Jump/Drive is now an award winning novel!

Huge thank-you goes out to the reviewers and judges of the The Kindle Book Review's 2013 Best Indie Book Award for choosing Jump/Driveas a winner in the Young Adult category.

I stayed up late Monday night into the morning of October 1st hoping to hear the results. I literally couldn't sleep from nerves and excitement. This means a lot to me. It's my first real effort at a novel and it would absolutely not have been the success it was without my beta readers, editors +Nan Allen and +Damian Trasler and since we know people really can sometimes judge a book by the cover I would be remiss if I didn't thank +Allen Simpson for his excellent photography and work he did on my cover.

I don't want this to turn too long and rambling but writing a book that deals with sexual abuse wasn't easy. Writing one where I tried to deal with it gracefully and truthfully and honestly without being prurient wasn't easy. But it was worth it. It was even worth it before it won an award... but I won't lie, knowing that the reviewers of TheKindleBookReview.net who read a TON of books each year selected it as one of their best? Yeah. That's pretty great.

Thank you all. Thank you readers. Thank you reviewers. Thank you to all of you who offered me feedback, suggestions, and help along the way. Thank you for believing in me when it got hard and I wasn't believing I was up to the task of writing a book anybody would want to read. It really means a lot to me, and so does Jump/Drive.

2013 Finalist...

My book Jump/Drive, a YA adventure that deals with deeper issues relating to sexual abuse in the backdrop of a natural disaster in a small town is a finalist in the 2013 Kindle Book Review Best Indie Book Rewards. Now THAT is a long sentence isn't it!

I got off work last night around 11PM and found the notification that I'm a finalist, me and four others, for winner of the Best Indie Book of 2013 by KindleBookReview.net. Obviously any idea of sleep went right out the window, car window as I still had to drive home... singing... and grinning like an idiot.

If you've read my book thank you. If you haven't and want to shoot me an e-mail. I'll bet I have a spare digital copy in kindle format I can share with you if you want. While I'd appreciate a review, an honest review so I can get better in the next book, I can't do more than ask for one. I'm asking. :) I'd love reviews.

October is when my book was released on amazon and in the past year it's been seen by a lot of eyes. I've had good reviews, luke-warm reviews (One guy didn't like that there was swearing in it) and the threat of what sounded like a bad review... that one hasn't materialized yet but I'm curious to see what he didn't like about it... unless it was all of it. That he can keep to himself.

In my sentence synopsis I said it "deals with deeper issues relating to sexual abuse in the backdrop of..." I'm not in love with that preposition. I don't think it's the right one even now. The important part of the book, and one that one of my reviewers on Amazon commented on was that there are two stories here. Just like a movie set in World War Two can be said to be about World War Two but not something you'd find in history books, I attempted to set this book in the setting of something bigger, something visible and interesting. So, while the book is about the natural disaster and what caused it and what happens next there is another story line about friends talking about something serious that happened a long time ago (in their lives it seems like a long time to them) and how they dealt, and deal with it then and now. That story is at least as important as the first one. I have a feeling if the book were made into a movie that story would be cut out.

I'm rambling. It's because I'm excited and look forward to seeing how this all turns out in October. To pass the time I'm going to read the other four finalists to see what I'm up against. Why don't you do the same? Check out the full list over on The Kindle Book Review site and grab a couple of them. Maybe mine if you haven't yet & don't want to e-mail me to ask for a copy? (Their links to the books are, I believe, like my first Jump/Drive link in this post, affiliate links. I say that not as a snark or anything, just letting you know. If you click those links you'll be supporting the site that's hosting the link. I appreciate any purchases made on Amazon after clicking one of my affiliate links as it helps me out & costs you no more than if you'd typed in the URL yourself. Times are tough lol. Ever nickel of amazon affiliate money helps keep me in reading material lol.)