My latest review

My latest review for The Deadly Caress.

'Great cover and curiosity drew my attention to this book. A quick peek into the book on-line and the quoted poem "On Seeing a Sheep .." sets a scene of life, fate, innocence, death so I decided to buy it. The story quickly grabbed my attention and it was difficult to stop reading. An intriguing tale of an adopted baby growing up in Australia and having a successful career as a freelance photographer. A surprising turn of events when Amanda Blake is summoned to America by her birth mother! The unexpected twists kept drawing me on, even through the fear, horror and evil. The book draws you quickly to the final chapter. At the end I was wondering what lay ahead in Amanda's life? Thank you O. Stefan and I will keep an eye out for your next book.'

The Deadly Caress

The Deadly Caress Web site

ON SALE

Hi

Grab a bargain!

My book is on sale for $0.99 in the US from 5th March until 9th March. UK 6th April until 12th April. Please grab a bargain and enjoy the book. Happy reading.

Here's the link:
The Deadly Caress

The Deadly Caress is now published on kindle

The Deadly Caress is now published on kindle. Yipee.

It was quite a journey. One of the editors had a family emergency and was delayed with getting the manuscript back to me.

I'm pleased with the result after days of staying up half the night to get the formatting for kindle done. I didn't get the story uploaded until 23rd January.

Someone asked me why I wrote this story. I think it's what captured my attention at one time from a newspaper article and I started to get the what if's going. What if a person was to discover that the woman she though was her mother wasn't. How would she feel? What if this mother was murdered? What would this person do?

Then there's a scary scene with Amanda driving down a mountainside and that comes from my memory banks. I grew up across the road from a very bad corner and every weekend there would be at least one horrific accident. Some of these were youths speeding and chasing each other. Drunks and careless or not drivers who had miscalculated the sharp corner and careered into an oncoming car or the nearby light post. My dad would run over to see if an ambulance needed to be called as we were the only family in the street to have a phone. He'd take blankets over if the person/people was badly injured and I would help him. My sister and my mother would be too upset to be of help and didn't go.

Once a car overtook another and miscalculated. He caught the side of the vehicle and the mud guard was peeled away like a giant orange peel.

I still remember the time when at dusk a drunk stumbled onto the street and a car, unable to stop in time, slammed into him. He flew up onto the bonnet like a rag doll and fell. He lay unmoving and we though him dead. The driver was understandably distressed. The ambulance men came and began to remove something from his mouth. I though it might be teeth but it was only chips that he'd been eating when hit and the blood was because he'd bitten his lips. Then he mumbled something and saw that the police had now arrived and got up to go home. Amazingly, he only had minor injuries.

Here's the link to my book:


http://a-fwd.com/s=TheDeadlyCaress&asin-com=B00I0DI0MY

Happy reading. O

Substantive Edit

Hi
My manuscript is off to get a substantive edit today. I'm excited that finally I'm almost at the end of the journey. My plan is to self publish on Kindle some time in December.

These are the things my editor will be looking for:

www.allograph.ca/Allograph/editing/Substantive%20edit%20checklist.rtf‎

SUBSTANTIVE  & STYLISTIC EDITING CHECKLIST

                                                                                                                                                                      

TEXT	DONE
Structure is appropriate for the intended audience and medium.
Material is organized into an appropriate structure and sequence.
Chapter and sub-section divisions are appropriately organized and meaningful.
Language is appropriate for the intended audience and medium.
Consistent style, reading level, point of view, and level of decorum is used.
Appropriate stylistic and dramatic devices are enhanced or minimized as necessary.
Ambiguous vocabulary and syntax are recognized and clarified.
Statements that should be checked for accuracy are noted for copy editor or fact checker.
Redundancies and verbosity are eliminated.
Jargon that is inappropriate for the intended audience is eliminated.
Possible legal trouble spots (e.g., libel, plagiarism, missing permissions) or departures from social acceptability (e.g., gender, ethnicity, or age bias; failure to give sources) are identified for author and publisher.
Revise or cut manuscript to meet length requirements, as necessary.

Adapted from the Editors’ Association of Canada’s Professional Editorial Standards book, revised edition.

O.

beta readers needed please.

Hi
I'm at the stage were I need to find some beta readers for my thriller/suspense 'The Deadly Caress' before I self-publish. I'm happy to return the favour.

I need you to read my story and give me some feedback. I'm happy to pay you if that's what it takes.

Please email me at olga990@yahoo.com.au. Put in the subject line: beta reader 'Deadly Caress'.

Thanks.

Book picture by Pavel Guzenko

Amanda Blake sets out to find her mother’s murderer. She gets more than she bargained for and becomes a target herself.

Amanda BLAKE, a freelance photographer, discovers she has been adopted and seeks out her natural mother Jean CAMPBELL in California. When it becomes evident that her mother has been murdered, Amanda sets out to discover her mother’s killer. Her quest takes her back to Sydney to see the man who she thinks holds the answer to the killer’s identity. While visiting this man, she has to run for her life as a hail of gunshots pockmark the walls and shatter the windows. Someone will stop at nothing till she is dead. If she thought things were bad enough, they are about to get much worse...

The Deadly Caress is complete at 80,000 words

Editing again

I finished another edit of this story. The best thing is that I haven't looked at this story for years so I am not attached to it anymore. I was ruthless with cutting out things that didn't work and sentences that I had loved before. I also looked at my writing blog to ensure that I was mindful of the points I had raised.

I have sent it off to someone who's offered to do a critique for me. I hope   the don't find it too bad.

Quandary with a chapter

Hi

I've finished another edit of this story incorporating all the points Victoria brought up. I didn't quite do the 100 pages per week last week but by days end on Monday it was done.

Now I'm concentrating on scene settings and descriptions.

I had a quandary with one chapter as Victoria said that she was worried it wouldn't be allowed. So I put it to my facebook group and authonomy and got some replies. Facebook prosecuting attorney said it's unusual but he can't see why it can't be done as long as the accused is Marandized. So it should be okay.
The guy on authonomy said it can't be done. I've let a message for the second guy asking if he's in law enforcement in the US. I'll see what happens from this.
The question was: Can a kidnapping victim interview the accused in jail in California?
I emailed a detective in Montery and he said it could...with a proviso that it would have be a 'pretext call'. The accused and the victim can't be in the same room. The interview would be done via a phone link.
Yipee. I was so relieved that I could have this scene.

Next draft will be dialogue and then I'll send it off to Victoria again and Symn who bravely offered to cast his studied eyes over it too.

half way through an edit on my mystery

Hi

I'm half way through doing an edit on my mystery story. I can't believe how bad some of it was. Still, with Victoria's comments on my punctuation and plot holes I can fix it. My aim is 100 pages per week and I'm on target so far.

Got mail

Hi

I went out to get the mail and guess what I found on my step. My manuscript from my friend Victoria.
She's suggested a heap of changes. When I finish first draft of my fantasy story The Girl In The Mirror, I will get some bum glue, to keep me in my chair, and start editing The Deadly Caress. I hope to have posted some chapters by the end of January.

Olga

Hi

I've started a new blog for The Deadly Caress which is a mystery/suspense with a dash of chick lit thrown in.

 As I finish editing chapters I will be posting them here for comments.

Currently, my manuscript is with my friend who will run her expert eye over the whole story and let me know if it's all crap or worthy of posting here.

Olga