One rule for readers posting - another for writers posting - yet it's called a book club!!!!

Joined a Facebook Club organised by an RTE radio personality.

Posters are recommending books, commenting on books, and reviewing books.

Some are posting pictures of books they have bought - the front cover, the title and the author.

Seemingly this is allowed.

I then posted a link to my book in response to a query about scary books.

Then I got admonished by the "owner" for blagging my book.

So now my old belief that RTE will only promote books produce by Irish Publishers is confirmed again. Advertisers count - the person who buys the licence doesn't.

Public service broadcasting my derry-air.

I never wanted to lead a race....

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 

• #344 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Crime Fiction > British & Irish > Irish
• #595 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Crime Fiction > Kidnapping

So I'm not the winner but I'm satisfied.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wicker-Wood-Where-Secrets-Buried-ebook/dp/B00U1SPJ3O

Finger Flexing Exercises. Mad Thoughts. Maybe a book for kids.

So there I was out in the garden, at night, lamping slugs with a flash light. I suppose most of you are too young to remember when people went Lamping Rabbits after the war. No! Not the war in Kuwait or Iraqi or Korea, or Afghanistan...or The Liveline Call in program with Hoe Puffy 1345-1500. World War II! No! Two not Eleven. It was easy. Not the War: the Lamping.''

After falling into and crawling out of a ditch , or two, you switched on a big light - N0! You didn't trail a cable way back home, to a socket - you had a big battery, and you dazzled a rabbit and then you got - Oh! I forgot you needed another fool to go with you, a co-conspirator, - got that from Judge Judy - to belt Bunny over the head with the stick.

Now when you got Bugs home and out of his Long Johns and funny long-eared hat, and into the pot, you sat back and got the veg and spuds ready.

Where was I? Oh Yea! In the garden with the flash light looking for slugs when I heard a voice say “Have ya got a lite? Pal! A lite.”

I almost watered the cabbages again. I jumped around shouting “Who's there? I have a black belt! I knew it was holding up my pants, but I hoped the intruder - Crimecall, this time - didn't know that.

There was no one there. I was just about to go into the house and have a big cup of Coca to steady me nerves when I heard it again.

“ I said. Have ya got a LITE? Pal.”

Again I shouted. “I have all the Karate Kid videos and I watched The Sound of Music fourteen times.”

“Down here Pal. Shine that light down here.” I did. There was nothing there only a slug sitting on a rock, casually chewing on an over- hanging cabbage leaf .

Good I thought relieved - couldn't resist the Pun. It's only a talking head of cabbage. And then the slug said. “Shine it over that way a bit Pal. This being in the Limelight is drying me out.”In my best Miley accent, I said. “Well Holy God! A talking slug!”

“ I prefer Limacidae, genus Limax, species,L.maximus. Got that in The World Book Encyclopedia.” He Said. “But I goes be the name of Slugger.”

“Where did you get that name? I said, still confused , trying to wrest back the initiative in conversation: like they told me to do on my IMI Project Management Course.

“From you.”
“Me. I never met you before!”
“I've been watching you.” He said, just like the way Stephen King says it, somewhere in every bloody book he ever wrote.
“After all, I learned to speak your language from you. You garden and then you stop and start boxing the air. Punch Punch, Snort Snort shouting I got ya now Rocky.”
“No I don't!” I yelled.
“Yes you do!” He yelled back.
“Don't.”
“Do.” He said again.
“Don't.” I screamed.
And then he got me.“Don't.” He screamed back.
“Do!” I roared triumphantly arms akimbo, doing my little victory dance. Well! Sh-one-t! Bested by a slug. Well - a very intelligent slug.

And then he told me the story. 

Saint Valentine's Day (2017) Freebie....

Have to cash in on the commerce of St. Valentine's Day, by offering my 20 Minute Reads Kindle, The French Woman as a free download on the day. (Is this a Kerry Joke?)

It's a companion you can cherish with a slow pint of Beer, Guinness, or wine if that's your choice.

Maybe even a Latte or Cappuccino companion.

But if you are short of funds, who isn't? It's the thought that counts! So you can  'fess up and admit you got it on the bargain counter, for your PAL, Partner & Lover.

Enjoy the kindle or maybe what ever other surprise you get on the day.

https://www.amazon.com/French-Woman-20-Minute-Reads-ebook/dp/B01MZ1HF9Q

Mr. Child. Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

I have been a Reacher fan from the start, loved how the character was drawn, understood the dialogue, the plots, the scenes outlined, the logic, the lot in fact: but not any more.

I feel short changed. I reviewed Night School reluctantly, and had to ask if it was alternative reality Reacher. I didn't know the character.

Then I decided to track back and hoping for redemption, maybe it was just me and my after Christmas blues, decided to read, Make Me.

But it's shocking as well.

Even then I persisted and decided to buy Personal. When I looked at the reviews, the real ones, the lower starred ones. I decided to pass.

This is me talking to myself, and wondering do people who post glowing five star reviews know the other books, or the writer, or the character who once was Reacher?  I have an opinion that people do not read any more, at a pace to be able to concentrate and pay enough attention to detail to comprehend the story. Or do the skim a few lines at a time and skip ahead? ( Like checking a text to see if your own name is mentioned).

The Reacher I know is gone, his scars are gone, his maths ability and his ability to work out devastating plans and exact revenge is gone. Worse still the zest in the writing is missing, and trivial page filling gibberish is being used to pad the size of the book. The other books always had diversions that were interesting - like always being to tell the time of the day, or night.

In this book he gets a few "belts in the Gob", hard slaps around the head,  and is concussed, it appears. Then shortly after the blows he "nuts" a guy in the head and face, so hard he knocks him over and begins to fall forward himself.

This is one of those things that I feel were thrown in, to try and build tension, but is forgotten about, in that although Reacher stumbles a bit, or falls, he is still deadly accurate with his pistol shots.

Listen Mr. Child - blows bad enough to give you a concussion and then bouncing your head almost immediately afterwards into another hard skull means you are a dead duck: finished, kaput, out for the long count, brown bread, being measure for a harp, dead to this world. But then again this is only my opinion.

I gave this book my best try, Even read from about Chapter 49 to the end again. But no use, I'm out of the club, I can't go on. I will concentrate on writing my 20 Minute Reads for Kindle, at least if one of them is causing a reader pain, it will be over in a short time.

This book mentions hogs in a pen and how they are fed. In Ireland in the old days almost every family, out of economic necessity, kept pigs and fed them on a terrible concoction that we called "Slop" or "Pigs' Swill".

My view again: in this book I think Mr. Child is following a similar path, writing for some kind of necessity, it can't be money, but feeding his faithful readers with very inferior fare: maybe even pigs' food.