Lee Thompson "A Beautiful Madness" blog tour and give away

Uff, my blog hiatus has lasted longer than I expected, life as usual gets in the way... I plan on updating my latest reads and eats soon, but for now I will have to bring a little attention to one of my absolute favorite authors on this planet, Lee Thompson!

There are many, many books floating the the literary stratosphere and many people who love to write and who want to write them but few grab me the way his words do. Lee's work is exquisite but don't think it's shy and pretty, it's drag your knees on nails and gut twistingly intense, incredibly intelligent and meticulously edited. It's simply superb. I've read a few of his works and each and ever single one is a beacon that shines brighter than many other things I've read. He usually sticks to horror but his new take on a thriller is out, and it's called A Beautiful Madness, and it will surely grab you by the eye balls if you have any...I highly recommend checking it out, he has a great blog tour going on right now but I all ready snagged my copy when it first came out for a per-order, the glowing reviews from strangers who are new to his works on Amazon, Goodreads and the net should convince those who never checked him out. I dont usually write a blog post dedicated to a single person but Lee, he deserves it and I'm always reminded how solid and good his work is when I read him, so here it is!

A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS BLOG TOUR + GIVEAWAY

A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS BLOG TOUR + GIVEAWAY

A Texas Senator and his wife go missing… On the same day, their son is slaughtered by an enigmatic killer on the lawn of ex-Governor Edward Wood's residence. Sammy, Wood's drug dealing son, suspects his father of the crime. After all, his old man snapped once before and crippled his wife with a lead pipe. But there's something more to these events…something deeper and festering just beneath the surface…

In direct opposition to Homicide Detective Jim Thompson, Sammy begins an investigation of his own, searching for the truth in a labyrinth of lies, deception, depravity and violence that drags him deeper into darkness and mayhem with each step. And in doing so, brings them all into the sights of an elusive and horrifying killer who may not be what he seems.

A brutal killer on a rampage of carnage…a hardened detective on the brink…an antihero from the shadows…a terrifying mystery that could destroy them all…

Welcome to Lee Thompson’s A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS blog tour! This blog, and the others participating, will receive a paperback copy to give to a random reader who leaves a comment and shares this post.

Throughout the book tour, I’ll be sharing fun facts about my first Mystery/Thriller, and also offering dubious advice to novice writers because I’ve had writers and editors farther along the path than myself give me tips that have helped me tremendously. If you want to up your game, pay attention and pass what you find useful on to those in your critique groups.

If you’re here as a reader, thanks so much. You’re every author’s life source. You’re the yin to our yang. The stories we set down on paper don’t seem to exist until someone else has read them, and the more the merrier.

How Important are Blurbs?

I was so excited when I got my first blurb, from none other than one of my biggest heroes. Tom Piccirilli. I’d sell my soul to write like him and my other heroes. So having him read my work and blurb it was, and still is, a big deal to me. I also received blurbs from others over my long three year writing career. Terrific writers like Robert Dunbar, Brian Hodge, Brian Keene, Mercedes Yardley, etc.

But how important are they? I’ve got a pretty good relationship with my fans and so far, in three years, nobody has once told me they found my work because of a blurb.

A Year’s Best List makes a difference though. Brian Keene had my first novel, Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children, on his 2011 year’s best list. Thanks Brian! You helped me more than you know. And word of mouth caused by the excitement a reader feels when they finish a story they really dig is a huge boost, too.

To me, moving a complete stranger with nothing more than text is pretty inspiring. But we’ve been there, haven’t we? I still remember my favorite novels vividly, and how they made me feel while reading them and after first finishing them.

I think most blurbs simply feed our ego. Praise from our peers is probably essential. So how much more important is praise from someone we wish we could write like? So, for your mental health, and for the boost to keep you going through the years it might take to establish your writing career, seek out some blurbs.

If you’ve never asked for or received one, I can tell you what has worked for me. Things might work differently for you…

You’ll want to make sure you’re writing is at a professional level, otherwise you’re going to get rejected, and the hero you admire probably won’t make it past the first page. I’ve had about ten writers ask me for a blurb and I can easily tell if I’ll keep reading after the first couple pages. Sometimes a young novelist has a ton of potential, and can really shine in a particular area of the craft, but there are all kinds of problems with the manuscript (flat characters, snail pacing, wooden dialogue, etc.)

And if an author tells you they can’t blurb you, for whatever reason, be a professional. Thank them for their time and move on. As you build your career things don’t settle down, you’ll only have more on your plate (more deadlines, more fan mail, more authors requesting a blurb from you, etc.) So when an author you admire doesn’t have time to read your book, take it in stride. You can’t imagine how busy they are until you’ve experienced it.

Don’t send out a blurb request to an author unless you’ve actually read something by them, and it helps even more if you’re a passionate fan of their work. Otherwise you really don’t care about their work at all, do you? You just want their name on the cover of your book and that’s all. Pretty lame, but people do it all the time.

When it comes your turn, and writers are asking you for blurbs, you’ll have to develop your own policy. Mine is simple and I make sure to let querying authors know: I’ll give it a read but I’ll have to love it to blurb it.

Pretty simple.

In A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS, my protagonist Sammy’s credibility starts off shaky since his father nearly killed his mother a few years before and the community has watched the ex-Texas governor degrade into solitary madness.

Sammy is also a drug dealer—his best friend designed it to help him with his anxiety, but it was too addictive and Sammy quickly began selling it to the upper crust in Wargrove, Texas—which doesn’t inspire much faith in him with the local police after a boy is murdered on his dad’s lawn. He’s not someone Detective Jim Thompson would normally praise, but by the end of the story, he might have reason to as the two of them run parallel paths—one legal, one illegal—in search of a killer targeting Sammy’s family…

Buy A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (Kindle:)  http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Madness-Lee-Thompson-ebook/dp/B00K36ITGS/

Buy A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (Paperback:) http://www.amazon.com/A-Beautiful-Madness-Lee-Thompson/dp/1940544297/

Author bio: Lee Thompson is the author of the Suspense novels A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS (August 2014), IT’S ONLY DEATH (January 2015), and WITH FURY IN HAND (May 2015). The dominating threads weaved throughout his work are love, loss, and learning how to live again. A firm believer in the enduring power of the human spirit, Lee believes that stories, no matter their format, set us on the path of transformation. He is represented by the extraordinary Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary. Visit Lee’s website to discover more: www.leethompsonfiction.com

A BEAUTIFUL MADNESS main page (http://www.leethompsonfiction.com/?page_id=2423)

Enter to win a paperback copy! There will also be a grand prize at the end of the tour where one winner will receive my novel, and four other DarkFuse novels in Kindle format!

 Okay now I have like 3000 reviews to write up and catch up to, I'm still lagging from my 2011 reads, easy does it but it will get done.. Happy September everyone!

- Kasia S