Snpgrdxz and the Discount Offer

Purchase Snpgrdxz for just 99 cents today.

The modern novel is about two things: action and emotion. Action moves the story along so that you can’t put it down because of the nonstop forward motion. Emotion is about laughter, joy, excitement. It’s about anger, fear and angst. It’s about the exhilaration of needing to know what will happen next. Above all, it’s about falling in love with one person in one place, and with one book, one author. For love conquers everything including the monsters who’d love to kill us, eat us, or transform us into something unspeakable in the world of Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters.

What if one night that teenage girl you have a crush on appears at the foot of your bed, pistol in hand, and threatens to shoot you? But your best friend and a terrorist burst into your bedroom and kill her in the nick of time? But the next night this same girl shows up in your bed again? This time she’s ready for love. When did your dead crush become your girlfriend? Wild dreams? Since when did your nightmares leave actual bullet holes and blood stains behind?

Join the crazy journey of Bryan Ganarski, Jennifer Hawkins, Gilbert Armstrong, and of course, Snpgrdxz, the teenaged space alien shape shifter who can be either a boy or girl depending on his or her mood. Hormones fly, earther and other, in this madcap misadventure.

Is Bryan totally insane or is there a part of him that can still fall in love with one of the many versions of his time-traveling girlfriend? And will Bryan work up the gumption to kiss Jennifer in front of the whole sophomore class like she asked him to? She did ask him, didn’t she?

This love-crazed tale of time travel features a group of friends who become stuck between the wrong time on earth and a troll world filled with monsters far worse than those pesky tiny bridge trolls and the really tall, hairy mountain trolls. An evil daemon, werewolves, nosferatu, and a few ghosts are among the many monsters waiting for you in Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters. It’s the first novel in my new sci-fi/fantasy horror series.

Enjoying a great read begins with action and emotion. Act now to purchase Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters on Kindle today for only $0.99 US. Save $2 US and pay less than a buck. Such a deal! Don’t miss out on it. Click here now.

You can get all emotional later as you read Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters.

In case you missed it, here’s the link to my new novel on Amazon: Click here.

A Modern Warrior Woman

Jennifer Hawkins discovers her role as the warrior attracted to a cowardly boyfriend in Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters. Jennifer protects and lifts up her boyfriend while displaying the courage to become the only female member of the time travelling team searching for the lost Maria Gonzalez. She serves as the conscience of the group while retaining her nickname of Wild Thing. It’s Jennifer who dispatches two of the mobsters who attack in 1923, and she is the one who serves as nurse to a wounded Bryan Ganarski. (BTW, you’ll want to check out this scene as described in a first-person point of view by Bryan after he is wounded in the head. It makes for an interesting Tour de Force.)

Jennifer meets herself on her time journey and the two Jennifers travel together without having the time-space continuum collapse. Apparently the universe can abide a paradox. 

One of the things to watch for as you read my Snpgrdxz (pronounced like it's spelled Snip-grid-ix) series of novels is the way the two main Jennifers (there are others that pop in from time to time) grow in two different directions with one becoming a strong female warrior while the other descends into evil.

By having two versions of the same strong female character, I’m able to explore the way any of us can choose evil or good actions. Snpgrdxz also provides a humorous way to examine the theme of good and evil in our modern culture which dismisses this kind of contrast as primitive Bronze Age thinking. In a world that approves of our actions as “lifestyle choices,” the Snpgrdxz novels show that not all choices are for the good and not all actions give life.

Read the free portion of the first novel in the Snpgrdxz series, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, by clicking here for the book on Amazon.

And while you’re on Amazon, be sure to download the Kindle version of my most downloaded short story Little Miss Forgotten. It reached number 33 on Amazon this morning and today is the last day it's free.

Today’s Nostalgia Post: How can a Christian write a story where a character commits a murder? Take a deep dive into a philosophical issue. Click here.

The Girl with the Killer Kiss

You have to be realistic. Like all other organizations, whether for profit or not for profit, the idea is to promote your services in the most attractive way. For example, would you voluntarily kiss a monster in a floor-length hoodie? Or allow the same monster to kiss you full on the lips?

When it comes to applying the kiss of death, wouldn’t the victim be more likely to respond to the advances of an attractive young person?

What we have here is the basis for my short story, Little Miss Forgotten, a tale about a death angel who takes her vacation in the real world where you and I live. The story is set during the Vietnam War era when death angels were especially busy and their vacations well-earned. What happens when a vacationing death angel meets a regular guy in search of love?

Find out by reading Little Miss Forgotten. It’s available today free on Amazon. Download your free copy by clicking here.

Today’s Nostalgia Post: Mosquitoes. The season isn’t over yet, so let’s take a quick look at mosquito prevention humor from August 2009. Click here.

Death Takes a Vacation

We often think of death as an angel sent to take away your soul to judgment, leaving your body as an empty shell for the fire pit or burial ground. But the world is so overrun by people that one angel simply can’t snatch all the souls fast enough, especially in a war zone. So what’s Death to do?

It turns out the Death Department operates a whole cadre of death angels, each assigned to its own territory and given a quota to  meet. Death angels, known in the Vatican archives as Deathabus, circle about their area of responsibility to snag those souls ready for the great beyond.

On occasion, the Deathabus is authorized to take a vacation. Now, you may be picturing the agent of Death as this mysterious skeletal creature wrapped inside a floor length hoodie, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The angels of death, all of them, are either handsome young men in appearance or attractive, well-figured females. The one who kisses you depends on your preference. Death knows your secret desires to be sure.

Learn more about the deathly kiss of greeting by reading Little Miss Forgotten. It’s available today free on Amazon. Download your free copy by clicking here.

Today’s nostalgia post: Day 1 describes the first day of a road trip taken by my adult son Joseph and me back in 2009. In this post, I channel Robert M. Pirsig despite my then desire to wax Hemingway-esque. Click here to read.

Little Miss Forgotten

My writing style has evolved over time as has reader tastes. Novels I write today begin with a strong hook. For example, my new novel Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, begins with this line:

From where she stood at the foot of my bed, fifteen-year-old Jennifer Hawkins couldn’t miss, but would this sweet girl shoot me?

The idea of the opening hook is to entice you into wanting to know what happens next. Will Jennifer Hawkins pull the trigger? There was a time when a story about a teenage girl and a gun would end up with the girl not firing. But this is a 21st century girl who has been raised in an era of high violence, often meaningless, involving teen-on-teen crime.

So does Jennifer pull the trigger? The odds are very high that she does, but I’ll let you find out for yourself when you read the free portion by clicking the book cover on Amazon. Click here to visit Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters on Amazon. BTW, Snpgrdxz is pronounced as if spelled Snip-grid-ix. It’s all explained in the novel.

This brings us back to Little Miss Forgotten, a strong female character who appears in my short story of the same name. This is an older story of mine, and it features a more languid opening style of stories written decades ago when readers preferred a little more setup before the action blazed hot.

Here is the opening:

"Do you wanna dance?" Okay, it was the name of a top ten hit, and today's kids would sneer if they heard me, but in 1967 it worked.

She hesitated. She frowned. She stared for what seemed an eternity, (about three seconds). "Sure, why not?"

I don't remember the song. The band was on break, and the young kids who worked as house deejays were playing records. It was a fast one. You just didn't ask a girl to dance a slow one the first time. You had to dance a couple of fast ones first. At a nice suburban Catholic church hall like Holy Cross, a girl accepting a slow dance was giving you an invitation to climb all over her.

We danced that first one, and then a few more fast dances. They were the usual Mashed Potato, Watusi and Stomp. Then a slow one came on, my all-time favorite: "Angel Baby" by Rosie and the Originals. (High falsetto, andante: "It's just like heav-en, be-ing here with yo-oo, 'cause you're like an an-gel, too good to be true-oo, but after-ah-all, I love you, I do-oo, An-gel Ba-by, my An-gel Ba-by," etc.) These lyrics won’t mean much to you unless you already know the song, but trust me, the tune was great for slow dancing.

***

Set during the Vietnam war era, the rest of this short horror fiction is yours free for your Kindle by clicking here today. Beware the kiss of death and as always, stay away from those pretty little blondes.

Okay, you don’t have to avoid the blondes, but you still have to watch out for that one kiss from Little Miss Forgotten that will change your life forever. Click here for the free download.

Today’s nostalgia blog post is from May 22, 2009. Click here for a sweet yarn on yet another strong young lady and my take on wisdom.

Celebrating the Fifth

I’m celebrating the fifth year of this blog with a series of special offers beginning this week with my short story Little Miss Forgotten, which is a free download all this week on Amazon. Usually my short stories sell for $0.99 so this represents a stupendous savings of nearly a buck.

I’ll tell you more about Little Miss Forgotten as the week goes on. In the meantime, you can download your free copy by clicking here.

Other special offers to look for include the Kindle version of Book 1 of my new Snpgrdxz (say “Snip-grid-ix” series) which you can purchase for only $0.99 next week, marked down from the usual $2.99 on Kindle. If you can’t wait, you may purchase it now by clicking here. 

I’ll be giving away more short stories in the coming months. And look for some of my novels at a discount. I’ll also launch two more novels in the Snpgrdxz series in time for the holidays.

Enjoy. Don’t forget to click here for your free download of Little Miss Forgotten for your Kindle.

Today’s Nostalgia Post: As part of this week’s celebration of five years of blogging, I’ll link you to some of my favorite oldie but goodie posts. My first blog post appeared on April 17, 2009. In that one, I ask “Am I There Yet?” which is a lighthearted look at the art of blog posting and my entry into the realm.  You can read post number one by clicking here.

Strong Women Make Great Lovers

Penny Durkin is the most complex female character I’ve created to date. She starts as a conniving teenager bent on seducing a younger teen only to discover that she falls in love with him in a reversal of the Romeo and Juliet story where Romeo is the older one of the couple. Steel Pennies has a plot that leads Penny to become a suspect as well as a potential next victim. Her strength of character comes across in the climatic final chapters of the story. She loves Tommy McConnell while attempting to protect her younger brother from an abusive father and older brother. She deals with her own pregnancy resulting from a previous relationship with a victim of a serial killer. Penny also deals with her mother’s rejection and the racial tension that flares in her mixed community. Steel Pennies has a blockbuster ending with Penny in the middle of the action.

Another strong female character in Steel Pennies is Chiamaka, which translates as “God is beautiful.” Chiamaka is a 13-year-old proto Angela Davis-type character. She has no problem telling you what she thinks and how she feels.

Steel Pennies is a story of the human monsters that haunt our world. The story could have been ripped from today’s headlines, but is set in an earlier era when the monsters were us as well as the crazies who brought down death and worse upon their innocent victims.

You can read a large chunk of Steel Pennies free by clicking on the book cover on Amazon.

If you’re ready to check out the free portion of my latest novel, Snpgrdxz and the Time Monsters, click here for the book on Amazon.

Both stories are laced with the humor that characterizes my treatment of the madness of life.