Thursday 28 May 2009

3 Part Review for The Eleven Hour Fall Trilogy!

You Gotta Read Reviews has posted a 3-part review extravaganza for my newly completed sci-fi trilogy. Two Need to Reads and one Gotta Read (the highest rating!). Check out what Martha, the lovely reviewer, had to say:

Book 1: The Eleven-Hour Fall

Book 2: The Elemental Crossing

Book 3: Kate of Kratos


It's been a great week all round for my Eleven-Hour Fall series. Let's hope the good news continues!

Five Red Roses for Kate of Kratos!

Here's the first review for Kate of Kratos, the final installment in my Eleven-Hour Fall sci-fi survival series. Linda at Red Roses For Authors had this to say:

Kate of Kratos by Robert Appleton
The third book in the Eleven Hour Fall series
Publisher Eternal Press.
Ebook, 92 pages

This book begins where the second left off. Kate is alone and tracking Jason, who has been carried off by one of the predators of this strange and wonderful world that Robert Appleton has created. Her journey is much advanced by the discovery that she can bounce huge distances on the membrane canopy of the forest. Catching up with Jason she finds that he has been dumped in a sort of larder for the beasts and with him are three more survivors from the Monique, the crashed space ship that brought them to this planet. They came in search of a powerful element that would provide fuel for their own world and have found it in large amounts. Can they now use it to help them escape from the vicious creatures that see them as food – and can Kate and Jason find happiness after all their adventures?

What makes these three books so appealing is that the author seems to have an endless vision of strange and different monsters and writes vividly of the beautiful strangeness of the planet. I feel this author will one day write a science fiction masterpiece. He is at this moment feeling his way but I believe when he has the courage to strike out for where he belongs – in mainstream print – he will have a promising career.

Once again I can only give this book five red roses. I loved the ending. Linda Sole


Monday 11 May 2009

REVIEW: Sarah's Journey by Ginger Simpson


Sarah's Journey

by Ginger Simpson

Historical Western Romance
eBook
72,000 words
Eternal Press
http://www.eternalpress.ca/sarahsjourney.html

1850. Somewhere on the Santa Fe Trail...

Sarah Collins awakens to a scene of utter carnage. Everyone in her wagon train headed for California has been slaughtered during a savage Indian raid. Weak and dazed, Sarah finds one survivor, her best friend, and sets about trying to revive her. But the poor woman’s arrow wound is mortal. She dies. Sarah is now completely alone in the world—homeless, penniless and stranded. In scene after scene of arresting pragmatism, we come to know Sarah not by her misfortunes, but through the resourceful ways in which she deals with them. This is a woman of her time, an upstanding, God-fearing daughter of pioneers, and she is going to survive.

Soon after starting her journey back to civilization, Sarah happens on the body of a (seemingly) dying Indian. Irony rears its head and bites her—in the form of a rattlesnake—when she tries to take his horse and ends up in his care. He slowly nurses her back to health. Against all odds, on the road to Independence, an unspoken attraction develops between the two. His name is Grey Wolf. He is a handsome man of mixed blood—his father was white, his mother was Indian—who sees the world through eyes every bit as pragmatic as Sarah’s. Will their true feelings for each other win out? What will happen when they reach Independence?

Sarah’s Journey is a heartfelt Western romance that doesn’t merely settle for being a romance. Its themes of intolerance and defining one’s own identity are prevalent throughout. The protagonist is a sensitive yet uncompromisingly moral woman, a spinster on the verge of love. She is by turns abrasive and adorable, and particularly in the final third of the story, adorably abrasive. For Sarah, equality is not an ideal but an absolute. Woe betide anyone who suggests otherwise. Yet for all her forthrightness, the biggest obstacle she faces is in her own heart—forbidden love.

I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Simpson’s recreation of Western life. The word that kept coming to mind as I read this story was uncompromising. Little is omitted, whether it be gruesome wounds, the preparation of herbs and food, Sarah’s body language, or the precise terms for the different noises made by a horse. I loved seeing all this research come to life. The author’s passion for the period and particularly for her characters shone throughout. This was clearly a labour of love. The only quibble I had was with the ending. I suspect many will lap it up, but I found the concept more compelling than the execution. I was hoping for a more bittersweet denouement. Nevertheless, it took a brave writer to end her novel that way. And having never read a woman’s western before, I can say unequivocally that Ms. Simpson, like her heroine, has real gumption.

--Robert Appleton


Don't miss this superb story at Eternal Press:

http://www.eternalpress.ca/sarahsjourney.html (eBook)

and now in paperback at Amazon!

KATE OF KRATOS Contest Winners!

My KRATOS FOREVER contest is now closed.

Congratulations go out to Martha Eskuchen and Val Pearson! They've each won a free eBook copy of The Eleven-Hour Fall Book 3: Kate of Kratos.

Kate was released on May 7th. Books one and two were released in April and September last year. They were The Eleven-Hour Fall and The Elemental Crossing.

www.eternalpress.ca

In other news, the complete trilogy is now available in paperback on www.amazon.com. How cool is that? My very own sci-fi trilogy on the bookshelf! Sadly, Arthur Conan Doyle had to make room. Elemental, my dear Watson!

Thursday 7 May 2009

Win an eBook Copy of Kate of Kratos!


My Eleven-Hour Fall sci-fi survival trilogy comes full circle today with the release of the explosive final installment, Kate of Kratos.


To celebrate, I'm offering two readers the chance to win a free eBook copy of Kate Borrowdale's epic adventure. All you have to do is send an email to


with KRATOS FOREVER in the subject line. Remember to put your name in the email as well, so I know who's entered.

I'll announce the winner on 11th May.

Good luck!

Monday 4 May 2009

Val and Tyne at Damnation Books!


How did they do that? You sure you want to know? The submission guidelines called for dark, dark, plenty dark. I thus came up with a singularly twisted spin on undead re-animation, titled Val and Tyne. It's a one of a kind short story--a wicked mix of movie-making, black humour, and Frankenstein science. Oh, and Tyne Daly.

Damnation Books, a brand new e-publisher, launches this September with twenty-five titles. Its spotlight (or should that be shadow?) is on all things dark in fiction. The owner, Kim Richards, was formerly the marketing manager/editor at Eternal Press, as well as being an EPPIE Award finalist this year for her horror Death Masks. I can't wait to see what dark forces she assembles for this new venture.


Keep an eye out for Val and Tyne this September.

More info soon.