One Week to Johnny Lycan 2- How You Can Help

If you’re reading this, you’re probably securely in my orbit, and I”m grateful for it. In exactly 8 days, my fifth novel, Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker enters the world. Here’s how you can help, if you’d be so kind:

If you’ve already ordered the book from my publisher, blessings upon you. If you’ve ordered it from Amazon, or plan to, I’m going to make a big ask. Here’s how you can help me:

Mad Max and his pet werewolf is already excited about Johnny Lycan & the Vegas Berserker

If you haven’t yet ordered the book: If you have kindle Unlimited, you can download the e-book for free. If you’ve already ordered the book, thanks. PLEASE leave a review as a verified purchaser.

If you’ve ordered the book from somewhere else, like from Black Rose Publishing or from me personally, you can still review on Amazon if you state where you got the book from.

Wherever you purchase the book, you can review and rate the book on Goodreads Early reviews are accepted there. Then there’s Facebook groups, TikTok or wherever you communicate with your friends.

Finally, if you can share on your tweetfacelinkbloggram pages and social media and tell your friends. I’d love to make this the biggest launch yet ( a low bar, to be honest) and you play an important part in that.

If I haven’t said it before, I appreciate each and every one of you. I hope my stories are worth your precious time. Here we go…

A Villainous Anthology CL Cannon

One thing I have learned about the Urban Fantasy genre is that it is incredibly generous. There are a number of folks I’ve crossed paths with and they all seem to support each other (or at least aren’t intentionally vicious.) One such person is C L (Courtney) Cannon.

We have done a few #goindienow videos like this one. She was talking about a new anthology she’s edited and published, Once Upon a Wicked Heart. It sounded like so much fun I figured I’d share it with you.

Courtney, tell us about you.

Hello, I’m C.L. Cannon, aka Courtney Cannon. I am an author, publisher, editor, formatter, graphic designer, and lots of other occupations with the -er sound at the end of it. I’m basically a huge dork that enjoys reading and fandom. I’m a meme hoarder, and I communicate best via GIF! I write Fantasy and Science Fiction, and I really enjoy adding themes of love and friendship to those genres. 

Once Upon a Wicked Heart sounds like a blast. What’s the theme of the book and what can we expect?

Our anthology is all about the villains! The collection includes dark fantasy retellings and origin stories of villains from fairy tales and myths. There are some truly gifted authors in this book, and I feel privileged to be able to publish them! 

Here are some short descriptions of each story:
‣ a Faerie queen with a score to settle
‣ a jilted goddess who starts a bloody war
‣ a heart of ice that will either thaw or shatter
‣ a cursed maiden who finds worth in her affliction
‣ a serial killer who might have just met her match
‣ a nymph who seems to have found true love at last
‣ a mechanical heart that could be a young woman’s undoing
‣ a sister who seeks vengeance against those who wronged her
‣ a betrayed witch who vows retribution for the slights against her
‣ a mistreated queen will take her rightful place, no matter the cost
‣ a sea witch who learns that love cannot be so easily manipulated
‣ a god who takes back what was stolen from him in a gruesome fashion

What is it about villains and fairy tales that intrigues you so much?

I’ve always been a huge fan of fractured fairy tales, particularly tales told from the antagonist’s point of view. I love exploring the why of every character I write. What made them the way they are? What events molded this being into its current form? That is fascinating to me. Probably also the reason that one of my guilty pleasures is watching trashy reality tv! I love analyzing what makes people tick!

A collection of twisted fairy tales from the Villain’s perspective.

Who do you read?

I am a bit of an eclectic reader, so keep that in mind! I love J.R.R. Tolkien, Jane Austen, Sabaa Tahir, Leigh Bardugo, V.E. Schwab, Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Casey L. Bond, James Lovegrove, Neal Shusterman, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, and so many more! 

If people are interested in learning more about you and all the cool stuff you have going on, where can they find you?

Not to hijack Courney’s time, but we’re less than a month from the launch of Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker, book 2 of the Werewolf PI series. While you’re ordering Once Upon a Wicked Heart, preorder your next favorite read.

The Redneck Wizard with Bob McGough

Indie writers are a tough breed, and the best and smartest know how to help each other. That’s how groups like #goindienow come together: authors banding together so they don’t all starve separately. Lately, I’ve been asked to play in the sandbox (you can watch the interview here.) with some of them like Madilynn Dale and today’s guest, Bob McGough.

Bob is the author of the Jubal County urban fantasy saga that stars a meth-addicted redneck wizard. Makes me wonder if Howard Marsh and Johnny would get along or just try to kill each other… but I digress. Here’s my conversation with Bob McGough.

Bob, here we go. Tell us about yourself.

I’m Bob McGough, an author born in the backwoods of Alabama. I trekked out from the wilds to get a couple of perfectly useless degrees, then decided to become a writer, because I must  enjoy poverty. I’ve lived a pretty wild and varied life, but balance that by being a boring technical writer by day.  I do a lot of other projects beyond writing however, from podcasting and indie ttrpg game design to short filmmaking and running an arts supporting non-profit, because I like to compensate for my lack of money with lack of sleep!

What should new readers know about your work, man?

My main series is the Jubal County Saga, which is about a redneck wizard with a crippling meth addiction solving backwoods occult mysteries. The main character, Howard Marsh, is this thoroughly inept wizard who does everything he can to avoid honest work, instead opting to support his lifestyle by water witching and stealing copper from air conditioners. But along the way, you start to get hints that under his prickly, thieving exterior is the core of a good man who’s simply forgotten that fact. Each book is actually made up of two self-contained novellas, each tackling a different bizarre mystery, though the scale tends to be fairly small. Marsh is not the man you call in when lives are on the line, or the world needs saving.

Where the great oogly-woogly did the idea come from?

The genesis of Howard Marsh and the world of Jubal County is heavily based on the people and places I grew up around. The deep south has this stereotype of genteel life I think, but for those of us who live here, we know that there is a lot of dirt under the fingernails, and a lot of abject weirdness if you know where to look. I like to play with expectations where I can, showing that the south isn’t this monolithic culture of evangelical white conservatives by any stretch. There are people here from all walks of life and political leanings, and I want to showcase that. My focus though tends to be on the forgotten people, the outsiders living on the edges of society, for whatever reason. 

As for the magic, it’s a mix of folk legends, spell jar hoodoo, and a lot of mythology, usually celtic. I based Jubal County on an area that has a large scots-irish immigrant heritage, and I play with the idea that the ancestral memories sort of inform the mystical, hidden world that Marsh finds himself having to handle. One of my degrees is in Anthropology, and that has informed a lot of my interests over the years. In college I used to take people on what were essentially ghost tours (even though I wouldn’t consider myself a believer), and on one of those treks I stumbled on a spell jar in a graveyard. Finding it, which spurred a lot of research on my part, was really the first step on what would eventually become the magic of Jubal County.

Who did this to you? Who do you read that influences your work?

My favorite author is Glen Cook, especially his Black Company series, which to this day is still my favorite fantasy series. In the Urban Fantasy space I enjoy a good number of my indie/small press peers, like Ben Meeks, Alexander Nader, VK Fox, John Hartness, and Bobby Nash. I also read a ton of horror, with Paul Tremblay and Adam Neville being some of my more recent favorites. I think Frank Herbert’s Dune is the best sci-fi novel ever written. A couple of small presses everyone should check out are Crone Girls Press and Falstaff Books.

Where can people learn more about your books, games and all the wonder that is you?

The one-stop shop for all things Bob related is my website: talesbybob.com. On Goodreads and Amazon, a search of Bob McGough will guide you to me and my works. And finally, I am on all the major social media platforms and Patreon as talesbybob. I love to hear from folks, especially other authors, or people working to become one, so feel free to reach out on the contact form on my site.

Not to hijack Bob’s time, but we’re less than a month from the launch of Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker, book 2 of the Werewolf PI series. While you’re ordering the Jubal County Saga, preorder your next favorite read.

So, yeah. Instagram

There are parts of social media I enjoy. Finding out what my writer friends are up to, meeting readers, learning stuff. It also sucks out part of my soul every time I tweetfacelinkblog something in hopes of getting attention for my work. I have basically kept it to Twitter and Facebook, and my work-related stuff like The Long-Distance Leader stays on LinkedIn.

All of this is to say that with the future of Twitter as a platform so uncertain, I need something else. Thus, I am now on Instagram.

If you’re there, I hope you’ll follow me and teach me by example, because I. Have.No. Idea. How. To. Use. It. or how to make it work as an author.

Join me on Instagram, Wayne Turmel Author

So, go ahead and follow me here https://www.instagram.com/turmel.wayne/ interact, comment, share and give me suggestions on what you’d like to see. I don’t want it to be a constant barrage of “buy my book,” but I’m there so someone will, you know, buy my book.

This is especially important since the official publication date for Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker is a month away. December 8 is the official birthday of the second book in the Werewolf PI series. Preorder now and please be prepared to review as soon as you read it.

Thanks…. now back to our regular foolishness.