Giveaway & Contest to Celebrate the Ebook Release of Killer Shades by H. D. Thomson

I’m excited to announce that I’m having a contest and giveaway for my latest release, KILLER SHADES. There’s only a couple days left!!

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Apple | KOBO

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Killer Shades Excerpt!

Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck and strode toward the victim sprawled across the yellow line. Ten yards in and he recognized the vic. Air hissed into his lungs, and he nearly choked on it. Wayne. He had to be dead. No one could live through that head wound. What the hell. Alarm exploded inside his chest as he looked around at the people on the street and the vicinity. Then he saw her, and the air left his lungs in one, big whoosh. But he didn’t relax. Quite the opposite.

Jenna.

His chest tightened almost painfully.

Their gazes meshed across a good thirty yards that separated them. Even from this distance, he noticed the color had leached from her face and accented her lips and the dark wings of her brows. Still, she was as beautiful as ever. The mahogany mane of hair, thick and luscious, flowed around her shoulders. Her eyes, such an incredible blue, always seemed to pierce through him to that deep, dark area of his soul he never wanted anyone to delve into. But she had. She’d wanted to know everything about him, only to promptly leave him when she’d learned exactly who he was.

Enough. Forget the bitterness, forget the hurt. He only had seconds to get over being blindsided.

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The Giveaway – A $50 amazon gift card and swag.

For more details, you can visit my web site.

 

 

Killer Shades by H. D. Thomson Now Available!

I’m excited to let everyone know that my third book, Killer Shades, in the Shades series is now available.

“Protector. Lover. Suspect. Killer?” KILLER SHADES

KILLER SHADES BLURB

Jenna Barnes slips on a pair of simple sunglasses, but they’re not so simple. Jenna soon realizes they’re dangerous when people start dying, including her soon to be ex-husband. His unnatural death has her on the police radar as a prime suspect.

Kyle Newman doesn’t believe Jenna killed her husband, and he sets out to protect her, only to become a suspect himself in her husband’s death. But is he willing to lose his career, even his life to save her? Because a pair of sunglasses can kill, and he’s soon going to find out the death of Jenna’s husband is just the beginning.

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Amazon UK – http://amzn.to/1Ph3rIU
Barnes & Noble – http://bit.ly/1SSVDTm
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KOBO – http://bit.ly/1UW03Yh

Chapter One

Fear blinds, binds and distorts the past, the future and the present. Only the selfless act of love can slay that beast. – The Book of Stolen Secrets
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“I can’t believe he’s asking for spousal support.”

Jenna Barnes stepped back from the sunglass rack and glanced at her friend, Marie. She tried to tap down on the nausea rolling around in her stomach. As for the constant depression these last couple months, well, she hadn’t been able to shake that. “Oh, yeah. He knows exactly how to hit me below the belt.”

“I think he’s an ass. How about these?” Marie slipped a pair of shades off the rack. “You said you were looking for a pair. They look killer.”

Jenna took the glasses and slid a thumb across the frame. “They also look expensive.” Her brows arched as she looked at the tag. “Nice find. They’re under ten.” She then frowned. “Not sure on the designer. I can’t find a name.”

“Does it matter?”

Jenna shrugged. Marie had talked her into shopping this afternoon for vintage clothing at one of the second-hand stores in town for a Halloween party in a couple of days. She’d also talked Jenna into going to said party, so she was now committed to finding a costume herself. So far she’d nixed a sexy nurse, a sexy pirate, a sexy cat costume and a sexy— Hell, none of them seemed to have more than four inches of material for the top or bottom. Sorry but she wasn’t going to be running around in a miniskirt that threatened to show her lady parts.

“Well…?” Marie prompted.

Jenna slipped on the glasses and looked at the small mirror on the top of the rack. She angled her head back and forth. The lenses completely shielded her eyes but didn’t completely overpower her face.

“You look mysterious and sexy in them. Those new highlights show off the mahogany tint of your hair and dark complexion. I wish I had your skin tone. You don’t lay out in the sun or use a tanning bed, but you look tan all year round, while I can’t get beyond my ghostie self.” Marie smirked. “If Wayne saw you now, he’d be changing his ways.”

“Like I’d take him back.” She didn’t attempt to hide the bitterness from her voice as she brushed away a copper lock from her brow to get a better look. “I’d rather stick needles in my eyes.”

“Damn straight.” Marie’s blue-eyed gaze narrowed. She swept several strands of light brown, shoulder-length hair back around one ear. “Like I said before, and I’ll keep on saying — he’s an ass. Spousal support? What the hell is he thinking? The guy is a pig. After he drained all your accounts, he plans on milking you for more? He’s a two-bit piece of s—”

“I’m not going to argue. He sure hasn’t made my life easy. I guess it’s just another sign of how my love life is a complete train wreck.”

“What about Kyle? Remember him? He was a keeper.”

Jenna sucked in a breath and hoped to hell the shock didn’t show on her face. The unexpected mention of Kyle caught her completely off guard. Yeah, he might not have been a train wreck, but she’d still managed to crash and burn because of him. Four years and she hated how his name still sent her mind spiraling into a psychotic episode for a wild moment or two. She’d never admit to anyone she still tried to avoid the stores and restaurants he was known to frequent. “Well, he might have been, but I hated the idea of dating a cop—what with having had a brother-in-law and uncle in the force. It’s not an easy life. My sister still hasn’t recovered from Barry’s death. I haven’t either. Their life together was way too short, and now she has twins to raise on her own. I can’t deal with that uncertainty.”

Marie grunted under her breath. “Better uncertainty than an ass like Wayne. At least you had the good sense to file for divorce.”

“I didn’t have much choice. The way he was behaving, he was going to put us in the bankruptcy courts. And the lies. Near the end, I didn’t know what to believe anymore. He’d become a pathological liar.”

“Well, I wish he wasn’t making it so damn messy for you. I swear you should shoot the bastard. Better yet, hire a hitman, so you don’t have to dirty your hands.”

At Marie’s almost rabid look of righteous anger, Jenna laughed. “Wouldn’t that be nice? I would love to have someone eliminate him for good. Any guy would do, as long as he runs him down and leaves tire marks on his too skinny, sorry ass.”

“Wouldn’t that make life easy?”

They both chuckled, and Jenna admitted. “I just want him out of my life right now, so I can move on.”

Someone grunted from behind her. Jenna peered behind her shoulder. Condemnation flashed in the cashier’s faded brown eyes. He stood behind the counter by the main entrance to the store and probably heard every word they’d said. He grunted again in obvious disgust, sending his jowls quivering as he snapped his mouth shut and jutted his chin upward in obvious disgust.

“Joke. It was a joke,” Jenna muttered.

“Sure. Whatever you say, lady.”

Jenna bit back a retort as she walked between two racks of musty clothing, slipped the glasses off and set them on the counter for purchase.

The cashier smacked a wad of gum between his teeth, sending his jowls quivering again, as he rang up her purchase and stuffed her glasses into a plastic bag. He never once met her gaze.

“Well, I wasn’t joking,” Marie whispered by her ear as she switched places with Jenna and stepped up to the counter.

As Jenna stuffed her bag into her purse, a scream reverberated from outside and into the second-hand store. Tires squealed. By the counter, all three of them gaped at the scene unfolding beyond the store’s floor to ceiling paneled windows. A white truck careened down the town’s main street, then hit the curb. A couple veered into a store’s entryway, avoiding the vehicle’s grill by less than a foot. The truck didn’t slow but barreled forward, heading toward the man further up the sidewalk.

Jenna shifted, trying to get a look at the driver, but afternoon sunlight bounced off the passenger window, obscuring the cab’s interior.

“Holy hell,” Marie whispered, a distinct layer of horror in her voice as she stepped up beside Jenna.

The truck’s nose rammed into the pedestrian, flinging him into the air and onto the street like a broken puppet. The truck veered suddenly and sped into the direct line of the body. The vehicle bounced, rattled as it ran over the man.

The cashier rushed to open the front door. The scent of burnt rubber wafted into the store as the person behind the wheel slammed on the brakes and turned abruptly into a neighboring street. More tires squealed. An oncoming car in the opposite lane ground to a shuddering halt mere feet from the victim’s mangled body.

Before Jenna had a chance to pull her phone from her purse, Marie was already calling 911. Jenna stepped toward the panel of windows. There was something familiar about the victim lying on the ground. Pulse pounding, she slipped out through the front door, while dread burrowed a path into her stomach. The grotesque scene propelled her across the sidewalk and onto the road. Her heartbeat lurched, then raced to an unbearable pace. Reaching the victim, she swallowed hard, trying to keep herself from vomiting. Crushed skull, blond hair matted with blood, legs and arms twisted at odd angles, the man had fallen on his stomach. The metallic scent of death clung to her nostrils. She clutched her churning stomach. She didn’t know if she could keep down the nausea. The stamp of tire tracks etched a path across his legs and backside. Fear leached the saliva from her mouth. Jenna edged to the side until the victim’s face came into view, but she already knew who the man was.

Someone had just killed her husband.

Amazon US – http://amzn.to/1Snjlru
Amazon UK – http://amzn.to/1Ph3rIU
Barnes & Noble – http://bit.ly/1SSVDTm
IBooks – http://apple.co/1Q3Xxho
KOBO – http://bit.ly/1UW03Yh

I’m also having a giveaway over at HDThomson.com on my blog.

Welcome Carolyn Brown Today!

Good mornin’, all y’all folks at this site. I’m so glad to be invited back again to talk about my second release this month, Wild Cowboy Ways. It’s a very Merry Christmas to me and my readers when I have two releases in December. Wild Cowboy Ways will hit the shelves next Tuesday but it’s available for preorder now!

This the debut book in the Lucky Penny Ranch series, which over the course of the next year will feature four books: Wild Cowboy Ways (Dec. 22), Hot Cowboy Nights (May 31, 2016), Merry Cowboy Christmas (Sept. 27) and Wicked Cowboy Charm (January, 2017).

Blake Dawson and his brother, Toby and cousin Jud, have joined forces to buy a run down ranch in north Throckmorton County located in central Texas. Called The Lucky Penny Ranch, it’s a misnomer for sure since there’s nothing about the ranch that could be called lucky. The house is run down. The fences need repaired and the property is overgrown with mesquite and cow tongue cactus. The Dawson cowboys see a future for the ranch that will involve a lot of work but considering the low price, they figure they can put in the elbow grease and in five years the property will be worth ten times the asking price.

The trouble is that Toby can’t move to the ranch until summer and Jud can’t get there until fall. So Blake has to start out on his own.

Allie Logan, the local cracker-jack carpenter, didn’t trust men and any crazy cowboy who thought he could turn the luck of that worthless ranch around—well she sure didn’t want anything to do with him.

But he needed a roof on his house and then he needed some cosmetic remodeling inside—and he did make a mean pot of chili, which was her favorite food. But it was a job and that was as far as it was going…or was it?

I sincerely hope that you fall in love with the town of Dry Creek and all the residents. But most of all that Blake and Allie steal your hearts. What is it about a tall, dark haired cowboy that draws your eye to him?

Guest Star: Carolyn Brown

Thank you for inviting me to sit a spell at your blog site and talk about my upcoming book, The Wedding Pearls, which hits the shelves in only three more days. Excitement is bouncing around southern Oklahoma like marbles in a tin can.

A couple of weeks ago the author copies arrived and I’m sure my squeals were heard all the way to both coasts. The cover is truly beautiful and I can’t wait for the book to reach all my awesome reader’s hands.

Tessa never minded being adopted. She was so secure with her family that she didn’t even think about her biological family until one day the sexiest cowboy from the state of Texas swaggered into her Louisiana travel agency. She thought he was there to book a vacation but boy was she wrong. He was a lawyer who’d come at her biological mother and grandmother’s bidding. They were going on a road trip around the great state of Texas and they wanted her to go along so they could get to know her.

She took Branch Thomas’s card but she had no intentions of going on such a fool hardy trip. But then her adopted mother told her that she really should go and get to know her blood kin. And just before she left her mother gave her a journal to record her feelings. It wasn’t to keep track of the chronological dates and things that she saw but it was to be used only for her feelings and emotions on the trip.

So there she was stuck for a whole month in the front seat of a 1959 Cadillac convertible. Seated between her biological mother and Branch, who was the driver for the five women, she figured she might last three days before she threw the journal in the trash and flew back home from the nearest airport. But as the journey went on and she began to wonder if fate had put her in that car to fall in love.

Romancing the Holidays $200 Giveaway by H. D.

I thought I’d share a great giveaway I am doing with some amazing authors! We had a Facebook party recently to celebrate our individual holiday releases, but we kept the party going with this special $200 Amazon Gift Card. Authors include Lexi Post Caris Roane Elle James Em Petrova Mary Tate Engels Brenda Trim Tami Jackson Julka Jillian Chantal Becky McGraw Melinda Curtis Jacki Delecki Vijaya Schartz Felicity Heaton HD Thomson and Bonnie Vanak. The giveaway is going on until December 18th. Just eleven days left. Just follow the link to the Rafflecopter to enter.

Christmas Movies – Krampus vs Gremlins by H. D.

I just saw the preview for Krampus. I’m not sure what to think of it. When I was watching the preview though, I thought of Gremlins. I loved the first and second in the Gremlin series. I actually think of it as a bit of a classic. Both humor and scares mixed into the film. I don’t think there had been anything done as successfully as Gremlins since. There’s of course Scream, but that’s a full-blown horror movie.

From what I can see, Krampus looks like a nail bitter. Toni Collette is one of the main actors, and I love anything by her. She was great in Sixth Sense, and I think she really added a wonderful dimension to that movie.

Krampus is quoted as being an American black comedy horror. Below is the movie’s summary.

When his dysfunctional family clashes over the holidays, young Max is disillusioned and turns his back on Christmas. Little does he know, this lack of festive spirit has unleashed the wrath of Krampus: a demonic force of ancient evil intent on punishing non-believers. All hell breaks loose as beloved holiday icons take on a monstrous life of their own, laying siege to the fractured family’s home and forcing them to fight for each other if they hope to survive.

I actually didn’t realize Krampus was from Alpine folklore. Who would have thought? 🙂 The figure has horns and is shaped like a human but at the same time, doesn’t look human. According to folklore,  Krampus punishes children during the Christmas season who have misbehaved.

Like Krampus, Gremlins is also a dark comedy. If you missed Gremlins, I think it’s well worth the time to watch.  It’s about a young man who received a very strange creature known as a mogwai. He’s told not to do certain things, particularly feed the animal after a certain time. Of course everything he’s not supposed to do, he does.

Gremlins was made in 1984 and directed by Steven Spielberg. I had no idea Howie Mandel was the voice of Gizmo. I actually might have to watch the movie again. Not sure if it will get through the test of time intact. Not sure it will get me in the Christmas spirit either, but it’s worth a shot!

Supernatural Sunday – Pizza with your Haunting?

If you haven’t figured out that I’m fascinated with the paranormal or anything that goes bump in the night, well… I am! 🙂 So much so, that I thought I’d do a bit of a search in my neighborhood and see if there were any local hauntings in my area. Imagine my surprise when I found a couple!

The first I looked into was Mary Coyle’s Ice Cream Parlor. I’d never heard of the ice cream parlor, and was really excited about dragging my daughter (without her knowing the real reason until later haha), and buying her some ice cream at Mary Coyle’s, and if we heard or saw strange, bizarre things, it would be a bonus. But sigh…. They closed last year. Just my luck. Talk about disappointed!

Well, it didn’t stop me from looking for another place. Bullsye! Would you believe a Pizza Hut in Peoria is thought to be haunted. You can do a quick search and come up with some hits. I guess there have been reports of children talking and babies crying. Okay, that probably could be easily explained away since it is a restaurant. BUT it seems the faucets in the bathroom of the establishment turn on and off on their own. Interesting…

Not only patrons but also a former managers of the restaurant has reported the faucets going haywire. I might have to see if my daughter feels like some pizza…! 🙂

Another site that has been reported as being haunted is Sahuaro Ranch Park. I’ve been there a number of times and actually participated in a fine arts show and never even knew there were sightings.

I guess visitors have reported seeing a woman in a white old-fashioned dress. The period of her clothing isn’t sure. She’s been seen in the area of the park’s main house and the orchards. There have also been sightings of a man in a black suit.

There’s actually more ghost encounters in my neighborhood, which I will probably have to talk about later on in a new post. 🙂

In my book, Anxiety, there is a thread woven into the story about ghosts. I couldn’t resist since they do fascinate me. You can read the first episode of Anxiety for FREE and find out what Margot encounters in her house. She’s not fascinated with them at all. She does wonder, though, if the strange happens around her are her imagination or something more…

Amazon US  |  Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Apple | KOBO

Sunday Snipet of Anxiety Knock Knock by H. D. Thomson

I thought I’d share a snipet of Knock Knock, the first episode of the 6 part series, Anxiety, which is FREE right now.

Anxiety has a really special place in my heart compared to the other books I’ve written. I might have enjoyed writing the others but with this one, I escaped through the words, paragraphs and scenes. Writing it helped me to get through to the other side of a very dark period in my life, and I’m sure it came through. I have Jake who is dying and Margot who wants to die.

Margot lives alone in this large, isolated house on the outskirts of town. I wanted to give the house its own character and I hope I managed to do that throughout the episodes.

Who’s there?” she whispered. “Jake?”

Only the tick of the kitchen clock answered her. Then Margot noticed the cat. Tall switching in clear agitation, Marmaduke, sat hunched low on all fours.

“You heard it too, didn’t you?”

Uneasiness pricking the back of her neck, Margot moved across the kitchen and bent down to place the water dish on the ground by Marmaduke. Suddenly, the cat sprang, bounding from the kitchen and disappearing into the hall.

Margot jerked, sloshing water over the bowl as she placed it on the floor. Cautiously, she walked to the doorway and peered around the corner. She found the hall empty. The door to Jake’s room stood closed.

She laughed self-consciously as she stepped into the hall. Her nerves were obviously shot. And Marmaduke sure as hell wasn’t helping matters.

Suddenly, the air stirred about her, teasing her hair and seeping into the fabric of her housecoat.

Someone was in the hall with her.

Pivoting, Margot searched the shadows around her. Her bare toe hit something on the hall mat. She looked down. A set of her keys to the lab. She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She picked them up. They were warm to the touch.

“Hello?”

Her whisper washed over the hall and died into silence.

You can get a copy of Knock Knock free at your favorite online bookstore.

Available on Amazon Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Apple | KOBO

Can You Remake a Book?

I posted about the movie Poltergeist and its remake along with the urban legend/curse of the original Poltergeist on my blog on Friday. While I was writing about loving the original, I started thinking about books and how you just don’t see remakes of of original books. I really can’t see someone doing a remake of the book Gone with The Wind. At least Hollywood has been smart enough not to try to make a remake of it. I think it would land on its face.

Why aren’t there remakes of original books? I don’t think copyright has anything to do with it. Is it because when a book is that good, it’s impossible to make it better? Words are words and I’m not sure you can make something better when it’s already great.

With movies, Poltergeist for example, you can always make the special effects better, but what about characterization? Can you make that better when it’s already great? In the case of Poltergeist I don’t think you can. I loved the original and the dynamics of the whole family. Is it because Hollywood doesn’t see outside of the box and likes to do remake after remake? Peter Pan has been done to death. Also, it seems all movies are made from books. You don’t see books made from movies. Why is that? I would think if you have a great movie, you could even have a greater book, because you can get deeper into the characters and the scenes, and add more layers to everything involved.

I don’t know of one book that was remade. Can anyone else come up with one?

Pondering this Sunday…

And of course thinking how a movie would come across on the big screen from one of my books. 🙂

Supernatural Sunday – Exorcism… Just in time for Halloween

Exorcism… You hear about it in the movies. It’s a huge theme actually. You have the movies Possession, Oculus, Exorcismus, Stigmata and of course the most well known movie out there, The Exorcism.  I’m actually not a huge fan. They just creep me out something fierce. But I went on a horror movie binge when visiting my daughter a while back. One movie, though, I watched with her, I have to admit had me at the end of me seat and that was Deliver Us From Evil with Eric Bana. Watching it just because of Eric Bana is reason enough. He looks DARN good in this movie. His acting is darn good too.

The movie was actually from a non-fiction book called Beware the Night and was marketed as being inspired by actual accounts.

There seems to be a lot of horror movies that are based on or inspired by actual events. The most famous one is The Exorcist, which was based on a case in Iowa.  It’s reported that it was the last sanctioned exorcism done by the Catholic Church, yet the book, American Exorcism, states their are approximately 10 exorcists in the Catholic church every given year.

The exorcism case was on Anna Ecklund, who resided a fair distance from Earling, Iowa, and was reported as being possessed. The exorcism was conducted in 1928.00Much of what is known about the possession and exorcism of Anna Ecklund is from the published pamphlet by Father Carl Vogl. Vogl was granted total access to everyone involved in the case. The title is called ‘Satan Begone’. The actually pamphlet is available on the Internet and was translated to English.

“It gradually became evident that strange preternatural powers were at play. The woman understood languages which she had never heard nor read. When the priest spoke the language of the Church and blessed her in the Latin tongue, she sensed and understood it at once, and at the same time foamed at the mouth and became enraged about it. When he continued in classical Latin, she regained her former ease. She was conscious at once when some one gave her articles sprinkled with holy water or presented her with things secretly blessed, whereas ordinary secular objects would leave her perfectly indifferent.” This is just a bit of the case. It does seem fascinating, but multiple personality disorder was unheard of at the time and mental disorders were not something freely talked about. But at the same time, it’s hard to explain away the paragraph below with mental illness…

“This ugly bellowing and howling took place every day and at times it lasted for hours. At other times it sounded as though a horde of lions and hyenas were let loose, then again as the mewing of cats, the bellowing of cattle and the barking of dogs. A complete uproar of different animal noises would also resound. This was at first so taxing on the nerves of those present that the twelve nuns were forced to take turns at assisting in order to save themselves and to have the necessary strength to continue facing the siege.”

“It was on the twenty-third day of December, 1928, in the evening about nine
o’clock that, with a sudden jerk of lightning speed the possessed woman broke from  the grip of her protectors and stood erect before them. Only her heels were touching the bed. At first sight it appeared as if she were to be hurled up to the ceiling.”

It’s a fascinating case. Rosemary Ellen Guiley wrote about the case in the book, ‘The Encyclopedia of Demons & Demonology’.  Sounds like a great research book…

I talk a little more on exorcism and entity possession on my blog. Feel free to drop by.