Where is The Promise Garden?

If you started to read my novel The Promise Garden on this blog, but didn’t finish it, you may be curious to know where it went. The answer is simple: I took it down to prepare it for publication. It will be released in the near future for Kindle and paperback versions on Amazon.

In the meantime, I’ll return to this blog with more fiction soon. And if you haven’t read my other novels yet, please click here to visit my author page on Amazon. I encourage you to click on the book cover shown on Amazon to read several chapters of any of my novels before you buy. Usually, if the preview holds your interest, the novel will too.

My most popular novel so far is Hags with Fulfillment a close second. I find this interesting because Steel Pennies is the one I expected to achieve the greatest success. If you want to know why Steel Pennies is a must read, please click over to Amazon and read the free portion. Steel Pennies simply holds your attention and doesn’t let go. Click here to check it out.

My most popular short story so far is Little Miss Forgotten. I believe it’s the title that grabs people’s attention. Little Miss Forgotten is a fun story about war, peace, death and slumming angels. It’s a love story set in the Vietnam era, but don’t let the time stop you. Little Miss Forgotten is a timeless love story you’ll enjoy. Another story, one that readers often overlook in selecting one to purchase, is Egbert. Egbert is Chicago’s most unlikely vampire and a fun read.

Three Ways to Settle an Argument

Insults, silence, Olympian detachment – Hildegard Finkbottom had it all. The insults worked well with the Olympian detachment but the silence was deadly. You could ask her late husband, Broinkton Finkbottom about that, but, oh dear, he died. As did that pesky insurance salesman who refused to take his foot out of the front door and ended up disturbing Hidegard’s Olympian detachment. She started with insults, but names like “used car salesman” “dumb jerk” and “politician” proved ineffective. The silence of death worked, and he fit nicely into the garden next to her husband. The flowers that year were the delight of the neighborhood.

THE END

Speaking of Olympian detachment, the next great adventure of Jude Nerdworthy, Teenaged Monster Fighter, begins on this blog next week. The title is: No Space for Vampires or They Came From Out There. What happens when a vampire and his victim are kidnapped by a flying saucer? Find out next week. If you are new to the Jude Nerdworthy stories, please click here to read his most recent adventure.

For your immediate reading pleasure, may I suggest my October focus novel Hags? It has the demonology and witchcraft adventure necessary to make your Halloween reading scary without the chainsaws, long bloody knives or hockey goalie masks you see every year at this time. Click on the front cover of Hags on Amazon to read a lengthy chunk of it free. Please click here.

How Fast is the Story Pace?

Do you prefer fiction that starts slowly and gradually speeds up the story pace? Or would you rather read a story paced to rush you through an exciting journey from the first sentence on?

I like to start my stories in the middle of the action. I’ll catch you up on the details later. I bring you into the drama like a person entering a room where a teenage girl is about to pull the trigger on a boy she has a crush on. Why would she do that? Well, you’ll have to wait for me to finish my current Work in Progress (WIP) to find out. You won’t know the answer for sure until you read the third book in this new madcap series.

Some stories need extra time to set up. Alfred Hitchcock was a master of the slow introduction as seen in the movies Psycho and The Birds. But once the story is setup, it takes off at lightning speed. That’s because fantastic journeys are rarely languid. There’s simply too much to maintain a slow pace.

My other novels begin in medias res, which is the fancy way of saying in the middle of the action. Fulfillment opens the Christmas story in an unexpected place. Instead of starting with the Annunciation, it opens with Mary receiving a visit from the demons bent on preventing the birth of Christ. From the first sentence, you know this will be no goody-goody child’s story. It’s the frightening truth of the age old battle between God and his arch nemesis Satan.

Hags, my focus novel this month, opens with a young man who wakes up one night to discover a dead body in the dumpster behind his house. Steel Pennies opens with a teenager who discovers a human skull on the ground. By starting in the middle of the action, the author sets up a fast paced journey that carries you along from start to finish.

Check out Hags for only $.99 this month for your Kindle. It’s a great Halloween read. Please click here.

Novel Quote
“The man hovered about fifty feet above the parking lot behind Micah’s tiny backyard near the row of green dumpsters.”
Hags by Paul R. Lloyd

Extraordinary Characters

It isn’t enough to make the characters real in speculative fiction. At least some of them have to be fantastic. For example, do you see that tall, thin man sipping black brew here in the coffee shop where you sit now reading this blog post on your tablet? He appears normal enough, doesn’t he? But he is a fairie with beautiful filigree wings hidden under that business-like collar shirt he’s wearing. Go ahead and follow him when he leaves. He doesn’t have a car in the parking lot. He’ll walk around the corner to that dark alley across the street where he’ll strip off his shirt, spread his wings and fly to the office.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, ordinary stories feature ordinary characters in ordinary situations. Speculative fiction may have its share of ordinary characters, but you also find a few extraordinary characters in extraordinary places doing extraordinary things. And like any good story, not all the characters survive.

My current work in progress (WIP) fits neatly into the speculative fiction box because it covers a wide range of storytelling with elements of science fiction when a space alien is marooned on earth and has to fit in with the other teenagers at the local high school, fantasy as a group of friends venture into time travel that leads them through an underworld of strange and amazing creatures, a romance as two star-crossed lovers seek to find their way, horror as the friends battle monsters as evil as any straight out of Hades, and historical fiction as the time travelers spend months in different periods.

My focus novel for this month is Hags. It’s the story of fantastic characters from the faerie like the one described above to the regular-looking guy who moved back to Naperville, Illinois, after 15 years in prison, to the girl next door who… well, we’re not sure at the beginning of the story… but could she be a hag as wicked as any from the Middle Ages? And what about the local high school principal? The principal is your pal unless you happen to be a teenage girl. Need I say more? As my focus novel for October, Hags is only $.99 for the Kindle edition this month. Click here to purchase.

Novel Quote
“The creature wore blue jeans and a red shirt tucked into his waistband as he flitted about from golden daffodils to blue forget-me-nots like a bee shopping for nectar.”
Hags by Paul R. Lloyd