from within him. It is a force that he cannot ignore – the last shard of the shattered soul of an angel. To be restored to the kingdom of light, the shard must be cleansed of the evil that infects it – but this requires the corrupt souls of the living! With the help from Makka, a psychotically violent young man full of hate, and Vee, an abused young woman full of pain, the Boy begins to kill. Psychiatrist Dr Eve Rhodes is seconded to assist the police investigation into the Boy’s apparently random ritualistic killings. As the investigation gathers pace, a pattern emerges. When Eve pulls at the thread from an article in an old psychology journal, what might otherwise have seemed to her a terrible psychotic delusion now feels all too real… Will the Boy succeed in restoring the angel’s soul to the light? Can Eve stop him, or will she be lost to realm of the Dark Chorus?
Caffeine & Nicotine by Eric Weule - I just started this book but it is a pageturner! And the dog!
The deceased are judge and jury. They have an executioner.
Kelly Jenks knows the dead boy is going to show him something awful. Jonathan is seven. He never wears shoes, and his feet are always clean. He cruises between this world and the next in a 1967 Cougar XR7. Jonathan has a message for Kelly: There is a faceless man preying on the city’s homeless.
Jackie Carmichael hires Kelly to find an employee who has vanished. The case appears simple at first, but Kelly soon discovers that the missing girl is not who she seems. As Kelly attempts to separate the facts from the lies, Jonathan brings him another message: Jackie Carmichael is hiding something.
With the beaches, mansions, and dive bars of Orange County, CA as the backdrop, Caffeine & Nicotine is a dark and brutal look at what happens when the dead pass sentence.
The Sadeiest by Austrian Spencer - This book contains graphic novel illustrations that hold clues to the book. I thought it an amazing debut.
Is today a good day to die?
Death – a walking skeleton armed with a scythe, a rider of the apocalypse, it has always been assumed – is a man that brings the souls of the dead to wherever they are destined to go.
But what if we got that wrong? What if he were a ghost that, instead of moving your soul on silently after you had died, actually did the hard part for you?
Death has to die, again and again, to pay for his sins, and to free trapped souls before their bodies perish – only to replace those souls, to die for them.
A Death whose existence is a curse, where the other riders of the Apocalypse are not his allies, but his enemies.
Armed only with his morals, his memories and the advice of a child teacher, Williams, a Sadeiest, travels through the deaths of other people, on his way to becoming something greater. Something that will re-define the Grim Reaper.
Death just came to life, in time to fight for a child hunted by the other horsemen of the Apocalypse.
How do you want to die today?
The following are not with Darkstroke...
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was one weird ride. No joke. Just when I thought I knew what was going on, I got slapped in the face by some strange 5h!t. It was awesome.
To Sleep In a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini is a magically epic story without magic. I mean, it's the author of the Eragon series. I listened to the audible and the narrator, Jennifer Hale, is phenomenal.
Verity by Collen Hoover is a well-written romantic suspense, and wow, the ending still blows my mind.
If you want to grab a copy of Inside Voices for yourself or to send to a friend, click on either of the two photographs featuring my novel.