Things I'm Waiting For

Why pre-order a book?  Good question.  Pre-ordering books can help a publishing house sales representative convince accounts to stock books in stores.  They can also show that since a book has been pre-ordered, that it is likely to be a popular item and that they shouldn't miss out on selling the item in their store.  Pre-orders can also give a more realistic count before printing. I once went to a Barnes & Noble in Salt Lake City to pick up a book by an author that I follow on twitter only to find out that the representative for the state of Utah chose NOT to stock that particular book in the stores.  They could ship it to me from another state, but Utah didn't have the item available for purchase at all.  This frustrated me to no end. I was angry and refused to give them my business... so I ordered the item online from Amazon, instead.

So now, whenever I find out a book being released by a twitter friend is available for pre-order I snag a copy.  I want their numbers to look good. And I also hope that people looking at the data will see that the state of Utah might actually be interested in having good books in their stores.  My sacrifice has no boundaries.  Okay... I'm being selfish, really. I want my friends to be successful and just once, just once... I'd like to be able to see their books in a store in Utah.

So here's what I've got waiting for me-

CITY OF THE LOST by Stephen Blackmoore

Sunday’s a thug, an enforcer, a leg-breaker for hire. When his boss sends him to kill a mysterious new business partner, his target strikes back in ways Sunday could never have imagined. Murdered, brought back to a twisted half-life, Sunday finds himself stuck in the middle of a race to find an ancient stone with the power to grant immortality. With it, he might live forever. Without it, he’s just another rotting extra in a George Romero flick.

Everyone’s got a stake, from a psycho Nazi wizard and a razor-toothed midget, to a nympho-demon bartender, a too-powerful witch who just wants to help her homeless vampires, and the one woman who might have all the answers — if only Sunday can figure out what her angle is.

Before the week is out he’s going to find out just what lengths people will go to for immortality. And just how long somebody can hold a grudge.

CITY OF THE LOST is available through Amazon for $10.20

CRIMES OF SOUTHERN INDIANA: STORIES by Frank Bill 

Crimes in Southern Indiana is the most blistering, vivid, flat-out fearless debut to plow into American literature in recent years. Frank Bill delivers what is both a wake-up call and a gut punch. Welcome to heartland America circa right about now, when the union jobs and family farms that kept the white on the picket fences have given way to meth labs, backwoods gunrunners, and bare-knuckle brawling. 

Bill’s people are pressed to the brink—and beyond. There is Scoot McCutchen, whose beloved wife falls terminally ill, leaving him with nothing to live for—which doesn’t quite explain why he brutally murders her and her doctor and flees, or why, after years of running, he decides to turn himself in. In the title story, a man who has devolved from breeding hounds for hunting to training them for dog-fighting crosses paths with a Salvadoran gangbanger tasked with taking over the rural drug trade, but who mostly wants to grow old in peace. As Crimes in Sourthern Indiana unfolds, we witness the unspeakable, yet are compelled to find sympathy for the depraved. Bill’s southern Indiana is haunted with the deep, authentic sense of place that recalls the best of Southern fiction, but the interconnected stories bristle with the urban energy of a Chuck Palahniuk or a latter-day Nelson Algren and rush with the slam-bang plotting of pulp-noir crime writing à la Jim Thompson. Bill’s prose is gritty yet literary, shocking, and impossible to put down. A dark evocation of the survivalist spirit of the working class, this is a brilliant debut by an important new voice.

CRIMES OF SOUTHERN INDIANA: STORIES is available through Amazon for $9.92

DOUBLE DEAD (TOMES OF THE DEAD) by Chuck Wendig

Coburn’s been dead now for close to a century, but seeing as how he’s a vampire and all, it doesn't much bother him. Or at least it didn’t, not until he awoke from a forced five-year slumber to discover that most of human civilization was now dead—but not dead like him, oh no.

See, Coburn likes blood. The rest of the walking dead, they like brains. He’s smart. Them, not so much. But they outnumber him by about a million to one. And the clotted blood of the walking dead cannot sustain him. Now he’s starving. And nocturnal. And more pissed-off than a bee-stung rattlesnake. The vampire not only has to find human survivors (with their sweet, sweet blood), but now he has to transition from predator to protector—after all, a man has to look after his food supply.

DOUBLE DEAD (TOMES OF THE DEAD) is available through Amazon for $9.99

SOUTHERN GODS by John Horner Jacobs

Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music - broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station - is said to make living men insane and dead men rise. Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil. But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he'll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell... In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood.

SOUTHERN GODS by John Horner Jacobs is available through Amazon for $9.87

For the fans of JR Ward, she is re-releasing her romance novels in paperback.  If you're a fan of the Black Daggar Brotherhood, then you might be interested in these three books.

THE REBEL

AN UNFORGETTABLE LADY

AN IRRESISTIBLE MAN

Feel free to click any of the above links for further information.

For cozy mystery lovers...

SKATING AROUND THE LAW by Joelle Charbonneau

Rebecca Robbins has come home to Indian Falls, to the roller rink she inherited from her mother, intending to sell it and return to her life as a mortgage broker in Chicago. However, when she finds handyman Mack dead in one of the rink’s restroom stalls, it puts a crimp in prospects of a sale. The sheriff prefers to concentrate on his gardening, so Rebecca decides it’s up to her to solve the case, which means delving into Mack’s secrets. She also has to deal with people in town who treat her as an outsider, with her sexually frisky grandfather, with a handsome hunk of a veterinarian and his retired circus camel, and with a boss in Chicago who thinks he’s got “dibs” on her. Charbonneau’s debut mystery has much that is familiar, with its small-town setting and hints of romance, but her quirky characters, the roller rink, and the side plot involving Mack’s secret business add fun touches. And, of course, readers will love Elwood the camel. --Kat Kan

SKATING OVER THE LINE by Joelle Charbonneau

Rebecca is desperate to sell her inherited roller skating rink in small-town Indian Falls, and--finally--she has a buyer. She can't wait to head back to Chicago, especially now that her long delinquent father has blown back into town. But Lionel, her large-animal vet boyfriend, thinks she should stay put. And the gang at the Senior Center wants her to track down the thief who's been hot-wiring rusted-out classic cars. Unable to resist, Rebecca soon has the Sheriff's Deputy threatening to arrest her for obstruction and strange, scary men threatening her life. Then cars start exploding, with people in them, and Rebecca's father goes missing. With the help of her Elvis-impersonating grandfather, Rebecca must find the pyromaniac car thief and put a stop to him--before he stops her first.

This is the second in a delightful cozy series filled with small town charm and delicious laughs.

Both of these book are available through Amazon HERE and HERE.

And finally...

LURE OF THE WICKED by Karina Cooper

Some of you in the office purchased the first book in the series. If you're ready for the next one... it be ready for you!

Naomi West was plucked from one prison and placed undercover in another: the gilded cage that is Timeless, New Seattle's premier spa and resort, where owner Phinneas Clarke—the most seductive man Naomi has ever met—may be hiding a killer. She's an agent of the Holy Order, trained to hunt the guilty and render justice. But while she's tracking down a rogue agent on a killing spree, Phin is determined to uncover her most damning—and dangerous—secrets. Whatever the cost.

LURE OF THE WICKED is available through Amazon for $7.99

As for me... I recommend them all.  

And for my coworkers that would like to place an order, but don't really want to deal with the mess of it all... I'm willing to make the purchase for you. Just let me know which books you are interested in and I'll let my little fingers make some magic on the keyboard.