THE BIG AUGUST SALE!

How about this for a special offer?

For the rest of this month, all of my self-published e-books in all formats will be available for 99c plus delivery fee (totaling around 77 pence in the UK). That takes in books normally priced at $2.99, including 3 full length novels in my Raine's Landing dark fantasy adventure series, the huge short story collection pictured above, and The Complete Sherlock Holmes in the 21st Century.

Which means that all of my e-books on Amazon Kindle are now the same low price. And the same applies to Kobo, Smashwords, and B&N Nook.

Happy reading. And in some cases, scary reading too -- though not everything is write is scary by a long chalk. There's something for most tastes here.

IMPORTANT P.S.: EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS ... I'VE DECIDED TO CONTINUE THIS SALE INTO SEPTEMBER. DON'T MISS THIS CHANCE TO PICK UP SOME GOOD-SIZED BOOKS AT THE MINIMUM PRICE.

SHERLOCK HOLMES WEEK

There were two events pertaining to the Great Detective last week. Firstly, I published on Amazon Kindle the third of my Immortal Holmes series. The 3rd Sherlock Holmes in the 21st Century contains three brand-new long stories. Here's the blurb:

"Sherlock Holmes didn’t die when he plunged down the Reichenbach Falls. He turned out to be unkillable, and is still with us to this very day, travelling the world and delving into all its most confounding cases. But these are not merely ordinary crimes … supernatural forces are at work. In “The Hunters and the Hunted” Holmes is confronted with a deadly insect swarm in Kenya … but what is directing the creatures toward their victims? In “Above the Boulevards” a powerful and mysterious vigilante is protecting women on the streets of Paris. And in “The Crimewave” Holmes is called back urgently to his beloved native London. And he no longer has Watson by his side … so here’s your chance to make the journey with him."

And secondly, Bitten by Books hosted a launch event for Dark Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes. The anthology is from Edge Publishing, and contains my very first Immortal Holmes story, 'The House of Blood,' set in Las Vegas. The event went on a full 24 hours with readers taking part and asking questions; I was one of the authors who answered them, and you can take a look at the whole thing here.

FRESH KINDLING

The latest addition to my titles on Amazon Kindle is partly autobiographical and probably one of the most personal stories I have ever written. A Night in Tunisia is a novelette that first appeared in 2006 in a collection called Extended Play: The Elastic Book of Music, from the same house that published my award-nominated collection Going Back. It's based on my long-term friendship with an American jazz saxophonist and, though it's presented in the form of fiction, nine-tenths of the tale is true ... although, being the kind of writer that I am, it goes all supernatural at the very end. Here's the back-cover material (or whatever it gets called on Kindle):

"There couldn’t have been two more different people. A British writer of supernatural fiction who had lived in London his whole life, and an African-American jazz saxophonist who’d resided in Europe since the Sixties. But when they met in a hotel in North Africa one evening, a friendship sprang up between them that would last more than a decade. And when one of them suddenly died, the other somehow knew that wasn’t going to be the end … and then set out on a journey to see the matter right through to its strange, haunting conclusion.There couldn’t have been two more different people. A British writer of supernatural fiction who had lived in London his whole life, and an African-American jazz saxophonist who’d resided in Europe since the Sixties. But when they met in a hotel in North Africa one evening, a friendship sprang up between them that would last more than a decade. And when one of them suddenly died, the other somehow knew that wasn’t going to be the end … and then set out on a journey to see the matter right through to its strange, haunting conclusion."

Hope that those who read it very much enjoy it -- it certainly got a good reception when it first came out. Oh, and as a btw, my top-selling collection on Kindle -- Sherlock Holmes in the 21st Century -- now has a snazzy new cover.

STORYTIME

It's turning out to be a good month for my shorter fiction. in the first place, my modern ghost story 'Lightning Dogs' is now available to read for free at The Indie Book Lounge. That particular tale of terror was first published in 2002, and is currently featured both in my latest hard print collection, Our Lady of the Shadows, and in my Kindle collection of horror fiction The Black Lake.

Out too is Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes edited by Charles Prepolec and J.R. Campbell for Edge Publishing. It's a follow-up to Gaslight Grimoire, and contains my first ever Holmes tale, 'The House of Blood.' In it, the great detective has turned out to be immortal, is still here with us to this very day, and gets involved with the investigation of a very curious series of murders in none other location than Las Vegas. It was the inspiration for my Kindle collection Sherlock Holmes in the 21st Century. And there'll be more Holmes stories going online before too much longer. In the meantime -- happy reading!