And So It Begins: Riding The Centipede Pre-Order Info, Cover Art, Back Cover Blurb...

I'm going to be blogging a lot more with the imminent release of my debut novel, Riding the Centipede.  The new tentative and more firm release date is June 29.  We got started with the editing at least three weeks behind, so that May 25 release date is now in the rear view mirror, and we're looking toward the swiftly approaching horizon.  Still some editing to wrap up, our read-through...then, finally, we can send some copies out for review. I'm already getting in touch with potential author blurbs and reviewers.  Again, we're behind, but we also don't want to make the reader wait, so catching up is what is in motion.

So.

Dig the Mad Beautiful cover art put together by my publisher/editor, Kate Jonez.  Yes, that IS Marilyn Monroe riding a huge centipede.  She is an obssession for one of the characters, a 'girlfriend' of sorts, and even has a couple of brief cameos...in a way.  Only a minor detail in the whole of the story, but captivating in this, um...depiction, haha... Ah, but the details reveal more, hint at more that will make sense once the book is out in the wild and you can read it and luxuriate in the madness, the dark wonder.  Or something, heheh...  Anyway, the outfit she's wearing...is that scales like from a snake? Well, there is a character named...no! Not giving it away. 
:-)

How about the biggest teaser, the back cover blurb.  True story: About a week before I was going to send the manuscript off to Omnium Gatherum, I knew one of the things they request is a blurb of sorts, something that might be used in promoting the book. So, too early one morning in late November of last year, I was at the job waiting to get to work.  Sitting there, I pulled out my trusty notepad and thought, okay, what is this book about?  Who are the main characters?  I scribbled my blurb in perhaps five, ten minutes, and set it aside. Besides a couple of necessary details, that was it. No fret, no worry, just get it down and let it be.  I think it works quite well. Sets you up for the wild ride within the pages.  So, here it is: 

***

 

Private Investigator Terrance Blake spends most of his days shadowed by an event from his past, while dismantling the lives of those driven by the masochistic need to confirm the lies they deny are cold, hard truths, until Hollywood socialite Jane Teagarden calls him for only the third time in years with news on the whereabouts of her runaway brother, Marlon.

Marlon Teagarden has been a ghost for ten years, traveling through the underbelly of society as a means of blotting out a past allegedly rife with child abuse, until he is chosen to Ride the Centipede, leading to the ultimate experience, courtesy of literary translator of languages and drug-infused visions from inner and outer space, William S. Burroughs.

Just your average road trip chase through the dark frontier of addiction and alternative realities gone sideways.

Not quite.

Also along for the ride, at the behest of a mysterious employer, is a nuclear-infused force of corrupt nature, “some kind of new breed of human and radiation, a blotch, an aberration, cancer with teeth.”

Allow me to introduce you to Rudolf.

Rudolf Chernobyl.

Let the games begin…

***

:-)

Now, the important news: Riding the Centipede is available for pre-order Right Now.  Just click on the title in the previous sentence.  That's for the paperback and, yes, there will be digital versions too, of course. Really, go there, give my baby some love.
:-)


There will be more info over the next few weeks and months. 
Are you ready to ride the centipede?
The cover...here it is: