Get Most of my Books at 50% off on Smashwords all July!

This July I'm participating in the Summer/Winter sale over on Smashwords. My entire Trench Raiders and House Divided series of ebooks are 50% off, as well as my standalone short story collections. You can find them all on my Smashwords book page, just use the coupon code SSW50 at checkout to get half off. The ebooks are on all formats including mobi (for Kindle), epub, pdf, and many more. You can even download them as a text file if you're weird. No one's ever done that yet. Offer ends July 31.

The only books not on sale are those in my Toxic World post-apocalyptic series. Those are exclusive to Amazon so Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read them for free (even though Amazon still pays me, nice deal).

Enjoy!

Get my ebooks for half off!

Over at Smashwords I'm participating in their great summer/winter sale. Whether you're sweltering in the summer of the Northern Hemisphere, or chilling out somewhere south of the Equator, it's always a good time to read an ebook. Through July 31, all my ebooks at Smashwords are 50% off. You can see an entire list on my Smashwords page.

The books include my Trench Raiders World War One action series, each now $1.50; older works such as the short story collection The Night the Nazis came to Dinner and the historical fantasy The Quintessence of Absence, both $1.50; and my Civil War horror novels A Fine Likeness and The River of Desperation.

Use the coupon code SSW50 at checkout to save 50%!

Military History Photo Friday: The Cleanest Soldier in the World

During World War One, lots of companies jumped on the patriotic bandwagon to market their products. Here's a typical ad.

So was the British soldier the "cleanest fighter in the world"? I doubt he felt that way, what with all the rats, lice, mud, and rotting bodies. But hey, they were no dirtier than any other soldier in the war!

Today the second in my Trench Raiders series of WWI action novels, Digging In, went live. It's available for $2.99 from Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and all other major ebook outlets. Coming soon will be a related novella about the famous Christmas Truce.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Military History Photo Friday: Digging Trenches in World War One

This photo shows British troops digging a trench while protected by rudimentary gas masks. I have no information about this picture but some of the details give us clues as to where and when this was taken.

First off, the soldiers are wearing service caps and not steel helmets. At the beginning of the war in 1914, no army issued steel helmets to their troops. The British wouldn't get their trademark Brodie helmets until 1916.

The Germans didn't use gas to any significant degree until 1915, catching the Allies entirely off guard. The men scrambled to make some sort of protection. The first things used were bandannas soaked in various substances and tied around the nose and mouth. Other troops fashioned their own masks or used whatever was available. The fellow in the center seems to be wearing a surgical mask! Because of the primitive gas protection, I'm thinking this was taken in early 1915, probably still in winter considering that the men are wearing sweaters even while digging.

I also think this was taken in a support area or maybe during a drill well behind the lines. No weapons are visible and the photographer is standing atop the parapet, something you wouldn't do in battle!

Digging trenches was hard work, as I make clear in a couple of scenes in my latest WWI action novel, Digging In.

My latest WWI novel available for preorder!

My latest World War One action novel, Digging In, is coming out December 5 and is available for preorder. The story takes up where Trench Raiders left off and continues the adventures of Crawford, Willoughby, and Thompson, while introducing some interesting new characters. Here's the blurb.

October 1914: The British line is about to break.
 
After two months of hard fighting, the British Expeditionary Force is short of men, ammunition, and ideas. With their line stretched to the breaking point, aerial reconnaissance spots German reinforcements massing for the big push. As their trenches are hammered by a German artillery battery, the men of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry come up with a desperate plan--a daring raid behind enemy lines to destroy the enemy guns, and give the British a chance to stop the German army from breaking through.
 
Digging In is the second in a new series of World War One action novels that will follow the brave men of the BEF through the major battles of the First World War a hundred years after they happened. The Battle of Ypres was the first of many great slaughters on the Western Front, and it was there that both sides learned the true horror of the world's first global conflict.

It's now available on Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other Amazons. It's also available on Smashwords and will soon be at all other major ebook outlets.

Finished writing my next WWI action novel: Digging In!

This weekend I finished Digging In, the sequel to Trench Raiders, my WWI action novel. I'm going to give it another hard edit and then send it out to my uber-cool team of beta readers. This book has Company E trying to survive the First Battle of Ypres in 1914. Things do not go well for either side!

For the next two weeks I'm going to work on some short stories, including Christmas stories for my Trench Raiders and Toxic World series, and then I'm going to do National Novel Writing Month. My project will be We Had Flags, Book Three of my post-apocalyptic Toxic World series. The folks in New City are going to have some surprise guests whose appearance will open old wounds and get everyone talking about who was to blame for the fall of civilization. For those of you who have read the earlier books, you know that being found guilty of Blame gets you branded and exiled, but if everyone starts doing it. . .