K. Brooks's Blog

What can I say, we had fun! It was our first Facebook Live reveal and it went off ALMOST without a hitch (check out that sneeze near the end) but it was nice being able to share the book cover with all of you at the same time we saw it!

There were a couple of errors that were small and easily fixable, so we’re still on track for our May 25th launch date!

So give us a couple comments, please, and let us know what you think about the book, as well as our first video!

You’ll see it better if you check it out through our FB link, as Facebook isn’t playing nice with the website (preview below)

https://www.facebook.com/thesparkthat...

 

 

 

 

It’s been a busy week over here in the Brooks book world, that’s for damn sure!

First off, as promised in our previous post, we got an astonishingly amazing review from JB Richards loaded onto her website, Goodreads, and Amazon, and we couldn’t love it more!  You can check it out here https://www.yeshuaandmirinovelseries....

Hopefully, it inspires you to give The Spark That Left Us a try!

Additionally, When Shadows Creep finally has a cover and I am not gonna lie, it gives me chills! I can’t wait to get a paperback copy of this in my hands… gonna stroke that pretty little spine! YUP.

Keep checking in with https://books.pronoun.com/when-shadow... for information on where and when you can pick up the ebook!

And now, for a release date for the paperback…

 

Drum roll, please…

May 25th!

I can’t wait for you to pick up this novella and add it to your K.Brooks collection

 

Forever yours, faithful readers….

Proud to say that JB Richard’s is taking a read of The Spark That Left Us, and I can’t wait to hear her thoughts!

In the meantime, why don’t you check out her blog and her other reviews? And while you’re there, check out the Yeshua and Miri Novels, including Miriamne the Magdala by JB Richards.

Blogs and authors have got to stick together!

I hope you all enjoy the little side trip

I hate feeling like I can’t move on in a project. I hate feeling like it has been stalled out and there is nothing I can do about it. I want nothing more than to have WSC out there in the world. I want nothing more than to finish up with TSTBU. Sparks will be 3 years old soon. Three. Years. Old. Where has the time gone?

I wish I had more to show for it.

But I always said in the beginning, I did it to say I did it. Not for the guts, the glory, or the riches.

None of which I’ve received.

But it would have been nice as a side note.

And now I sit, waiting to feel the push and pull and the inspiration to actually finish what I’ve started,

and I am just. Too. Tired.

Two Days Gone

Review by K. Brooks

 

Books featuring authors always amuse me well before I have a chance to read them. Particularly any involving authors in dire circumstances or dangerous plots, as there is always that split second flash of fear through my brain when I think “but what if?”

Two Days Gone opens with a series of brutal murders, a lost suspect, and a bitter cop. What starts as a traditional mystery thriller soon transforms into an elegant and twisted race to the climax. I always appreciate thrillers that constantly keep the reader guessing. Guessing not only the “who dunnit” but constantly and consistently revising the readers’ feelings and expectations of every character, their motives, and the outcome of every scene.

I loved it.

I loved every dark corner of this 400 page novel, I loved how the author took the reader by the hand and led them through DeMarco’s thought process, his crime solving, and every tortured action that he takes to save his author friend, who he believes innocent of the crimes that have been pinned on him.

The writing is elegant, suitable and reflective of a novel about an award winning author. The transitions between the characters and their points of view are inspired, the emotion that is woven in between the words and thoughts of one character versus another stand out vividly. If you were to put the book down and pick up at a random point, you’d know exactly whose view you were reading about by the sheer change in desperation.

This is definitely a book to pick up whether you are a reader or a writer, as it will inspire and it will entertain no matter who you are.

Chapter Four

 

 

Flynn stared up at the cold stone walls of Caldwell Manor, amazed that he felt nothing when he gazed upon it. He had expected at the very least to be unsettled. It was a challenge to muster disdain.

It was squat, inelegant. There were no details, no flourishes, no love lost between these walls. The brick was a dark gray, the roof a dark slate, the windows lightless.

Flynn tilted his head and his gaze roved over the ivy locked in its winter sleep. The land that surrounded had long gone to weeds.

“Can’t bother with the mower, Caden? Is it below you?”

Caden ignored him, shouldered past on the cobblestone path. He headed toward the large and heavy wooden front door with its heavy iron knocker.

Flynn turned to glare at Caden’s car, parked haphazard across the lawn. He had left it with one tire mashed down over a struggling sapling,

“Why do I even ask? He can’t even bother to park straight,”

A light flicked on from the hall.

Caden’s voice called out from behind the half-closed door,

“Are you going to come in out of the rain? Or are you going to continue to chastise someone who doesn’t care about what you think?”

Flynn’s head dropped to his chest and he resumed his trudge towards the mansion. When he reached the door, he reached out and rested a hand on the knocker. It was carved in the shape of a hyena head, its mouth snarled around the iron ring shaped as two shooting stars. He paused for a moment.

“I know we said goodbye, once. But don’t get used to this. I won’t be here for long,”

He didn’t wait for a response. He entered the warm hall, and his damp clothes steamed as he closed the door behind him.

 

…

 

“They seem to be here,” Finnigan observed.

Carmen nodded, gaze lost in the distance.

“Feel like we should have organized a party,” Finnigan lumbered to his feet, numbed by the whiskey and the heat. He trudged toward the door, assumed that Carmen would be on his heels.

But Carmen had not shifted an inch.

“Carmen?”

Finnigan frowned, waited. He knocked on the frame,

“Hello? Earth to Carmen? We have to go greet Flynn. Are you coming?”

A shiver ran down Finnigan’s spine.

He approached Carmen’s chair, rested a hand on a rigid shoulder. No reaction.

He swung the chair around on its pivot, which rocked Carmen slightly.

Carmen’s eyes had rolled back, face stone cold and still.

Finnigan sighed, planted a hand on each armrest, and leaned forward, until their noses almost touched.

“Carm, dear, you’ll have to come back from there. Now isn’t the time,”

Despite the unsettled roll of his stomach, he stared into the whites of Carmen’s eyes. He willed a return to their normal dark, dark hazel.

Several heartbeats thudded by. Finnigan waited.

“Hello?”

Caden’s voice called from a distance. Finnigan disconnected, straightened away from Carmen’s prone form. A sudden gasp, a deep and rough inhalation of air, and Carmen had returned with a shake of the head.

Finnigan crossed his arms, lips pursed.

“You could warn me next time you go on a stroll, Carm,”

Carmen blinked, looked around and scrambled up from the chair.

“They’re here!”

Carmen headed toward the door, a sudden thunder of feet in haste to welcome their guests.

Finnigan shook his head and followed quickly after. He was vaguely confused, Carmen had not acknowledged the momentary absence.

You were asleep, who knows how long Carmen was really gone…

Finnigan brushed the thought away and ran his fingers through his hair. It had been too long since he’d seen Flynn, wondered how he looked. He steeled himself for the rush, the confusion. Hardened against the flip in his stomach that always accompanied the thoughts of socializing with his younger brother.

It sounded as if they had entered through the east wing. Caden’s voice boomed from somewhere below, echoed off the tapestried walls.

That was the problem with this house. Anyone could be anywhere, the walls distorted the truth at every possible junction. Finnigan followed the sounds. He had trained his mind to ignore the illusions and to adjust for the discrepancies.

He’d lost Carmen again, this time in the physical realm. There were many secret doors and hidden corridors, revolving bookcases and false floors, it was easy to slip off through a shortcut without a sound.

Finnigan adjusted his rings as he strolled, straightened his cuffs, his collar. Another anxious hand ran through his hair of its own accord.

What am I doing?

He would only delay the inevitable with his spastic grooming.

He voyaged down the wide and sweeping marble staircase. Each tread was warm and worn and glowed in the light of the chandelier that demarked the exact center of the residence. His eyes traced the path of wet footprints that crossed the large paneled room. The came straight from the east corridor as he had guessed, and into the south.

“Of course, you horrid, messy beast,” he cursed Caden.

Voices came from ahead, the glow of the fire bright in Carmen’s office down the hall. He swept past the framed portraits of the Caldwells long dead and gone. They all had the same angular faces, and the dark, deep hazel eyes. They appeared to stare at him as he hurried. The idea that he had delayed the sight of Flynn, had become a horrible joke in his mind. He stumbled at the threshold, paused, waited for a sign that he should enter.

Interrupt.

“You look exhausted, Flynn, was the trip so terrible?”

Carmen’s voice sounded pleasant enough. There was no note belying any concern as it had only hours before.

Finnigan put a hand to the door, attempted to envision Flynn inside.

The response was much raspier that he expected, the voice lower than remembered.

He sounded old to Finnigan’s ears as if more than five years had passed. Perhaps ten, twenty. But he knew, he knew deep down, it was that house that had done it. It had to be.

“Your brother’s driving must have taken several years from my life if that’s how I look,”

Carmen laughed in response. Finnigan could almost see the glad-handing, the shoulder-clapping.

Ah, how funny it must be.

Finnigan rolled his eyes.

“How long are you going to lurk, then, Finnigan? I know you’re outside the door. As usual,” Caden’s voice accosted him from within the room. A round of laughter punctuated the accusation.

Finnigan almost turned tail, almost fled down the hall. His skin had grown cold, despite the warmth of the Manor. There was something else here too. Once he had stopped focusing on the others, his muscles relaxed, he could feel it. A low lurking in his gut that had nothing to do with his lunch.

The door swung open, and Carmen stared at him intently.

“What are you waiting for?”

 

…

 

It didn’t like this place.

The warmth, the noise. Too much talking. It hissed as it crawled. Undulated. It packed itself tightly into the corner. It glared suspiciously at a spider that pattered off at the interruption, a half-eaten snack abandoned.

It longed for the whistling windows of the Freemont house, the frosted glass from the storms. But it had to follow him. It had to know, it had to remind him that he belonged at Freemont. Not here. Not here.

Never here.

It had gotten as far as the golden rosy chandelier, the twinkling lights too bright, too sickly sweet for the eyes. It had grumbled. Reversed directions. Slipped through a grate in the wall, and felt the way along under the floorboards. It crawled through a layer of dust and decay, reveled in the cool brush of it. It emerged through another iron-clad opening, having circumvented the brilliance of the central room.

Flynn’s heartbeat pulsed up ahead, a hollow thud that guided the Dark to where it needed to be.

It needed to watch.

It would wait.

Flynn would sleep once more.

 

…

 

Finnigan attempted to contain his surprise at the sight of his brother.

Caden should have warned them, should have called. This was a situation for delicacy, and Caden had not observed the basic guidelines of society. If he had, Finnigan could have arranged his face into any other shape than poorly contained horror.

But he hadn’t.

And now here Finnigan stood, and he gulped like a fish. He flushed from the embarrassment of his incorrect reaction.

“Flynn! You made it!”

A moment too late.

He stumbled over his words, over his feet, moved forward in an awkward attempt at a handshake, a hug, and their elbows knocked into each other. They almost smashed their foreheads together.

Flynn brushed a hand through the long side of his hair, a shock of white that ran across the left side, neatly divided at his part. It was so pale in the flicker of firelight that it glowed in stark contrast to the dark cherry red of the rest of his short trimmed hair. It was a popular cut, Finnigan silently recognized, but certainly not in those shades.

And his eye.

Oh, his eye.

Faded to a blue-grey, a blinded shade, the pupil glazed, frozen.

It appeared to Finnigan as if one side of him, the left side, had been permanently and irreversibly affected by some sort of horrible catastrophe.

Finnigan clicked his mouth shut, realized he had stared at Flynn for far too long.

Flynn smiled, seemed unaware of his appearance. He turned to Carmen and Caden and thumbed toward the door.

“I am exhausted, though, to be completely honest. Is there any chance my old room is still available?”

Carmen nodded warmly, ever the gentile host, and gestured toward the door,

“Please, let’s walk. I’ll show you where the linens have moved to since you left. I’m so sorry I didn’t prep the room in advance, I was worried Caden wouldn’t be convincing enough,”

A smile flashed in Caden’s direction, a laugh in response from Flynn, and then they were gone, the door pressed firmly closed behind them.

Finnigan wheeled toward Caden,

“What the HELL happened to him?!”

Make sure to check out

Writing Crazy without Going Crazy by K. Brooks

Today!

Hello, everyone!

I am excited and proud to announce my participation in Mystery Thriller Week, running February 12 – 22nd!

There will be numerous guest posts, author interviews, book reviews, contests, socializing, and general excitement surrounding these very special 11 days in February, and I am incredibly excited to be a part of it!

You can visit www.mysterythrillerweek.com for more information, or join us on Facebook to keep abreast of all the fun and informative support from indie authors around the globe.

I myself will be throwing a couple of guest posts and reviews into the mix, so keep an eye out for me

Living in Canada, I understand the urgency of impending winter weather. We all hear the warnings, through radio and television, the red-banded caution that wraps itself around our websites and our cell phones. And most of us heed those stern words. We batten down the hatches, we fill our supplies of salt and ensure that food and water can and will last us for days if by necessity. We know where the flashlights and candles and matches hide in our drawers and our cupboards. And we wait.

Sometimes the storm is exactly as prescribed, and we settle under our blankets comforted in the knowledge that we did what we could, and everything will be just fine.

Or sometimes, as is the case in Laurel Heidtman’s “Whiteout”, we grossly underestimate the power of weather and the lengths that humans will go to endure.

“Whiteout” is wonderfully written, filled with details about the horror of the incoming storm, its effect on the characters, their world, and their motives. Told through a variety of points of view, “Whiteout” explores all possible responses to the wintry weather, and the characters attempt to get through it alive.

Along with the storm, an added element of danger – two escaped convicts (sorry, spoiler alert!) have been released into the blinding snow and freezing cold, and they will stop at nothing to bring about their escape.

Laurel Heidtman does an excellent job at making the reader feel the claustrophobia and panic that the wintry weather brings to our characters. The hopelessness in the face of adversity and against a villain they have no hope to overcome.

I highly suggest giving “Whiteout” a read, if only for the twist of fate that graces the pages once the snow settles and the true faces of our heroes break through.

One of my favourite parts of putting together a book project is sourcing locations for the cover art, and promo images.

It combines my love of research, my love of Google Maps, and my passion for road trips. What could be better than piling into a car, coffee in hand, camera in bag, and best friend in tow?

The difficulty I had with this book, is that the environment of the region I live in isn’t great for my vision. I don’t live near an ocean. I live on the wrong side of the Great Lakes. The crags and the cliffs and the waves are on the westerly side of the Lakes, which unfortunately is in Northern Michigan. Not unfortunate because it is Michigan, but unfortunate because it’s several hours drive away.

So I have scouted a couple of locations that go in a circuit that will hopefully fulfill my hopes and dreams. Who knows?

The trend so far has been that art has approached me in the most unexpected ways, so I will leave my heart and mind open to possibilities and opportunities, and trust in the vision of my photographer.

 

Until then, loyal readers.

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