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          Bruised

     

     

          by Justin Holley

     

     

         

            Giveaway ends July 24, 2015.

         

         

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Book Signings

Hey, Readers!

Since the release of BRUISED things have snowballed and its been a ton of fun. I've met many awesome fans of the thriller and horror genres...and would like to think I've made a fan of a few more. Reviews are trickling in slowly and the novel seems to have been well received thus far. Very humbling!

I've been a part of two book signings now and BRUISED has sold out at both. What? Yes! A big thanks to Vagrant Books and Beagle & Wolf Books for having me and for your ongoing support. Your staff and customers both are fantastic!

Here are a few pics from both of the events:

Attacked by an Anime character! Dealt with swiftly!

Signing book 1 of 70 of the evening at Vagrant Books!

William Kent Krueger and I at Beagle & Wolf Books

Signing BRUISED for a fan

Release Party For BRUISED

Hello, Readers!

So, the cover reveal for BRUISED was a smash, and we gave away some awesome books, posters and swag. With the swell of support, BRUISED released on May 13th and briefly stuck at #27 on the Supernatural Thrillers list! Hopefully that initial interest can be sustained.

You can purchase BRUISED anywhere books are sold (if your local bookstore isn't carrying, please ask) and also here: http://www.justinholley-author.com/writing.shtml

As a celebration of sorts for the success of this project, there will be a release party on June 5th, hosted by my friends over at Vagrant Books. There will be music, food, beverages, giveaways throughout the evening, signed copies, and readings from BRUISED, as well as, a sneak-preview of the sequel, WEDNESDAY'S CHILD. Please see details below:

Hope to see you all there!!


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Cover Reveal Contest: BRUISED by Justin Holley

Hello, Bruisers! Thanks for stopping by...

So, I finally got to see the intense and spooky cover for my debut novel, BRUISED, which releases May 13th 2015. And now, you can see it too. In fact, I'm so grateful to the many people who helped make this happen, I'm throwing a party, a contest, with giveaways from some of my friends. I'll also throw in a signed copy of BRUISED to round out the prizes.

It's simple! All you need do is check out the prizes below and the reveal of my cover at the very end. Then you can get your name in the hat up to four times: once when you comment on this blog post, twice more when you mention me and BRUISED on Twitter (include @justin_holley) and Facebook (please also post on my author site Justin Holley - Author to be sure I see it), and yet again if you recruit someone else to do these things and they drop your name. That's right! Your name could go in the hat up to four times if you care to put in the work. This shall go on until Friday, May 8th and then I'll draw "the names". I'll contact each winner either via e-mail or discreetly through social media for mailing details.

Thank you for your support!




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A.G. Howard, best-selling author of the Splintered series, brought over five--yes five!--awesome posters from the YA horror anthology her work is featured in, entitled Slasher Girls and Monster Boys! Did I mention they're signed?? What? Yes!






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Angela V. Cook, author of the awesome-book Into A Million Pieces, brought a signed copy of her novel. Just look at that beautiful cover!






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Awesome-author Bethany Crandell brought over a bag of swag all tied into her fantastic novel Summer On The Short Bus.




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A. Lyndon Rolland, awesome-author of the deliciously spooky book Of Breakable Things, also brought over a signed edition of her novel.





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A huge shout-out to my friends above for the awesome prizes! And an equally enthusiastic hooray to each and every one of you! I understand there are plenty of blogs to read out there, so the fact you're on mine, right now, is humbling. So, thank you! And good luck in the contest...

Okay, finally, the cover reveal of BRUISED. Please refrain from licking your screen as it can lead to electrocution.



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Getting closer...



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And here it is...


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Go!

Available May 13th, wherever books are sold.

Cover Reveal: PRESS PLAY By Eric Devine

My good buddy, and awesome-author, Eric Devine, has hijacked my blog! He threw a bash to celebrate the release of his cover for PRESS PLAY, and now he wants to give away the gifts we gave him. Okay! And he really wants to unveil his new cover to you, his fans! So please...PLEASE participate, and just maybe I'll get my blog back. Ha! Ha! You're gonna love it! Without further ado, I give you: the talented, Mr. Eric Devine:

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I threw a party and want to give you my gifts!!

So I finally got to see the awesome, amazing, and intense cover for my next novel, Press Play. And then the Book Buzz 2014 Young Adult edition released, which has the first two chapters in it. I was so excited that I threw a party to celebrate.

Bethany Crandell came with a signed copy of her novel, Summer on the Short Bus and a swag pack with bookmark and pin.

 

















AG Howard brought an awesome 18x24” Unhinged poster, as well as a Splintered series swag pack.

Lisa Ann O’Kane rolled up with an e-copy of her debut, Essence and some sweet swag pins.

 



 A. Lynden Rolland rocked the place with a signed copy of her debut, Of Breakable Things and her swag pins and bookmark.

 

 

And then Justin Holley scared us all with his contribution: a signed copy of the horror anthology, Amanda’s Recurring Nightmares, in which his short story, “Wildflower” is featured.

We had a blast, and because I’m so thrilled with my cover and the sample chapters, I WANT TO GIVE ALL MY GIFTS AWAY.

So let’s reveal my cover and then you will have a chance to win all that you saw above, as well as a signed copy of Press Play. Awesome, right?

*Drum roll*

And for the teaser:

Scroll for the real deal

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Author Interview: Wade Alan Steele

Bemidji, Minnesota—not usually equated with being a hotbed of cultural style—has per-capita, perhaps, a stable of authors who can hold their own with the denizens of the smarmiest of literary abodes. Even though he now lives elsewhere, I would like to spotlight one of these folks in particular. I present to you, a dear friend of mine, the talented author, Wade Alan Steele. He is the author of PLAGUE SEED and other fantastical delicacies.

So, we went to school together, you and I. Seems like an eternity ago to most, but like yesterday to us writers who never forget anything. Now, we sang in choir, you acted in many a production, but never, not even once, did I hear you mention writing as an interest. So, when and how did you first get the bug for this thing?

I blame New York City Transit.

I had just graduated from the National Shakespeare Conservatory (1995) in NYC and had escaped the next logical career step as an actor, being a waiter.  I was working at a new movie theater in uptown Manhattan and was living in Brooklyn at the time.  This meant an hour commute by subway.  I wasn’t making very good money, certainly not enough to do a lot of book shopping, and I had a fine at the Brooklyn Public Library that was growing by the week, so I was reading the same books over and over again.  I was also dating a lovely woman from Staten Island – another trek, believe me – and had a great deal of time to kill in transit.

I purchased a Mead Composition Book.  I had done some writing in high school and college, but had never finished a story, so I decided I would use that wasted subway and Staten Island Ferry time to write.

I started with a poem to the woman I was dating: “It was her autumn eyes that began my fall”.  As I continued writing, it started to sound like a character, and he sounded like a jerk.  I have been a Dungeons and Dragons player since the age of 13, so I had a whole world already built—I threw the character into that world and into a brothel.  Because why not?  The poem became the first chapter of the Plague Fall Trilogy.

 
Six filled to the last page Mead Composition Books later I had finished a story.  I was hooked.

 

Writing means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. What are some of your long-term goals? How ‘bout short-term?

 

Originally I saw dollar signs, someone optioning the book for a movie, mad bling—I’m not ruling those things out, but my goal now is to finish book two and three in the next year and a half and tell a good story.

The hardest part of the self-publishing path, especially on a shoestring budget, is that you have every job; writing, marketing, web design, book trailer creator—all of it falls to you.  I spend money where it matters; an awesome editor, Lexi Klenow and a crazy talented cover artist, John Amor, but the rest of it, all me.  I have serious respect for those self-published folk who can not only turn out awesome material, but also execute the backstage things so well.  It’s a crazy learning curve, takes up a lot of creative time, and I’ve got a lot to learn.

I have a survival job and am a father of two rambunctious boys, so my creative/business planning time is short (when it comes) and often happens either late at night (like now) or before sunrise, but it will always get done.  I’ve got a story to tell, damn it.  It will get done.

 
 

Plague Seed (book one in your planned trilogy) has managed nothing but positive reviews, with many reviewers clamoring for the next installment. Can you give us an indication of how long this wait may be? Any advance plot-lines you’d care to share with the public at this time?

 

Plague War, Book Two of the Plague Fall Trilogy is with the editor as we speak and my cover artist is working on the layout for the cover.  My hope is for a late February, early March release.

I am 25,000 words into Plague Fall, the final novel in the trilogy, and am very happy with it so far.  I am shooting for same release time 2015.

The events of Plague Seed, book one, were unkind to our hero, Drayvus Varden, banished elven knight turned professional mischief maker and killer, but as the novel closed it looked as if he would start down the hero’s path.  Plague War finds Drayvus trying to drink himself to death in the makeshift refuge village of Gate Town—he’s Nick Cage-ing the place Leaving Las Vegas style; Leaving Gate Town, that’s what I’ve been calling the first third of the book.  He needs to be dragged kicking and screaming to save his people from the disease he was used to bring back.

 

Any plans for other future new projects that you can share?

 

I’ve got a few ideas I’m very passionate about.  Being a horror writer, you probably know a little bit about witch hunting.  There is a 15^th century witch hunter’s manual called The Malleus Maleficarum, or the Witch Hammer, written by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, two Dominican monks.  It is a hateful handbook, sanctioned by the church, laying out the process of finding, interrogating, and setting up a trial for an accused witch.  The Malleus Maleficarum became the standard guide to the massive witch burnings of the Inquisition.  I would like to write a historical fiction novel using this book as source material.

 
I also have a comic book in the works with my cover artist, John Amor called Geek Gods, about five 13 year old roleplaying geeks who find a planet in a box and become gods to its inhabitants.  That one has been in the works for a while, but it’s going to be worth the wait!  Amor’s work is really stunning.  (http://johnamorartist.com/)
 

 

 

I happen to know several of your best-kept secrets, the fact you find the song “Talk Dirty To Me” by Poison a guilty pleasure not least of which. But please, it’s been a long time. What can you share with my blog-readers that they might not know by visiting you on social media?

 

Dear lord.  Can it get anymore embarrassing than “Talk Dirty to Me”?  I am still lost in that era of music, man.  Can’t help myself.  Love the Hair Band stations on Pandora!

 
I’m a TV junkie like you wouldn’t believe.  Love my Supernatural, Community, and Parks and Recreation.  Really quite dull.  There’s my secret; I am really quite dull!

 

What advice might you give to an aspiring writer who is just trying to break in to the madness?

 

Read.  Read multiple styles and genres.  Get to know what you like, what you don’t like; what works for you, what doesn’t. Pick up a strange history book or a repair manual.  Read that.  Inspiration can come from the least expect places.

Write.  Write every chance you get.  When you start writing crap, keep writing; the likelihood that something brilliant will come next is greater than if you let crap writing defeat you. 

Get yourself a copy of The Elements of Style or, at the very least, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Grammar and Style.  No matter how brilliant you are in this regard, you will always learn something useful.

Share.  Share your writing with someone you trust.  I have something called the final “Wife Read”.  My wife is the world’s greatest reader!  If a sentence passes the wife test, I’m golden; I know I have a sentence that kills.

Hire an editor.  If you’re going to spend money, do it here.  You want your finished product to sparkle.  I rushed into my first self-publishing endeavor; a book of short stories called A Sudden Dominance of Shadows.  The stories could have used a copy and story editor to be sure.  Some day I will revisit the book; there are many worthwhile tales in there. 

The first grammatical or formatting error will cause even the most forgiving reader to drop your book like a hot stone.  Dress that child of yours up!

 

 What’s the best way for your fans to connect with you?

 

I am a social media pygmy, but I’m trying to build a greater online presence.

Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Plague-Seed-Fall-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00B0JP334

Website:          http://wadealansteele.com

Facebook:        https://www.facebook.com/wadealan.steele?fref=ts

Twitter:           https://twitter.com/wadealansteele

Blog:               http://steelethisblog.wordpress.com/

…or directly:   steeleshadows@gmail.com

 

Any last words? (You are being interviewed on a horror author’s website, after all).

 

A few.  First, thanks for sharing your corner of the internet with me.  I miss you, bro!  Now that I am a Minnesotan once more, we must needs hang! Second, read Plague Seed.  It is Joss Whedon meets Dungeons and Dragons.  It’s a lot of fun and touching too.  Swords, dragons, elves, dwarves and… heart.  Ha!  Yup, I do my own marketing!

So, there you have it! Thank you so much, my friend, for allowing me the interview, and for dressing up my blog with flare and moxie. And here’s to—hopefully not in the too-distant future—you and I sitting around the fire with snotty drinks in hand. We will discuss the old days, the new days, and toast to the small dent we have managed to put in the publishing world.

Short Story: COMPLICATIONS

Okay, I don't usually post stories on my blog, BUT, I need YOUR (yes your) help to win the cute little thing found at Michelle Simkins blog, here: http://twe.ly/wxob -- It'll sit right between my signed copy of TERMINAL and my crystal skull. So, please go to this site and vote for my story (if you like it). PLEASE! Thank you. Now, enjoy the story (it's free):

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COMPLICATIONS

If he need sit any longer, they’d better find him a cot. Damn his ass hurt—and just what the hell could take so long? An animal bite sure as hell shouldn’t take all evening.

The shadows, deeper now, seemed to mock Jake. The sun, pleasant and bright on their arrival, threatened to sink below the tree-line. And the tiny waiting room—the one with an even tinier TV and a fricken pop machine too loud to hear the TV anyway—offered little to preserve the small bit of sunlight.

“Yer gonna need to be patient,” the cranky old nurse had said, early on. “There’s been a small complication…nothin’ to worry yourself about.” And Jake wondered why the old crone hadn’t retired yet—and why the hell she kept itching at her ass cheek. Instead of staring at her cigarette-wrinkled-upper-lip and her thinning gray hair, maybe he should’ve asked her what kind of complication his girlfriend had. But he didn’t—and he hadn’t seen a soul since. Not one damn white-smocked nurse.

For the tenth time, Jake wadded up a Snicker’s wrapper and tried to hit the ridiculously small trash can.

The wrapper missed, lilted off the side of the can and careened toward the white-tiled hallway.

When he went to retrieve the stray, Jake stared at the white and red emergency-room door. Nobody had come or gone from it in over an hour. Sure, a small town, Jake got that, but an hour? Just maybe nobody else decided to get hurt or sick today, but he found that highly convenient.

Jake paced and tried to sneak nonchalant glances through the small square window. The window, hard to see through to begin with, harbored a set of smudges which rendered seeing through it nearly impossible. And just what the hell was that white shit in the corner of the window? Had it been there before? Jack didn’t think so. He eyeballed it from where he stood and couldn’t decide if it consisted of cotton or something else—yarn maybe.

He crept closer. Ice spiders wriggled their way up his spine, his neck, and then finally his scalp came alive with the little electric pulses. “What the fuck?” he whispered to nobody.

The door swung open easy enough. A cool breeze hissed out past Jake like an unsealed vacuum. And then the stench hit him—something like mildew and blood. He expected to see moths flutter about in the musty din.

But all remained quiet—calm before a storm.

Bits of what looked like material, tiny chunks of yarn, lay strewn across the floor of the emergency-room and disappeared behind the lone examination table like a trail of bread crumbs.

Jake crept closer, following the trail, the stench building in his nostrils. He thought briefly about plugging his nose, but the smell, pleasant now, soothed his frayed nerves, lulled him like the gentle swing of a rocking horse.

And then a quiet moan brought Jake back from his burgeoning nirvana. The soft gasp sounded weak yet alive, satisfied somehow, like dead leaves settling after a fall rainstorm, or earthworms sucking back into the sanctity of their holes, damp and natural—guttural.

Then a scraping noise—a shoe on tile. More soft moans cascaded. This time Jake thought he noticed a note of pleasure in the breathy rasp. “Hello?”

A sigh, then, “Here…right here behind the table. No hurry.”

Jake noticed a white shoe sticking out from behind. It rocked back and forth in a rhythmic motion. He walked over slowly, curious, but not wanting to interrupt anyone’s good time. Better not be his girlfriend down there with one of them fancy-pants docs!

More sighs.

With a bit more calm than he felt, Jake leaned over—and stared. “What the hell?” Down below, on the cold floor, the old crone of a nurse lay there fingering a gash in her throat like it was her clitoris. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

The nurse glanced up with a dreamy look. “I suspect I’m dying…but…but what a way to go…”

“Who did this to you?” Jake felt a chill in his belly.

“Not a who, dear,” she moaned.

“What?”

“Exactly—a what,” she muttered, still preoccupied with the bloody hole in her neck. Blood pooled below her on the white tile, soaking into her hair like an old mop.

“Okay—okay, what did this to you?” he asked. “And where’s my girlfriend!”

“The most darling little thing you ever saw!”

Then Jake noticed the little pieces of green yarn all over the old crone’s neck. “What was it?”

The nurse stuck her finger a bit deeper into the wound, blood spilling quicker to the floor. “You’ll see. And you’ll be all the better for it—right through there.” She pointed toward a solid steel door. “You’ll probably find your girl in there too, although I’d wager she ain’t yours no more. No way you can compete with that cozy little bundle.”

Jake, without hesitation, scared now, raced to the door and pulled it open. Before him on the floor, between an office chair and an old metal desk, his girlfriend lay naked on the tile. On top of her belly, some kind of knit creature, a stuffed rabbit, jumped up and down.

The rabbit, no a bunny, he was sure it was a bunny and not a rabbit, appeared to be made of yarn. One yarn eyeball hung down out of its socket, looking like one of those snappers the kids used to play with. Red stuffing bled out of the thing’s right ear, left paw, and neck.

His girlfriend, bleeding profusely where the bunny had taken a bite out of her inner thigh, squealed. “Oh, Jake, can we take it home?”

Jake stared, nodded, then shrugged. Why the fuck not? The thing was cute as hell.

The bunny leaped off Jake’s girl and stood before him. It opened its mouth and hissed softly, arms spread wide, “Come…Zombunny wants to love you!"