We are very pleased to bring you three new authors from Class Act Publishing.
After coming under new ownership in 2013, the publishing commitment was changed from only romance to all genres and they now feature Westerns, Adventure, SciFi, M/M, and Horror among their titles. Class Act Books offers standalone novels as well as series, and features award-winning authors. Titles are available on the website as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. They are also featured on the UK, French, German, Japanese and Italian versions of Amazon.com.
Website: www.classactbooks.com
Paul McDermott
Born in the Year of the Tiger, Paul’s natural curiosity
combined with the deep-seated feline need to roam has meant that over the years
he’s never been able to call any one place home. His wanderlust has led him
from one town to another, and even from one country to another.
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write - my father
claims to possess a story I wrote when I was six, which filled 4 standard
school exercise books! What I do remember from that time was being told off for
doing the Liverpool Echo crossword before he got home from work!”
While Paul was living in Denmark, he allowed himself to be
persuaded to write for a purpose instead of purely for his own amusement.
Perhaps it was the catalyst of breathing the same air as Hans Christian Andersen.
Paul’s IT
guru (aka his talented daughter) has recently constructed a website for him:
Paul
frequently lurks at: www.thewriterschatroom.com (Sundays & Wednesdays)
Blurb:
In 1945, U-boat Kapitän Herbert Nollau must deliver a weapon which
will turn the war in Germany’s favour. His orders are delivered verbally. There
will be no written records... and no witnesses.
James Austin McCormick is a college lecturer from
Manchester, England and his free time enjoy writing speculative fiction, mostly
science fiction, horror and a little sword and sorcery fantasy. He is also a
particular fan of classic Gothic and Victorian horror tales and is currently in
the process of writing updated versions of these with a science fiction spin.
Alone, far from home, hunted by the Danish Resistance and the might of
the Allied Forces, he must obey either his final Orders…or the inner voice of
his conscience.
Excerpt:
Überlojtnant
Herbert Nollau stood with his Zeiss nightglasses glued to his eyes, impervious
to the rain whipped across his cheeks by half a gale. This howled almost
exactly at ninety degrees to the tide, which had just reached the full but had
not yet begun its retreat. His command craft, U-534, sat uneasily at anchor,
dipping at bow and stern in the current, yawing appreciably as frequent Force
Ten gusts buffeted her broad flanks. Low, heavy rainclouds hunkered closer,
seeming to settle on the upper branches of the natural pine forest which spread
untamed, unculled, across the low hills of Schleswig-Holstein.
An identical pair of black Opel staff cars
bracketed a canvas bodied Mercedes half-track transport wagon, all three
vehicles picking their way carefully along an unmarked country road. The
headlights were taped down to the size and shape of a feral cat's vertical
slits, acknowledging the strict rules governing all traffic during the hours of
darkness. The road to the harbour just outside Lübeck was neither tarmac’ed nor
enhanced with any form of lighting. The drivers were obliged to steer
cautiously around every twist, using the gears and brakes more frequently than
the accelerator.
"Amateurs!" he thought to himself, as the
three sets of headlights crawled slowly closer.
He blanked the thought as soon as it intruded on
his consciousness, forcing himself back into State-approved Wehrmacht thinking,
based on purely practical matters directly related to carrying out current
instructions, with maximum efficiency, without question. He pulled the collar
of his oilskins closer around his throat in a futile attempt to prevent the
rain from seeping through, soaking his uniform. Raising his night glasses once
more, he cursed the weather, the Wehrmacht and the world in general, feeling
more exposed and vulnerable with every minute that passed as he waited for the
convoy of lights to crawl closer, carrying the equipment which he had been
ordered to collect. It bothered him that he was expected to set sail
immediately, and await orders concerning his destination by radio once he had
cleared the bay and entered Store Bælt: technically, that section of the North
Sea was neutral Danish waters, and if he were to remain on the surface for any
length of time in order to receive orders …
As the lights snaked around another pair of curves
and began their final descent to the shoreline and the jetty where U534 was
waiting, Herbert Nollau realized that he had on board a much more powerful
sender/receiver than any other U-boat: in fact, not just one but two
radios equipped with the Enigma cryptographic programme had been installed,
ostensibly for testing. With a sudden jolt, the deceptively young-looking
Überlojtnant realized that this technology was far more sophisticated than that
which had previously been regarded as the best in the world: apart from being
guaranteed unbreakable as a code, it could also send and receive radio signals
without his craft needing to surface.
He shook his head to clear the worst of the pools
which had formed in the upturned brim of his sou’wester and made his way down
the ladder bolted to the side of the conning tower, aiming to be waiting on the
quay before the three vehicles wheezed to a halt. His mechanic’s ear analysed
and diagnosed a list of faults he could clearly identify from the laboured
chugging of each engine. Furious at this indication of inefficiency, a corner
of his mind decided that he would have had the senior officer responsible for
each vehicle court-martialled, if the decision had been up to him. In spite of
the horrors he had witnessed in three years of naval warfare, he shuddered. His
orders, distasteful though they might be, were crystal clear …
Two gaunt, silent shadows slid with simultaneous
choreography from the rear seat of each of the Opels: their sleek black
trenchcoats almost touched the planks of the jetty, glistening in the starlight
as if the officers wearing them had been marching for hours in the rain rather
than just stepping out of a warm, dry car. Nollau fired off his most formal
salute: the four SS-officers responded with a world-weary, bent-elbow
half-salute and pointedly refrained from returning Nollau’s “Heil, Hitler!”
One detached himself for a moment and gave a hand-signal to the driver of the
canvas-sided truck. The driver
immediately hammered his fist twice on the bulkhead behind his seat. Four
soldiers appeared over the tailgate of the wagon and began to manoeuvre something long and heavy out
of the cargo space.
Turning to face his command meant that Herbert
Nollau had to turn his back on the four staff officers. Somehow he managed to
do this with an insolence which stated quite clearly that, as far as he was
concerned, they were barely worthy of his contempt.
He placed a small, shrill whistle to his lips and
blew, one long (but not overloud) blast. Within ten seconds, the deck was
populated by about twenty matelots, standing at ease, who somehow contrived to
arrive from nowhere and in total silence. Close to the bows, and just for’ard
of ’midships , cables were deployed from two small jib cranes. Within seconds,
the submariner crew were on the jetty, taking the unidentified cargo from the
shoulders of the four soldiers and hoisting it with ease onto the foredeck,
thence by some lightningfast legerdemain out of sight below decks. The
crew had followed, leaving Überlojtnant Nollau as the only member of the Senior
Service still on the jetty. At a silent gesture from one of the anonymous black
trenchcoats the four soldiers climbed back over the tailgate, into the truck.
After about four attempts, the driver managed to coax the engine into life and
began to back and fill, facing back the way he had come.
As he completed the manoeuvre and gunned the engine to set
off up the hill, the four SS officers opened their trenchcoats to reveal the
muzzles of rapid fire MP40 machine pistols. With one accord they raised their
weapons and sent round after deadly round of ammunition into both the cab and
the rear of the vehicle, holding the triggers steady. Before the hail of
bullets ceased, the fuel tanks of the wagon exploded, sending flames soaring
high into the night sky, setting small fires in the tree tops as they lost
their intensity and curled back towards the ground.
Suddenly, Herbert Nollau’s orders seemed
fractionally less dishonourable.
Having emptied their weapons, the four executioners
appeared to have rediscovered some of their habitual swagger and pride.
Crashing the butts of the now-empty weapons against the rough wooden planking
of the jetty they raised their right arms to the fullest, and screamed: “Heil,
Hitler!” as their heels crashed together in perfect unison.
Sick to
his stomach at the pleasure his countrymen took from the callous murder of
fellow Germans, it was all Herbert Nollau could do to raise his arm,
bent-elbowed, in the less formal salute he would never under normal
circumstances have accepted from others nor used himself.
The Spear of Destiny
is available at:
Publisher’s website: http://www.classactbooks.com/component/virtuemart/historical-fiction/the-spear-of-destiny-detail?Itemid=0
James Austin McCormick is a college lecturer from
Manchester, England and his free time enjoy writing speculative fiction, mostly
science fiction, horror and a little sword and sorcery fantasy. He is also a
particular fan of classic Gothic and Victorian horror tales and is currently in
the process of writing updated versions of these with a science fiction spin.
BLURB for Dragon: The
Tower of Tamerlane:
After the death of the Tuolon Ambassador Lagua and the
failure to bring the non-humanoid worlds into the Alliance, Sillow and Brok’s
long partnership is finally at an end. Now a reluctant solo agent, Sillow is
called upon to undertake his first mission, investigate the Tower, a high-tech
prison complex along with the oligarch who runs it, a mysterious nobleman who
calls himself Tamerlane.
Seeking evidence to prove Tamerlane is responsible for a series of terrorist
attacks, Sillow quickly uncovers the sheer scale of his plans, a lethal
military strike on all four humanoid home worlds. Caught and imprisoned
however, the Sylvan finds himself helpless to warn the Alliance of the coming
danger.
All the while, something has been evolving, growing stronger inside the Tower,
something intangible yet far more dangerous than Tamerlane ever could be, a
being implacably opposed to all life in the galaxy.
And only Sillow has any chance of stopping it.
EXCERPT from Dragon:
The Tower of Tamerlane:
Laser fire and shouts echoed as Sillow was thrown headlong
into the cell.
“What are you?” a female voiced asked. “Some type of green
midget?”
Sillow groaned and tried to get up. He settled for a slumped
kneeling position.
“I’m a Sylvan,” he replied. He squinted into the shadows
and saw a figure seated on the upper berth of a bunk. He could make out little
apart from a muscular, yet shapely pair
of legs. “Who are you?”
The figure jumped down from the bunk. She was an
Amazonian, strong and athletic with an impressive cleavage and long chestnut
hair falling around her shoulders. She was
also extremely pretty despite the artificial eye and cheek
implant. She stretched out a perfectly formed silver arm, extending her hand.
“Titanya.”
Sillow’s eyes widened. “The Pirate Queen?”
The woman nodded.
The Sylvan took her cybernetic hand and let himself be
hauled to his feet. He found himself head high to her magnificent chest.
“Sillow,” he replied, smiling at her breasts. “I’m from
the Alliance.”
“Up here, short stuff,” the woman told him.
Slowly and very reluctantly, Sillow turned his attention
upwards. He grinned. “Nice to meet you.”
Outside, cries and weapon fire continued to echo through
the halls.
Titanya frowned. “Any idea what all that’s about?”
“Whole place is going crazy,” the Sylvan replied.
“Something got into Tamerlane’s AI system.”
The woman took a couple of tentative steps toward the
door. Screams echoed through the walls.
“Sounds like a warzone out there,” she remarked. “You sure
the AI is causing all this?”
Sillow frowned. “You know, this is going to sound kind of
crazy but…” he paused, running a hand over his pointed chin.
“What?” Titanya demanded.
“Well, it kind of looks like the one causing all this is
Darius Drake. You heard of the guy?”
“Oh yeah,” the Earth woman answered. “We’ve met.”
“Well, somehow he’s put himself into the computer system.”
Sillow gave an embarrassed shrug. “Sounds sort of off the wall I know.”
There was a sudden explosion and flames tore through the
slits at the top of the door.
“Look out.” Sillow threw himself at Titanya, knocking her
off balance and sending her tumbling to the floor. The Sylvan landed on top of
her, head buried in her thick auburn
locks. A fireball tore past them, turning the bunks into
cinder.
It was some moments before Sillow glanced up. He found
himself looking at the stern, beautiful features of the Terran woman.
“You okay?” he asked. “Just so you know, that was me
protecting you.”
“Just so you know,” Titanya replied, “under any other
circumstances I’d have busted your jaw for that.”
Sillow grinned. “You mean saving your life?”
Titanya flung the little Sylvan back onto his feet. “Yeah,
right. I can’t believe a pipsqueak like you got the drop on me.”
BUY LINKS:
Publisher’s website: http://www.classactbooks.com/index.php/component/virtuemart/science-fiction/dragon-the-tower-of-tamerlane-593-detail?Itemid=0
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Tamerlane-James-Austin-McCormick-ebook/dp/B011MNZQ52/ref=la_B00F3F9SGY_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470566864&sr=1-7
Find out more about James at:
Class Act Books http://www.classactbooks.com/index.php/our-authors/manufacturers/james-austin-mccormick
Rick
McQuiston is a forty-six year old father of two who loves anything horror
related. By day, he works for a family-owned construction and management
company. By night, he churns out horror fiction.
Rick
has well over 300 publications so far. He’s written seven anthologies, one book
of novellas, and edited an anthology of Michigan authors. He’s also a guest
author each year at Memphis Junior High School, and is currently working on his
fifth novel, a Cthulhu-based anthology. Rick currently has two novels with
Class Act Books: Fear the Sky and When Only
the Nightmare Remains, which was voted #2 in Horror for 2015 by the
Paranormal Romance GuIld’s Reviewer’s Choice.
Blurb:
A town sheriff and
three young boys manage to overcome an evil entity threatening their town.
Excerpt:
Emily nudged closer and closer to
the spider-webbed pane of glass. The window offered little in the way of a
view—being octagonal and no larger than a dinner plate— but what it did reveal
was adequate to say the least. It allowed anyone gazing through it to see the
lush rolling landscape surrounding the house…and all it contained.
Feeling her already weak heart
pound heavily in her chest, Emily scanned the grounds intently, watching for
any signs of movement, for any hint of life. For any signs of
William. She held the Book tightly
in her small hands, refusing to relinquish it to anything or anyone. She had
only scratched the surface of its contents, but that was still
enough to impart its importance to
her.
Her eyes moistened with tears
as she thought of earlier, happier times
in her life and her marriage to William.
She should have been thinking about raising a family and planting
flowers around the front porch of her home. She should have been thinking about
what to cook for dinner when her husband returned home from a hard day’s work.
All these simple notions, ones so many young people took for granted, were well
beyond her grasp. In their place were terrifying visions of a dim future. Or
worse—no future at all.
Movement caught her eye, sending a
fresh batch of fear down her already frail spine. She rubbed her eyes to clear
them and stared at the spot where she thought she had seen
something. It took only a few
seconds before her fears were confirmed. Something had moved. She was sure of
it, but it was not easily noticeable. Whatever was lurking in the
dense foliage was crafty and using
stealth to its advantage.
Despite expecting it, Emily found
herself cringing from the implications. She knew what it was, slithering around
the fields, worming its way closer and closer with each
passing minute. She also knew that
eventually, inevitably, it would reach her house.
Her house. It was her house and
hers alone since her beloved husband died earlier that year. Nearly eight cold,
empty months had passed since that fateful day when a
bullet found its way into his
forehead, killing him instantly. Some said that it was a suicide. Perhaps it
was, but Emily was not so sure. William had no reason to kill himself.
The pain of that day pushed its way
into Emily’s heart, so slowly at first as to be almost unnoticeable, but
gradually increasing in its intensity. William had been a good man and
a good husband, at least he was
before he had changed into a cold, cruel person wholly incapable of compassion
or love.
Emily stepped back from the window
and slumped into a small, worn leatherback chair. She was exhausted, both
physically and emotionally, and the alluring thought of sleep entered her mind more
than once. She ignored it. She had too many problems, too many things to think
about to be able to enjoy a good rest. Not that she didn’t deserve it.
Outside the house, nestled snugly
within the green vegetation of the fields, something waited for its chance to
move, to advance toward the house and reach a solitary
figure huddled in the attic of the building, and end her life.
Buy links for When
Only the Nightmare Remains:
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-only-the-nightmare-remains-rick-mcquiston/1120364310?ean=2940046171884
Find out more about Rick at:
Glad Scribbler is back. I enjoyed all 3 excerpts and learning a bit about each author.
ReplyDeleteThank you the nice comments.
DeleteNice to be 'in the majority' for once - TWO of the three featured posts are by "Over the Pond" Authors, and I'm proud to be ONE of them! I follow Alan, thanks for reading and offering positive words!
ReplyDeleteBy the Way ... I'm liable to 'lurk' online most of Sunday [remember we INVENTED Time Zones, it's 5 hours EARLIER here than it is in New York!] Sundays end for me with a quick trip to http://writerschatroom.com/wp/ which starts @ 1900 EST
ReplyDeleteFeel free to drop in!
Paul McDermott here, lurking [as I frequently do] most of Sunday - remember we're FIVE HOURS ahead of New Yoik, New Yoik! :)
ReplyDeleteHappy to answer any questions you might have, honured to be invited to chat today - nice to see that us Brits are in a 2-to-1 majority for once!
Glad to have you on the Scribbler Paul. I have been fortunate to have many guests from "across the pond" as well as from many other countries. Happy writing.
ReplyDelete