Read this book: Nickel Plated by Aric Davis

Hi everyone!

I want to tell all of you about an author that competed in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novelist Awards. His name is Aric Davis & he wrote one of the best excerpts in the forum, but unfortunately he didn't progress in the contest due to a technicality, but thankfully Amazon had the good sense to snap his book up to be released through their AmazonEncore line.

Here's the book synopsis:

Nickel is a survivor. He has to be. For as long as he can remember, his life has hinged on the flip of a coin. Or, rather, the scribble of a social worker’s pen. He’s been through the system, even had a good dad for a few years, until he was gone, too. But Nickel remembers everything he taught him, and since the day he escaped from foster-care hell, he’s put that knowledge to good use. Just twelve years old, he makes a steady living by selling marijuana to high schoolers, blackmailing pedophiles he ferrets out online, and working as a private investigator.

When a beautiful girl named Arrow hires him to find her little sister Shelby, Nickel figures at best the kid’s a runaway; at worst, some perv’s gotten a hold of her. He scours the internet and the streets of Arrow’s suburban neighborhood, and what he finds there is as ugly a truth as he’s ever seen. For beyond the manicured lawns, Nickel discovers children for sale, and adults with souls black as the devil. And people like that aren’t about to let some kid ruin their game. This edgy thriller introduces a canny, precocious anti-hero, the likes of which young-adult readers have never seen.

I'm really excited to see this in print & even more excited to announce this to everyone! If you want to order a copy from amazon, feel free to pre-purchase it here. It doesn't release until March of 2011, but from what I read of it the book is well worth the wait.

If you want to show the author a little love, you can always visit his website & contact him through there! Davis also has another book out that he self-published, which is unfortunately not in print anymore but hopefully now that Nickel Plated has been picked up we'll see that come back into print!

Book Review: In Darkness Bound by Christine Price

Title: In Darkness Bound
Author: Christine Price
Publisher: Carina Press
Release Date: 09/13/2010
eISBN: 9781426890574








As always, I’m going to warn readers that the pairings in this book are M/M & M/M/M. If you don’t care for pairings of this nature then this will probably not be the book for you. That said, on with the show!

Chris has always been different. He’s been all too aware of that ever since his brother died when they were very young- a death that Chris feels that his strange abilities were responsible for. When Chris is suddenly abducted & forced to take part in sadistic tests given by a doctor gone mad, his only saving grace will be found in two men. One is a patient with a strange craving. The other is a patient turned orderly, the only worker there with any portion of sanity & mercy. As the confines of the cramped prison as well as the influence of the doctor & a strange, evil patient begin to hammer away at Chris’s sanity, it becomes all too apparent that the only way to survive will be to escape.

Believe me; I’m not giving the story premise justice. This book really does seem to have just about everything: mystery, suspense, sex, love, evil… it’s all in here. There’s a lot in this book that’s enjoyable. Price does a fine job of making the reader guess as to what is going on & what will happen next. I have to admit that there were several parts to the story that I really couldn’t predict, which I love. I love being surprised. Readers will also love that the interactions between the men flows so naturally between the two & the erotic scenes (which are short but explicit) do seem to fit with the surrounding story.

The only downfall with the story is that towards the end it just seemed to unravel a bit & as a result, lacked the punch I was expecting from it. I can’t go into a huge amount of detail without spoiling it, but I was kind of expecting a little more of a confrontation between some of the characters & I was slightly disappointed that it never came. (I say slightly because the ending hints that there could easily be a sequel- lots of unfinished business at the end of this book!)

Overall though, this was an incredibly fun read that I gobbled down in a day & if Price does decide to return to this universe (oh please oh please oh please!), I’m definitely planning on tracking it down. I’m just curious to know more about this universe, the characters, & how the unfinished plot elements will be resolved in the future.

(ARC provided by NetGalley)

The Alphascript books & Wikipedia Scam

Who doesn't like Wikipedia? Sure, sometimes you'll get people who update it with incorrect information on accident or on purpose, but generally it's a great place to go for some quick & easy information on just about any topic you'd like to know about. It's free, it's easy, & most importantly... it's free.

That's what makes the Alphascript books so horrible.

VDM Publishing is the force behind the Alphascript books, taking pages from Wikipedia & putting them into incredibly books that are not only poorly translated into book format but are also obscenely priced. Would you believe that the lowest price for one of these books is about $40? That's the lowest price, mind you. The average price is actually around $50-60, with some books ranging into the $100s. If they only charging $5-10 for the book then I probably wouldn't be as outraged, but with prices these high it's literally robbery.

All for a book that literally contains information you could grab for free off of Wikipedia. The company claims that they are able to sell these books because they're considered "free use" & that they are perfectly within their legal bounds to charge whatever they want.

Critics are already quick to point out that VDM doesn't label the books to reflect where they got the content from. Indeed, many of the amazon entries I looked at said nothing about them gaining all their info from Wikipedia. VDM's reply?

"It is pointed out in every Alphascript book that contents are Wikipedia articles. Do we now have to write in Amazon-books: “Attention! Books contains Wikipedia!”? Then other publishing houses would have to point out in their books: “Attention! Book contains nonsense!”, or: “Attention! Book has only sex-scenario!”

That's all fine & well, but if you only put it inside of the book or in a place where people can't see it until their purchase arrives & not on the amazon description spot or in the title itself, isn't that fraud in some way?

To some degree a bit of "Caveat Emptor" should be applicable, but in this case I can't help but think that the unaware consumer needs to be protected.