The Big Three Oh

July is a big month for me. I turn the big three oh.

I already pre-ordered myself a copy of Go Set a Watchman, which is released a day before my birthday. I am contemplating staying up all night to read it like I used to do with books in junior high. I might just be too old for that now. Lol.

But turning 30 doesn't mean I can't have fun. So here's the plan. For the entire month, from the first to the thirty-first, my latest full-length novel, A Land Overflowing will be on sale at Smashwords. Use coupon code TF55B at checkout to receive 30% off! You can use the coupon to download the book in any format you need--for your kindle, nook, pdf, etc.

And then enjoy it! I certainly enjoyed writing it.

It's a sticky summer pot-boiler that explores what life might be like after the bees go extinct. Is there anything to eat? Is the US still a super power? Has Big Business found a way to manipulate the situation and exploit the American people?

And it's all told through the eyes of a nineteen-year-old named Gideon who grew up as a child preacher and has recently left college disillusioned with his family and faith. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of an eco-terror investigation running for his life.

Hey, if you like it, don't forget to pre-order my new short story, The Snake-Bearer, which is part of the Helium Quest series inspired by A Land Overflowing. It releases August 1!

BTS: The Snake-Bearer

I don't know about you but I enjoy hearing when authors divulge the little sparks of inspirations which form their stories, or what events in their own lives influenced the shape of their characters' lives.

Knowing that Harper Lee infused To Kill a Mockingbird with characters from her childhood makes it that much more special in my mind. According to my research department, among the characters based on real people were Boo Radley and Dill--who was based on none other than Lee's childhood playmate and fellow author, Truman Capote.

(If you can't tell, I am super pumped for Go Set A Watchman!)

In the same spirit, I thought I'd give you a a few insights into my latest short story, The Snake-Bearer.

For quite some time I have wanted to write a main character who has seizures. And in fact, I tried to shortly after the onset of my own seizures. It was an urban fantasy in which the characters' tattoos came alive and possessed their owners. It turned out somewhat cliche and obvious.

Almost a decade later, I still had a desire to write a character who has seizures. So I asked myself what was I really really trying to get at when I tried writing about it the first time. I think I've taken what I learned from writing that first story and decocted what I had intended to write about: the fear of waking up after a seizure and having no memory of what happened, why you're on the ground, why you're hurt, why strangers have strapped you to a stretcher to carry you out of your house. I wanted to write about having an unreliable memory and how you put on a facade when you're supposed to remember something important.

I wanted to write about how seizures used to be called demon posessions and in a future without helium and a less than stellar healthcare system, those with urgent needs might turn to faith-healing. Might desperation and fear conspire to recast seizures as demon possessions once more? How desperate does one have to be to go to an airplane hangar in the middle of nowhere to beg help from a Healer whose ways of healing seem less than sanitary and whose prices seem exorbitant.

The Snake-Bearer releases August 1, 2015. Pre-orders are available now!

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Helium Quest is here!

Readers and Friends,

I promised you two tales from the Helium Quest series and I can now deliver them!

Introducing First Lieutenant Hyland Rivera, grandson of the Reverend Appleseed (who we just might have met before). After spending twenty years aboard the Helianthus, the vessel heading toward the sun to collect helium to bring back to a dying Earth, he starts getting a little cabin fever. Who can blame him? Good thing the big whigs back on Earth thought ahead and made Zeph the captain. And it's a good thing they ran extensive psychological and personality compatibility tests. Except those tests don't seem to be worth much when Hy believes he's encountered the Divine which bids him to pilot the vessel into the sun. Hy seems driven by a need for transcendence and tortured by fears of being forgotten. Zeph races to fix the situation and solve Hy's fears.

Pick up your copy of Helianthus to find out the fate of Hy and Zeph.

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Just like at other Gatherings which brothers Mark and Orin make a habit of attending, this Healer claims unnatural powers and uses poor Latin. But there has never before been a snake-bearer. As the ceremony begins and the role of the snake-bearer becomes clear, Mark is scandalized. The prices the Healer demands are too high. And the outcomes, questionable. “He’s just another fraud,” Mark says. So then, why does Mark keep feeling the Healer rummaging around in his head? 

The Snake-Bearer releases August 1, 2015. Preorder your copy today.

Amazon
iBookstore
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

  Happy Reading.

First Look: Helium Quest

The first stories from Helium Quest are almost ready for release! And I can't wait to share them with you. 

For fans following my work from the beginning, you're going to see in these stories the continued trend in my voice towards the absurd and scandalous. For fans who are reading me for the first time, or have just read my latest novel, A Land Overflowing, be warned, I don't write happy endings. Well. I know how to, but so often a happy ending seems disingenuous to the characters living these stories. Life doesn't get magic fixes. 

My characters make choices. And often these choices lead to unhappiness, disillusionment and heartache. 

Helium Quest is a series of sequels. Of sorts. The stories are set in the same universe as ALO, that is they are set in the same vision of the future: no bees, no helium. The earth is a dying planet, just not in the expected ways. There's still water. There's still food. There's been no nuclear war. Robots haven't taken over. Neither has a fascist government. Humans have just been careless about using their resources and now the way they must live their lives has been restricted. There's still greed. There's still war. There's still jealousy and betrayal. 

In these stories, what interests me most is how humans treat other humans. Do the lack of bees and cheap food change how humans treat one another? Does the lack of affordable and meaningful healthcare from lack of helium change how humans treat one another? Those are the types of questions I'm am trying to answer--or at least pose in these stories. 

So. What can you expect from the series? The first two stories will each look at the quest for helium in different ways. In one, two men, having been aboard the space vessel Helianthus for some twenty years, must fight for their sanity in order to continue their mission and save humanity. In the other, we see a rather sacrilegious faith healing. Is the healer a con artist taking advantage of the gullible? Or is he really a prophet? Or even something else? 

As always, happy reading. And stay tuned for more about Helium Quest including release dates.