Absolute Darkness by Tina O'Hailey - Book Tour + Giveaway
Book Blurb
A thrill ride through time that will make you hold your breath.
Sitting by the campfire, Brandy admitted a secret to her
friends. She swore she saw a ghost when exiting a cave earlier that day. Was
she seeing things? Did they believe her? The next day, breaking a cardinal
rule, she snuck back to the cave alone. No one knew where she was. What if she
fell or was trapped? There would be no rescue.
For ten thousand years Alexander had kept the time streams of
this universe safe from an eternal destructive force that continually
threatened to tamper and destroy all. Locked in an unremitting battle, the two
foes become sidetracked by an unexpected visitor. An entangled journey begins
with chilling twists and turns until becoming locked into an inescapable death
in a submerged cave.
Who will
come out of the watery depths alive?
Preorder from the publisher. Use code:
PREORDER2018 to receive a 10%
discount!
http://www.blackrosewriting.com/sci-fifantasy/absolutedarkness
http://www.blackrosewriting.com/sci-fifantasy/absolutedarkness
Guest Post
What's the author's biggest fear?
My biggest fear? I would be lying if I said that drowning
and water is not a healthy fear of mine. Here’s why. I almost drowned when I was 3: fell in a
creek. But I don’t remember it. I
remember the vivid hallucinations experienced in the hospital following the
incident. I developed double pneumonia
and the small, inch-high elves (complete with bright green hats and curled
shoes) that sat next to me and consoled me in the oxygen tent can be called to
mind even today. There were four of them, and they scared the hell out of me.
Let me add that I had horrid vision, being unable to see past the end of my
nose, but no one knew it yet. So, those elves were probably clamps on IV hoses
and I had a vivid imagination even then. Actually, this could also explain why
I fell into the creek in the first place.
At
age 10 or 11, trying to conquer my fear of swimming and of course that means diving
too, I began taking off my coke-bottle glasses and diving into the swimming
pool. Diving blind. I couldn’t see the
water. I had only begun to learn to swim at about around age 9 or 10 after
hearing a concerned comment from my father to the tune of, “She should have
learned by now [to swim].” The pool of our home was on the other side of the
creek (same creek I tried to drown in at age three) and could not be seen from
the house clearly; we lived out in the sticks. I swam alone in that extremely
large above-ground pool my father put in himself. This was late seventies or
early eighties: it was your job as a child to survive. No one watched when I
wandered about; let alone what I was doing at the pool. Thinking back, I’m not
even sure if anyone was home.
About
this pool, I was convinced that something lurked in the deep end of the pool,
so being a bright child, I stayed at the shallow end of the pool and practiced
diving using my hands as fins to turn up before I hit the bottom. In fact, I would be proven correct. Years
later after the liner tore and the pool turned a putrid green, my father set to
draining it in order to put in a new liner.
The green, scummy water had been drained to the last three feet of the 10
foot deep-end and Dad slid down to begin bailing out the water by hand. And
just like in my favorite oversized Star Wars comic book where they are in the
trash compactor and the walls are closing in: something touched his leg. I
watched from the safety of the dry shallow end – sitting in the exact spot I’ll
tell you about in a bit. After a harrowing amount of cursing and thrashing
about Dad plunged both hands into the opaque, green scum and triumphantly
retrieved a three foot long eel. No one from the family admitted to placing
that eel there and it was surmised that a bird had deposited it there. Either
way, you will agree with me that diving into the shallow end had merit though
it also had its short-comings.
Alone.
Out of sight. Conquering my fears of water. I dove into the shallow end of the
pool over and over again. Each time I would brush the bottom of the pool with
my hands and bounce back up. Once I collided and busted my lip. That sting and
jolt lasted a while but did not detour me from my next and fateful dive.
Perhaps my swollen lip affected my ballast?
Or my luck had finally run out. On that last dive I landed directly on
my head. I watched the reflection of the
sun on the bottom of the pool – where I lay stunned and unable to move. Time
slowed. The reflections were mesmerizing. I felt peace, not fear. A still, cold
voice crept in and explained in a very calm and sincere tenor voice that I
should breath the water; it would be ok. Wouldn’t a nice big breath feel nice
and cool? I screamed in my head and yelled and ranted and told myself to move,
kick, push up but nothing in me responded. The voice hissed, insisting that I breathe
the water. Did I hear that same voice when I was three? Finally my internal
screams at my arms to move broke through and I pushed off to the surface where
the warm summer air awaited me.
So.
I'm not fond of any chances of hearing that insistent hiss again. I have the
keenest hearing for even a drop of water out of place: dripping sink, spilled
glass, roof leak, water in a cave passage that wasn't there the last time I
visited. That comes across in the nightmares depicted in this book.
Author Bio:
Tina O'Hailey (author of
animation text books “Rig it Right” and “Hybrid Animation”, professor in
animation, visual effects and game programming, caver and occasional mapper of
grim, wet, twisty caves—if she owes a friend a favor or loses a bet—whose
passion is to be secluded on a mountain and to write whilst surrounded by
small, furry dogs and hot coffee) was struck by lightning as a baby.
Links:
Absolute Darkness: Virtual Blog Tour: June 28 –
July 4
Author Blog:
https://coffeediem.wordpress.com/
https://coffeediem.wordpress.com/
Absolute Darkness
Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/AbsoluteDarknessBook
The #FORLINEARS puzzle: Please check out
the virtual blog tour and you might find some embedded fun in the imagery.
(https://www.rachelsrandomresources.com/absolute-darkness) In fact, I dare you.
Can you find the hidden puzzles that lead to an autographed book give away?
First one to figure it out wins an autographed book.
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