12 Nights of Christmas--Shameless Self-Promotion

My collection of dark short stories based on "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is back, just in time for the holiday season. I've been all about the Amazon in the past, but with this release, I'm going wider. The book won't be on Amazon but you can find it at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Tolino (if you happen to live in Germany), and a number of others.

Some of these stories originally appeared in Dark Valentine Magazine or on the website and it's a pretty eclectic batch of tales. I enjoyed writing them. The cover is by the talented Joy Sillsesen of Indie Author Services.

After Christmas Sale!

12 Nights of Christmas, my collection of dark takes on the traditional holiday song, is now available FREE on Smashwords. And coming soon--free on Amazon as well. Now that the holidays are over and it's a new year, why not pick up some free reading?

Holiday Freebies--the Kattomic Energy Edition

I will be participating in my colleague Dale T. Phillips' holiday book give-away. I'm offering three different books--Toxic Reality, The Poisoned Teat, and 12 Nights of Christmas. All you have to do is post a comment, letting me know which book you'd like and I'll pick winners on December 20!  Be sure to leave me a valid email address.
And bop over to Dale's site to see who else is participating and what else you could win! Tis the season and how better to celebrate it than with some dark fiction?

Freebie Fiction Sample

This story is from 12 Nights of Christmas, available here and here in your choice of e-formats for the bargain price of 99 cents. Whatever happened to the "cents" sign on a keyboard? Was it never on a computer keyboard or was it lost in the transition from typewriters to computers? I miss the cents sign.

Four Birds Calling

Reg could see the two birds out of the corner of his eye. They were looking at him and giggling, being none too subtle about it.

He knew what they were thinking.

Is it him?

Could it be?

The resemblance really was quite striking. He had the same blond mop-top, the same bedroom eyes, the same succulent lower lip.

He even styled his wardrobe after Thomas, the photographer his doppelganger had played in Blow-Up. The white pants and powder-blue shirt rolled up to the elbows. It was a good look for him.

The shirt matched his eyes.

And eyes are the windows of the soul.

Reg never looked birds in the eye though; he always focused on their lips. Eventually they’d notice and ask, “What?”

He’d always say, “You have the most beautiful lips.”

It worked a treat, that line.

Is it him?

Could it be?

He glanced over at the girls and flashed his second-best smile at them, which was enough to make the fat one blush but the spotty one looked back at him boldly and licked her lips while making intense eye contact.

Well hello, Reg thought.

Saturday Sample Story--Boundaries

Photo by Dani Simmonds

I am re-editing the stories in my Twelve Nights of Christmas collection, which I had in the Kindle Prime program. As soon as the term runs out (two weeks from now), I am going to republish it with a new cover, re-branded as the 12 Nights of Christmas.  It'll be interesting to see how it does. I've been asking people how they liked their Kindle Prime experience and the answers have been amixed bag. Dani at Blog Book Tours (on FB) pointed me toward some people who were very, very happy with their results, but among my friends and colleagues, there hasn't been that much enthusiasm. I think for me, it comes down to the old, "Why leave money on the table?"  It's not that I sell large numbers of books at Barnes and Noble and Kobo, I don't. But I do sell some. And I just don't see "borrowing" translating to "sales." Thoughts?
Anyway, this is one of the stories from that collection, my version of "A Partridge in a Pear Tree." Enjoy.

Boundaries

Five families came west to Kansas, searching for a better life than the lives that had been shattered by the war. To begin with there were 16 adults and 14 children, three dogs, six goats, two cows, a small flock of chickens, three pigs and a stray kitten one of the children had picked up when the group passed through St. Louis.

The families arrived in summer and built their sod houses and planted small gardens for the kitchen and plowed their land to make it ready for the coming year.

They’d all been farmers back in Maryland, so they knew how harsh farming life could be.

At least they thought they knew until their first winter on their new land when the temperature reached minus 34 degrees and nearly one hundred inches of snow fell between October and March.

The flock of chickens didn’t survive, and one of the cows died too—even though the family that owned her kept her inside with them to keep her warm.