"30 Pieces of Silver" by Carolyn McCray (@craftycmc), guest entry by @YourNeedToRead

Today's guest blog comes to us from @YourNeedToRead.  If you haven't checked them out yet, you seriously need to.  They are all about feeding our addiction to books, and seriously, who out of you doesn't want to be a part of that action?


Hold onto your hats, my fellow readers.  You're about to be in for one heck of a storm.  I haven't been this engaged in a novel since I don't know when.  If you're not familiar with Carolyn McCray, she's been ghost writing for many years, and is now taking the indie publishing world by storm with both her gut-wrenchingly good novels and her innovative marketing tactics.  She's the co-founder of ZTS Promotions (www.ztspromotions.com), and the founder of the Indie Book Collective (www.indiebookcollective.com) and Bestseller for a Day (www.bestsellerforaday.com).  She will be a panelist at SXSW (South by Southwest) talking about online marketing and independent writing.  Basically, she's all around awesome.

And today (Monday, Feb. 28th) her novel, 30 Pieces of Silver, will be the Bestseller for a Day.  What does this mean to you, the reader?  Well, it means you'll get the e-novel for $.99 if you purchase it right now (whether or not you have a Kindle or a Nook, you can still read it).  It also means you can enter to win a Kindle by going here.  It ALSO means you're eligible for a full refund after purchasing Plain Jane, McCray's first thriller.  IT ALSO MEANS you get to be involved in trying to drive an indie author up the Amazon.com bestselling lists.  That enough also's for ya?  And I'm telling you, if there was ever an author that deserved it, it's Carolyn McCray.

But let's talk about the book itself.  First things first.  If you're Christian, which I am, this novel may be uncomfortable for you.  It was for me.  This novel makes The Da Vinci Code look like a trip to Bible Camp.  It is unabashedly and unashamedly controversial.

That said, I have never read another thriller that had a more engaging plot, with more detailed characters that I fully cared about.  I was swept up in the action immediately and never had a moment of feeling pulled out of it. 

I felt taken care of by the author, if that makes sense.  I didn't ever have the sense that the novel was going to let me down, which can sometimes be a concern with indie books.  McCray handles the different time periods with aplomb, switching back and forth from modern times and the Biblical period without fits or starts.

Truth be told, I liked this novel a lot more than I wanted to.  Considering the religious controversy, I was ambivalent to the point of not being sure I wanted to read it at all.  But from the first page, I kind of didn't have a choice as to whether or not I was going to see it through.  And it is definitely worth the read.

So, pick up an amazing novel for $.99 that people will be talking about (trust me on this one).  Enter to win amazing prizes.  Help indie authors everywhere.

You'll come back and thank me for it. :)  You can pick up 30 Pieces of Silver here.

"Live to Tell" by @LisaGardnerBks

Ah, thriller readers!  Another set of kick-butt thriller writer's books to plunge into.  If you haven't experienced Lisa Gardner yet, it is way past time, my friends.  Way, way, WAY past time.  I'm reviewing a book here that's been out for a while (paperback came out in December), and is the fourth in the Detective D.D. Warren novels.  I figure it's a good time to introduce you to the series, since the fifth in the series, Love You More, is due out March 8th.  Isn't it so much fun to find a series that's already got lots of books out, so you don't have to wait anxiously for the writer to work through their troublesome block just so you can get your next fix?

This one is not for the weak-stomached.  Not so much for graphic descriptions of violence, but for the gut-wrenching situations involving disturbed kids.  That's always a difficult one for me.  But Gardner handles it with panache, not backing away from it at all, but finding the humanity that allows us to make it through.  There's twists, red herrings, thrills and chills along the way, enough to keep you churning through pages when what you really want to do IS GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP FOR ONCE!!  Fair warning, guys.  Plan on this book taking over your life for a bit.

For you couldn't-give-a-rat's-behind-about-thillers types, I submit Live to Tell as a good way to get involved.  D.D. Warren's a wonderful female protagonist who avoids going into too much detail about her personal life, mostly because she sort of doesn't have one.  She is the job, as they say.  The harrowing details of good parents dealing with psychologically disturbed children takes the storyline to another level as well.  There is plenty here to give some meat to the admitted andrenaline rushes that this novel dishes out.

Want to take the dive?  You can find Live to Tell here.

"Foreign Influence" by @BradThor

If you like thrillers, you almost certainly know the name Brad Thor.  He's an icon.  He does what thriller writers all try to do, but he does it effortlessly, seamlessly, dare I say gracefully?  Yes.  I dare.  I do indeed dare.

If you somehow haven't discovered Brad Thor yet, congratulations!  You just hit the thriller jackpot.  Not only is this stuff the pinnacle of the genre, there's TONS of it.  Foreign Influence is the ninth in the Scot Harvarth series.  You can read this one without any difficulty, but you can then go back and enjoy EIGHT more of these suckers.  Eight.

And Foreign Influence will scare the pants off of you.  His depiction of terrorism and its aftermath is chilling.  I personally would say that this is the darkest of Thor's novels, but I don't mean that as a criticism.  At all.  This one will have you turning pages into the night, but will leave you pondering well after you've reluctantly closed the cover.

For those non-thriller types, here's the deal.  Yes, Brad Thor's thrillers are almost what you would call a stereotypical thriller, but hold on a second.  These are some of the best of what the genre has to offer.  Sure, you may have had bad experiences with some of the lesser imitators out there, but they were mimicking the masters.  And one of the greatest of the masters?  Yep, that would be Brad Thor.  So give him a chance.  Chances are, if you don't like him, you just won't ever really like thrillers.


Foreign Influence is available here.

"Secrets to the Grave" by @TamiHoag

One of the things that we, as crime thriller readers, have gotten used to is technology.  The DNA evidence, the facial recognition programs, the surveillance videos where the reflective surfaces can be digitally enhance to come up with a composite of the killer's face, thus foiling the schemes of the clever, but not quite clever enough, villain.

Tami Hoag takes us back in time (all the way back to the mid-80's... ouch, am I really that old?) to take away all of those advantages.  Our heroes have to figure out the case using old fashioned detective work, taking advantage of the (then) new-ish idea of behavioral profiling to narrow down the list of suspects.  There are so many things that modern readers have gotten used to that we've practically forgotten what it's like to be unreachable because we aren't close to a stationary telephone.  Hoag gives us multiple powerful reminders without having to resort to deus ex machina to shut down the cell towers.  The few cell phones in existence at that point were as big as a city block and essentially inaccessible to the vast majority of the population, cops included.

Just this time twist alone makes this one a not-so-typical entry in the modern crime thriller pantheon, so those of you out there who are sick of CSI and Bones-type stuff (I can't imagine it, personally, but hey...) will find this refreshing.  The small-town vibe without the southern hick thing is a nice touch as well.  There's plenty to interest you thriller-phobes and newbies.

For the rest of you, hooked as you are on DNA evidence, I'm telling you, give this one a try.  Hoag starts us off with a bang (or a slash, if you prefer) and doesn't let us off the hook til the end.  There have been comments comparing Hoag's work to others', saying there's not lots new here.  Okay.  To be honest, there really is very little new under the sun, and Hoag does what she does very, very well.

And yes, this is a follow-up to a previous novel, so if you like it, you don't have to wait for another.  So?  Go check it out here!

"The Rembrandt Affair" by Daniel Silva (@danielsilvabook)

Once again, I get to talk to you about an amazing thriller writer that already has a ton of books out there for you to read.  Yes, many of you thriller readers already know Daniel Silva, but for those of you who don't?  Booyah!  New author, new series, new kick-butt hero to follow!

For those of you for whom thrillers just don't cause your literary engine to turn over, here's something to entice you.  A central character who is a spy (wait for it), assassin (not yet), and art-restorer (there it is!).  How amazingly intriguing is that?  Yes, he's a real man.  Yes, he can kill you with his bare hands in twenty-five different ways.  Yes, he can bring back to full vibrancy that lovely painting by Monet.  A touch of class runs through this protagonist, elevating the entire series.  There's a thoughtful, art-loving side to Silva's work that is so beautifully typified in his choice of lead character.

Now, if thrillers don't just turn your crank but spin it right round, baby, then Silva's a serious where-the-crap-have-you-been writer.  This novel's got it all.  Twists.  Turns.  Tight scrapes and tighter muscles.  There's more than enough here for even the jones-ing-est of adrenaline junkies.  What's great is that Silva puts those thrills in the context of a truly tight and compelling storyline again and again and again.  This novels the latest in a series that's got like six or seven books already, all superb.

So rather than waste time with more jibber-jabber, why not just go and order the sucker now!  Right here.  Oh, and have fun.  It's quite the ride...

"Broken" by Karin Slaughter

Ah, the joy of finding a new and amazing thriller writer!  What makes it even better is when it's someone like Karin Slaughter, who has a bunch of books already out (and in the same series, no less!) so that I don't have to wait a year for the next freakin' book.

When I picked up Broken, I was excited.  It had been highly recommended, I was looking for a new thriller writer to read and I generally dig the female perspective on the thriller genre.  I wasn't prepared for how much I was going to care about the small southern community of Grant County, Atlanta.  I grew up in the south, and have a lot of relatives that live in the kind of backwater place she describes with vivid accuracy.  I felt like I was actually there, in both the wonderful nostalgia and the oh-my-goodness-get-me-out-of-here small town mentality.  The characters are real:  messy, heart-wrenching and utterly believable.  This book felt more like something out of the "literature" section than some of the hard-boiled pulp I've gotten used to over the years.  And I mean that in a good way.

For those thriller readers who are now wrinkling up their noses after my unfortunate use of the word literature...despair not!  I too, am a fan of all things tense and adrenaline-riddled.  This book has plenty of it.  Slaughter manages to elevate the genre (and let's face it... the genre can always use the extra height) without sacrificing what we thriller-lovers live for--heart pounding, blood pumping action.  There's no sacrifice here.  No "I'm bettering myself" sense of just having to get through the next chapter (Pilgrim's Progress, anyone?).  You'll be flipping pages furiously before you consciously realize you've opened the cover.  Oh, and when you get to the end and are sad to leave the County?  Just remember there's more books in the series.  You can find Broken here.

Also, we're moving into week 2 of the amazing Blog Tour de Force!  Today's stop is Keta Diablo's Where the Rain Is Made, so go check it out here.  

"The Dark Road" by Marissa Farrar (@MarissaFarrar)

If you haven't been watching, there's this thing running around Twitter right now called the Blog Tour de Force, and it's taking the Twitterverse by storm.  Marissa Farrar's novel The Dark Road is stop number 4 out of 12.  You can check out her blog here (and enter to win her gift-basket).  You can purchase the novel here.

First couple of things about this novel.  One, it's a lightning fast read.  It's a hundred and fifty-two pages that simply fly past.  Two, it only costs $5.  That's not much of a risk--you can barely get lunch for five dollars.

That said, there's enough mystery, mayhem, twists and turns to keep you thriller fans happy, while those of you who don't typically feel the need for speed will love the detailed descriptions of exotic locales.  There is definitely sense of verisimilitude as you read Farrar's words that evoke sight, sound and smell with seeming ease.  The dark story of the dark road has the power to keep you up at night with your heart in your throat.

So, if all that isn't enough to get you to click through, I'll sweeten the pot.  You could win a KINDLE!!  That's right.  You can enter to win a Kindle filled with all 12 of the authors' books from the Blog Tour de Force.  Want to see all the other authors involved?  Go to the Blog Tour de Force's website, here.