Tim Slee's Blog: How's the Serenity? - Posts Tagged "thriller"

Hi all. Karma is a funny thing right? Good intentions and good deeds give good karma and happiness. Bad intentions and bad deeds lead to unhappiness. So just keep the karma battery charged and all is well!

2017 was a funny year as far as the writing karma goes. I must have been doing something right because I won an Indie writing prize, and then signed with an agent to see if I could get a publishing contract with a traditional publisher for the Charlie Jones series.

My agent advised I should disappear from the internet if possible as the publishing industry is not excited about signing Indie authors. So I did (which is why you haven't seen a post here for a year!). After a year of that, we got nary a bite from a publisher so I am back as an Indie writer again! Is that good or bad karma? Only time will tell.

Probably it was good, because it wasn't a wasted year. While my agent was pitching the Charlie Jones series, I had plenty of time with nothing to do but WRITE! And so in 2017 I completed the first drafts of a sequel to The Vanirim (now in final proof stage), PLUS two new mystery novels, half a new Charlie Jones novel and over Dec-Jan 2017-18 a new techno thriller. YAY!

So 2018 is going to be a busy year as I get back into publishing again. I put my titles up again in mid Feb, have sold 165 books since then ('Bless Me Father', formerly published as 'Cloister' was at number 5,249 out of 1.5 million books on Amazon last night) - so we are off to a good re-start! YAY!

Last year I donated the sales of my books to Medicins Sans Frontiers. This year I will be donating to Plan International - more on that later. I'm hoping my good friends who have supported me before will do so again in 2018.

So now you will find the books here:

https://www.amazon.com/Tim-Slee/e/B07...

In coming weeks I will be posting extracts from the sequel to The Vanirim, cover art options, launch updates and getting ready to host the launch eBook giveaway so stay tuned!

We all have one, whether we're writing a letter, email or just posting on Insta! I have two ...

The first is at home. We have a glasshouse ringed by rhododendrons and perched on a spot looking over the rest of the garden. Warm even in the chilly northern autumn and spring, out of the wind, quiet but with the door open there is a constant twitter of birdsong.



(If you look closely at the picture you will see I have worn the lettering off several of the keys of that keyboard after seven novels!)

My other favorite writing environment is a complete contrast. Business class on long haul flights (unfortunately I do too many of these. Just got a note from one airline that I've been around the world 20 times with them!)

Some people sleep or watch movies on long flights but for me there is nothing better for total undistracted focus than to be strapped in a comfortable chair for 6-20 hours, often in the dark, headphones on and tapping away at a keyboard while friendly people bring you food and wine! I grumble about the time away from home, but the time it gives for writing is golden...

Hi all, I just got my new thriller project back from a professional PW reviewer. The conclusion was "Fast-paced, packed with action and suspense ...keeps the reader guessing...realistic and original...a lot to like here!"

That was gratifying as I've been working with a group of enthusiastic police and military advisers to ensure the story is authentic - and they've been really helpful with plot and pacing too!

THE PLOT

US Navy UCAV (drone) Air Boss Alicia Rodriguez and aviator Lieutenant Karen 'Bunny' O'Hare are alone on a decommissioned US UCAV facility on Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait when Russia launches a lightning operation to shut down the critical waterway between Alaska and Russia to traffic and deny the US navy access.

They are alone, dug in deep and trapped behind enemy lines. Surrender? Hell no.



The PW reviewer suggested working on adding some depth to the characters (more show, less tell...) and so I've been doing that and now I'd love some true reader opinions before I go into final draft!

You can download the latest draft here (ereader and pdf formats): https://dl.bookfunnel.com/g4fdazides

and I'd love it if you send me your thoughts, suggestions, encouragement or critique either at FaceBook:

https://www.facebook.com/teejayslee/

Or GoodReads:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Thanks!

I was asked in an online meet-the-author gig the other day “What’s the weirdest place you ever read a book”. I immediately thought of some beautiful places, but nowhere weird came to mind ... then I remembered!



“I can’t tell you the weirdest place I read a book but I can tell you the weirdest place I ever read a sentence. I was upside down, falling out of the second floor window of a Sydney apartment, milliseconds away from smashing headfirst into the pavement below.”

And reading saved my life.

It was a fantastic summer night. A friend’s party in her warehouse apartment on William Street in Kings Cross, Sydney. For those who don’t know it, the Kings Cross skyline was for a long time dominated by a huge Coca Cola sign up on a hill, about 100 feet wide, 50 high, flashing neon. It was warm, the music was pumping, everyone was dancing, I'd had a mohito or two.

It was the last time I ever drank mohitos above sea level.

One of the windows of the apartment was open and I was sitting with some friends on the window sill, two floors up, back to the cool air. The girl whose party it was came up to me and said,

“Hey, can you look through my bedroom window? Someone is in there and they locked the door and I want to know what they’re doing!”
“Your bedroom window?”
“Yeah, it’s the next one along, you can just lean out…”

Now, she probably thought I would hop down from the window sill, stand with both feet planted securely on the floor facing out and hold tightly to the window frame bobbing my head cautiously around the corner to sneak a peak. But I didn’t. I just said, “No worries!”, leaned backward out of the window as far as I could, still couldn’t see so leaned over to one side trying to hold onto the window frame and the next thing I knew I was falling toward the ground head down, testing both Newton’s theory of gravity and Darwin’s theory that it is good that the dumb die young before propagating their DNA.

And that was when reading saved my life. Because I can vouch for the fact it is totally true that when the adrenaline hits your system, you become hyperaware, and time slows. In the second or so it took me to travel two floors to the pavement below these were my (potentially last) thoughts.

S**t!
The Coke writing is upside down.
That is not good.
Turn around turn around turn around!

So I managed to twist in mid-air like a drunken cat and get my feet and hands under me just as I hit. Luckily I hit a shop awning on the way down and landed on a broken real estate sign on top of a pile of garbage, cans and broken glass. I broke both wrists, my nose, exploded my left ankle and split my left tibia in a spiral fracture up to the knee.

But I lived!

And after many months in plaster which gave me a lot of time, and incentive, to reconsider my life choices I quit my job and began travelling the world and I haven’t stopped.

All of which is thanks to the fact I read the writing on the Coke sign while free falling head first out of a dance party. I think that qualifies as a weird place to read something!

What's yours?

Pick up the ebooks today from $1.99. All proceeds to Plan International, the #girlsrights organisation!

https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B079...

THE AESIR

Ruth: 5/5 - "The saga continues to increase in speed so pack your survival gear and immerse yourself"

QUEEN OF AMERICA

Kushlandia: 4/5 - "Queen of America rules!"

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Wanda: 4/5 - "Queen of America is unique."

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

THE VANIRIM

Monica: 5/5 - "Simply fantastic!"

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Ruth: 5/5 - "Buckle your seatbelts and hang on!"

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

BLESS ME FATHER

Naomi 5/5 - "I am a huge fan of thrillers and mystery books and this book is one of my new favorites!"

https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B079...

For fans for Janet Evanovic!

Sister Charlie Jones is about to take her First Vows as a Mercy Sister Novice. But there's one small problem. Someone is killing Sydney's Catholic priests and the police have decided Charlie Jones is their leading suspect.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BOOKLIFE PRIZE FOR FICTION SAID:

"Grim humor that is reminiscent of Ken Bruen, and a plausible plot full of good double-crosses and steadily ratcheting tension..."

"If you love your characters to be easily believable and relatable, your thrillers to be thrilling but not over the top, and detailed descriptions without excessive gore, then T.J. Slee should leap to the top of your favourite authors list and the Charlie Jones series to the top of your to read list." - Dave Taylor, Goodreads

"Held my interest throughout, there were many twists and turns, and the tension held up through the book. I loved this book. Very tense mystery. A fun ride." - Donna Bresnak, Goodreads

"I loved it. I have now read all three of the Charlie Jones books and loved them all." Debra, Goodreads

Sharing some exciting news today! My unpublished manuscript #BURN has just been shortlisted in the Australian 'Banjo Prize' for fiction. Winner announced August 31, so fingers, toes and eyes are crossed ...

https://www.harpercollins.com.au/theb...

In the meantime, here is the blurb!

PLOT PRECIS

Set against the backdrop of a recent drought, thirteen year old Jill Murray and her twin sister Jenny see their father burn down their farmhouse rather than let it be repossessed by the bank. But he gets caught inside the house and dies in the fire.

Not wanting to see her husband’s death as pointless, their mother, Ellen, loads her husband’s coffin and the two girls on a horse-drawn wagon and determines to drive his body to the Parliament building in Melbourne to make a statement about the incredible pressure on farming families.

But Jill isn’t convinced her father’s death was an accident. He was a meticulous, detail-oriented man and she was with him as he walked step by step through the plan for burning their house down. She can’t believe he would have messed it up so badly, so the only other explanation is foul play. Her suspicions are still swirling as the family heads of out of town together with a motley assortment of townsfolk from Heywood for the week-long, two hundred mile journey to Melbourne.

The night before they leave town, someone burns down the local bank. It’s a pattern that repeats every time they pull into a new town – Torquay, Geelong, Queenscliff, Frankston. More towns, more banks, supermarkets, houses set ablaze. The police want to shut the protest down but it is attracting media attention now and gets solid legal support from a national media group to keep the police at bay. The police can’t prove anyone in the funeral cortege is the fire bomber, and there is no law against transporting a coffin in a horse and carriage. As media attention intensifies, more and more supporters attach themselves to the convoy. Ellen Murray emerges as a charismatic populist leader and her nightly addresses to the funeral followers attract a large social media following thanks in part to the social media skills of daughter Jenny in getting the message out.

Jill meanwhile keeps circling around the suspicious characters in the funeral cortege, determined to find out if one of them could be behind her father’s death. Then she learns that the local police in Lorne didn’t actually test the DNA of their father’s body, didn’t check the dental records against his and couldn’t check his fingerprints. They just seem to have presumed the dead man was him. Now Jill is struck by a new possibility – that the man in the coffin is not even their father. Could he be the firebomber?

Jill Robinson is a unique narrator and the story is told in the first person from her perspective. Jill and her twin sister have congenital analgesia, a rare but unfortunately real condition in which the affected child cannot cry, cannot sweat, and feels no physical pain. Pain (physical and emotional), and the ability to feel it or not, is the theme running throughout the novel as we see the two girls dealing with the shock and grief of the loss of their father, but unable to express it in tears. Unable to accept that his death was an accident, Jill deals with her pain by trying to prove he was murdered. Unable to show outwardly her grief at his death, she becomes determined to discover whether he is even dead at all.

As the funeral cortege finally pulls into Melbourne leaving a trail of fire, shock and grief in its wake, Jill Murray’s pain has reached a crescendo, but still, she cannot cry. Then inside the funeral chapel, their mother takes the girls aside. “I have something I need to tell you.”

amazon.com/author/timslee

Release day getting closer. Have been sending book out to different places to garner reviews. Got the first one back from 'Readers Favorite'



You can get a free advance review eBook here.

https://dl.bookfunnel.com/g4fdazides

And here is the Readers Favorite review!

Review Rating: 5 Stars - Congratulations on your 5-star review!

Reviewed By Anne-Marie Reynolds for Readers’ Favorite

Bering Strait is a thriller. It is 2031 and a new cold war between America and Russia is starting. Perri Tungyan is a Yup’ik fisherman, just 17 years old. He lives on Saint Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait and, as he awaits the weekly shopping drone at the Gambell airstrip, he notices several specks in the sky. These loom larger and larger, identifying as aircraft, and Perri suddenly realizes that he is the only one who knows what is happening. Russia has started to take control of the Strait. Russian ships move in to block the entrance and exit to the Strait and a no-fly zone is imposed over Western Alaska. The lives of eight people are about to be turned upside down as Armageddon approaches.

When I started reading Bering Strait, I found it a bit slow going and didn’t think I would be able to get into it but, wow, it soon picks up the pace and becomes impossible to put down. The action is intense and the plot unique. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader on their toes and keep their attention while it soars along at a fast pace. The characters are developed nicely throughout the story, each having their own part to play and meshing with one another seamlessly. You soon begin to empathize with them and they are a likeable bunch of people too. This story is unmissable and slightly scary because it isn’t set very far in the future and, given recent world events, isn’t out of the realms of possibility. Great story, highly recommended for those who want a tight, gripping tale to lose themselves in.

Happy to announce that all proceeds from the sale of my upcoming novel BERING STRAIT will go to Plan International, the #girlsrights organisation working to provide education and safety to girls in 75 countries.

Why donate proceeds from a techno thriller about war to a charity? Well firstly, as a popular genre I hope it will sell well so there is a good amount to donate! And secondly because the book features strong female protagonists:

Alicia Rodriguez, Airboss and CO of a covert Navy unit stationed in the Bering Strait

'Bunny' O'Hare, Australian civilian contractor working for DARPA as a test pilot

Devlin McCarthy, US Ambassador to Moscow

And more!

The books will be published under the pen name FXHolden and you can pre-order it here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J3P42HF

For fans of Tom Clancy comes OKINAWA, the new thriller from FX Holden now available in ebook and paperback! From the author of bestselling technothriller, BERING STRAIT.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081GYKHMJ (Ebook)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/170... (Pback)



"A compelling amalgamation of sci-fi, military, political, and historical thriller." Publishers Weekly BookLife.

In 1942 US Fighting Tigers squadron commander John Chen comes face to face with his enemy, Japanese pilot, Tadao Kato. Ninety years later, in 2033, their great grandchildren are serving on the same side as part of Operation Red Dove, the first joint naval exercises between China and Japan to mark the signing of a new Sino-Japanese mutual defense treaty.

China is determined to forge a new empire in the East with Japan by its side. Its determination is about to be put to the test.

IN SHANGHAI, the cyber warfare personnel of Advanced Persistent Threat Team 23 are about to fire the first shot in a new global war.

ON OKINAWA, Defense Research Projects Agency drone pilot, 'Bunny' O'Hare prepares for the last field trial of the US Navy's next undersea stealth platform.

AND IN HER PRIVATE RESIDENCE inside Tokyo's Akasaka Palace, Princess Mitsuko Naishinno prepares to fulfil her dying father's wish, and wrest back control of Japan from a government which has sold her country's soul to China.

OKINAWA by FX Holden is a fast paced, action packed look at a near future where the next arms race will take place in cyberspace, where wars will be fought in secret above and below the seas, and the alliances of today will be upended by new geopolitical realities.

(FX Holden is an alter-ego of TJ Slee! Books sold under the FX Holden pen name are sold to raise money for charity)