Monday, August 6, 2012

Giveaway and Sneak Peek inside of The Book of Paul by Richard Long

Spice up your summer reading with an intelligent and impressive dark thriller!

The Book of Paul is a new dark thriller by author Richard Long. The book has received great reviews and is currently on sale for 99 cents on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes! Download your copy now!

In addition, Richard is doing a HUGE giveaway, including a $100 gift certificate to Amazon, signed copies of his book, a Tarot Reading, and more!

Giveaway:

Tweet, like, follow, share, blog and grab a copy of his book to enter.

The Book of Paul is the first of seven volumes in a sweeping mythological narrative tracing the mystical connections between Hermes Trismegistus in ancient Egypt, Sophia, the female counterpart of Christ, and the Celtic druids of Clan Kelly.


About The Book of Paul

“Never alive…and never dead…”

In the rubble-strewn wasteland of Alphabet City, a squalid tenement conceals a treasure “beyond all imagining”—an immaculately preserved, fifth century codex. The sole repository of ancient Hermetic lore, it contains the authentic alchemical rituals for transforming thought into substance, transmuting matter at will…and attaining eternal life.

When a lusty, East Village tattoo artist has a torrid encounter with a battle-hardened loner, they are overwhelmed by the intensity of their feelings.  Rose and Martin soon discover they are unwitting pawns on opposing sides of a battle that has shaped the course of human history.  At the center of the conflict is Paul, the villainous overlord of an underground feudal society, who guards the book’s occult secrets in preparation for the fulfillment of an apocalyptic prophecy.

The action is relentless as Martin and Rose fight to escape Paul’s clutches and Martin’s destiny as the chosen recipient of Paul’s sinister legacy.  Science and magic, mythology and technology converge in a monumental battle where the stakes couldn’t be higher: control of the ultimate power in the universe—the Maelstrom.

Read the first few sample chapters here >> http://www.thebookofpaul.com/excerpt/

Sneak Peek:


Pretty

Birds were chirping, dogs were barking. It was a bright, bright beautiful
cool crisp day in the neighborhood. Junkies were up with their crackhead cousins, prowling the lanes of Tompkins Square Park, looking for a not quite empty vial to suck on or maybe a john so they could buy one. The gentry joggers were up already, circling the park in huffy, puffy laps, their pounding hoofbeats echoing the clang-whirl-shwoop-crunch of the mob- owned garbage trucks.

Ho-hum. Rose slowly fingered the ring on her nipple and wondered why she couldn’t get back to sleep. The garbage trucks were the obvious reason. The booms and bangs down below sounded like artillery fire. Still, she usually slept like a pile of cannonballs at Gettysburg. When she went down, she stayed down. At least until noon. She worked nights at the tat- too parlor, happily infecting all the ink-crazed kids with HIV and hepatitis C (if they were lucky). She didn’t realize she was doing that. She’d been following the sterilization techniques handed down by her creepy boss. Unfortunately, they weren’t any more effective than the jar of clear blue liquid that the barbershop used to sterilize combs. In the time she’d been working, she had already been responsible for the possibly fatal infection of eleven pierced and tattooed members of the “tribal community.”

So Rose, blissfully unaware of her crimes against humanity, lay wide awake at nine-fifteen in the morning, twisting and turning her nipple ring. She wasn’t sure why she was awake, but now that she was, she knew what she wanted to do about it. As she rubbed the two silver rings that held her clit hostage, she wondered again why she was up so early and why she felt so…horny? Hungry? What?

She knocked off a quick O like she was popping a wine cork, light and charming but nothing special. That’s when she realized it wasn’t a sex thing. So what was it?
She gripped the rings on both nipples and stretched them upward as far as she could, dragging her small twin mounds along like a pair of stub- born mules. She pulled and pulled until her nipples ached, then held the rings at the Maximum Stretching Point, feeling the pain course through her, then settle back down again. She didn’t back off even a millimeter, just took some deep slow breaths for a moment or two and tried to pull them out even farther.

She thought of a dancer doing hamstring stretches, and she figured the technique and level of pain must be fairly equivalent. After slowly yanking them out again, she thought, I’m in training, and started giggling so hard she had to let go. Thwack. Her tiny tits and sore, swollen nipples bounced back against her chest like a pair of hard rubber balls. Boing. Giggle. Ho- hum. Hmmm. So it wasn’t the sex and it wasn’t the pain or the sexpain or the painsex. So what was it? She looked out the window at the blue morn- ing sky and the green bushy trees and the squirrel tightrope-walking on the fire escape and the cling-clang of the garbage truck and…

She was happy. She was unreasonably, deliriously happy! But why? The “why” brought a tiny frown to her tiny face, but the “happy” was so much stronger that it brushed away the “why” with a single gust of cool fresh air that came blowing through her curtains.

She threw the covers off the bed and let the breeze wash over her until her skin was a textured roadmap of goose bumps, pits, posts, rings and colored ink. She breathed and the ink breathed with her. She sat on the edge of the bed and jingled like Donner and Blitzen. She smiled and she looked out the window and knew something good was coming her way.

Rose stood up and stretched and took a deep breath and yawned and padded into the hallway where her yoga mat was waiting. She spent the next half hour going through her routine, a rare carryover of the training and discipline that dominated her preadolescent life as a competitive gym- nast. She could do headstands and handstands and down facing dogs like nobody’s business. In fact, it took some fairly severe contortions for her to even break a sweat, but by the final lotus pose, a slippery sheen of perspiration coated her arms and chest.

She sniffed her armpits, bowed to the altar at the end of the hall and lit three candles. The candles were nestled between a variety of crystals and minerals, some so brightly colored she often wondered how something that vibrant and wondrous could actually be growing like a plant on the walls of caves in total darkness. Or like her amethyst geode, actually growing inside a rock, like an egg hatching a million-year-old purple crystal baby. Her favorite gemstone was one her mom gave her, a brilliant red crystal she called a bloodstone. Its smooth, squarish surface was easily five inches across and three inches thick, one of the largest of its kind, she’d been told. She rubbed it for good luck like she did almost every day, then pranced into the bathroom for a very long, very hot shower.

She hummed a happy song while she soaped and scrubbed and rubbed and shaved and shaved and shaved. She wasn’t sure what the song was or where she’d heard it before. After three more humming choruses, it suddenly came to her and she could see Natalie Wood dancing in that dress shop, looking in the mirror while the other girls scolded her for being so silly. Rose looked in her defogging shower mirror, liked what she saw and sang out right along with them, “I feel pretty…oh, so pretty…”

The reviews are in!

The Book of Paul has been well received by reviewers who enjoy dark thrillers.

“Intelligent, self-aware, and often amusing, while hitting all the markers for sadistic, salacious, and scary. Written in short cinematic bursts from multiple viewpoints, The Book of Paul…weaves in and out of the realm of alchemy, mythology, and ancient arcana. No ordinary writer of horror…Richard Long is doubtless going to build a large and loyal fan base composed of people just like him: literate folks with a bizarre sense of humor who prefer salsa to sugar, red meat to broccoli, and a bucket of blood to a bath filled with rose petals. They will be waiting for the next installment.”
-- ForeWord Clarion Reviews «««««

"Totally absorbing! The Book of Paul is moving, profound, funny, terrifying and never lets you go. The prose is swift and sharp...at times, even poetic. Masterful storytelling. Hats off!!"
--Henry Bean, writer/director of THE BELIEVER

“Elegantly written and original, Richard Long's The Book of Paul…is so suspenseful and entertaining that I could not it put down, reading late into the night, wondering what the next chapter would bring. I strongly recommend it. The reader will not be disappointed.”
-- James H. Cone author of THE CROSS AND THE LYNCHING TREE

“I was greatly impressed. It is extremely hard, if not impossible, to put down.”
--Michael Rips, Author of PASQUALE’S NOSE 

"Twisted, outrageous, relentless -- you won't want to miss The Book of Paul."
--Greg Lichtenberg, author of PLAYING CATCH WITH MY MOTHER


About the author
Richard Long writes to exorcize the demons of his past and manifest the dreams of his future.

He started life in the school of hard knocks and worked to create his own rags to riches story of troubled kid turned successful advertising executive.

His debut novel, The Book of Paul, is a dark, thrilling, and psychologically rich supernatural horror/thriller that blends mythology, science and mystery into a page-turning addiction.

Richard is also writing a YA novel, The Dream Palace, primarily so that his children could read his books.

He lives in Manhattan with his wife, two amazing children and their wicked black cat, Merlin.

Connect with Richard on the following links:

 
 
 
 

26 comments:

Unknown said...

Absolutely amazing read!! I can't wait for the rest of the series!!!

Melissa I. said...

Holy CR*P! I cannot believe I'm going to dive into this. This stuff is what scares me the most. I LOVE being scared when I read and that rarely EVER happens, but from the Amazon reviews I have a feeling this one is FINALLY going to do the job right. WOW!! Thank you both for this amazing op. I hope leaving the comment here is the correct spot?

melissaiorio42 @gmail.com

All the best, Much success and Happy or scare the hell outta you reading ;) lol

Anonymous said...

A tarot reading would be cool. I like dark supernatural.

Theresa Haywood Donbroski Johnson said...

Hi thanks for the giveaway

Read Between the Lines said...

Awesome Giveaway I am looking forward to reading it.

mcv said...

Not my usual kind of read but I'll give it a try since the reviews ar so good.

Unknown said...

I'm scared and fascinated at the same time...

Author Susan Griscom said...

I loooooove scary books. I can't wait to read this. Thanks for the giveaway.

Kristin (Book Sniffers Anonymous) said...

Awesome giveaway. Thrillers aren't normally my thing but this book sounds good. I also like the fact that he's working on a YA novel so that his kids can read his work. That's sweet. :)

Ronda Tutt said...

Awesome, Every once in a while I like to dive into different genre's especially if they add the mythology element mixed with small amounts of biblical folk lore of apocalyptic prophecy to them. I am very curious how the book plays out with the secrets hidden for eternal life and the lore within this amazing world the author has created.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like an interesting read!

Unknown said...

Richard is a new author for me. I'm intrigued by his book and would love to learn more.
A friend request has been sent to Richard. After confirmation has been made, you will be notified by email. You're following Richard's reviews.
luvfuzzzeeefaces at yahoo dot com

Unknown said...

This book sounds so good and i would really love to read it, I like epics!

Dovile said...

Thank you for the excerpt! It seems interesting enough for me to want to read more.

Allie said...

Thank you for the giveaway. after such great reviews, it will be on my must read list

Kellie Kamryn said...

Wow! Sounds like a great read :) Not usually what I go for, but it's always good to try something new. Congratulations on the release!

kjkamryn@gmail.com

LorettaLynn//Temprance said...

this sounds good:) thank you for sharing!

Cheryl said...

Wow, what an interesting read. Can't wait to read the book.

rubyswan said...

The BOOK OF PAUL SOUNDS 2 cool!!!
L@@K out World here comes..PAUL RICHARD LONG!!!! ThanQQQ
redz041@yahoo.com

Unknown said...

I love a good scary read! I can't wait to start.
Thanks for the chance!

Amber Daulton said...

Love books dealing with mythology. Thanks a lot!
amberdaulton86@gmail.com

Unknown said...

I love the dark and supernatural sounds like a great combo...Thanks for another great read.

authorleighsavage@gmail.com

Julie said...

Great giveaways, I'm interested in tarot reading. I would like to read The Book of Paul as well. :D

----------
let the breeze blow

Unknown said...

Thanks for the great review and supporting The Book of Paul with so much…oomph! Thanks also to all the people who are reading, liking, commenting or just interested. Hope we have some big winners here! And anyone that reads it wants to discuss just droop me a line! All the best -- and worst once you meet Paul!

angie lilly said...

Love the scene here...its raw but also titillatingly fresh...if the rest of the book is like this, I know I will love it!

angie lilly said...

Who won???

Disqus for Close Encounters with the NIght Kind

AddThis

Copyright Text