Friday, December 7, 2012

Time Of Death ~ Excerpt From Ellis Vidler's Latest Book


And the winner is . . . Theresa! She won the book. Theresa, please let me know what you want, print or eBook, Cold Comfort or Time of Death. :-) Email me at ellis@ellisvidler.com



Time of Death. Artist Alex Jenrette’s psychic streak is awakening after a long, quiet spell. When violence is near, she’s compelled to draw, and her sketches reflect the events she’s never seen.

The Excerpt:

“You’re drawing again.” Isobel picked up one of the loose pages and examined it. “Are the visions coming back?”

The charcoal stick gripped in Alex’s hand darted across the sheet in front of her as if driven by its own will. “Umm, maybe,” she mumbled, barely aware of the question. Under her fingers, angry waves churned against the shore. Like flotsam rising to the surface of the sea, a dark figure emerged in the wake of the flying charcoal. She grabbed a scarlet pastel, smeared it through the water around the body.

As suddenly as it had come, the tension drained from her. She dropped the chalk and leaned back, rubbing her temples. “Blood. A man in the water.”

“You haven’t done this since the boy in Asheville, have you?”

Isobel massaged her shoulders, and Alex arched her back, leaning into her aunt’s hands. “This is the first time.”

“Any idea where this one is?”

“No. Only a man in water. Ocean, judging from the waves, but I don’t know where.” Alex focused on the sketch, trying to see more, find something to locate the scene, but nothing else came to her. She yawned. “It’s gone now.” Nearly a year had passed since the last visions rendered themselves through her hands. It happened shortly after Ty’s death, when she was more vulnerable, maybe more open to the spiritual world. She hoped that was the end of the unwelcome drawings, but she’d known they’d return if violence came near.

“Is he dead?”

“Yes, I’m sure of it.” Alex couldn’t help this man. In Asheville, the boy had been alive. The police, convinced she was a nut case, ignored her until one of the searchers recognized the cave entrance from her sketch. He led the police to the place, where they found the child, terrified and suffering from exposure, tethered to a stake in the cold floor. Exactly as her drawings showed.

“There’s no need to go to the police.” Alex shivered, recalling the relentless interrogations, the suspicion her drawings engendered. How could she know those details unless she was involved, they reasoned. Psychic phenomena weren’t covered in the police manual.

“Then leave it. You can’t help him.” Isobel’s matter-of-fact voice reassured her. “Let’s have lunch.”
 
The Blurb:
 
Time of Death by Ellis Vidler
While visiting near Charleston, South Carolina, an artist draws scenes of murder she can’t explain.
Alex, the artist. After a tree falls on her house, she joins her aunt on an unspoiled island, but something wakens her family psychic streak. She draws eerily accurate scenes of violence, but she knows nothing about them.
Connor, the prosecutor. He’s building a case against a drug lord one piece of evidence at a time. For him it’s personal, and he can’t risk a relationship with a witness, especially a psychic who’ll blow his case out of the water. 
Rollins, the killer. He’s a cog in a much bigger wheel, and the witness to his acts of violence threatens his operation and his life. He’ll do anything to see that doesn’t happen.
 
 
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Remember, if you'd like to be in the drawing for a copy of this book, leave your comment here or on the prior blog post.
 
Hope you enjoyed the excerpt.  I did and I'm hooked.  Off to buy to book...
 
Ciao,
~ LA
 

 




Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Ellis Vidler ~ Square Pegs, Round Holes, and Self-Publishing


I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have Ellis Vidler as my guest today.  She is one talented lady, and incredibly nice to boot. What a combination.
 
Ellis lives and writes in South Carolina ~ Piedmont (which is what the upstate, northwestern part of the state is referred as.) She's also an editor and has taught fiction writing. Her books, available at Amazon.com, are suspense with varying degrees of romance.
 
She maintains a blog, mostly about writing and writers, at http://theunpredictablemuse.blogspot.com
 
 
Please join me in welcoming Ellis to An Indie Adventure.
 
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Square Pegs, Round Holes, and Self-Publishing

One of the reasons I chose to self-publish my new book is that I’m not a genre purist.
 
Back when I was submitting to agents, I got many compliments on the writing, the characters, and so on. But then they asked for changes to better fit the genre, or they rejected it outright, saying it wouldn’t be marketable as either romance or suspense, because it either had too much or too little of whatever. My square pegs didn’t fit their round holes. This went on for several years, and I got discouraged, to say the least. 
 

Link to Book
Then Amazon opened my eyes. I self-published The Peeper, a police procedural/suspense (with a little romance) with Jim Christopher, a retired LEO  and my co-author. It got good reviews and sold reasonably well—a very encouraging development.(An aside here: LEO...Law Enforcement Officer, who knew~L.A.)

Link to Book
I was about to self-publish Cold Comfort, another suspense novel with “strong romantic elements,” when I met Karen Syed of Echelon Press. Fortunately, she’s not a genre hardliner. She released it last December because the heroine owns a Christmas shop, but that meant a year’s wait for me. I no longer have that kind of patience.
 
So now I’m committed to self-publishing. As long as we have the ability and means to ensure that it’s a quality publication, I’m for it. I have several readers who point out errors, plot holes, and factual mistakes in my books.
 
Time of Death had all of those—everything from a character picking up a pack of cigarettes in a store (I didn’t realize they’re kept behind the counter now) to one of the dreaded TSTL moments for my heroine. I hope I and my readers spotted them all. I know it’s a much better book now, but a few glitches always slip through. (Another aside:TSTL...Too Stupid To Live)
  
Link to Book
 Self-publishing still carries a stigma.
 
One reason is that many authors put their book out as soon as it’s completed, not realizing it needs serious, honest input from others. We can’t view our babies objectively—you know the old saw: “Every old crow thinks hers is the prettiest in the patch.” True. We do. We see what we think we typed, we’re convinced it all makes sense because we know the story, and we include “facts” we’re so sure of we don’t bother to check them.

The article on covers featured on this blog a few weeks ago offered some excellent advice. Covers are extremely important, even more so with eBooks. Try for a professional-looking cover that speaks for your book—it’s worth it. And make sure it looks good as a thumbnail. That’s how most readers first see it.

So hooray for Amazon and self-publishing! Let us not abuse the opportunity. J

Leslie, I love your new book, Dare to Believe. Good story!

Thanks for having me today.

Ellis
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Thank you, Ellis, for your candor.  And lucky us, she's giving a copy, either digital or print of Time of Death to one lucky person who leaves a comment.
 
And lucky us again, there will be an excerpt from this book on Saturday the 8th. 
 
Comments from this post and the excerpt will be entered in the drawing.   
 
Ciao
L.A.