July Debut Releases

It's the first Thursday in July and that means new releases.

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

VR Barkowski - A Twist of Hate (Five Star/Cengage) June 17, 2015

www.vrbarkowski.com

When the Cézanne his parents lend a local museum is replaced with a forgery, former homicide inspector turned security consultant Del Miller insists the museum's director call in the FBI. The painting, smuggled out of Nazi-occupied France along with Del's then-infant father, is not only priceless, it holds great sentimental value.
Soon, the museum director is dead, and a handwritten note in which he admits complicity in the theft arrives at a local news station. Then come allegations that Del's grandfather—a French Resistance hero who died at the hands of the Nazis—stole the missing masterpiece from a Paris gallery during the war. 

After the grandson of the long-deceased gallery owner comes forward to claim the Cézanne, he is found shot to death, and Del's father is implicated in both a conspiracy to hide the painting and murder. Del, now at a crossroads, sets out to uncover the truth.

From present-day San Francisco to war-torn France and Nazi death camps, A TWIST OF HATE is a story of family honor as Del seeks answers about the grandfather he never knew, the father he idolizes, and the secrets behind a missing painting that lay buried deep within his family's past.

Mark Leggatt - Names of the Dead (Fledgling Press) July 26, 2015

www.markleggatt.com 

Connor Montrose is running for his life. All that he held dear has been ripped away. Every Western intelligence agency and all the police forces of Europe are looking for him, with orders to shoot on sight. The only man who can prove his innocence, is the man that most wants him dead. 

Only one woman, a Mossad sleeper in Paris, will stand by his side. With her help, he must now turn and fight. His journey of evasion and revenge take him from hidden Holocaust bank vaults in Zurich, to the stinking sewers of Paris and dust-choked souks of Morocco. Finally, in the back streets of Tehran, under the gaze of the Ayatollahs, he has the chance to end it, as it began. In blood.

Jeffrey Westhoff - The Boy Who Knew Too Much (Intrigue Publishing) June 1, 2015

www.jeffreywesthoff.com

While on a school trip to Europe, Milwaukee teenager Brian Parker hopes for just a taste of the glamour and excitement of his favorite spy novels. Brian gets way more than a taste, though, when he stumbles across a wounded spy in a Lucerne alley.

The man’s dying words catapult Brian into a desperate chase across the continent. America’s latest super weapon is at stake, and everyone from a rogue CIA officer to a sadistic criminal mastermind is after it – and Brian. New enemies emerge at every turn, but Brian soon finds a welcome ally in Larissa, a beautiful French girl who loves the Ramones and is handy with a blast of pepper spray. 

Brian faces a deadly path, but reading all those spy novels has taught him a few tricks of the trade. They just might save his life.

What Came First, the Music or the Mystery?

By Maria Alexander

Music. Many writers call it a “creative crutch.” Others, a distraction. It’s fascinating how music affects our creativity. It can spark an idea or sustain a mood as we complete a scene. Some authors listen to music as a warm up and then turn it off when writing.

For me, story ideas frequently find me as I drive and listen to the car stereo. Many of my short stories were born this way. For example, “Black Roses and Hail Marys” fell into my head one day as Offspring’s “Gone Away” hit the airwaves. And the final scene of “Coming Home” appeared in my imagination as “Carol of the Bells” started playing one evening on my favorite classical music station. I continued playing the tune at home until the entire story unfolded on the computer screen.

But with my debut novel, Mr. Wicker, the music and the mystery came at the same time. I’ve been pretty cagey about the origins of the novel, offering the extraordinary, true-life backstory in a transmedia puzzle trail that starts at the end of my book trailer. (WARNING: The trailer is graphic and bloody.) Without giving away the backstory, I can say that a haunting lullaby came to me during the event that inspired the book. I “heard” Mr. Wicker’s voice singing this song:

In a time and out of time
In time, the ink shall sing.
Blood and trust
They turn to dust,
Each secret that they bring.

Brooders weep
And brooders keep
Their misery at hand
Let Mister Wicker wash your sicker
Memories in sand…

That’s the song of the Library of Lost Childhood Memories, where Mr. Wicker is the Librarian. (To hear the tune, watch – or just listen to – the book trailer.) In the novel, children come to Mr. Wicker in their dreams to give him their most traumatic memories, which he records in a book with their name on the spine. When they wake up, the children no longer remember either what happened or Mr. Wicker. Music plays a big part in the story, as it’s deeply connected to memory.

The Librarian’s song was the soundtrack to my nightmares throughout the years it took the novel to develop. Starting as a short story in September 1997, the tale then evolved into a well-regarded screenplay before I eventually adapted it to novel. In September 2014, Raw Dog Screaming Press published Mr. Wicker to critical acclaim. And in May 2015, the book won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel.

It seems Mr. Wicker’s song was right. In time, the ink shall sing…indeed.

Maria Alexander is a screenwriter, games writer, virtual world designer, award-winning copywriter, interactive theatre designer, short fiction writer and poet. Her debut novel, Mr. Wicker, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Represented by Alex Slater at Trident Media Group, she lives in Los Angeles with two ungrateful cats and a purse called Trog. Visit her at: www.mariaalexander.net

Alicia Baum is missing a deadly childhood memory. Located beyond life, The Library of Lost Childhood Memories holds the answer. But the Librarian is Mr. Wicker — a seductive yet sinister creature with an unthinkable past and an agenda just as lethal.

How I Handle Rejection

by Richard Torregrossa

The book industry is gasping for air. It’s practically on life support. Not good news for writers. It’s harder than ever to get published, but that doesn’t mean much, at least not ultimately. If you’re a writer, you write, and come what may. I’ve published eight books, all with major publishers, and not one of them was easy sailing; it was all uphill. My most recent book, TERMINAL LIFE: A Suited Hero Novel, a mystery crime thriller, racked up many rejections both from literary agents and editors.

But that’s a good thing. First of all, the fact that it was even read by top people in the industry is an accomplishment. More important, if you’re piling up rejection slips that means you’re still in the game, that you haven’t given up, that you’re not a quitter, and that’s a sign of character, that you believe in yourself regardless of what other professionals might think.

Still, rejection stings. I know that. But the best antidote for this is getting back to work. I have a saying above my desk: Process, Not Result. It’s been an enormous help to me because it keeps me focused on the work and not the frills. It reminds me to work harder to develop my craft, to read and re-read, to keep up with industry trends, and not become distracted by the ultimate goal—to become a rich and famous published writer. For me, writing is a joy and I will not let anything or anybody sour a disposition that I regard as a blessing. I write every day, even if I don’t feel like it, and eventually good results come my way. 

I also keep in mind that every writer has dealt with rejection. Gone with the Wind was rejected 38 times, The Great Gatsby 122 times, John Grisham’s first novel 25 times, and on and on. Some of the rejection letters were quite nasty. Zane Gray, who went on to sell 250 million books, received this lovely response from a publisher, “You have no business being a writer and should give up.”

I have many writer friends who are far more talented than I’ll ever be, but they don’t publish much because they’re paralyzed by the fear of rejection. I’ve helped some of them by showing them my rejection letters paired with the published book, its impressive sales, and rave reviews, which is the greatest vindication. So you’ve got to bite the bullet and continue to disseminate your work. The business is subjective and it often takes a huge effort to find likeminded colleagues. 

I just finished my next novel, Where Have All The Good Girls Gone?, about a young man devastated by his wife’s infidelity, forcing him on a journey to regain his dignity, his place in the world,  and the redemptive power of love. My literary agent retired and I am searching for a new one. So far I’ve racked up a few rejection slips. And I couldn’t be more delighted. 

Richard Torregrossa is a journalist whose work has appeared in The Financial Times, Newsday, The New York Post, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle,The Huffington Post, Movieline, Self, Cosmopolitan, Yoga Journal Family Circle, Parents Magazine, The South China Morning Post, Las Vegas Magazine, Desert Living, The Ritz Carlton Magazine, The Modern Gentleman’s blog, and many other online media.  He is the author of eight books, the most recent the acclaimed biography Cary Grant: A Celebration of Style, Foreword by Giorgio Armani, Afterword by Michael Kors.  A first-degree black belt, he is an enthusiastic martial artist who teaches and continues to study a variety of forms, from Kenpo to Jeet Kune Do.  Richard’s expertise in the world of men’s fashion and in the world of martial arts shine in Terminal Life, the first in the Suited Hero series.

Visit Richard at:  http://www.richardtorregrossa.com/

You've Got The Magic In You

by Susannah Hardy

February 4, 2013 . The number three most memorable day of my life. The day my agent called and told me we had a three-book deal with Berkley Prime Crime for a new series, the Greek to Me Mysteries. I cried then. I’m misting up again just thinking about it now. Of course, I didn’t know then that the journey—and the real hard work—was just beginning. But that day, I felt like I’d won the dream-fulfillment lottery. (FYI, my wedding and the day my son was born tie for the number one and number two spots)

Did I always want to be a writer? I get asked that a lot. Of course, I’d always been a reader, that goes without saying. My aunt loves to tell how, while babysitting me, she was forced to read the Little Golden Book Chicken Little over and over, to the point that to this day she hates that story. When I got to school, I learned to read for myself, relieving my aunt of Chicken Little duty, and I never stopped. I read all kinds of books, fiction and nonfiction, but most of all I loved the mysteries. Encyclopedia Brown. Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie. Nancy Drew. Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters.

But as to whether I always wanted to be a writer, well, wanting to and thinking you can do something are two different things. I studied history and literature in college, and wrote in fits and starts over the years. But I never produced a complete … anything. I have a whole drawer full of Chapter Ones. Sometimes I didn’t even finish the whole chapter, just wrote a couple of pages. Couldn’t even manage a short story. You see, though the want was there, the confidence to fulfill that want was missing. I truly believed that writers were different than the rest of us, possessing some kind of special abilities—or maybe it was some kind of magic—that enabled them to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and produce a whole story.

Of course, now I know that writers are different than other people. Everybody has stories in their head. But writers write them down from beginning to end. Then they go back and fix their words until the story works. That’s the magic.

A few years ago, I took a long look at my life and realized that if I never finished writing a novel, I would regret it. At that point, I was not even thinking about publication. For my own self-respect, I needed—no longer wanted, but needed—to get from the words “Chapter One” to “The End,” with a complete story in between. And so I joined a writers’ group at my local library. I almost didn’t go to that first meeting. But I forced myself. And I met, that very first night, a new friend who was just a little further ahead on her journey. Over the next year, we encouraged each other, prodded each other along, and didn’t let each other quit. She produced a YA novel that she subsequently indie published. I produced the book that would become, with several rewrites of the opening fifty pages, Feta Attraction.

Now I had a complete manuscript. The writers’ group at my library disbanded, and a few of us who were left realized that we knew nothing about the business of writing. So we joined our local chapter of Romance Writers of America (www.ctrwa.org). A mystery writer joining an RWA chapter? Yup. The members there taught us about literary agents, and querying, and synopsis writing, and pitching, and all kinds of other business and writing craft. And I also joined Sisters in Crime New England (www.sincne.org), to get mystery-specific experience. I strapped on my new tool belt and got to work.

Three months after I started querying in earnest, I got an offer from an agent. And then a couple of weeks later I got a second offer from an agent with a better track record, which was the one I ultimately accepted. We put together a proposal, and within a week of it being submitted to an editor, it was sold. February 4, 2013.

Fast forward, and Feta Attraction is now on the bookshelves. Book 2, Olive and Let Die, releases November 3, 2015. And Book 3, as yet untitled, will be out in 2016. Not bad for a girl who didn’t believe she had the magic to get it done. If I’ve learned anything from this process, it’s that everybody has the magic. You just have to get out of your own way long enough that it can do its work.

Susannah Hardy thinks she has the best job in the world: making up stories and inventing recipes to go along with them. A native of northern New York, where she attended St. Lawrence University, Susannah now lives in Connecticut with her husband, teenaged son, and Elvira the Wonder Cat.

Georgie Nikolopatos manages the Bonaparte House, a Greek restaurant and historic landmark in beautiful upstate New York rumored to possess ghosts and hidden treasure. But when her husband disappears and her main competitor is found dead, it’s up to Georgie to solve a big fat Greek murder.  Includes delicious Greek recipes! 

Website: www.susannahhardy.com
Facebook: https://goo.gl/cZKbC6
Twitter: @susannahhardy1, https://goo.gl/v3bVFF
Feta Attraction: http://goo.gl/yf84Ue
Olive and Let Die: http://goo.gl/4pPol3

June Debut Authors

It's the first Thursday in June and that means new releases.

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

Christine Carbo - The Wild Inside (Atria Books/S&S) June 16, 2015

christinecarbo.com

A haunting crime novel set in Glacier National Park about a man who finds himself at odds with the dark heart of the wild—and the even darker heart of human nature.

It was a clear night in Glacier National Park. Fourteen-year-old Ted Systead and his father were camping beneath the rugged peaks and starlit skies when something unimaginable happened: a grizzly bear attacked Ted’s father and dragged him to his death.

Now, twenty years later, as Special Agent for the Department of the Interior, Ted gets called back to investigate a crime that mirrors the horror of that night. Except this time, the victim was tied to a tree before the mauling. Ted teams up with one of the park officers—a man named Monty, whose pleasant exterior masks an all-too-vivid knowledge of the hazardous terrain surrounding them. Residents of the area turn out to be suspicious of outsiders and less than forthcoming. Their intimate connection to the wild forces them to confront nature, and their fellow man, with equal measures of reverence and ruthlessness.

As the case progresses with no clear answers, more than human life is at stake—including that of the majestic creature responsible for the attack. Ted’s search for the truth ends up leading him deeper into the wilderness than he ever imagined, on the trail of a killer, until he reaches a shocking and unexpected personal conclusion.  

Alex Dolan - The Euthanist (Diversion Books) June 2, 2015 www.alexdolan.com

A young woman helps to end the lives of people with terminal diseases. But when she helps the wrong person, she will be roped into a plot to gain vengeance on behalf of dozens, and the last life she ends may be her own.

They know her as Kali. She is there to see them off into the afterlife with kindness, with efficiency, and with two needles. She’s been a part of the right-to-die movement for years, an integral member, complicit in the deaths of twenty-seven men and women, all suffering from terminal illnesses.

And she just helped the wrong patient.

Soon Kali is drawn into a mesmerizing game of cat-and-mouse with two ruthless predators—one behind bars, one free—who hold the secrets that could bring comfort to the families of their victims. This powerful journey towards grace and towards peace will force both Leland and Kali to question everything they believe to be true and just.

Eileen Magill - (Oak Tree Press) June 17, 2015
www.eileenmagill.com

A young widow...

Cindy is reeling from the loss of her husband, suddenly a single mother of two children and the sole caretaker for her aging aunt. She finds the perfect house to start anew.

A house with a past...

A rundown house in the Silicon Valley suburbs needs a lot of work, but Cindy is willing to take it on to get her dream house. Disclosure documents indicate that someone had died in the house, but they don't tell the whole story of the house's evil past.

A call for help from beyond the grave...

Cindy's dreams are invaded by a woman who shows Cindy the horrible murders that had taken place in the house. Her message to Cindy: Your family is next. When repairs on the house uncover the missing murder weapon, Cindy begins to believe that the strange woman is something more than just a dream. Using her journalism skills to research the property, the dark past of the house is revealed: a series of murders starting when the house was built more than 40 years earlier. But her meddling into the history awakens a killer's need to keep the past quiet, and Cindy is thrust into a struggle to find the killer before she and her family become the next victims.

Write What You Know

by Carrie Stuart Parks

I’ve often heard this advice, and just as often heard the opposite. Fortunately for me, my career provided the perfect subject for my books: forensic art. Unlike the fancy holograms and computer generated bells and whistles on television, forensic art is about visual communication using something as simple as a pencil and piece of paper. Working as a forensic artist since 1981 gave me a host of plot ideas based on actual cases. As a forensic artist, I could reconstruct skulls, prepare
courtroom exhibits, draw composites of unknown suspects, age progress missing children, capture courtroom drama, sketch crime scenes, illustrate unknown remains, clarify video surveillance images and a host of other skills. Step aside, Bones! Choosing a career for my protagonist was a no-brainer.

Choosing a location came next. As a resident of Cataldo, Idaho, once saluted in the Corn Patch of the television show Hee Haw, I knew far more about my neighboring moose and wolves than big city life. I decided I’d slide one step away to Montana and create a fictional town called Copper Creek, based on Hamilton, Montana. . . and I did work on a triple homicide there once . . .

Now that I had a protagonist and a location, I needed details of this life. Gwen Marcey (Gwen coming from a name my husband, Rick, liked, and Marcey from his mom’s maiden name,) needed a dog. Of course. But not just any dog. No Golden Retriever, Collie, or German Shepherd. The dog HAD to be a Great Pyrenees. Remember the write what you know? My family raised this breed since 1959 and I’m currently the president of the national club.

I wanted to write from a Christian world view. No cussing or sex. Just tight tension and action. I knew it wouldn’t be a cozy, or sweet or light because of my job, but I also knew it took a bit more work to show the gritty side of forensic art without resorting to bad language and gratuitous violence and sex.

Now came the hard part: actually writing. Keeping tension high; showing, not telling; hooks at the end of the chapters; weaving in backstory or leaving it out; constructing layers within the story. That learning curve took ten years of hard work. I had a NYT bestselling author as a mentor, a harsh critique group, and attended numerous writing conferences taking copious notes. I signed up for on-line classes and read every book on the topic.

In that ten-year journey, I gathered rejections, worked full time, battled stage II breast cancer, and took care of my dying mother.

I was not, WAS NOT going to quit. Rejections meant more revisions. Cancer? I’d use it in the book.
I’m sharing all this with you, m’friends, because we all have that writing journey, that yellow brick road with witches and flying monkeys. But we also have our big hearted tin man, bright scarecrow, and brave lion to help us.

Oh, and yes, it all paid off. A three book deal at auction with HarperCollins Christian taking the highest bid. And finaling in two mystery/suspense competitions.

Carrie Stuart Parks is an award-winning fine artist and internationally known forensic artist. Along with her husband, Rick, she travels across the US and Canada teaching courses in forensic art to law enforcement professionals. The author/illustrator of numerous books on drawing and painting, Carrie continues to create dramatic watercolors from her studio in the mountains of Idaho.

In 1857, a wagon train in Utah was assaulted by a group of militant Mormons calling themselves the Avenging Angels. One hundred and forty people were murdered, including unarmed men, women, and children. The Mountain Meadows Massacre remains controversial to this day–but the truth may be written on the skulls of the victims. In the shadow of the Mormon church, a 19th-century conspiracy is about to be shattered by a 21st-century forensic artist.

Me and New York Jack

by Stu Strumwasser

In the mid-eighties I was studying creative writing at Cornell and I was lambasted by one of my professors for having the audacity to write a story about a kid in Vietnam. I had apparently violated one of the cardinal rules of writing: “Write what you know” (I think that one is 72 dash B). The rule is valid of course, but I also know this: there is no fiction without imagination—or risk—and I’d rather fall off the edge of the world than never leave port. So perhaps, like so many things in life, what is necessary is balance.

My new novel, THE ORGAN BROKER, will be released on May 5, 2015. Somehow the fact that someone else—a legitimate publisher—deemed it good enough to print and share with others feels redemptive. In March of 2008 I had the idea for a unique, epistolary format within which to write this story. At the time, there were over 90,000 Americans on waiting lists for organs. I was trying not to attempt another novel which might never be published, when I decided that I needed to research the subject—not in an effort to somehow become a scientific expert but, rather, to simply become able to write about it in an informed and believable way—to eventually know something, so I could then write about it. I wanted to know something new. Something fantastic and gritty and provocative.

I began by interviewing organ transplant recipients, one after another, and networking my way to academic experts on bioethics and journalists who have covered the black market. The first stage of my research culminated at a lunch in Los Angeles with a transplant tourism director who shocked me both with the details of his career, and the incredible openness and candor with which he shared them. I left California with a bit of knowledge. I wrote the manuscript, re-wrote it, got a new agent, sold the book, edited, promoted… and now, two weeks prior to publication, it is about seven years since I began.

A lot’s changed for me during that time, and I’ve learned that a lot more has changed for those in renal failure. The waiting list for organs has ballooned, during just these last seven years, by around thirty-five percent, to over 124,000 names. Approximately eighty percent of them need kidneys and the average wait now exceeds seven years. Around twenty-one people will die today because an organ wasn’t donated in time.

In the acknowledgments of my book the first sentence reads: “It took me several years to write this book, but several decades to truly become a writer.” It did, after all. Perhaps it took that long to learn something that mattered. Please go to www.donatelife.net and register to be a donor.

Stu Strumwasser studied creative writing at Cornell University and went on to pursue dual careers on Wall Street and as a musician. In 2006 Stu left Wall Street and founded Snow Beverages to make natural soda. A passionate entrepreneur, Stu then co-founded Tengrade in 2011. www.tengrade.com is the social rating tool for the internet, mobile devices and social networks, providing users with “Real Ratings” from their friends and people like them, on anything. Stu was born in Queens, raised in Lynbrook, and now resides in Brooklyn, New York with his two school-age, identical twin sons. The Organ Broker is his first published novel. You can contact Stu at www.theorganbroker.com.

Every day twenty-one Americans die while waiting for an organ transplant. A small portion take “transplant tourism” trips to third-world countries where they buy life-saving replacement body parts from organ brokers like New York Jack. This book is the incredible story of how he meets the son he never knew he had and then finds himself caught between a $2 million commission and his desire to avoid participating in a string of murders. He races to South Africa and Brazil, staying just a step ahead of his adversary and the FBI, while he searches for one small act of redemption. 

ONE WRITER’S JOURNEY

by Don Helin

During my time in the army, I wrote a gazillion Subject to position papers, but unless you're trying to gain a decision from your boss, you don't want to read it.

When I left the army, I attended a travel writing symposium sponsored by The Washington Post that started me on my writing career. I enjoy traveling and figured, “Heck why not get paid for it?” After
four years working as a travel writer, I decided to try writing fiction.

I still remember the day four years later when I got “The Call.” My wife thought I was nuts dancing around the kitchen when the acquisitions editor at Medallion Press said, “We want you.”

This leads me to the first of my two most important thoughts.

WRITING IS AN ART, BUT PUBLISHING IS A BUSINESS

As soon as I signed my contract for Thy Kingdom Come, I became inundated with marketing plans; edits from the copy editor, the content editor, and the executive editor; then providing the graphic designer background material for a cover. In the summer of 2009, I signed a contract with Medallion Press for my second novel in the Sam Thorpe series as a mass market paperback and an ebook. I was doing book signing and making presentations. Life was good.

The following spring, Medallion informed me they no longer would be publishing mass market paperback books. Publishing is a business, and they only wanted to publish my second novel as an e-book, not an e-book and paperback like the first one. In the 2010 market, I didn't know how an author could develop a following with only an e-book.

IT'S NOT ONLY ABOUT SELLING BOOKS, BUT BUILDING A COMMUNITY

Once I decided to cancel the e-book only contract, I developed a new series. On one Thrillerfest panel, I met an author who later introduced me to his publisher. She liked my novel, Devil's Den, and here I am writing another series. Contacts matter. Community matters.

I belong to a number of writers associations. The key to success is to volunteer at conferences. Conferences will help you make contacts, grow as a writer, and stay current on the myriad of changes in the publishing industry.

At book signings, don't hide behind a desk. Get out and meet people. You are your brand. If people know you, they may try your book and hopefully become fans. Build your community.

I see success stories every day. I'm convinced these successes are facilitated not only by hard work and a thick skin when you get rejected, but by learning two important secrets: (1) Writing is an art, but publishing is a business, and (2) It's not only about selling books, but building a community.

Good luck to each of you. An author can make life-long friends during their debut author year. I did and you will too.

I'd be glad to discuss my experiences with any of you.

Don Helin hails from Minneapolis. After his graduation from the University of Minnesota, he entered the military and served at a number of stateside posts, as well as in Vietnam and Germany. Using his experience from the military, including eight years in the Pentagon, Don published his first thriller, Thy Kingdom Come, in 2009. His second, Devil's Den, has been selected as a finalist in the Indie Book Awards. His most recent thriller, Secret Assault, was published this fall. Don is an active member of International Thriller Writers, Military Writers Society of America, Pennwriters, and is a mentor with Mystery Writers of America. He makes his home in central Pennsylvania where he is hard at work on his next Zack Kelly thriller, Dark Angel. Please visit Don at his website www.donhelin.com, friend him on Facebook, and connect with him on LinkedIn.

The June evening had been perfect—the speeches are over, the last dance is underway, and the president's national security advisor, General Aaron Hightower, is leaving his retirement party when he is gunned down by a Vietnamese assassin. Colonel Zack Kelly spots the killer and gives chase, but the shooter is hit by a truck and killed. Zack and his partner, Lieutenant Colonel Rene Garcia, determine that Hightower is the sixth army leader attacked in the past four months. They investigate the chilling possibility that the shootings are part of a plot against the government. Is a serial killer on the loose? Are other lives at stake? Cabinet members? Is the president himself at risk? Things are not as they seem, however. After two more military retirees are murdered, Zack's world is rocked by an event so traumatic, the hunt for the killers turns deadly personal.

May Debut Releases

It's the first Thursday in May and that means new releases.

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

John A Connell - Ruins of War  (Berkley/Penguin) May 5, 2015
http://johnaconnell.com

“A thrilling hunt…gripping and gruesome.” —James Becker, bestselling author of The Lost Testament 

In the winter of 1945, seven months after the Nazi defeat, Munich is in ruins. Mason Collins—former Chicago police detective, U.S. soldier, and prisoner-of-war—is now Chief Warrant Officer of the American Zone of Occupation. It’s his job to enforce the law in a place where order has been obliterated. And his job just became much more dangerous. 

A killer is stalking the devastated city—one who has knowledge of human anatomy, enacts mysterious rituals with his prey, and seems to pick victims at random. Relying on his wit and instincts, Mason must venture into dangerous places that put his own life at risk: from interrogation rooms with unrepentant Nazi war criminals to penetrating the U.S. Army’s own black market.

But what Mason doesn’t know is that the killer he’s chasing is stalking him as well…

Stu Strumwasser - The Organ Broker: A Novel (Arcade/Skyhorse Publishing) May 2015

www.theorganbroker.com

Every day twenty Americans die while waiting for an organ transplant. A small portion take “transplant tourism” trips to third-world countries where they buy life-saving replacement body parts from organ brokers like New York Jack. 

This book is the incredible story of how he meets the son he never knew he had and then finds himself caught between a $2 million commission and his desire to avoid participating in a string of murders. He races to South Africa and Brazil, staying just a step ahead of his adversary and the FBI, while he searches for one small act of redemption.

How To Make The Most Of Your Cover Reveal

by Graeme Shimmin

If you’re a writer with a novel coming out, then you are probably wondering how to build awareness and excitement about it.

One of your main pre-publication publicity opportunities is the ‘cover reveal’ – where you show your most enthusiastic followers what the novel is going to look like.

In this article I’ll share a few ideas about how I made the most of the cover reveal, and how to avoid it being a failure.

What’s the point of a cover reveal?

Like all your marketing efforts, the point of revealing the cover is to build awareness of it. A second positive effect is if you manage to convert some of that interest into pre-orders.

The cover reveal for my own novel A Kill in the Morning was successful - gaining hundreds of retweets and Facebook shares and resulting in pre-orders.

How not to do it

Some authors just take the cover image supplied by their publisher (or designed themselves) and plonk it on Facebook with a note saying 'here's my cover'.

That's not very inspiring.

The fine line between under and over exposure

Given the amount of times I’ve written about A Kill in the Morning, I’m still amazed how many people say to me, ‘Oh have you written a book?’

It just shows how much of marketing is about repetition.

You need to remind people and remind them again and again, until eventually it sinks in. That means you have to keep coming up with new things to say.

Timing

I revealed the cover about a month before A Kill in the Morning came out, which seemed about right, the novel was already available for pre-orders on Amazon, so people who were interested based on the cover could place an order. Still, I'm not sure the timing of the cover reveal is as critical as revealing it with some panache.

Teasers

As part of this strategy of reminding people multiple times, instead of just revealing the cover I produced some teasers first.

First, one based on the tag line for the novel:

Second: two based on elements of the cover. One of which was this aircraft:

After three teasers, I thought it was time for the big reveal.

Behind the Scenes

Again, in order to make my reveal more interesting, I came up with a different angle.

People like to see inside the process, so I wrote an article about my book cover design process and included some of the concept art and trial cover sketches.

For example, here's the "mood board":

I also explained the cover design process and how an author can go through the process - whether they have a publisher and artist involved or are doing it themselves.

Because the post contains useful advice it gets steady hits on my website and continues to create awareness. To me that's better than just "revealing the cover".

You can see the article here: Book Cover Design: How to Make a Book Cover

Publicising your cover

Of course the main places are Facebook and Twitter, but there are lots of other possibilities. I got thousands of hits from StumbleUpon too and genre websites and Goodreads are also good. It might even be possible to publicise your cover reveal in local newspapers.

Action points

• Think of as many angles as possible to keep promoting your book without boring your audience.
• Decide when you will do your cover reveal.
• Design some teasers.
• Think of an angle for your cover reveal.
• Make a list of places you can publicise your cover.

Graeme Shimmin was born in Manchester, and studied Physics at Durham University. His successful consultancy career enabled him to retire at 35 to an island off Donegal and start writing. He has since returned to Manchester and completed an MA in Creative Writing. The inspiration for A Kill in the Morning - his prizewinning first novel - came from Robert Harris' alternate history novel, Fatherland, and a his love of classic spy fiction. To find out more, and read his spy-themed short stories and book and movie reviews, visit http://graemeshimmin.com.

The year is 1955 and something is very wrong with the world. It is fourteen years since Churchill died and the Second World War ended. In occupied Europe, Britain fights a cold war against a nuclear-armed Nazi Germany. In Berlin the Gestapo is on the trail of a beautiful young resistance fighter, and the head of the SS is plotting to dispose of an ailing Adolf Hitler and restart the war against Britain and her empire. Meanwhile, in a secret bunker hidden deep beneath the German countryside, scientists are experimenting with a force far beyond their understanding. Into this arena steps a nameless British assassin, on the run from a sinister cabal within his own government, and planning a private war against the Nazis. And now the fate of the world rests on a single kill in the morning…You can read the opening of the published novel here: The first two chapters of A Kill in the Morning here
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