A new review with four stars...yipee.

This made my day. Posted on Amazon Kindle by a top 500 reviewer. Wow.

The Deadly Caress is the first novel by Australian author, O.N.Stefan. When celebrated Australian nature photographer, Amanda Blake travels to California to meet Jean Campbell, the birth mother she has only just learned of, she is apprehensive but hopeful. She wants to find out why Jean, widow of Campbell- Beare Pharmaceuticals founder, Murray Campbell, gave her up for adoption, and she hopes she will finally form a real mother-daughter relationship. What she is certainly not expecting is a twin brother and a step-brother. Her twin, Brian, seems a stereotypical Aussie male: friendly, laconic and rather casual. Her step-brother, Dorian, is prickly and antagonistic. But before she has more than a few hours to connect with the real mother, Jean is found dead in her ensuite bathroom. The police suspect murder and the Campbell family lawyer, Lionel Cohen reveals that Jean was preparing a new will that left the bulk of the estate to her daughter. Amanda finds herself in a houseful of strangers, all of whom seem to have their own agenda, and is unsure who she can trust. A clue that the police seem uninterested in following up sends Amanda back to Australia to see if she can find her mother’s killer. But this is a move that puts her in more danger than she ever imagined. Stefan has crafted a murder mystery that is fast-paced, full of suspense and action-packed. The plot has quite a few twists and turns and none of the characters is what they first seem to be. Amanda starts off a bit precious, but eventually finds her metal. Everyone, it seems, even the staff and the lawyer, might have a motive for murder. Stefan manages to include plenty of excitement: assaults and murders, as well as kidnapping, shootings, car chases, a suicide and a bomb scare, with organised crime bosses, a stolen drug formula, adultery and quite a lot of money in the background. The dialogue is sharp and realistic and readers familiar with the Australian location will appreciate the chase down the mountain. It will be interesting to see what Stefan produces next. A gripping read.

The Deadly Caress is #free in Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
http://getBook.at/B00I0DI0MY

Seventh five star review on Amazon Kindle

Hi

My thriller is again on sale. It's only $0.99 in the US, UK and Australia. A coffee costs more.Get it on sale while you can.

My seventh five review is a short one but I'm happy nonetheless.

"Quick paced novel. Very interesting, exciting and a page turner. Some very surprising twists and turns. If I could have I would have read it in one go."

I was asked why all my reviews are five stars? I said I was surprised but thrilled that my readers liked my book so much.

My sixth five star review

My sixth five star review. Wow. Sooo excited.
It's nice to get some great feedback.

P.S. Now on promotion: UK £0.92 US $1.55.

"When I chanced upon an early edition of "The Deadly Caress," I was caught up
in its brisk pace from the get go with Amanda meeting her mother Jean for the
first time after many years. The backstory surfaces rapidly, Amanda and her
twin Brian adopted out in Australia when Jean was seventeen and penniless,
but is now a rich widow in California able to call them back together. And
then the sudden twist, their time for catching up is cut short by her murder.
It is a busy plot around diverse characters eyeing a huge inheritance while
a murder takes place and suspicion is rife, giving investigators a puzzle to
unravel. The prose is clear cut and to the point in both narration and
dialogue, making the story easy to follow. It is definitely a captivating read
worthy of the five stars I've given it."
The Deadly Caress

#Brad Pitt

New web site

Hi

I'm excited with my newly created website for The Deadly Caress. It took me a few hours to create. It would have been quicker if I'd known my way around weebly but I got there anyway. I used a weebly template.

O.N. Stefan

My sales are climbing and that's great news for me.

I'm busy rewriting my next thriller which will be out some time in the latter part of this year.
TheDeadlyCaress

O.

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.