A little fun

I was having a little fun this morning when this started running through my head.

Twas the night before Christmas, I awoke with a shout
The undead were stirring, just outside my house
Holding the shotgun ready to shoot them all down
My heart in my chest, so loudly it pounds

100th copy

A little over ten years ago I awoke to find that my first wife Patricia had passed away while we were both sleeping. She of course didn't wake up. I'll never forget the abject feeling of loss and emptiness for the rest of my life. It was as if my life ended also for a while. I even had to force myself to eat. To help with the final healing I produced two different versions of a poetry book that was meant as a memorial to Patricia and the renewal I went through. I called the book "Into Renewal" and it's permanently free. Today marks quite the occasion for me as it has been downloaded 100 times on Smashwords
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/211410

27 times on Barnes and Noble.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/into-renewal-brian-bigelow/1112572285?ean=2940044766921

Have another slightly different version on Free e-books.net with 305 downloads so far. http://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/Into-Renewal

I'm now quite glad I put out that memorial.

Book reviews

These are reviews for other books, not mine. These are ones I selected for my own personal reading.

Last night I read Into The Flames by Wendy Steele.

This is a great book especially if you don't have a lot of time on your hands. It's possible to read the entire book in a little over an hour. Really excellent imagery has been used throughout in this well written book. It also delves into the characters mindset well. This book is a permanent freebie from what I understand.

http://www.amazon.com/Into-The-Flames-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0094KFLB0

(Since I used to do most of my reading while commuting on a city bus being able to have quick reads has been important to me. I hate to say it but I personally am not a fan of novels but that is strictly my own taste. It's also one of the reasons why most of what I write is short stories.)

My other little foray I will talk about here is a really good one.

Pride and Prejudice and Vampires by PJ Jones

OMG, this book is a *&^%$ riot. Can't say I've laughed as hard as I am while reading this one. Of course my sense of humor is a little coarse at times. On top of it, this parody is well written and edited.

One thing I'll add here, you can't go wrong with the 99 cent price tag.

http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Vampires-ebook/dp/B009M7G7HC

An award.

This is cool this morning, just received an award for the shorter version of "Witchery Afoot" that I posted in this competition. All the hard work of learning how to write effectively, relearn grammar I should have learned in school, create decent dialog and decent story lines is paying off.

The Visitation

This little short story was an interesting one for me to write, it is classic horror but its not scary and there's even kind of a romantic element to the story. A widower (which I have been) who has been alone for six years is the central character. He's extremely lonely and though I don't directly mention he's rather elderly. There's no other woman Seth would ever want than his beloved Beverly. He's always been a one woman man. Finally, its time for him to go and his wife comes back to  lead him into the afterlife. It was a very refreshing story to write and I've made it permanently free.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/259956

Horror Bent release

Just uploaded the book to Smashwords, Amazon and Barnes & Noble and it's now available on all three sites. I'm even making a paperback version which will also be available through Amazon I believe by December 4th.

If you're in the mood for some occult horror, demon possession, reanimation of corpses this might be the book for you.

99 cents with this code XY22L https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/258825

Also available at Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Bent-ebook/dp/B00ADKIQ3U/
 and Barnes & Noble   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/horror-bent-brian-bigelow/1113848581?ean=2940015786569

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday today and an even better Christmas.

We don't have much planned at our house. There's a 19 Lb (8.5 Kg) turkey defrosting this morning in the sink. Our refrigerator does a really great job keeping things cold and so it didn't defrost completely even after a couple of days. Last night I made the pies which are presently covered with plastic wrap, also made about 2 dozen biscuits for dinner.

These are the pies I made as they looked fresh out of the oven. The one with the rather rough looking crust is one I made from scratch and the recipe came from my 1896 Fannie Farmer cookbook. Every year I make the pies for Thanksgiving in our house. Last year, I made all of the pie crusts from scratch. (Yes, I like getting in the kitchen once in a while)

This is the turkey for this Thanksgiving that is defrosting at present.

At this moment our cat is complaining, think she's ready for some of the turkey we're fixing later today. Then again, she probably just wants attention or could be wondering what I'm doing home on a weekday.

Between the things Brandy and I will be doing in the kitchen I'll be working on the anthology pieces. Finally have a final release title, it will be called Horror Bent. So far there are six stories that will be included in the set.