Night Shift release day!

Night Shift is available for sale today!

You can comment here (yesterday’s blog post) for a chance to win a copy.

Also, to celebrate I’m offering my second book, Flux, for free on Kindle! It will remain free through April 6. It’s the second book in my Ennek series. The first book, Stasis, is only 99cents, and the third, Equipoise, is $4.99. Plus I donate all my royalties from the trilogy to Doctors Without Borders.

Here’s the blurb for Night Shift:

Aside from a sympathetic parole officer, Aiden Finn is alone in the world. He knows this is his last chance—after a lifetime in and out of prison, one more mistake will land him there to stay. Unfortunately, his job as a night custodian at a motel is neither satisfying nor good for building his confidence, and booze and burglary are always just a step behind him.

Enter beautiful, exotic, and secretive Luka Gabor, the motel’s new security guard. He seems to know a great deal about literature, history, and travel but otherwise remains a mystery. Aiden has to admit, the sex has never been better, and he might even be feeling the beginnings of friendship. He dares to hope that this time, he won’t mess things up—if lurking monsters don’t ruin his plans.

Student bloopers and a giveaway

It’s spring break and I’ve been grading midterms. As I sometimes do, I thought I’d share some of my students’ gems of wisdom and creative writing. I’ve reproduced all of the student work verbatim.

But tomorrow is my release day! My novella Night Shift will be available tomorrow from Dreamspinner, Amazon, and other online sources. For your chance to win an e-copy of Night Shift, all you have to do is leave a comment below, telling me which is your favorite student goof. I’ll randomly choose a winner on April 7 at noon Pacific time.

 
 
 
Outgroup homogeneity is:

…the spreading of similar or alike ideas to an outside group.

…the overall drop out of hate group members.

…people who are against gay people or who fear being around gay people.

…a group of people who hat homosexuals.

…a help group to help those who got out of hate groups and don’t want to be like that.

 

Klan units quickly arouse throughout the South.

 

The typical hate crime offender is white male, teens to early twenties, could be some kind of loaner with not many friends.

 

Without [women] to set up all the parties, get togethers, and hoedowns then nothing would ever get done.

 

The only difference from each other is that in the past not everyone was allowed to be everywhere and not everyone is not matter what skin color you are, but that is the only difference between both.

 

They aimed for civil rights activist and even boomed places like African American churches as well as Jewish synagogues.

 

The Skinheads were started in the 1960’s, in England by young white teenagers in their early 20’s.

 

David Duke is popular in the KKK movement. He believed all Jews were traders.

 

Lastly, women are more important to produce offspring’s.

 

Types of hate groups: Nazis, Ky Klux Klan, Red heads, Skin heads, anti-gay groups

 

Militias were kinda like missional organizations.

 

Farmingville is a small town where immigration within the town was exploided.

 

It appears the role women have in organized hate groups play a secondary role compared to men who take on leadership of running there hate groups and making things happen.

 

The Skinheads were founded in 1865 and peaked around the 1870’s.

 

Members of the Klan tended to consist of patriarchal men of high power such as Generals, Colonels, college educated men, officer raked military men, a Supreme Court Justice member and even a Presidents.

April Fools

In honor of April Fool’s Day, I’m going to let you in on a little joke I’ve played on the poor protagonist of my new novella, Night Shift.

Here’s the thing. I have always loved the paranormal. Some of the first movies I remember watching as a young kid were the old black-and-white Dracula and Frankenstein films. (No, I wasn’t scared. Disney movies sometimes upset me, though.) I was never one to play with dolls very much, but I had action figures: a Planet of the Apes treehouse and a couple of the Planet of the Apes guys, one human and one ape. I also had a wolfman and a glow-in-the-dark vampire.

As I grew up, I still loved the genre. I am a big-time Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan (ah, Spike!). And Supernatural (ah, Dean!). My first novel with Dreamspinner Press, Good Bones, was about a werewolf, and I’ve written a sequel that will be released soon. And Night Shift also has a paranormal element.

In the paranormal books and movies and TV shows I love, nobody is all that surprised about the various supernatural creatures. For example, when Dylan’s boyfriend Chris finds out at long last that Dylan goes furry once a month, Chris is pissed off that Dylan’s kept the secret from him. But nobody particularly questions that werewolves exist. The reaction generally tends to be mild surprise, like discovering your neighbor is a Scientologist.

This brings me to Aiden Finn. As you read Night Shift—and I do hope you read it!—you’ll fairly quickly have some hunches about the true identity of Aiden’s new friend, Luka. You’re smart. You’ll figure it out. But even though Aiden’s not an idiot, the truth doesn’t dawn on him until it’s almost literally biting him in the face. Because really, in actual, true life, would it occur to any of us that our new lover might be a supernatural creature? Of course not! Creatures like that are totally fictional.

That’s the joke I played on Aiden. Here he is, thinking he’s living in real life, when he’s only a hapless character in a paranormal romance.

At least as a character in a romance story, Aiden’s almost guaranteed a happy ending, so maybe he’ll forgive me.
You can preorder Night Shift now atDreamspinner Press. It releases at midnight EDT on April 3.