FREE until the end of 2013! Lady in the Room

Due to the success of our initial sale, we  have decided to extend it through the Christmas holidays.  Lady in the Room will continue to be FREE until 12/31/13 at these fine retailers:

Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Apple, or in other multiple formats from smashwords.com.

An Excerpt from LADY IN THE ROOM

An excerpt from Lady in the Room, now FREE at Amazon.com and many other fine online retailers.

   After a quick stop by our kitchen to carefully arrange the pastries in one of my wife’s dessert trays, I was back in front of the Walton’s door banging again.  I could sense the doorbell via my peripheral vision, but I wasn’t going to give in.  A man knocks on the door, and so I did, a second, and a third time.  When no one came, I twisted the knob and walked in.  One invitation was enough, I reckoned.

   The din of the party was coming from my right.  The crowd was jam-packed in the living room standing around a young tanned Mitch Jr. who was recounting some story about him doing hand-to-hand combat.  His crew-cut looked the part, but he never really seemed the type that could climb out of a ditch by himself much less take on two members of Al-Qaida at one time.

   Mrs. Walton came to my rescue, guiding me and the pastries to the kitchen for a quick deposit.  She looked at me with worried eyes as she took the plate from me.  She pointed me back out toward the living room, nodding politely.  In our thirty-four seconds of interaction, she hadn’t opened her mouth to say a word, but then again, I didn’t care.  I didn’t like the Waltons.

   The small crowd roared at some line he had just delivered, and my wife was deep in the middle of them – she hadn’t noticed that I’d returned.  A few got up to hit the refreshments about the same time as I found my way into the room.  Brooklyn passed me with a nervous smile.  Mitch Jr. got up and twisted a little bit, flexing his torso to stretch out muscles that really didn’t exist.  I couldn’t help but walk up and shake his hand.  He seemed just too good to be true.  His face beamed when he recognized mine.

   “Mr. Donka!” he said, reaching out for my hand.

   “Mitch.”  His hand felt soft, though the shake was firm.  These were not the hands of a man that carried heavy ammunition around in the desert.  It didn’t mean he wasn’t in the service of country, but it certainly explained the absence of medals which Mrs. Walton would have most assuredly been passing around if any of it were true.  My family hadn’t been raised like that: my grandfather lost a toe in Germany and never bragged about it. I never knew about the Purple Heart until his funeral.

   “You still runnin’ the bank up the street?” His eyes were ecstatic, as if I had stayed all the same just for him.

   I nodded, but kept my mouth shut on purpose.  I was tempted to ask what he was running, or running from, but Mrs. Walton’s eyes were boring in me – I could feel them from the kitchen where she stood.  She didn’t trust me, and she probably could tell that I didn’t care for a single word coming out of her son’s mouth.

   Something caught my eye from the corner of the room, and this time it wasn’t a Walton.  The faint hue of dull brown centered with a slight smear of red got my head to turn on an impulse.  There she was … sitting on a piano bench.  The lady from the market before.  Her happy eyes were on mine; her red-lined smile forcing mine to appear.  I turned to Mitch and excused myself.  I couldn’t hold back my own surprise and giddy smile when I walked over, and reached out to shake her hand.

Lady in the Room - Bestseller List!!!

As of today, Lady in the Room has placed #89 on Amazon's Best Seller List for the genre Occult Horror (Top 100 Free)!!  Overall (compared to all free ebooks listed on Amazon.com), Lady in the Room is ranked as #7486 ... and that's out of the 56,000+ free ebooks, putting us in the top 12-15% of free books listed on the world's largest book retailer!

Thanks so much for all that have supported us and have downloaded the book.  Please don't forget to review the book if you get a chance - and thanks again for your support!!

WG

FREE price extended - Now on Amazon!

In the last couple of weeks, Amazon.com has matched the free price from the other vendors - so I've decided to extend the offer at least through November.  If you enjoyed the book - feel free to leave a review at any of the vendor sites.

To the nearly 300 people who've snatched a copy during this promotional offer - thank you!  Let me know how you liked it.

Lady in the Room - William Gant - FREE through October!

There was something that Darrell Donka noticed about the woman across the room.  Yes, it was true that he had seen her before - not fifteen minutes before at the supermarket in their neighborhood as he fretted over desserts to bring to that party he didn't really want to be at.  But, there was something about this brood brunette he couldn't exactly put his finger on.

He noticed him staring at her and her smile was electrifying!  He felt compelled to talk to her, and so he did - initiating a series of events that would change what he knew about his life and his reality forever.

Enter into the mind of William Gant in this short debut novella, garnished with a twist of irreverence, a dash of campy noir, and a crescendo of the paranormal.


FREE at these SELECT RETAILERS

BARNES & NOBLE - buy FREE at B&N.com
Apple iTunes store - buy FREE on iTunes
KOBO.com - buy FREE on KOBO
Smashwords.com - buy ALL FORMATS FREE at Smashwords (Kindle format included)
Verscent Books/Page Foundry - buy FREE at Verscent

Amazon books - click here to buy for 99cents at Amazon.com (or get from Smashwords above, then click HERE to ask AMAZON to reduce to FREE like our other retailers - look for "tell us about a lower price" link)

Gant, the Second

No, I haven't set about crowning myself King of the Hinterlands ... but, I have embarked on my second novella - which I plan will be at least twice the size of my first, but not quite novel length.  I'm still playing with the title, but the story itself has been finally outlined.

It's an adventure of sorts - a rather macabre adventure - with a young urbanite and artist-fiance.  She, a successful junior executive eager to begin a new family, and he, a rather moody artist quite eager to forget the one he left back home.  They've been talking about the big M - and have met her family, and now she's eager to meet his, although she must go behind his back to arrange the whole thing ... hoping it won't be a homecoming she'll regret for years to come.

Of course, I've left out all the good parts - but  more to come as the story writes itself (with the help of my fingers, of course).

Ciao for now.

Smashwords Interview

So ... you want to know more about me?  Check out this interview just posted on Smashwords (an excerpt, and then the link)

What inspires you to get out of bed each day?

I wish I had a good answer for this. Being a natural night owl, my soul inspiration for getting up each morning is the deadening sound of my alarm clock.

When you're not writing, how do you spend your time?

Working the "other" job, or researching on how to make my writing better than it is. My current work role outside of this has a heavy emphasis on quality assurance, so I apply those skills into making sure I have the best product out before I go to press.

How do you discover the ebooks you read?

Mostly by recommendations. I'm still not keen on paying the traditional publisher price of $9.99+, but there are a lot of e-book authors out there that match more popular authors page for page. Of course, reading the best-seller lists now, some of these e-book only writers (or e-book mostly) are now some of the most popular writers out there.

Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?

Absolutely. It was supposed to be some sort of murder mystery - I think I was twelve. Didn't make it past the first couple of chapters. Still don't know who did it.

Read the rest by clicking this link