Their Dark Masters is now available in the UK! Extreme vampire horror...

If the Twilight vamps left you wanting to puke and even True Blood is a little too sexy to fit in with your vampire image, then Their Dark Masters is the anthology for you.

These are vampire stories as they should be: dark, terrifying and monstrous.

Their Dark Masters features my short story, The Tunnel,  which was inspired when I actually took the Channel Tunnel from France back to the UK. It was so claustrophobic, I couldn't help but think of it as a great setting for a seriously dark horror story and even sat in the car, making notes. When I heard of this anthology, I just knew the two would be the perfect match.

Here's the blurb: When vampires have outlasted eternity, their dark masters will rise from their ancient slumber. What evil games will they play? Find out in these fourteen tales of dread by Lee Hughes, Brian K. Ladd, Lily Childs, Erik Boman, Paul Anderson, Erin Cole, Gregory Miller, Marissa Farrar, Henry Brasater, Tyree Campbell, Rebecca L. Brown, Barry J. Northern, and Mark Anthony Crittenden, and featuring the art of Marie-Claire Graham. Warning: horror content is extreme

It has been out for a little while in the States, but is also now available from Amazon.co.uk so all of you Brit based readers can buy it as well!

On the move again…

Hey folks, sorry I’ve not been around much recently. As normal in my life, things are always changing and an opportunity has come up which enables us to move back to my home county of Devon.

This will be our fourth move in three years and hopefully it will be our last for a while. Luckily, we never sold our old family home when we moved to Spain and we can’t wait to get back into it. The house is on the outskirts of a little village and it means we will once again be surrounded by fields and proper country pubs we can walk to! There’s also a decent chunk of land with the property so we’ll be able to get the chickens we’ve missed while living in a city.

I’ll be sad to say goodbye to the friends we’ve made here and I feel bad moving the eldest again. However, it’s best to do it now, just before she starts school. She already has friends down there, so I don’t think it will be too much of a wrench. Besides, if all else fails, I find bribery with more pets always works!

In the words of Stephen King…

To write is human, to edit is divine.

Since making the decision to put some of my work out alone, I’ve discovered something about myself. As much as I can spot problems in other people’s work, I am hopeless at doing the same thing for my own writing. It’s as if I’m just too close to the piece and I’m only seeing what I think should be there, instead of what it actually says.

Because of this I’ve decided to hire an editor to do my final edits for me. I was lucky enough to meet Janelle, from Dawson Editing Services, through a mutual friend. She kindly offered to edit some of my work and I was amazed at what she found. Honestly, I thought I’d edited the arse out of these pieces, and I’d even had other writers go over them, but Janelle still found so much that needed changing.

She described herself to me as a punctuation and grammar freak, and that is exactly what I needed. While my writing might be strong, I’ll agonise for hours over where to put a comma!

Anyway, Janelle is fantastic and I can’t wait to see her transform my stories into tight, professional novels. The editing process is so important, and I know readers will come back for more if the books are professionally edited. Besides, any time I’m not editing can be spent doing what I’m supposed to be doing—actually writing. As I’m working on a ‘flood the market to the point where people HAVE to start noticing me’ promotion plan, the more writing I can get done and actually get out to the readers, the better.

If you would like to contact Janelle to find out how good she is for yourself, you can email her at jdawsonedit@gmail.com. She is currently offering the first 500 words of your m/s for FREE, and the rest of her prices are extremely affordable.

The reviews for my novels have been coming in thick and fast, and have been fantastic. You can check out the reviews for Alone over at Barnes & Noble, and at Smashwords. Also, Alone is still free to download!

I honestly think reading great reviews by is one of the best things about being a writer (next to seeing actual sales of course!). While I love my friends and family giving me positive feedback about my work, I am always a little sceptical. I mean, they’re hardly going to tell me it sucks (actually, scratch that. My mother would—and has—told me when something blew). But there is still nothing better than discovering, through the wonder that is Google-alerts, someone is raving about your book.

For years I wondered if I was like one of those poor saps on X-Factor (UK equivalent of American Idol) where they are totally convinced they have talent, but actually they can’t hold a tune to save their lives. I’m slowing starting to believe this isn’t the case, and I have really high hopes for this year.

February Femme Fatales!

It's here everyone! What you've been waiting for... Over at Lily Child's Feardom she is bringing us twenty eight days of dark fiction and poetry from fourteen of the best women writers.

I was honoured to be asked to contribute, and my short story, Faces, will appear on the 3rd of this month. The story is a ghost story inspired by true events, and I hope it will creep you out as much as it did me!

Here is Lily's line up:

• Asuqi  
• Marissa Farrar  
• Lily Childs  
• R.S. Bohn  
• Lou Treleaven  
• A.J. Humpage  
• Laurita Miller  
• Sue Harding  
• Pixie J. King  
• Erin Cole
• Jodi MacArthur  
• Dorothy Davies (Antonia Woodville)  
• Ellie Garratt

 In the meantime, the very first Femme Fatale is Susan May James. So head on over for her beautiful, dark story, Shadows! 

Some reviews for The Dark Road!

The Blog Tour de Force is still going on and has been a resounding success so far (and we're only half way through!). For me one of the best parts of the tour has been having so much support from our sponsor sites and from the other authors on the tour.

Because of this I would like to share with you some of the fantastic reviews The Dark Road has been getting:

Thrillers Rock!

'First couple of things about this novel. One, it's a lightning fast read. It's a hundred and fifty-two pages that simply fly past. Two, it only costs $5. That's not much of a risk--you can barely get lunch for five dollars.

That said, there's enough mystery, mayhem, twists and turns to keep you thriller fans happy, while those of you who don't typically feel the need for speed will love the detailed descriptions of exotic locales. There is definitely sense of verisimilitude as you read Farrar's words that evoke sight, sound and smell with seeming ease. The dark story of the dark road has the power to keep you up at night with your heart in your throat.'

The Scribe's Desk

'Hair raising and ominous come to mind just reading about this author’s actual journey through Thailand to Cambodia. I got the shivers just reading the recounting of her storm ridden night time bus ride. Luckily for us, this is the journey that got her imaginative author’s mind a whirring and hence The Dark Road was born! I mean, can you imagine being on a nocturnal journey far away from home with something terrifying and supernatural chasing after you wanting to drain you of your life’s blood? Good gosh! Scary indeed! You need to read The Dark Road or you will be missing out on an adventure and a half!'

Excelsior

"The Dark Road," a very intense and entertaining read.
I can speak from experience that I found this story to be a lot of fun, however I have to disagree with the one comment I read a lot from various sources. They're saying this is a quick read. That's not what Farrar has written here. She has filled in so much detail on her characters' trek through the seedy elements of Cambodia that the story is told with a more deliberate pace, and that's just what is needed here. Reading it made me think of moments from Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" or Coppola's "Apocalypse Now." I recommend Marissa's eBook...


The Pen & Muse

Want to get on a thrill ride with a bit of paranormal, fantasy and horror? Then look no further than Marissa Farrar’s The Dark Road! This book is an on edge horror and suspense ride and it’s one you won’t want to miss. I really enjoyed this book, the characters, the plot, its one of those stories that you grow to love because you are on the journey with the characters. As the reader, you become their eyes and ears of the characters, exploring with them and plot, dialogue flowed naturally. You can even at points sympathize and relate to these characters.
After reading the book courtesy of IBC’s Tour de Force , I ventured to the author’s website where I learned the book came to her as she traveled. If it’s one thing that I love about authors, being one myself is the amount of ideas and visions we get from our own experiences. Farrar has traveled far and wide and after reading the book, I know now why the visions for this book were so clear and crisp.
Farrar is an author to watch out for as with her travels, I expect to see more books come into fruition. Go and catch The Dark Road!

The Get Loaded Blog Tour! Win a Kindle or $20 Amazon gift card and ebook!

Whoo-hoo! It's my turn to blog on what is turning out to be one hell-of-a blog tour. I'm stop #4 in Get Loaded, Blog Tour de Force's first tour. For stop 3 click here!. We've had some amazing response from all you guys out there, and long may it continue!

Santa wasn't good enough to me to bring me the gift I most wanted this year--a Kindle. (I was obviously on his naughty list.) Only a few months ago I swore I would never want one, but now so many books I am dying to read are out as ebooks only, so now I'm desperate to get my sweaty little mitts on one. Unfortunatly I can't enter this competition, but you guys can and if you're feeling really generous, you can always pass it on to me!!!

Yesterday we met  Rebecca Tsaro Dickson  who introduced you to her novel, I Could Tell You Stories. Her novel is an intense memoir of a woman trapped in an unloving relationship and who cheats. Written in the first person, it is not a read that should be taken lightly, and I loved some of her language and the way she describes how she is feeling. It really is a breath-taking novel.

For those of you who are new to my blog, here is a bit about me and my work:

I've been lucky enough to spend much of my life either travelling or living in different countries. I've lived in Australia and, more recently, Spain. I've also travelled to a number of different countries, backpacking from place to place, sometimes hitching rides, other times enduring twenty-four hour long bus rides.

When I was twenty-two I backpacked round Greece and Turkey, and then a year after that headed out to South-East Asia where I spent a number of months travelling around Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.

It was during this second trip that the idea for The Dark Road came to me.

The journey from Thailand into Cambodia was certainly one of my more hair-raising experiences. I’d only been away for a week and getting the bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap (just as the characters in my book do) was an eye-opening experience. Just like in my book, I quickly discovered that when people say there are no roads in Cambodia—there really are no roads in Cambodia! We were basically travelling on dirt tracks in the middle of nowhere. Then night fell and the most incredible electrical storm I have ever seen started up around us. The lightning was like a strobe, and we were literally in the middle of nowhere. We had to cross some of the most rickety bridges, and every half an hour or so the driver would stop the bus and peer underneath it with a torch (to this day I have absolutely no idea what he was looking for).

So while this was all happening, I was sitting in my seat, watching the light show going on around me, wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into, when I thought I saw something long and black, loping alongside the bus.

Of course it was just my over-active imagination playing tricks on me, but it got the brain cells whirring, and I thought, what would happen if a group of backpackers got stuck in this situation? What if there was something out there chasing them, something that was unnatural and desperate for their blood?

And so The Dark Road was born.

Next head over to stop #5, George H. Siros and his sci-fi novel, Excelsior. His novel is action packed from the start, so hop on over to his blog, especially if you love your sci-fi!

If you're after scavenger hunt clues to  help you win that kindle, you must stop by our wonderful sponsors sites:
The Pen & Muse
Mark of the Stars
Your Need to Read
Parayournormal
Thrillers Rock
Indie Book Collective
Brighter Scribe
Chicago Culture and Events Examiner

Lastly, we authors are competing to win a book trailer and I would absolutely love to have one made for The Dark Road.  So, on Jan. 31st, go the the Indie Book Collective blog and vote for me! (Pretty please!)

My goodie bag is a £10 or $20 (depending on which county you live in!) Amazon gift voucher and an ebook copy of The Dark Road. Just leave me a comment telling me what your favorite country or place to visit is. And if you'd like to check out some more free ebooks, my dark take on a vampire romance, Alone, is now free to download for a limited time only from  Smashwords. And, as if that were not enough, as an exclusive offer for anyone who likes my facebook page,you will also be given the free code for my short story collection, Where The Dead Live.

Good luck everyone!

Win a Kindle! Blog Tour de Force starts today!

First up is Carolyn McCray and she is pulling out all the stops for her Blog Tour day!
For each comment made on her blog... you get a FREE eBook copy of her book!
Plus be automatically entered for her gift basket and the Grand Prize of a brand new Kindle!

We have so many fantastic sponsors for this tour, just check out a few of their badges to the right of this post! I'm up on the 20th, so I really hope you'll check back to enter for my gift basket as well!
 
Happy touring everyone!