I’m giving out 10 free copies of my first novel. The giveaway lasts for a month, so you have plenty of time to enter once it is approved on Goodreads.

I’m getting close to finishing the first draft of the third book in this series. Yet, when I wrote this first one I didn’t intend to write a trilogy. In fact, not even a sequel. I considered Hell and Gone a one-off novel.

It was a blend of modern “military thriller,” old-school men’s adventure, and war novel. I tried to give it as much realism as an adventure story could handle and still be entertaining. It was never a bestseller, but it gained some enthusiastic fans. To my pleasant surprise, a few of them were veterans recently back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Vietnam veterans liked it, too. It received comments like “a man’s book, through and through” which was welcome praise, since masculine themes of honor and brotherhood are intended in most of my fiction.

Anyway, some fans asked for or suggested a sequel. At first I dismissed the idea out of hand, wanting to work in other genres. Plus a whole wave of younger veterans were breaking into military fiction, armed with up-to-date knowledge of military technology I didn’t think I should compete with. But a friend around my age (a veteran of the South African military now working as a “security contractor”) told me I should write a novel about combating modernday piracy. I’m pretty sure he was dealing with that very kind of thing during some of the long periods of silence in our communication; but he was understandably OpSec-conscious and never divulged details over the Internet.

Despite myself, the seed of an idea began to form. In time it took over, pushing everything else out of my brain, and became Tier Zero–a full-bore paramilitary men’s adventure, with a Mack Bolan-esque cover, busty nubile wenches and the whole nine yards. My South African buddy made a cameo appearance, with his name changed, of course. This time I deliberately left an opening for a sequel.

Here’s the book trailer for Hell and Gone:

Enter the giveaway for a chance to win a free paperback edition with the original cover. The link is on the right sidebar, and should go active soon. If you’re on Goodreads, then there are no strings attached. (An Amazon review after reading it would be appreciated, though.) If you’re not on Goodreads, it costs you nothing to join. Like any other public forum it has been dominated by feministas and leftards (both readers and authors), but there is a growing subculture of red pill readers; even some authors like me offering an alternative to the chick-lit, romance, paranormal, and other typical pinkshirt pap with Marxist themes and pixie superninjas.

After this giveaway, I plan to do the same with 10 copies of Tier Zero, so stay tuned. By the time both giveaways are complete, the third novel in the series should be ready for prime time.

BTW, if you would like advance warning when the book is about to go live, click here.