Hanging with horror author, Derek Clendening. (Win a Kindle)

Sometimes a salesman must be whatever you need him to be. I often feel that way when I’m doing book store signings. Don’t get me wrong: I will never lie about my books just to make a sale. No one likes a huckster and I’ll always preserve my self-respect. The problem is that books can be so complex that a story isn’t any one thing and therefore doesn’t cater to any one audience. To add a positive twist, it offers something for everyone.

A trick I’ve learned is to use The Between Years as the centerpiece of my book display for the signings. The complicated reason for this is that I write numerous types of books, both young and adult, some gruesome and others quiet, and I’d rather not scare potential new readers off by letting them see the ‘scary’ stuff first. The simple answer is that The Between Years offers something for everyone.

For some of what I write, you need to be a horror fan to enjoy. That or you need to have a really open mind. The Between Years is much different in this respect. You don’t need to be a horror fan or have an open mind to enjoy it. All you really need to have is an open heart.

As people, what we all share in common is that we have feelings, and that we’ve lost something valuable at some point. Readers will relate to Randy Fuller on some level. He isn’t perfect, but he has suffered a great loss, and is trying to regain it by any means. At minimum, we’ve at least known someone who has lost a child and no doubt our heart has ached for them. Enough readers have told me that their heart ached for Randy.

The real fear for Randy is intense, but it isn’t a monster in the closet. It’s in the parental challenges he never expected to face. The ghost of his six month old baby boy appears to him at age four, six, twelve and eighteen in the span of four nights, and he has a different problem each time. To me, the idea that my son is suffering and I haven’t the first clue how to help him is frightening indeed.

This is a book for purveyors of the paranormal. But then again, it’s also a book for anyone who’s ever lost a child. It’s a book for anyone who’s ever known someone who’s lost a child. The truth is, the book is a lot of things, and its appeal is broad. That’s why I’ve been successful with it at book signings. I’ll always keep the book in print because I want it to be the first work of mine that people see. I’d like it to be the first of my works that you see too.

To enter to win a Kindle Fire, leave your name and e-mail address in the comment form below. You can enter once per blog stop. Visit each blog stop to increase your odds of winning. If I crack the Kindle Top 100, I will give away another Kindle Fire. E-mail me for the tour newsletter including a full listing of tour stops at derek (dot) r (dot) clendening (at) gmail (dot) com.

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