Winter blog fest

I’m taking part in the Long and Short Reviews winter blog romp. The post is here .

Pop over to the LASR site and leave a comment on the post for a chance to win a copy of ‘Revelation’, the most romantic of ‘The Pathfinders’ series.

Revelation Blurb

Few are allowed into Paradisio—even fewer escape.

Wormwood has fallen, but the journey isn’t over for Carla and Tully. Erelah the Messenger leads them onward to Paradisio, where they hope they will find their real home. The Grigori recognize Tully as Israfel, and he takes to his new role of guardian of music like a duck to water, but Carla’s impressions are of a world with dark secrets hiding in the shadows.

Tully seems absorbed in his music and whenever he comes up for air, Erelah—with her neat little wings—is waiting. Carla finds consolation with Nathaniel, a Warrior who is a hunk and knows it. But she is playing with fire. Nat wants her—and what Nat wants, he takes.

As if her personal problems weren’t enough, Carla begins to piece together the mad plan that Nisroc, the Yazata of Paradisio, has lined up for the other worlds. And Tully—who has been promised a starring role—seems keen to play along with the lunatic scheme.

Carla finds herself caught up in a revolution, to stop Nisroc and the one who is creating his weapon of mass destruction—Tully.

 

Excerpt

Carla bent to touch the shoulder of the nearest body. It was warm. She laid a finger on the pulse and waited, her own heart thumping. It was there. Faint, but it was there.

“They’re not dead,” Nat said, mocking.

“They’ll soon wish they were,” one of the Marines added with a snigger.

Nat shot him a murderous look. “That’s for others to decide. Just stick to your own job.”

“Do we leave them here?” Carla asked, worried at how pale the three Warriors looked.

Nathaniel tapped his vest pockets. “Anyone got a stretcher on him? I seem to have forgotten mine.”

The Marines sniggered again.

“Isn’t first aid supplied in this ‘game’?” Carla asked. “They need attention.”

Nat put an arm around her. She felt the pounding of his heart, his excitement. His smell, hot, sweet and sweaty, enveloped her. “They’ll be picked up. Douma will know where to find them.” His hand slid down her arm to her waist, under her T-shirt, his fingers roving over her stomach. Her muscles flinched and she caught the flicker of a smile on Nat’s lips.

“Now, let’s finish this charade. I don’t know how I’m going to wait until tonight,” he murmured into her hair.

“Tonight?”

“When Douma gives you your mark, and you give me all the rest. The start of forever.” His mouth was so close to her ear that his breath tickled. His hand slid around the waistband of her pants. Her own breath grew short and hot. Her cheeks flared. The Marines watched her curiously, their eyes not quite so cold. Nat’s excitement was working on them. She wriggled out of his grip, forcing her mind to focus on the cold outline of the plan.

If we can get this over with by lunchtime, Tabbris can get on with starting an epidemic.

“Let’s get moving then.” She grinned at him and he flashed her one of his predatory smiles.

 

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Apocalyptic guest post

You might have heard of Abomination, I’ve possibly mentioned it once or twice, so you’ve probably got the message that it’s about the end of the world, or rather the hellish limbo between when the balloon goes up and when the last one to leave turns off the lights.

You might be less clear about what the rest of the series is about, and why. Finch Books have asked me to write a little something to explain the idea behind The Pathfinders series, and how the story and the characters develop over the course of the three books. Here it is.

https://www.finch-books.com/blog/guest-post-Jane-Dougherty

 

Free read

As an introduction to The Pathfinders series, Finch Books are giving away Pete’s Story, a short story some of you might have already read. If you haven’t, here’s the blurb:

In the unreal world of the Abomination, only the young and brutish and their brutalised playthings survive. Pete’s Flay tribe whiles away the time before the return of the Burnt Man and the end of the end, by inventing new and more barbaric games. Meanwhile, wormholes tear up the fabric of time and space and it isn’t only refugees from the past that use them as an escape route. Ever heard of ratmen?

 

You can get it here free download from the Finch Books site.

 

 

Promotion: The Pathfinders

I’ve been so bogged down in a million other things, I almost missed posting this.

Get this PROMOTION!

ALL Finch Books are 25% off to celebrate 10 years of publishing. If you haven’t read The Pathfinders series yet, now’s the time to start

Get your promotion priced copy here

And while you’re in the mood, why not browse round the Finch Books website and see if something else takes your fancy.

Free books from best-selling author

As you probably all know, since I’ve been shouting about it enough, Finch Books ha been running a promotion on The Pathfinders series. It’s five days since the BookBub feature, which sent the first volume, Abomination, to number one in the US and Australia in Teen Science Fiction and Teen Time Travel and Adventure categories, where Hunger Games and Harry Potter hang out. The glory lasted two whole days before the big boys and girls took the top place back again, but it was a big wonderful experience.

It has been my theory (not original) that you absolutely have to pay for advertising if you want to sell your book. No matter how good it is, if it isn’t visible, nobody except family and friends will buy it. One of the democratising effects of self-publishing has been to give readers a stupifyingly huge choice of books, available in one click, as they say. How do you wade through 30 million plus books? Short answer—you don’t. You skip through the tiny sample Amazon gives you easy access to.

The whole of The Pathfinders series has been available since last September. The first volume, despite a clutch of excellent reviews, attractive cover and a proper publisher behind it, was lingering in the doldrums, and the sequels hadn’t taken off at all. Finch Books was going through a very rocky and doubtful start, which put marketing on hold. It looks as though the teething problems are over and we’re back with a vengeance.

Advertising put Abomination up there on the front page, and with a bit of luck it will hang about a while among the first pages where it is likely to be noticed by a casual browser. The sequels have started selling too, which is wonderful. Advertising is essential, but reviews are a must too, which brings me to the point of this post. If you have read Abomination and enjoyed it, I’m offering review copies of the second and third volumes. Please get in touch through the contact form with your email address and I’ll send you one (epub or pdf).

Meanwhile, the promotion continues if you’re keen to get into the series.

Amazon US

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No.1 in Aus, just for one day

One last screen shot and I’ll shut up and get back to writing poetry.

This morning, in Australia. How about that!

 

No.1 Best Seller!!!!

I might not get another chance to post something like this so I’m making the most of it. I am officially a No.1 best seller!

Wow!

The BookBub promotion has been going for two hours now and I’m gobsmacked! Here are the latest screen shots (proof!) in my three amazon categories.

The Apocalypse starts here!!!

Big day today, for a couple of reasons, but the first one is, The Pathfinders promotion starts now! This minute!

 

Not only is the first volume at the extraordinary giveaway price of 99p/c but the sequels are at a special promotional price too. Here’s the Abomination blurb to set the scene:

As the end of the world begins, Carla and Tully hurtle through a wormhole five years forward in time, only to find they haven’t missed the Apocalypse after all.

Carla and Tully are picnicking in the quad of their international high school in central Paris when the end of the world begins. They are sucked into a wormhole that spits them out five years later to find that the world is a freezing desolation but still hanging on, waiting for something even worse to finish it off. The something worse turns out to be the Burnt Man and his horsemen. Taken prisoner by the Flay Tribe to their lair in the ruins of a shopping mall, Tully is forced to become a warrior, while Carla joins the other girls as a kitchen slave and comfort woman.

Tully might like the idea of playing soldiers, but Carla knows what is waiting for the girls when the food runs out, and it isn’t pleasant. The supermarket holy man’s vision of the return of the Burnt Man and his demon friends drags Tully back to reality. When the four fiends are reunited, the Apocalypse will really begin. Carla and Tully don’t plan on being there when that happens.

But in this post-Abomination world where only the young and brutal have survived, where food and fuel are running out and the climate is plunging into another final ice age, there is nowhere to run—except down another wormhole, with no idea of what might be waiting for them at the other end.

 

And here’s a short excerpt to whet your appetite:

 

“On that pallet over there. A few big cans of beans left. Bring one.”

“Have you all forgotten how to speak, as well as how to wash?” Carla snapped.

“Mostly. Yes.”

Carla staggered over with the ten-kilo can of white navy beans to where Kat was opening a much smaller can of frankfurters. She opened the beans and together they tipped the contents into a stew pot of dubious cleanliness. The sausages followed.

“How many is this for?” Carla asked. She had seen at least a dozen men and boys and nearly twice as many women.

“All of us.”

“Then those sausages won’t go very far.”

“Just for the men.”

“I might have guessed,” Carla sighed. “I suppose we ought to be grateful to get a few beans.”

The girl heaved a world-weary sigh. “If they leave any.”

Carla was about to ask why they let themselves be pushed about by a bunch of macho brutes who thought they were living in the Middle Ages when she took a good look at the girl. Carla had taken her for a skinny kid, but a closer inspection revealed the bony shoulders, scrawny breasts and haggard look of a woman, but under-developed and emaciated. Like Tully, Carla was beginning to put together a picture of their new environment.

“There’s not much to eat, is there?”

Kat just looked around. The warehouse was three-quarters empty. “You see much?”

“Can’t you get food somewhere else? Find another supermarket, I mean.”

Kat sighed. “This is Flay territory. Other places like this are in some other tribe’s territory. Not enough warriors left to fight over food.”

“What about hunting?”

Kat forced a wry smile. “Hunt what? Rats? Crows? Drax?”

“Drax?”

“Big dogs.”

“Why not, if that’s all there is?”

“Rats and crows eat corpses, drink poisoned water. Drax eat rats and crows and corpses. They are all sick, rotten. If we eat them, we become like drax. Drax used to be dogs.”

This was the longest speech Carla had heard from Kat. It had been a real physical effort for her, as if she had to drag the words from her memory, as if they were so rarely used they had almost been forgotten. Carla asked one last question, though she dreaded the reply.

“So, what will happen when the food runs out?”

Kat’s expression was dull and hopeless and she did not reply. She didn’t need to.

Carla bit her lip, trying to hang onto the strange, obscene ideas that darted like cockroaches in and out of the shadowy places in her mind.

 

The promotion runs for a week, so make sure you get Abomination now, read it and order the sequels before the offer ends.

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon Aus

Amazon Ca

BIG promotion on the way

Remember this?

First volume of The Pathfinders series? Well, the whole series is getting the big promotion treatment as of tomorrow. If you know any teenager with a strong stomach who enjoys a romp into the apocalypse, this is the series you’ve been looking for. Make them happy and give them a good read at the same time.

I’ll be posting details tomorrow.