All Blog Posts Tagged 'ghosts' (51)

About The Third Man:

When two young men get lost in Alaska’s mountainous wilderness, they slowly begin to die of exposure. As their senses become numb, they become aware of a third man traveling with them at times, and are too disoriented to make contact. When the two young men collapse in exhaustion and…

Just reviewed The Aviary, by Kathleen O'Dell. (READ MORE). 

Clara Dooley has lived her whole life in the decrepit Glendoveer mansion, where her mother is the care-taker of the elderly Mrs Glendoveer. Clara's mother keeps…

By Chris Bohjalian

Crown Publishers 378 pgs

978-0-307-39499-6

Rating - It'll Do and a Half

This is a weird little book. If you are familiar with Chris Bohjalian's work then this will not surprise you. He is a master at New England village life. You understand that his books could not be set anywhere else. There are hamlets in these mainly rural states that remain fairly isolated. This allows all manner of belief and behavior to take hold and hold on. I'm…

By Tomas Eloy Martinez

Translation by Frank Wynne

Bloomsbury USA, 273 pgs

978-1-60819-711-8

Rating: 3

Everyone in this novel is loco, at least one taco short of a combo plate. Personally, I have a soft spot for Latino cultures, our neighbors to the south, and Mexico is breaking my heart. I would rather vacation in Peru than in Germany so please don't think I'm prejudiced. Still and all, everyone in this book is insane: the general, the…

The Green Room is haunted by a Confederate soldier, but for some reason, he only appears in…

Two years ago, after amicably parting ways with my literary agent of four years, I decide to take destiny into my own hands and publish my books in eformat. I had a huge collection of completed and professionally edited novels and decided that publishing one every three months seemed feasible. So, that’s what I did.

Little did I know I was on the cusp of an indie publishing revolution. My books were available at the right time, for the right audience, and at the right price.…

I’ve been writing 50,000-70,000 word novels for a while now and to do it properly takes a lot of time. My fastest writing ever was last year when I finished a 60,000 word novel in eight months. And I do believe there will always be readers who want to immerse themselves in a long, detailed story. However, I also believe that a new wave of reading experiences will take over the future. What are these, you ask?

As our lives become busier and busier, it’s harder to find time to sit and…

I just got back from a three day trip to the casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I brought my laptop but got little creative writing done. I did pretty well playing at the blackjack tables and also threw a few bucks into the slot machines. It was while playing the progressive machine that my mind began to imagine ‘the what if’s’.

The jackpot was for 1.2 million dollars. What if I suddenly hit it big? What if all the right symbols lined up and bells start ringing?…

M.R. James was probably the finest ghost story writer ever. I have all his stories in wonderful paperback collection. My favourite is "Whistle, and I'll Come To You, My Lad."

Are there any other M.R. James fans here?

Alan Toner

www.trueghoststories.co.uk

Are you fascinated by the paranormal? Do you love reading true ghost stories?

If so, then why not check out my True Ghost Stories books, all of which are now available on Amazon Kindle store at:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Alan+Toner

If any of you buy my books, I would…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a writer better. Certainly, you have to be creative, that’s a given, and you have to love stories and reading. But what is that will make you better? Here’s my answer; time.

What do I mean by that?

With the exception of a few very talented people, most writers take years to hone their skills. Some writer’s like Stephen King say that a writer’s schooling is never finished. That writer’s always have…

Just wanted to remind all my followers that my latest mind-bending trip is now available on Kindle. Thanks so much and spread the word.

What if everything we perceive, all we experience, is just a figment of someone else’s imagination? And what if that someone is dying?

IMAGINATION

A botched military mission finds new recruit Christopher Parker in a hostile prison camp. His life has become pain. To escape the prolonged misery of torture, Christopher…

I’m nearing the end of my sponsorship blitz, but I’m at the point where I can start posting my views on the whole ebook selling phenomenon. First of all, unless you’re already famous, have a strong following, or the most amazing title and cover art ever, don’t bother with expensive sponsorships. My results have been pretty much the same in extra sales whether the sponsorship I ran was $10 or $300. If you’re going to place a sponsorship, I recommend the Kindle Fire Department.com, though…

With my marketing efforts underway and my books uploaded on all the major writer’s sites, I am about ready to start my quest to write three novellas in the next year. I’m leaning toward the Dystopian genre, with a little sci-fi fantasy thrown in. I’m going to try and do a series, building on the plot book after book. I do have a few ideas that have been swimming around in my head for a few years and I recently pulled the “ideas” file from my cabinet. This file was thick with scraps of paper…

The New Year is here and I’m sure everyone plans on making 2013 better than 2012. And hopefully it will be for all of us. My free pre-release promotion for IMAGINATION has ended and the results were pretty much what I had expected due to the lack of my announcing it; a total of 857 downloads. My intention wasn’t to give away tens of thousands of books but to expose the book to heavy readers who would then ‘like, tag, and review’ the book before I rolled out the big guns and shared the link…

Twila and I see ghosts.  We talk to ghosts.  We actually hunt ghosts and enjoy the heck out of our quests.  We love to prowl old buildings and…

My promotion blitz is going well, sales are slowly increasing, and I’m getting a lot of email from people reading my books. All this is good. However, as one of the emails pointed out, I’m not certain what exactly is generating the increase. I’ve got a lot of blog ads running simultaneously right now at a cost of anywhere from $5.00 for two weeks to $300.00 for the same two weeks, depending on the amount of traffic the blog receives. However, I have no way of knowing which ads are…