Today marks the end of National Poetry Month. I was able to take part in it by sending in my poem “Haunted Homecoming” to Curtis over at Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews!
Take a look and let me know what you think!
{Poetry} Haunted Homecoming by Steve Stred
Hello, and holy hell, I feel like I’ve been gone away forever.
Between the conference in Vancouver, Easter and working at clinic, my blogging efforts sure have sucked!
So here we go!
The one beauty of April ending is that May arrives and that means the start of Pyper-May-Nia!!!
I’ll be reading all of Andrew Pyper’s works I’ve yet to read and will also have a feature interview with the man himself!
I’m starting with his latest The Homecoming, which I’ve been saving for a special occasion!
Don’t have it yet;
Moving on – The Stranger.
My next release will see the light of day in 5 weeks! Wahoo!
I’ve already been blessed to receive three pre-release reviews over on Goodreads and so far it looks like folks are liking the tale!
Take a look here;
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45134451-the-stranger
I’ve also had a really good response to a Hardcover version. I’ve actually just ordered the first 15!!! OH MY GOD. I’ll be in touch with the first group of folks and get the back end sorted. It’s going to look gorgeous.
I’ll have a neat surprise as well, so watch for that.
What I’m Working on;
The Stranger – honestly a good portion of my most recent time has been spent on The Stranger. Formatting the ebook, the paperback and the hardcover. Being an indie author can be a lot of work at times, and this book, which I love to bits and pieces, has probably been the most demanding one yet. Worth it!
Ritual – I’ve talked briefly about this one already, but this is my expected October release. I’m still grinding away on it and am about 75% through it now for the last go through.
I’ve also put down 15,000 words on my first release of 2020 and am working through last go through of my second release of 2020. Exciting stuff!
What I’m Listening to;
This should come as no surprise, but I’ve been jamming the new Darkthrone tune like crazy. Chadwick St. John did the artwork for The Stranger, and he’s also done the artwork for Darkthrone’s next release.
Darkthrone – The Hardship of the Scots
Abbath – Harvest Pyre
Former Immortal front man Abbath has returned to unleash the newest song from his next release. Harvest Pyre is an amazing piece of black metal.
Dark Funeral – Unchain My Soul
Really been digging Dark Funeral lately and this is a fun song from their last album.
Solstafir – Silfur-Refur
I’ve posted about Solstafir before, but my god they are stunning. This Icelandic group, to me at least, has the atmospheric feel of Pink Floyd. They create so much emotion through their music. Just phenomenal.
That’s it for me this week. I’m going to skip the ‘What I’m reading” section for now. I’m swamped and have no time!
In closing, have you seen this amazing contest?
Kendall Reviews in conjunction with Chris Sorensen are having a contest where you could be a character in his newest book!
Really very cool.
Cheers, friends.
Steve
Hello friends! Welcome back!!
I feel awful because it’s been a few weeks since I gave a real, actual blog post – what with the cover launch of The Stranger and then last week I was away at a work conference for most of the week! I’m doing a full blog post today, for a few reasons. I won’t have time tomorrow with a few odds and ends I need to finish up at work, Thursday I work away at a satellite clinic so won’t have computer access and Friday I’m off for Easter. So today makes sense and I didn’t want to skip it for three weeks!
So this week’s blog will focus on two main parts.
The first is the directly related to that picture/banner posted there!
This May I’ve decided to celebrate my Favorite Author – Mr. Andrew Pyper. You’ve all probably seen my admiration for him on social media. I could go on and on about why I love Andrew’s work, but I think at the core of it he speaks to in a way most other authors can’t. His Canadiana, if you will, runs underneath his prose and I always feel a connection with his words. Even when it’s set overseas (The Demonologist, The Only Child) I’ve felt that undercurrent running through his stories.
The other reason I truly adore his writing – is that I’ve never found his work to be complicated for complications sake. Andrew writes thrillers and cross genre’s like a DJ mixes musical styles. ‘The Wildfire Season’ is a blistering work about a forest firefighter battling inner demons but also the wrath of Mother Nature in a small town. It had so many elements interwoven – simply stunning.
(My completed collection of Pyper’s physical releases! The Wildfire Season, The Only Child, The Homecoming and both copies of The Demonologist are personally signed by him to me!)
So – this brings me to May and my anointment of the month as PYPER-MAY-NIA!
I’ve read a number of his works already – The Demonologist, Lost Girls, The Damned, The Wildfire Season and The Only Child.
For the month of May – I’ll be reading the rest, in this order; The Homecoming, The Guardians, The Trade Mission, Killing Circle and Kiss Me. I’ll be updating you as I go along and will review them each on their own Pyper-meter!
I’d also love it, if you haven’t, to check out one of his works in May. If you need a starting off point I’d recommend any of the books I’ve already read haha! Although – The Only Child is my all-time fav book, so you could start there. I don’t do group-read along’s, I just don’t function that way, but let me know if you are going to be joining me in PYPER-MAY-NIA!!!!
As a massive bonus – Andrew has agreed to do an interview for the celebration! I’m beyond excited. The questions have been submitted, so once the answers are returned I’ll get it set up and let you know when to watch for the feature!
Can’t wait to celebrate and maybe even introduce some of my book friends to Andrew Pyper’s work!
Now the second part – The Stranger.
I’m actually pretty blown away by the early response already. We had the cover reveal two weeks ago over on Kendall Reviews, and comment after comment, message after message about how awesome the cover art was, was very cool!
So – because of that, I’m entertaining an idea and I need to gauge peoples interest. If you haven’t read the synopsis yet, you can pop over to my Novels tab and take a look, or check it out here on Goodreads;
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45134451-the-stranger
Now the response as been such that I’m considering looking into doing a very limited edition hardcover run of this release!
It would be slightly different than the ebook and the paperback version of The Stranger.
Now – I’ve always been an upfront, open and honest writer for you all. I talk about what a lot of people don’t discuss – sales, costs etc etc.
So – to do the hardcover, I’m looking at each book retailing for $35 US + $15 for shipping and handling world wide. Charging a flat rate is far easier because Canada Post has a small box for shipping that is $15/flat rate world wide! That would be a total of $50 US to order one. From all of that, I’d be looking at making roughly $2-$3/book in profits. So on my own, really not a big money maker, but hey – that’s typically what I make on ebook and paperback sales already!
I’m looking at doing 20 copies of this edition, maybe 30 max, if the interest is there.
I really don’t have a time line for this to be launched as I want to gauge the interest and see who would be looking to get one of these. Ideally I’d be looking at having them ready to ship out closer to release date (June 1st) with people wanting to purchase one sending me the money via paypal or etransfer.
So if you’re interested, please DM me, email me, text, whatever! And let’s make this happen!
What I’m Reading;
Little Black Spots – John F. D. Taff – still making my way through this fun collection of short stories! About 55% done and it’s a collection I think most folks should check out!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41100259-little-black-spots
The Bledbrooke Works – John F. Leonard – big fan of John’s and this is another companion piece/continued piece in the world and mythos he’s building. 30% in and loving the set up.
Woom – Duncan Ralston – also 30% into this story and so far it’s just starting to ramp up. Feel like horrible, horrible things are happening and I can’t wait!
So I’m going to wrap it up here. I’ve already submitted Tunes From the Crypt Episode #2 to Gavin over at Kendall Reviews, so watch for that coming up!
Otherwise, I’ll see you all here next week!
Cheers!
Steve
Hey all! Apologies – I didn’t do my normal blog post last week due to the cover reveal of The Stranger over on Kendall Reviews!
This week I’ll also not be doing one. I have a work conference in Vancouver, BC which I’ll be attending from Wednesday until Saturday, arriving home very, very early Sunday morning.
So – I figured I’d offer this up as a quick bit of news!
I made it a priority to get it done and I did! About an hour ago I finished the final read through of The Stranger, created the review Mobi files and emailed them off to the normal folks who are always so kind to check out my stuff and promote it/review it!
If you’re not on my normal list and would really like to check out something – drop me a line – DM, contact form here or email (stevestred@gmail.com) I’m pretty easy going!
The reception for the cover art for The Stranger has been staggeringly amazing! I hope you all dig the tale within as well!
So – I’ll be sporadically around on social media the rest of the week! Take care of yourselves and I just saw I hit 800 followers on Twitter! WOWSA!
Next week I’ll be doing a Wednesday blog post, as Thursday at work at a satellite clinic and Friday I’m off work for Easter!
Cheers
Steve
Cover reveal time friends!
Over on Kendall Review, they’ve kindly hosted the cover reveal for my next novel The Stranger, which will be dropping on June 1st, 2019.
For full details about the cover, the synopsis and the gorgeous artwork – click the link!
http://kendallreviews.com/cover-reveal-steve-stred-returns-with-the-stranger/
I won’t be doing a normal blog post today. Today is dedicated completely to the cover reveal.
Next week I’ll be away at a work conference from Wednesday to Sunday, so I’ll be doing a double blog post on Monday and Tuesday.
And because I feel guilty about not sharing a bunch of stuff with you today – I’ll be sharing something really exciting at the start of the week.
It just … might … be ….
Another cover reveal.
🙂
I admit it. I’m a massive fan of conspiracy theories. I love the alternative history stuff for a number of reasons, but mostly for the unknown. The what-ifs?
I came across this book on Net Galley and the synopsis and cover had me intrigued. It was a fast read, and for the most part a very fun read.
The story is split into two parts. The main bulk of the story follows former SAS officer Darren Mathews and his wife/soulmate Anna Mathews. Darren met Anna on a top secret mission and they fell in love. They have a daughter Dana who, throughout is discussed but never has dialogue.
Darren’s story is a good one. He’s in charge of recovery operations. Working now for a classified division of the CIA, Darren heads to remote locations and helps archaeologists and anthropologists etc retrieve things found at newly discovered sites. The majority of the sites throughout the book are pyramids deep underground or crashed UFO’s.
The other split in the story is a systematic fictional look at Tesla as he attempted to develop a few of his experiments. I have to admit, the parts with Tesla were done well and added some intrigue to the story, but I didn’t find it necessary and a bit of me found it taking away from Darren’s part of the story. I wanted to get back to his stuff whenever Tesla’s side came up.
The ending of the story was a fun romp through some underground tunnels, and at first I found it a bit of an odd twist, but knowing this was “Book 1” I let it slide and hope we get to see deeper down the stairs in Book 2. I also felt like the ending of the Tesla story line left a lot open for Book 2 or further. So I’ll patiently wait.
Two last bits here, and its two bits I normally never discuss in reviews.
Firstly – the foreword. It was one of the few forewords that I enjoyed and I think it really worked to warm me up towards where the author was coming from. He did make note of finding ‘others’ on Fivrr and it has me wondering if this was some of his stuff and some ghost writer stuff. At the end of the book, I’m still not sure. I found some stylistic changes occurring throughout, as though someone wrote it and sent it to someone else to finish a section. It wasn’t jarring, just something I noticed.
Second – the editing. There are a lot of issues with misspelled words etc throughout. I’m easy going about it and normally I wouldn’t even bring any of it up… BUT one of the key parts of alien lore was misspelled and it irked me. I constantly was googling stuff on my phone. Like I said, I love conspiracy theory stuff, and there’s plenty of mentions throughout. One thing that I’ve heard of before was ‘The Greada Treaty.’ This is proposed meeting between Eisenhower and Aliens about their technology. It was spelled The Grenada Treaty. I felt annoyed that something that important in the alien conspiracy theory world wasn’t spelled correctly.
Saying that – I did receive this through Net Galley and while I didn’t see that this was created as an unedited advance copy, I’m taking it to be that. I’ve also not knocked any marks down or anything due to these issues.
Overall, I did enjoy this tale and I’m looking forward to the series continuing. This is a fun, fast read for conspiracy and alternative history fans, and as I mentioned before, you’ll be googling and researching a number of things that the author brings to light!
Thank you to Net Galley and the Publisher for an ARC to review!
4/5
Today celebrates my 50th featured review for Kendall Reviews!
For the review, Gavin featured Odd Man Out by James Newman. It’s a harrowing read, which will most likely make you ugly cry, but I think it’s a must read!
Click the link to check out my thoughts about reading it!
5/5 stars.
http://kendallreviews.com/odd-man-out-james-newman-kendall-review/
Steve Stred - The Official Website 