"Shadow's Prisoners." Now Premium status at Smashwords.

The past several days Shadow's Prisoners was confined to the standard catalog at the Smashwords website. The only marketing was due to the efforts of the author and word of mouth. Now, the book was accepted into the premium catalog where the distribution extend to  Apple, Barnes&Nobles, Sony, and 51 other online retailers of ebooks. Both domestic and worldwide.

NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.COM

Story of the Exploding Pope

Sometimes fact can be stranger than fiction but what I'm about to tell you is that fact can also be the same as fiction.

If you read a sample of "Shadow's Prisoners" and thought I made up the part of the "Swiss Guard" and Pope Pius XII botched embalming, well, think again because I didn't concoct that gem of a story. No, dear readers, that actually happened and here is the background behind the incident.

But first, if you have a weak stomach or if you are in the middle of eating anything, stop! Do not read further, this story is not for you.

Pope Pius XII reigned way back in my parents and grandparents eras, so many of yous may not remember this fellow. He had a personal doctor, who many believed had "questionable skills and no discretion." In other words, he was a wacko doctor. The doctors name was Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, or Dick for short. Dick had an annoying habit of  bugging Pius about getting embalmed but Pius didn't believe in embalming. He wanted to keep all his organs and crap after he died.

Pius grew sick and tired of Dick hounding him about the matter so he may have said, "Yea, yea, do the process... just stop bugging me about it." Many years later when Pius fell ill and died, Dick made himself available to embalm the body. Dick said he had discovered a new method of embalming which he wanted to use for the dead body. Dick's method entailed putting the body in a large plastic bag filled with herbs, spices, and resins. He claimed it was the same process in which Jesus Christ's body was preserved. (Now how the hell did he know what happened two thousand years ago in a cave, in the middle of nowhere?)

You should know that the heat in the castle where Pius's body was held was extreme. The heat with a dead body encased in an airtight plastic bag increased decomposition quickly. The body had to be dressed again before it was "shown." While it was dressed in Pope clothes (heavy robes and all) and put in a coffin for the trip to Rome for the funeral at St. Peter's Basilica, a rumbling noise and "bang" was head coming from within the coffin- Pius's chest cavity had exploded from built up gasses. The body was treated two more times but body parts began to detach and the skin turned green, then black-- all within four days of his death. Swiss guards, standing watch at the viewing fainted from the stench.

I couldn't make this up if I wanted.

" FREE ebooks"

 Read "Shadow's Prisoners" and thousands of other books in their entirety for FREE. Not just teaser excerpts, but the whole book. For FREE and it's only a click away! This week only. So act fast! Time is running out!

I Got It!

Check out a sample of Shadow's Prisoners by clicking the work "SAMPLE" on the menu bar above left.

The formatting is much better on the final copy.

Enjoy!

About a sample

O.K. the book is out and at Smashwords.com for immediate download. I want to give you a little taste of the novel, but I am having a slight problem right now. I'm not a computer expert - far from one, I should say.

But somehow I'll figure how to set up a hyperlink to a sample of the book.

Wish me luck.

Online and On Time

Shadow's Prisoners is formatted and ready for download at SmashWords.com.  Click on the coverof the book and you will be directed there. More retailers will offer the book next week.

Closer to Publication

As many of you already know, my novel, "Shadow's Prisoners" has evolved into a life of its own. The manuscript is back in my hands for me to submit to Smashwords. Once that's accomplished, Smashwords puts the formatted novel thru their "Meatgrinder" which converts the book into a readable e-file that can be viewed by practically any e-reader. They also send the novel to local and international  e-book retailers for release to the public. So whatever you have, whether it's a Kindle, Nook, Android, or even a Smartphone; you can have access to the novel. But for those of you out there who do not own an e-reader, I am putting my novel into a printed format as well.

A few short months ago I was polishing my query letter in hopes of landing a reputable literary agent who could sell my novel to a publisher. The pickings were slim and I knew it was going to be a long wait until Shadow's Prisoners would ever see the light of day. Still I plodded away.

I sometimes doubted I would succeed at all, but Billie would put that thought out of my head fast. And I mean pronto. She often told me that the book is too good for me to lose hope on. Then she received an email from her sister, Linda, in California. In the letter Linda explained that she met someone who was a self-published author and that that person swore  publishing your own work was the right way to go, no, it was the only way to go. He said that the traditional route of landing an agent and having that person seek out a valid publisher to put out your book was fast becoming a thing of the past. This self-publisher wrote two books which highlight the success of self-publishing your work which sealed the deal for me.

Billie was impressed by his thoughts as well, and soon, I found myself on a mission. Within days I had developed a smart marketing strategy of which the social media (FaceBook) is only a part. I admit some of the work that the author suggested was above my head so I sent the work out to be professionally formatted for electronic print.

Another email arrived with the formatted files and I  am about ready to submit it.  More about the final submission process to SmashWords tomorrow, my eyelids feel like lead, my head keeps drooping, and I need to go to bed before I fall asleep on the keyboard.

Goodnight all!
J.Paddy

Preview of "Shadow's Prisoners"

A

 cascade of death sweeps through a small town, and a quaint funeral home is at the center of the problem—but it’s not about the dead people there—it’s that some of them aren’t exactly dead. Fifteen-year-old Peter Livingston lives in the funeral home, but he doesn’t know about its gruesome connection to a maxium-security prison—some of the prison’s not-dead in-mates are not-alive either.

Shadow’s Prisoners is filled with hor-ror and cliff-hanger chapters and it’s a real page turner. In between the dis-gusting (rats) and the ugly (corpses) and the evil (plotters and schemers), there are also glimpses of warmth and humor that encourage the reader to stay hot on the trail with Peter, who armed only with a flashlight, searches through it everything and anything to solve the mystery. Who or what is killing so many animals and people in his town?

There’s the doctor who rides a motor-cycle through town to take care of his patients. There’s the teacher who is  a recycling fiend. There’s Peter’s father who is struggling to keep the old mortuary from becoming as dead as its clients. There’s Peter’s uncle who understands, more than anybody else, why it is necessary to brave the worst to discover the unnatural truth. And there’s the FBI agent who is forced to accept things way beyond his skill-set. And these are all the good folks.

Ultimately, this situation is for the birds—well actually a very special bird—who lives with Peter’s family and causes no end of havoc.