Giveaway ends June 16, 2018.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Giveaway ends March 26, 2018.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
I am so happy to announce that Black Market Angels, Book 2 of the Fallen Angels Trilogy, is now available as an ebook! It took three years to write, re-write, edit and polish and I’m proud to finally send it into the world. Each book in the series is a stand-alone book with no cliffhangers.
Thank you for your support!
Click here for Black Market Angels www.amazon.com
Black Market Angels
by C. Mack Lewis
Private Investigator Jack Fox will sweet-talk the Devil on a Sunday and kiss the Pope on a Monday — whatever it takes to get to the truth. Between his newest case involving the brutal murder of a Russian mail order bride, his 17-year-old daughter who is the poster child for anger non-management issues, and his ex-girlfriend-from-hell who is giving him an ultimatum that threatens to end in murder, Jack is pushed past him limits as he tries to keep his sanity — and catch a killer!
A fast, fun detective story served up with wit, grit and shocking twists. C. Mack Lewis offers up a murder mystery with a father-daughter relationship that careens from bad to worse and some unexpected places in between. High stakes thrills and drama!
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I would greatly appreciate any thoughts, advice or help about the blurb for my upcoming book, which will be released on Oct. 20, 2017.
Thank you!
As a writer, I’ve got that box in the basement that contains all of the short stories that I’ve written over the years. I came to a decision. I’m going to die someday and either that box is either going to be sitting in my basement or it’s going to grow legs and be out in the world. Thanks to Kindle self-publishing, it’s simply a matter of time and effort. Some short stories are new enough that all I have to do is change the format, copy and paste. The older short stories were actually written on *gasp* my old typewriter, which takes a bit longer to drag kicking and screaming into the new century.
A sneak peek into the soon-to-be-published ‘Pig-Eye Poem & Other Stories’ by C. Mack Lewis:
‘Pig-Eye Poem’ is the story about the time I worked in a Silk-City Diner and Nate-Nate-the-Queer-Bait wrote me a poem which he read at the Lower Alloway’s Creek while shaking a box containing a pig-eye.
‘Lair’ is the story of a Vietnam soldier who has his first kill under the command of a sadistic Sargeant.
‘Dead’ about the first autopsy I witnessed as a medical student where I can’t help but wonder if serial killers dream of being doctors – so they can have access to all those helpless organs under their blades?
The story of ‘Boots’ is about a woman who buys a pair of vintage thrift-store boots that, when worn, gives her the power to ‘fix’ things in her life – even if that means committing murder.
‘What She Bought’ is a story of a man who is cleaning out the closet of his recently deceased wife – and learns that his wife was not the woman he thought she was.
‘Tick Tock’ is a story written on the typewriter and I don’t even remember what it is about. I wrote it long ago in a land far, far away that goes by the name of ‘My First Marriage.’ I must have blocked it out and God only knows what that story contains!
‘The Toad King’ is flash fiction about an unhappy Toad Wife and exactly what she is willing to do to wrest the crown from her husband.
‘The Fix’ is hardboiled crime-noir about a down-on-his-luck journalist who gets a once in a lifetime scoop from his ex-lover who does not have his best interests at heart. What can you expect from a woman with eyes that shine like freshly minted cash, which our hero knows perfectly matches the color of her heart?
“She Got The Money’ is an unusual love story about the guy who never gets the girl and the girl who — well, I’ll let you discover that for yourself.
‘The Christmas Tree’ is about a bug-exterminator who falls for the Christmas tree of his dreams and plans the perfect burglary. Seriously folks, what could go wrong?
A writer friend of mine once said to me, “You certainly have no problem throwing your main characters under the bus.”
I don’t just NOT have a problem throwing my characters in harm’s way — I relish it!
What are you waiting for?
Unless you think that you are going to live forever, download a copy of a Kindle book format (for free) and start the process of putting your book, poems, short stories out into the world today!
http://www.kayfranklin.com/kindle/free-kindle-publishing-book-template/
Please send me a link after it is published because I would love to feature you on my blog as a guest blogger.
You meet the man of your dreams! He’s gorgeous, he’s successful, he knows exactly what to say to make your nether regions careen drunkenly South to Rio De Janeiro to do the samba all night long on some sultry Balneario beach. You want him so bad that you’d climb over your dead mother’s carcass to get to his goods. We’ve all been there — don’t deny it! As time goes by, it gets even better. You gaze wonderingly into his eyes, you share your dreams, your fears, your most intimate fantasies, but – finally, when that moment cums — I mean arrives — it’s Dudsville.
Welcome to the movie ‘Life.’
The performance of the actors is stellar. The set design is a nerd’s wet dream. The monster is exceptional, but…
*sigh*
The scientists are muttonheads.
I’m going to old-school it now – by referring to my personal gold standard of all alien movies – the ‘Alien’ franchise, written by the genius Alan D. Foster (series 1-3).
A (paraphrased) example:
Anyone in the Aliens movies (1-3): Oh my god! We have to save our friend from these horrible monsters!
Ripley: It’s too late. Let him die.
Then Ripley goes on to save herself and humankind.
Result: Respect.
In the movie Life:
Anyone of the so-called Scientists in Life: Oh, my god! We have to save our friend from this horrible monster!
The other so-called Scientist: Yes, let’s save our friend! So what if the alien is attached to our friend’s leg and he is sure to die – let’s risk the survival of all of humankind and try to save our doomed friend!
Result: WTF!
Frustrating!
Oh, did I mention that already?
For future reference, here’s the three-part recipe to this type of movie:
The problem with Life is that:
In the words of Crazy Horse before the Battle of the Little Big Horn, “Hokahey, today is a good day to die!”
‘Life’ could have been a classic! If only the writers had given the scientist characters their own Crazy Horse moment! If the writers had given each scientist a moment where they at least tried to sacrifice their own life to save the group — and humankind — this movie would have been a contender.
In the meantime, to keep frustration at bay —
there is always the Alien series —
and vibrators.
You’ve slaved for years to create this beautiful creature that you lovingly call ‘my book’ and when you release it into the world, it is welcomed with the sound of…
*crickets*
Why is it so hard to get people to review your book?
I don’t have an answer to that particular question, but I do have advice for all writers of undiscovered masterpieces:
Don’t count on your friends and relatives to read and review your book!
Seek strangers.
Strangers are more willing to read your book and are often more kind.
This is harsh, but this is the truth.
First, your relatives and friends who love and care for you might not love and care for the genre that you are writing. It is better to find strangers who enjoy your book’s genre.
Second, your friends and relatives know you too well and they will not be able to separate the person they know you to be from the fiction that you are writing. I posted a short story online and shared it on Facebook and I had three friends call me and ask if I was getting a divorce.
Third, when you do ask your friends and relatives to read your masterpiece and they don’t do it and don’t even bother to open your book to page one – you will have a lot less resentment to deal with. I know exactly who read my book and who did not. The people in my life who read my book will always have my forever, undying gratitude and the people who have not bothered to even attempt to read my book, well – they have been left out of my Final Will & Testament.
Just kidding.
Sort of…
Are you a stranger?
Fabulous!
Here’s my sweet baby of a book! If you don’t like the genre, please feel free to dump it at the nearest book orphanage or pass it on to someone who doesn’t know or love me.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I84NSE0/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_uk.1ybCSMQ33R … via @amazo
Meanwhile, ageing Police Detective Bud Orlean and his son Chip also become locked in a domestic battle when Chip announces that he has quit medical school to become a writer.
Dot Marshall-Gent – worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties. She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues. Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction.
