It's here! My first novel, now available on Kindle

My debut novel, CLAIMING MOON, is now available at Amazon.com for download to Kindle.

Set in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, the tale follows two people – Clearwater Police Detective Frank Taliaferro and Clearwater Daily Dispatch reporter Cassandra Kincaid.

Frank, with more than 20 years of police experience, finds himself forced to participate in a charity bachelor auction as a public relations move for the police department. Cassandra, a rising star at the Daily Dispatch who has her sights set on moving to one of the larger dailies – New York, Washington, maybe Atlanta - just as soon as she can is forced into participating in the auction as a bidder so she can write a feature piece on the whole process.

Although she is none-too-fond of police, Cassandra ends up winning a date with Frank. She finds him a little more disarming than she anticipated, and enjoys their evening together until the date is interrupted by a gruesome murder. The death is the first in a series of strange killings that have their roots in an ancient cult still alive in the Virginia mountains, where some people continue to practice the religion brought to their land by their ancestors, generations ago.

Frank is determined to solve the crimes and bring the killers to justice, Cassandra is equally driven to uncover what is at play and why there seems to be a conspiracy to cover up the deaths. In the end they learn the deaths are the result of no ordinary killer, and both of them may be next on the list.

CLAIMING MOON is available now for download to your Kindle.

Don’t have a Kindle? No problem – you can get the FREE Kindle application for download to your PC, Mac, or many mobile devises right here.

A sweet deal for February

The calendar has rolled around to Cupid's month, and I've got a sweetheart deal for you (yes, that's cheesy, but I just couldn't resist).

I'm going to give away a couple of fine short story collections this month to two lucky readers of this blog.

To qualify, you need to join my blog, and then leave a comment at least once during the month. For those who are already members, just leave a comment on one of my blogs this month and you're entered as well. You don’t have to write a novel, or even a long sentence. I’d like to get your thoughts and reactions to the blogs and interviews, but even a simple “Heya!” will do.

Before we get into the prize, let's take a look at what we have coming up this month -- trust me, it‘ll be worth returning even without the prizes. In addition to my random thoughts on writing, publishing and life (which may or may not be enough of a tease to keep you coming back), I have a few interviews lined up with some folks you're going to want to read.

Among those to be featured are Stephen Mark Rainey (author of nearly a dozen novels and short story collections, nearly 90 published short stories and, more recently, an audio series based on the 1960s era ABC show Dark Shadows); Boyd Harris, owner and publisher of Cutting Block Press, one of the most successful and critically acclaimed specialty presses over the past half decade; romance novelist, mom, and former horror writer (how's that for a combination?) Michelle Garren Flye; and R.J. Cavender, editor of the critically acclaimed Horror Library series and, as of just a couple of days ago, staff editor at Dark Continents Publishing. Folks, that’s a killer line-up, and we might even slip in another surprise or two during the month.

Now for the prize. All those who join the site and leave a comment in February, (or for existing members, just leave a comment), will be tossed (well, their names will be -- it's been some time since I actually tossed a person) into a drawing at the end of the month for your choice of either a trade paperback copy of the Stoker-nominated Horror Library Vol. 3 (follow the link to read some sample pages) from Cutting Block Press or a paperback copy of the just-released Night Terrors 2.

If we get at least 50 qualified entries, I’ll have a second drawing for the anthology not selected by the winner!

The Horror Library 3 features fiction by best-selling novelist Bentley Little, Jeff Strand, Gary Braunbeck, A.J. Brown, yours truly (that‘s me!), Kealan Patrick Burke and two dozen more writers. Night Terrors 2 includes work by Christopher Hawkins, A.J.Brown, David Bischoff, another one of my tales, and two dozen other writers.

If horror is your thing, then you’ll definitely want one (or both) of these. Even if horror is not your thing, you should take a look at these anthologies. They might just redefine what you believe horror is.