Thursday, May 15, 2014

Great Books and Authors

I'm one of those people who was born with a book in my hand. Throughout my entire life I can't recall a time when I wasn't reading something - except for now when I'm busy writing my own books. As a child I started off with comic strips and comic books, but soon I was immersed in the joys of what real books, bound up between two covers and a spine, could offer and most any day of the week I could be found with my nose so deeply buried in a book I got in trouble for not hearing and heeding what my dad was telling me to do in the way of chores.

These days it's even easier to get ahold of books, since you don't have to travel down to the local library or bookstore and browse trough the shelves. All anyone has to do today is get online and type into the search engine the genre of book they want to read and soon they're downloading all kinds of great books to whatever reader platform they've chosen to read on and all without leaving the comfort and privacy of their own home.

Now, I know not all the eBooks out on the e-shelves are worth purchasing - I've made the mistake of purchasing too many of them myself and wished I hadn't, but there are some great eBooks to be found, if you search long enough or know where to look. That knowing part often comes in the form of word-of-mouth wherein someone else tells you, "Hey, here's a great book to read. Give this one a try." That's what I'm doing right now.

If you haven't read any of the books by British author Stephen Leather, now's a good time to get familiar with him and one of his more popular characters, a PI by the name of Jack Nightingale. These stories are not only suspense in the crime fiction genre, but thrillers, due to being anchored in the supernatural genre as well. Nothing like you might find in most of what an author like Jeffery Deaver or Stephen King usually writes, but on a lighter supernatural note and highly entertaining. The latest of these books is Blood Bath, a collection of seven short stories featuring Jack Nightingale and his assistant, Jenny McLean, and each story has the same title, Blood Bath. That's because Mr. Leather farmed this idea out to six other authors to create their own version of the main concept he had in mind and they all did great jobs in writing their stories. If you have yet to read Blood Bath, get it while it's still free at Amazon, both in the USA and in the UK.

Interestingly enough, one of the six authors is a Welshman by the name of Andrew Peters. His offering in this book is the third story, in case you don't get the idea from the contents page. Mr. Peters is a Blues musician who now lives somewhere in Spain (I think he might be hiding out from ex-wives, girlfriends or the odd gambling debt collector, but I'm not really certain) and having developed a friendship with Stephen Leather, decided a short time ago to try his own hand at writing. The majority of the eBooks written by Andrew Peters are short stories and many center around his own style of detective, a man by the name of Otis King, himself a blues guitarist, who lives in the city of Memphis and works (at least part-time) as a PI. The tales Mr. Peters spins are far from what you might expect from your typical crime author, but then, Mr. Peters is himself far from typical, but his books are worth reading - more than once. Mr. Peters' books can also be found in both the USA and UK, so take a look.

There it is. If you are looking for new authors to read, check out these two, and then check out the other authors in Blood Bath and see what they're like as well. You won't be sorry.

* * *

No comments:

Post a Comment

Learning From the Old Ways

My people are known as the Lenni Lenape , which translates as the True People . This is how we thought of ourselves, since back then ...