Guest Post: Marketing, or how I Proved the Existence of Hell + Big Giveaway Prizes

Please enjoy this guest post by Justin Ordoñez, author of the YA novel (for 18+ readers), Sykosa. Then read on to learn how you can win huge prizes as part of this blog tour, including $550 in Amazon gift cards, a Kindle Fire, and 5 autographed copies of the book.

Marketing, Or how I Proved the Existence of Hell.

Self-publishing requires either A) no skills and being totally deluded as to the reality of success in the book market, or B) no skills and the reality you’re going to have to learn a lot. And that’s a simple fact. Between writing, editing, formatting, choosing a printer, choosing retailers, web development, content generation, typesetting, book trailers and the fifty other things I’m forgetting, you’re certain to encounter a challenge for which you are in no way prepared, and not only are you not prepared, your desire to become prepared hovers somewhere near the axis of zero.

I discovered mine on January 11, 2012--Marketing.

Marketing’s an entirely deceptive term. When a thing is so multi-dimensional and other-worldly abstract, we expect it come coupled with tongue-tying terminology. I mean, who would touch marketing if it was done by someone called a, “Surpurgodunintrihumanthofeelemo-ologist?” (Stands for: “Surveyor, purveyor, and Godlike understander of all intricate human thoughts, feelings, and emotions.”) No one. And that’s just the beginning! As it’s really only one aspect of marketing. You not only need to communicate with the potential book buyer, but with the many marketing channels available, i.e. book bloggers, book reviewers, book recommendation sites, book social networking sites, and many, many more. Essentially, in order to succeed at marketing, when you’re not busy being a social butterfly, expanding your pool of contacts and showing a legitimate interest in people’s lives, you need to be a socially reclusive, type-A, mega-jerk who produces the stuff that gets sent to all the people who are now your contacts.

As this is seriously an enormously enormous undertaking, I did what I’d advise any author do. Write Novel Publicity and get some help. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Problem solved, right? How could it be that marketing is such a huge undertaking you cannot count on Novel Publicity alone? Unfortunately, while Novel Publicity is your access to the market, you are still your own personal generator of content. Guest blog posts, interviews, all manner of interactions still come from you, and they’re a perspective reader’s introduction to your writing, your style, your passion, and ultimately if they’re interested in your work.

These are elements I’m fine with.

Or…

These are elements I thought I was fine with.

After all, it can’t be that hard, can it? Blog-post-smog-post. Promotional-images-smosional-images. You’re a brilliant author who wrote an entire novel, what can this world throw at you that you can’t beat back with your bare fists? Well, a lot, and way more than you think, too. Do you know how to use Calibre? HTML? Gimp? Neither did I, but thanks to our good friend YouTube, I was able to spend a what-would-be-hilarious-if-it-weren’t-so-depressingly-true amount of time learning them. And it was going fine—sure, I was underslept, over-sugar’d, and had begun to scratch myself so frequently I was breaking skin in more than one or two places, but aside from all that, I was a marketing genius! I was…lying to myself. I was scratching my head frequently, and I was encountering a new, unforeseen challenge at every corner. (Novel Publicity would gladly have helped me, but I wanted their time to be used for, you know, generating publicity, not a grade school-style education seminar for me). Then, it finally happened, I realized what I had needed to realize since the beginning.

Children are evil.

No, seriously, they are. Stay with me on this one.

It happened while I was working on the image below.

Let me preface the story like this.

Being an adult means your time getting screwed over on the playground is over. Well, it’s not really over. Adults are as catty as children, but it’s different. Adults are so covert, so pathological, and so politically calculating in their screwing over of others that it trumps all human understanding. Kids simply call you a name and move on, so I suppose I mean to say that, as an adult, your days of outright mockery are over. No longer will you be subject to a choir of second grade girls singing, “Jus-tin, bus-tin, the big fat…” as the song dies since they had called you fat, there was nothing obvious to rhyme it with, and there was no reserve hatred left in them, and since they’re not total nut job psychotics like grown-ups, they move onto the sensitive boy who loves to draw unicorns and hearts.

As you may have guessed, I was talking about myself.

And I was wrong.

My days of outright mockery had only begun!

Why, you ask?

Because I decided to self-publish my novel, and because I lacked skills. The image above did not make itself. In fact, I’m only 20% certain of why it turned out the way it did. Much like a child, I bought in on total faith that the directions I was being given would work, then knocked this “learning comprehension” business aside. And why do I use child in that example? Well, being such an amateur, you won’t know how to correctly ask Google for answers. For instance, in the text up top, a professional knows to type, “How do you create text with a radius of so-and-so so it appears like an arch?” You, on the other hand, type, “How do you make text look like a rainbow?” That’s right. You’re gonna ask as if you were a six-year old, so guess what? You’re gonna get search results from midget-geniuses who’re so young they’re struggling to lose that lisp one gets when learning English.

With your earphones plugged it, that little voice starts at you in much the way that girl (or boy or still girl given your gender and sexual orientation) looked at you when you innocently sat next to her on the bus, that look of, “Who are you and what makes you think you don’t have to maintain fifty feet of distance from me at all times?” “Okay, guys, like, this is simple, like, first thing we’re gonna do is create a path.” Click-click-click-click-click-click! “Okay, looks nothing like what you want, but that’s fine, we’ll fix it later.” Click-click-click-click-click! “Okay, here we go, we color to alpha, create a new layer, color to alpha again.” Click-click-click-click-click! “Take the path tool, debate buying a shotgun now that I’ve convinced you you’ve failed at life, then change the angle, now, if you want to change the color, you use the select tool, but not like you’re used to using it, I’ll now proceed to click around the screen like a swarm of hornets attacking an intruder and not explain a single step.” Click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click! “Alright guys, wasn’t that simple? Make sure you submit your humiliatingly easy questions so my buddies and I can laugh at you before we record the next lesson.”

How long did it take you to read that?

Divide that by four, and that’s how fast the kid said it.

(Blood pressure…rising).

In a way, it’s not the kid’s fault. Children have brains that learn everything quickly, effortlessly, and with no respect for it. It’s not till you’re a teenager when you hit places where, despite your effort, you’re not gonna learn it. Rationally, I understand this. But, as a human being, in a dark corner of my favorite local eatery, constantly pausing/playing/pausing/playing/pausing/playing while I toggle between Firefox/Gimp/Firefox/Gimp/Firefox/Gimp in an ever-failing attempt to emulate this six year old Einstein, I realize: It’s kind of amazing such a young kid knows this stuff. Still, I don’t know if I admire this child or I want to punch him in the face. That’s what this child had done to me. That thin line between love and hate, he has blurred it and I can no longer tell the difference between unconditional love and righteous hatred.

"Wow, mister, I've never met anyone as dumb as you before!"

So I add an addendum to my original statement: Children are evil, and so is marketing. And by that I mean: Marketing is responsible for all evil on the planet Earth. I’m serious. It’s hard at its every level. There’s no way to just be “good” at marketing, and nothing will diminish the fact that literal blood, sweat, and tears will be lost to its cause, which ultimately ends up at what we call the “marketplace,” or as I’ve recently been referring to it, “The Death-Vacuum that Took the Giant Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way and Said, ‘Wow, You Look Like a Tasty Candy Bar.’” I hate to use sports analogies since not everyone likes sports, but the only thing more infuriating than marketing may be consistently hitting a baseball.

In baseball, if you hit 30% of the time, you’re a legend.

In marketing, I’m gonna say if you hit 5% of the time, you’re a legend.

Sykosa, my new YA novel for which all this marketing is being done, is a work of love, but more than a work of love, it’s a good book. I went to fantastic lengths to ensure this. Like any good character should be, Sykosa is indescribable, but because we have marketing in this evil world, I’m going to do it anyway. Sykosa’s a sixteen-year-old girl who’s struggling to reclaim her identify after an act of violence shatters her life and the lives of her friends. She’s also kind of a riddle, but that’s alright, because you’ll know—in your gut—this is exactly the decision she would make, even if you can’t articulate why. She likes a boy she probably shouldn’t, except you’re not going to think, “Why is she dating this guy?” because you’ll know—in your gut—this is exactly the guy she would date, even if you can’t articulate why. She’s bright and could do a lot with her life, but she’s letting it slip past her, and you’re not gonna get upset with her, you’re gonna empathize, because you’ll know—in your… Egh, I could go on and on. Sykosa is special, I’m telling you she is, and I’m working this marketing game—which fits me like the worst fitting glove imaginable—to get her an opportunity.

I don’t say that to illicit sympathy. This is marketing, after all.

As I’ve learned, if I wanted sympathy, I woulda joined the military.

Comparatively, they treat you nice there. (I jest).

Still, perhaps you can imagine… What’s it like to watch this child’s mouse clicking about the screen, thinking seven things at once, and me in my chair, unable to eat my entire plate of French fries cause my metabolism won’t allow it, confused cause, as an adult, you need things presented to you sequentially, and logically, and, like, yes, you need people to take at least one breath between sentences! I mean—seriously, when do children breathe? Does it ever happen? Is this one of those things you don’t have to do until you’re grown up?

(Count to ten, Justin. Count to ten… He’s just a child. Nothing more).

Anyhow, Sykosa came out this week, and now she’s finishing her Whirlwind tour. I’m writing this all before it’s happened and I think, I hope, I’ve survived it and things are looking good for the future. For now, all I can say, in my most evening news-ish marketing voice, “Please visit Sykosa.com for lots of Sykosa related stuff, like character profiles, sketches, funny diagrams, a video question and answer blog, and a forty page excerpt.” But, I wonder if it that message can be heard, if amongst this open array of electrical impulses large enough to capture the entire human imagination, and small enough molecularly to be stuffed into box so tiny we lack the technology to even build it, is there room for Sykosa?

Can she break through the mist? Do you hear her?

She’s trying to say, “What’s up!”



As part of this special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity, the price of the Sykosa eBook edition is just 99 cents this week. What’s more, by purchasing this fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many awesome prizes. The prizes include $550 in Amazon gift cards, a Kindle Fire, and 5 autographed copies of the book.

All the info you need to win one of these amazing prizes is RIGHT HERE. Remember, winning is as easy as clicking a button or leaving a blog comment--easy to enter; easy to win!

To win the prizes:

1. Purchase your copy of Sykosa for just 99 cents
2. Fill-out the simple form on Novel Publicity
3. Visit today’s featured social media event
4. BONUS:  Leave a comment on this post*

Leave a comment, win $100:

One random tour commenter will win a $100 Amazon gift card. Just leave a comment on this post, and you'll be entered to win. For a full list of participating blogs, check out the official tour page. You can enter on just my blog or on all of them. Get out there and network!

About the book:  YA fiction for the 18+ crowd. Sykosa is a sixteen-year-old girl trying to reclaim her identity after an act of violence shatters her life and the lives of her friends. Set at her best friend’s cottage, for what will be a weekend of unsupervised badness, Sykosa will have to finally confront the major players and issues from this event, as well as decide if she wants to lose her virginity to Tom, her first boyfriend, and the boy who saved her from danger. Get it on Amazon.

About the author:  Sykosa is Justin Ordoñez's life's work. He hopes to one day settle down with a nerdy, somewhat introverted woman and own 1 to 4 dogs. Visit Justin on his website, Twitter, Facebook, or GoodReads.

My First Love - Writing and Mission: Australia

The year was 1994. I was living in Salida, California - a suburb of Modesto, and all I could think of being when I grew up was a writer. It was the year my grandmother passed away from breast cancer, the year we moved to Arizona, but also the year I finished my very first novel - Mission: Australia.

See, I had been writing short stories since the age of eleven. Rounding up friends I met in junior high, pairing them up with outrageous adventures only my mind could concoct, I created what would later become my Expired Reality series. Mission: Australia was an attempt to string some of these short stories together into a coherent novel format, one which would later define what I would end up doing for the rest of my life - write. My love for novel writing was so strong that even when my grandmother was on her death bed, the breast cancer eating away at her mortal form and stripping her of her memories, she was able to recall enough of my passion that she asked me if I was able to finish my novel. She remembered my writing more than she remembered the basics.

One of the projects currently on my to-do list is to transfer Mission: Australia - a 400+ page handwritten manuscript - into digital format so it can be edited later on down the line and possibly turned into a prequel novel(s) for my Expired Reality series. This task is monumental, not necessarily for the simple act of typing it (I have been typing since eighth grade and have clocked myself at over 80wpm), but because my handwriting was a mishmash of cursive, slop and doodles.


And of course, with most, if not all adolescent writing attempts, the book itself is a mishmash of poor grammar, unbelievable story lines, and terribly lacking characterization. But isn't that the beauty of writing when you're younger? Nobody cares what it looks like. Nobody cares that your characters have super power that are never explained, that the villains can escape explosions and bullets so serendipitously that the Hand of God must be inside your novel world. Nobody cares how much fun you're having doing what you love to do best - write.

I think as we get older, as we get into the 'business' side of writing, the career mindset takes over and we start writing for others instead of writing for ourselves. I am by no means defending poor grammar or disjointed plot threads, but instead promoting the love of writing. When I started the short stories that eventually became Mission: Australia, my goal was to write out the adventures that were running around in my head, to get them on paper so I could read them over and over again, to empty my soul and my mind of dreams and adventures. When I look back at these stories, I fall in love with writing again. I fall in love with my characters, with the little world I built back in the days of junior high and bullies and family strife. These were the stories of my life, my escape from the real world.

A lot of us lose that aspect of writing as we get older. Not just as we get older either, but as we start worrying about 'who' we're writing for. We should always be writing for us, for our own solace, for our own amusement - first and foremost. It's a wonderful thing when others enjoy our stories - especially when we are trying to make a career out of it - but it's always best when we enjoy our stories and feel that we've tied up the loose ends of our soul with the simple act of pressing pen to paper.

David N. Alderman is a self-published/indie author who specializes in edgy Christian speculative fiction and young adult fiction. You can find his books at www.davidnalderman.com or you can find him talking about writing, self-publishing, and geek stuff over at his blog, www.davidnalderman.blogspot.com.

Subliminal by Brian Blocker

Robert Dawes is success incarnate. Three months before the start of the story, he was named the Director of Client Acquisitions for Piedmont Capital. With such a high promotion, his family - a beautiful wife and two young kids who love him as much as he loves them - can live in an upscale neighborhood with no monetary concerns whatsoever.

You see, Robert is a hard man to say no to. It's this very trait, along with his kind heart, that makes him excel as a salesman, father, and husband.

One day he takes Matthew, his son, to a park and notices a man who seems to have appeared from nowhere sitting on a bench. Because he can't match the man with any of the kids in the park, he automatically fears the mystery man is a creep. Just as he rushes Matthew away and decides to warn the other parents, the man seemingly disappears as quickly as he appeared.

Robert's life becomes considerably more weird and out-of-control. The more he sees the man that no one else can see, the more he starts to think something is wrong with his mind. It's not until he finally sits down with the mystery man (after much resistance) that he learns for certain that nothing is wrong with his mind, per se, but his mind can do what the average individual's can not.

You see, Robert is a hard man to say no to, and it's not just because he is charismatic and hardworking. He has the power to manipulate and listen in on people's thoughts.

At first, Robert thinks this ability is cool, and it is pretty cool, but there are definitely people who use that power for wrongdoing. With the ability to manipulate thoughts, it's very easy to make a person murder or rape someone for your own gain. Martin Nance, a powerful Level One, is a master at ruthless manipulation for his own gain. If Martin reaches the most powerful state, Level Zero, his power could reach that of a god's.

That's where Robert comes in. In the end, it's up to him to master his quickly advancing power and protect his family by eliminating Martin. After all, he may be the only one capable of Level Zero.

So, just to get the spazzfest out of the way, I really liked this story. I mean, I really liked this story. It is very well-written. The characters and their motivations, especially that of Robert's, are realistic. Apart from the occasional typo (I have an ARC copy, so that's honestly no surprise. Typos tend to sneak past in ARC copies of books), nothing took me out of this story. The editor in me didn't find it necessary to comment on the romance, setting, characterization or conflict. I remained a reader all the way through.

Usually, when I'm reading a story where the beginning starts off so perfectly (as in, the main character is very successful and happy), I can't wait for everything to fall apart because that's when the story will really begin. In Subliminal, everything didn't fall apart (though enough fell apart to make for an interesting conflict), but I found I didn't want everything to anyway. Call me a sap, but I just couldn't get enough of how true everyone's love was for each other. It's been a while since I read a story where I so genuinely wanted everyone's love to last.

In spite of the awesome fight scenes that mainly consisted of mind manipulation, the interesting peaks into other people's minds, and the goal to take out Martin, this story is really about the power of love and how love leads to true success and happiness.

Subliminal is a five star, at least in my opinion. I hope author Brian Blocker will be writing many more books in the future.

Legends Reborn: The Light of Epertase series (book one) by Douglas Brown

*Giveaway Bonus*

The giveaway is closed. The winner of the print copy of Legends Reborn and a bookmark is katja9_10.

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Rasi, a talented warrior and member of Prince Elijah's squad, may soon become a captain. However, he no longer wants the warrior lifestyle. He'd rather settle down with his pregnant wife for a little while and perhaps pick up a career a lot less death heavy.

Rasi's plan was to give up his title as a warrior some time after going to the royal family's meeting. Unfortunately, the shortcut he takes from the palace in an effort to quickly get back to his wife ends up completely changing everything. Rasi hears a commotion. At first he just thinks it's a bunch of drunken men until he hears a girl being harmed. He tries to save her; he tries to defeat the captors.

It does not go as planned. Rasi opens his eyes and learns two things: 1.) his tongue is gone and 2.) he is not only being framed for the rape and murder of the girl, but his punishment is to die fighting a seven-tentacled beast. Here, Rasi's talent as a warrior gets him through - though barely - and the seven tentacles jump from the Rashta to him.

His escape seems for naught. He has nowhere to return to and nothing to keep him going but revenge...well, until he meets Princess Alina many years later.

I thought the story would be about Rasi and his revenge. However, with the introduction of Alina comes the introduction of the Light and the coming war with the Teks. The Light's role is to decide when the throne should be passed from elder to heir. However, on the day of change, the Light can be stolen if Alina is killed. The Teks, a steampunk civilization, are just out to conquer worlds and acquire more oil, and Epertase happens to be next.

Douglas Brown did a great job describing battles and plans, and the bits of humor here and there got a smile out of me. He's a a great writer, in that I could usually imagine everything he described and his sentences flowed together. However, I couldn't really connect with the characters. Prince Elijah's corruptness (I don't understand what he has against Rasi), Rasi and Alina's fairly quick relationship, even some of Rasi's actions...sometimes the only purpose I could see was moving the plot forward.

For me, the story especially picks up when the Teks started invading. At this point, the focus was less on characterization and more on the war (which was well-written and an enjoyable read).

Still, I have faith in Brown's storytelling skills and writing ability and I know for certain that he gets a better grasp of characterization the more he writes. How awesomely realistic the characters in Tamed were proves this. I recommend Legends Reborn for anyone interested in fantasy, steampunk, and battles.

Due out August 1, 2012

Find Douglas Brown

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Tamed (Amazon)

Death Alarm

Project X: Horror Movie in Disguise

I'm going to do something I've never done before - review a movie at Reader's Den.

There's not much of a plot, but this is fine only because I'm certain this movie wasn't meant to have a plot. It's the typical teenage-boys-want-popularity-and-sex story. The main characters are Thomas, Costa, JB, and Dax. Dax is the one filming most of the movie. We only see him one time, when he moves the camera in front of a mirror. His stereotypical role? The mysterious goth. I guess he's filming because Costa really wants him to and the director figured that this type of filming helps make the movie look cool.

Thomas is the unlucky individual with the big house and parents leaving for the weekend; in other words, his house is the party house. His stereotypical role? The lame, kind loner with no backbone and manipulative friends. Well, I shouldn't say manipulative 'friends,' since JB's stereotypical role is also that of a lame, overweight weirdo with no backbone and a manipulative friend (keep in mind I'm just spelling out the stereotypes in the movie. I do NOT feel this way about the characters. I don't really feel anything about the characters, since they're undeveloped. This is just how they're stereotypically portrayed, time and time again).

Costa is the bad seed. Thomas is the focus point, but this is Costa's movie. He manipulated Thomas into throwing the party. He went crazy inviting so many people that, by the end of the movie, 1500+ people were at the party. He's the last person we see at the end of the movie and the only one to really escape the charges.

Heck, at least the movie begins with obscenities. That way people with a low tolerance for cursing and sexual content already know what they're getting themselves into from the get-go.

Everything takes place in the span of 1-2 days. Thomas's parents leave for the weekend. The popular girl Costa wants Thomas to have sex with by the end of the night is introduced, even though the viewer can easily tell that there is a budding relationship between Thomas and his best female friend. Drugs are acquired; a gnome is stolen (oh boy, that friggin' gnome). And, a little past 9 pm, the party finally starts.

When I say it starts, I mean it starts.

So, I went to see this movie with my boyfriend and friends. We're the targeted audience - though we're not out-of-control party animals, we are a group of teens either just out of high school or about to graduate from high school.

Initially, I liked this movie. I laughed here and there. It reminded me of my party days. Then, at some point, I completely stopped laughing and started feeling...terrified. I'm being completely serious here. I love horror movies. I used to watch at least two horror movies a day. I can't remember the last time I watched something and felt so many goosebumps, felt my heart beating so fast. I know this sounds dramatic, but when those drugs started coming in and people became violent and sexual and dumb, I couldn't help but think, "What does this say about us?"

Yes, he has a flame thrower, and he is burning the neighborhood down.

I call Project X a horror movie in disguise because, putting the shallowness of the plot aside, this could be characterized as a horror-of-personality. That's a subgenre of horror and thriller fiction where the scariest characters are the humans themselves. As perfectly human as they are, the personalities are absolutely horrific. Horror-of-personality often takes place in average places, especially suburbia.

Project X is definitely horror-of-personality. There we get thousands of characters that are perfectly human with seemingly horrific personalities.

So much of Project X was whiplash for me. I wanted not to take it seriously. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously. I knew when I started Project X that it would just be pointless entertainment about a wild party, sex, and loud music. Still, some part of me so badly wanted this movie to be a deconstruction of the typical wild party movie. I wanted Project X to surprise us viewers and show us the real consequences of a party this dangerous.

It didn't. Instead, it angered me and my boyfriend by giving this terrible message: it's okay to get totally screwed up on drugs and alcohol, burn down your house and some of the other houses in the neighborhood, and almost kill people...at the end of the day, everyone in high school will love you, your dad will congratulate you on not being a loser, and you'll get the girl.

Meh. The worse part? People are now trying to re-enact Project X.

Black Earth: The Broken Daisy by David N. Alderman

*Giveaway Bonus*

The giveaway is CLOSED. The two winners of the the Black Earth Double Pack (End of the Innocence and The Broken Daisy, the first two books in the Black Earth series) are Kylie and Beth. 
 

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Here's my review of Black Earth: End of the Innocence (Book One)

Book two of the Black Earth series, The Broken Daisy, starts with Nathan Pierce and Cynthia "Sin" Ruin hanging low in the same hotel room book 1 ends in. Daisy, Nathan's sister, is being held captive by a 'man dressed in red' courtesy of President Amanda Stone's orders. Because Daisy and Nathan faked the barcodes everyone has to wear, Amanda wants to murder Daisy as a warning to the American public of what will happen to them if they don't obey.

While Nathan paces around, trying to figure out how he and Cynthia can best escape from the hotel and find his sister, Cynthia is asleep after crying herself into exhaustion. Daisy would've never been captured had her mother, Theresa Ruin, not betrayed them. Cynthia was only able to rescue Nathan. Now she has no mom, no father, and no friends. Nothing but the big bag with belongings she can't let go of.

The odds are against them, what with the world falling apart and many groups after Nathan's life, but that doesn't stop Nathan and Cynthia from making a run for it and starting their journey.

The Broken Daisy essentially has five main storylines, five main subplots, that all come together to show just how immense the story as a whole is.

1.) Nathan wants to rescue his sister, find his soul mate Pearl, and learn his purpose.

2.) President Amanda Stone, who is working with Legion and the devil, wants to become a dictator. However, journalist Ericka Shane and her partner are determined to reveal a recording to the world that will help the citizens of America rally against her. Fortunately, she has the help of a mysterious man named Absolute.

3.) Jasper and Hush, two powerful wedges from the now destroyed Rhodenine, have seen Legion and Evanescence destroy two worlds before earth. Their goal is to help the humans on earth by stopping Legion and Evanescence for good.

4.) The Vector group and the Time Protection Society (TPS) are against each other. Vector is the only agency that knows about the TPS and the only agency that can stop them. Joseph, an agent who works side-by-side with Heather (Nathan's best friend), represents the Vector side of the story, as well as a more corrupt lady named Sarah. Theresa Ruin, Cynthia's corrupt mom, represents the TPS side of the story, as well as a kind man named Macayle.

Time alteration plays an important part in how Nathan's journey came to be. When I realized time alteration was involved, I really fell for The Broken Daisy, but I also have a weak spot for stories that mess with the time space continuum.

5.) SilverTech industries is ran by a megalomaniac who is obsessed with Hush and constantly sending people after her to bring her back to him (in book one, she was practically his slave). Mr. Silver's main goal is to have enough ships created to send a number of (selected) humans to a planet called Anaisha when earth is destroyed, a planet he plans to be the God of.

There are more than five subplots, but mentioning them all could make for a very long review. When I reviewed End of the Innocence, book one, I mentioned that the story sometimes feels like it has one too many POVs. It's still true in book two; when reading this novel, it's important to keep track of the characters and storylines as best as you can. However, in The Broken Daisy, I felt it was more genius than overwhelming. In a series about the world falling apart, it only makes sense that there would be so many layers adding to the downfall.

My favorite characters are Ericka Shane, Macalay, and Joseph. So many adults in this story who have power are corrupt. I not only really like these characters because they're kind and ambitious in spite of being adults with power, but because their personalities really sat well with me. Ericka was my favorite character in book one. I was glad to see more of her.

I liked Evanescence least, mostly due to the fact that everything about her reminds me of a stereotypical evil witch. And I wasn't quite sure how to feel about Griffin. His storyline and his characterization was definitely interesting, but it also...confused me until the readers are later shown what makes him so special. Nathan and the teens are definitely characterized well. Sometimes you love them; sometimes, not so much. That's fine. In fact, I think that's how it should be. Shades of grey make them very realistic.

Religion plays a much higher role in this book than it did in the first, since almost every main protagonist struggles with their belief in God. Still, I never get the feeling that religion is stuffed down my throat or that it interrupts the excitement of the story overall. However, if you'll be reading this story mostly for the sci-fi, apocalyptic aspects, be aware that God and the devil plays a considerably large part in this series.

Only a few plot aspects confused me: Griffin's storyline and the affect he seems to have on other characters; how time passes in general. Does book one and two only span two days? I'm not really sure. Even though Nathan kept saying only one day had passed, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around which times they slept were just a short nap or which times they slept were overnight. Plus, time may have passed differently in other POVs; smaller subplots, like Jennifer's time traveler subplot or Olivia's psychic/time traveler (?) subplot. Maybe it's because they won't really get explained until book 3, but I couldn't quite grasp their overall purpose.

In all, though, I really liked Black Earth: The Broken Daisy. Time travel, aliens, demons, psychics, betrayal, romance (oh man, the romance drama in this story is intense), mysteries, secret organizations, evil witches, hellhounds, battles, Legion (I LOVED how creepy Legion was. That fight with a Legion-possessed human in Walmart made my day)...there is so much to this wild story that's worth the ride. I think David deserves much more attention and success for this series.

Click here to see about the double pack, which combines book 1 and book 2!

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The New Death and Others by James Hutchings

44 stories, 19 poems, all wrapped into a 100-page book. Usually this is the paragraph where I'd summarize the plot or, when reviewing a short story collection, the theme connecting the stories. That's not something I can easily do for 'The New Death and Others.'


Inside you'll find satires, parables, and allegorical gods. Some stories, like 'The Adventure of the Murdered Philanthropist,' might as well be punny B-movies in story form. Some are really short and read like comedy sketches, such as 'The New God,' while others are long and verbose - 'How the Isle of Cats Got its Name,' for instance. Then there are the poems. Though the lengths vary as much as the lengths of the stories vary, they all rhyme.


Organization was my biggest problem with this collection, next to the verbose stories that either confused or frustrated me ('The God of the City of Dust' both confused and frustrated me). After a while, jumping from a punny story to a parable to a poem became jarring. When I finished the book and looked over my notes, I realized that I really liked a majority of these stories. However the lack of organization distracted me from appreciating the stories while I was reading them. This book could easily be broken up into separate books - one book in dedication to the parables, one book in dedication to the allegories, one book in dedication to the fiction with a specific plot, etc.


'Todd' appealed to me the most. I loved that story. A boy shares what his last odd, surreal experiences with Todd, a kid who was murdered, were like. It can be offensive here and there, but I feel like that's just because the story is told from the first person point of view of someone who happens to legitamely think those things. I loved the style, the voice, the feeling that the narrator was really talking to me.


As far as poems go, 'The Apprenticeship' was my favorite. Death is about to take the soul of this person's lover. But, because Death is tired of his job, he makes a deal with said person - I'll let your lover live if you become my apprentice.


Putting organization and verbosity aside, most of the short stories themselves were amusing and well-written. I felt James Hutchings did best with parables, poems, allegories, and snapshot stories. Hutchings excels in metaphors, similes, and powerful detail/word usage that sticks with the reader.


I'm torn about this collection. Sometimes I loved it; sometimes not so much. However, I like it enough to recommend it to those who wouldn't mind a quirky collection of stories and poems that will mostly make you smile or think.