December 8, 2015 by TonyT

Cover Reveal! The Ninth Hunter by Anna Hub

The Ninth Hunter by Anna Hub

A standalone paranormal thriller

Release Date: January 12th 2016

The Ninth Hunter ebook cover.jpg

These weren’t ghosts of the dead with unfinished business. They were something far more sinister.

Daniel Barrow is a ghost hunter bound to a life of misery; protecting the world from ghosts by killing their human hosts. He knows the rules: mark the targets, plot the crime scenes, and then murder those beyond saving. Daniel’s safe in his rituals—until he meets Faye Michaels.

Faye isn’t his average target and her ghosts threaten to destroy everything he has worked for. When his ritual goes wrong, Daniel must create an uneasy alliance with the woman he intended to kill. But the deeper they dig, the closer they get to a dangerous secret that will change their lives forever.

Daniel must make a choice: fulfil his duty, or turn his back on those he has come to trust. Can the truth lead him to salvation?

LIMITED TIME OFFER

Click Here to receive your FREE Advanced Review Copy

Add The Ninth Hunter to Goodreads

Website: http://annahubbooks.com/

Blog: http://annahub.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annahubbooks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnnaHubBooks

July 27, 2015 by TonyT

IAM15 Guest Post…Anna Hub

Today we’re talking to Anna Hub about…

Shadow Hunters (Book Two)

“He said it wasn’t like the Valley, he never said it was paradise.”

Selena has survived her transfer into the Shadowlands — she has already beaten the odds — but she soon discovers that although life outside the Valley may be different, it is no less dangerous.

While she searches for a purpose in her new life Brayden sets out to prove he’s not bound by the compulsions of a hunter, but can he master his Instinct before the villagers come to destroy him?

***

When I was a child I wanted to be an author, it seemed like a perfectly attainable dream to me then, but of course I grew up and realised that writing was not the best way to make a future for myself. So I discarded the idea and decided to do something normal.

When I studied nursing I thought I’d found a place for myself, but within six months of working in that field I knew I needed more. So in July 2007 I bought myself a lap top and started writing in my spare time. It took me two years to complete my first book and by the time it was finished I felt as though I’d learnt enough to pursue the dream.

My love for writing has grown rapidly since then and now I know that it’s something I can’t live without. It’s a place where there is no limit, no exact destination and my mind is free to exist in many worlds.

It’s a beautiful sanctuary.

***

Guest Post: Why I became and Indie author

These days, being an independent author becomes more viable with each passing week. In the couple of years since I first self-published there has been a huge shift in publishing platforms such as, Amazon, Kobo, Createspace, all of them recognising the growing market and making publishing easier than it’s ever been. And the best is yet to come. Plenty of authors are dropping their publishers and taking the indie route to regain creative control of their work. You can write at your own pace, choose your editors and your book cover, market according to any strategy and of course, keep all your royalties. Why wouldn’t you want to be an indie author?

Are we still battling against the idea that you need a publisher for legitimacy?

Honestly, anyone who’s written a book knows the labour comes long before the publisher. We’ve spent weeks, months, years pouring our heart into our work. We’ve suffered headaches and RSI, we’ve edited out thousands of words and replaced them with better ones, we’ve agonised over single sentences and analysed every plot element until we’re sure it fits. At the end of all that, why would we hand it over to someone else and ask them if we’ve succeeded? I guess the first question we need to ask ourselves, is why we write and what do we hope to achieve?

When I started writing, I set myself goals. There were so many dreams I had for myself and for a long time I believed finding a publisher was at the top of that list. Like so many others, I thought that was the benchmark to measure myself against. But after years of working on my series, I told a friend I planned to seek a publisher and his single response changed my entire perspective.

He asked why I’d written the books but my answer wasn’t, ‘to be published’. In reality, I became a writer to help myself make sense of the world. I use words as a means to digest my thoughts and without this vessel in my life, I don’t feel balanced. That was where it all began, and when I realised how much I loved it I wanted to see how far I could push myself. I didn’t want to put words on the page just for the sake of venting anymore, I wanting to create something that embodied who I was. To build an entire world where I could face my fears and grow into the person I longed to be.

My friend said it sounded as though I’d already succeeded and I finally understood that I didn’t need approval from a publisher. I thought I needed the shiny wrapping paper but in that one conversation I finally took a step back and acknowledged that I’d already made it. I was complete long before my books even went to print.

For me, placing that sense of achievement in someone else’s hands would have been destructive. All along, this journey was meant to teach me to recognise myself and while the books themselves aren’t perfect, they gave me the gumption to stand tall and be a proud indie author.

***

Where can we find you?

Website: http://annahubbooks.com/

Blog: http://annahubbooks.com/blog/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annahubbooks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnnaHubBooks

Amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/p5dku7q

Amazon.co.uk http://tinyurl.com/nq979c8

Amazon.com.au http://tinyurl.com/px73bzu

***

Thanks for taking part in Indie Month, Anna!

(If you enjoyed Anna’s post, she’s going to be blogging for us from time to time…so check back soon!)

May 17, 2014 by TonyT

IAM Review: “Beyond the Shadows”, Anna Hub

It was a delight to have Anna here yesterday for our interview, and today Tony reviews her first novel “Beyond the Shadows”…

———————————————–

3/5

What would happen if your shadow was trying to consume you? Selena Parker is about to find out…

Selena is leading a normal life until a man in a restaurant tells her to watch her shadow. Dismissing his concerns at first, she comes to realise it’s moving and shifting on its own. She places a hand on it, and falls through to a primitive jungle world, then again and again, each time spending less time in the real world.

Selena’s responses are entirely realistic when she realises she can fall through her shadow. She dims the lights and researches mental illness, wondering if she’s going quietly mad while she tries to continue her normal life. She quickly comes to realise that even the dimmest lights cause shadows though, and knows she can’t fight back against it.

It doesn’t stop her fight though; Selena is an adaptable character who refuses to accept the inevitability of the jumps to and from the jungle. And when she’s forced to accept the reality of what’s happening to her, she adapts again. She learns how to survive in the wilderness, what berries and bugs are edible and how to make a fire. She tries to warn her family what will happen to her. When she is finally, irrevocably trapped in the jungle, she shifts her focus, trying not to linger on the family and life she’ll never see again.

In the jungle she meets Braydon – the man who first warned her of the shadows – who seems to have given up on ‘normal’ life quicker than her and settled to life in the jungle. Braydon begins to exhibit signs of being a ‘Hunter’, a semi-supernatural human with enhanced strength, agility and senses. Together they move out of the dense jungle and towards a settlement of humans who are also trapped at the edges of the jungle.

It’s a great concept for a story…how can you hide from your own shadow? And it was that which pulled me through the first half of the book. Selena’s attempts to keep up a normal life and her resourcefulness when it came to researching survival techniques and tracking down a comatose Braydon drew me to the character. I loved the way she dealt with the things life was throwing at her and got on with it. There isn’t a moment when she gives up.

I liked the world of the book as well, the way that distances ‘over there’ equate to distance ‘over here’. Her upstairs bedroom is on a rock; her living room is a cave under that rock. It’s all logical and consistent. What was missing was a full sensory experience: I wanted to know what that jungle smelled like and the assault of the colours on her eyes. Was the sky blue over there?

Where the book starts to lose a little of its power is with Braydon. I found him to be two-dimensional next to Selena, and I had the impression that if Selena could have found another guide in the jungle, she probably would have. Partly, he’s such a foil for her it’s hard to empathise with him; he’s quite negative to Selena’s optimism. There didn’t seem to be much chemistry between them beyond the basic need to survive and share body heat.

The antagonists of the book – The Hunters – don’t make much of an appearance either. We’re only told what they are capable of and don’t see them in action much – one anonymous woman being chased, that’s about it. The main threat in the jungle is the remarkable cats with whip-tails, which is danger enough without the Hunters being there.

What also didn’t work for me was the transition from jungle to village of survivors. From being adaptable and resourceful, Selena seemed suddenly powerless when she was there, becoming quite passive and weak. The village transition takes place about half-way through the book, and from then on, Selena seemed almost a secondary character in her own story.

The book needed a few more edits. There are a lot of run on sentences (the author told me she grimaces over them now too), but it seemed to suit the narrative voice of Selena.

For a first novel, this was pretty good. A nice concept with the shadow-portals and a strong (for the most part) main character and a consistent world.

May 16, 2014 by TonyT

IAM Interview with…Anna Hub

Guest Feature

Our guest author for Indie Month today is Anna Hub, Australian author of Beyond the Shadows. Check out the intriguing blurb for the book here and then find out more about the lady herself in our author interview. There’s a review of “Beyond the Shadows” coming tomorrow.

———————————————–

“A violent shudder travelled up my spine, each vertebrae snapping together like a zip lock, all my muscles tensed but I couldn’t tear myself away from the image …”

If your shadow was trying to consume you, how would you run from it?

What if you were afraid of something you could never escape?

Selena Parker’s journey into the unknown begins in her dreams, but the consequences are carried back into her conscious life and she soon realises paranormal forces are at work. Her shadow has become more than just an image, it is a gateway to a sinister new world where mysterious creatures roam and she is confronted by danger that challenges her will to survive.She finds the man whose fate is linked inexplicably to her own but she knows nothing of him and doubts his true nature. Her only option is to place her life in his hands while they search for a way to stop the shadows claiming them forever.

Which authors have influences you most and how?

I have to say Isobelle Carmody. When I was a kid, I struggled to get into books, until my sister gave me Isobelle’s first book – Obernewtyn. I fell in love with it, and from that point on I realised the magic and wonder that could live inside the pages. Obernewtyn pulled me into a world filled with adventure and magic – I guess I never really came back.

Is there a song you could list as the theme song to your book?

I listened to a lot of Bat for Lashes, in particular the Two Suns album, while I was working on the Shadow Series. It’s gentle enough to work in the background, but it also has a mystical quality. It created the perfect mood.

What has been your most rewarding experience since being published?

I was invited to a local highschool to give a presentation on writing. I’m definitely not a natural public speaker, and to begin with the thought of it horrified me, but it’s the things that challenge us the most which reward us the most. Standing in front of that class was pretty surreal, one of those moments where you have to ask yourself if this is really happening to you.

Can you see yourself in any of your characters?

Absolutely. I used to be embarrassed when people told me they could see me in my characters. Now I’ve realised it’s pretty much impossible to keep yourself out of them. You can only write what you know. My characters are a combination of who I am, what I see, and what I wish I could be.

How do you react to a bad review?

I was absolutely terrified of receiving my first bad review. I was afraid it would make me hate my writing too much to ever go back. To be honest it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t great, but surprisingly it actually inspired me to work harder. It made me realise where my weaknesses were and it gave me something to prove – that I can do better. Now I use bad reviews to motivate me.

What the best advice anyone has ever given you?

Once you release something you’ve created, it’s already in your past. It’s no longer a true representation of your skills or knowledge. Don’t get caught up in the imperfections, by the time someone criticises it, you’re already better at it.

What are you working on at the moment – do you have any other books in the works?

After releasing a four part series I wanted to work on a standalone project. I thought a short one to two year project might be nice!

My current WIP is set in a dark world where people are haunted by ghosts of themselves – ghosts of the living. The main character, Daniel, is a hunter trained to destroy these ghosts before they can take over their hosts and spread their curse.

It’s a little darker than the Shadow Series, there are definitely some creepy vibes in there, but I’d like to keep it accessible to people who don’t venture too deep into the realm of paranormal. I’m still on the first draft but if everything goes to plan, I’ll be releasing it later this year.

Your most unusual or random habit?

I’m not sure why, but I can’t eat everything on my plate. It’s ridiculous. If I have a bowl of ravioli, I have to leave at least one piece behind. It’s like that one little bit tips me into the dark abyss of psychological fullness. Weird right?

Hidden talent?

I can pick the perfect avocado, every time, without fail! It’s definitely a superpower.

Favourite quote from a movie?

Oh lord, how do I pick? I’m a quote lover. I’m going to go with, “We’re all mad here.” From Alice in Wonderland. It applies quite nicely to most of the writing community hehehe. There was a time when I hated my overactive mind, now it’s my favourite thing about myself! Embrace the madness!

Tell us about yourself.

It’s a beautiful sanctuary.

Links

Facebook: www.facebook.com/annahubbooks

Website: www.AnnaHubBooks.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/annahubbooks

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Anna-Hub/e/B00CKG56TM

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6913627.Anna_Hub

Blog: www.annahub.wordpress.com