I’m excited to announce the title for Book Two in the Mason Jones series!
27 dead. Thousands of homes burned to the ground. And in a cruel miscarriage of justice, powerful conspirator Erik Marshall won’t face charges.
Blacklisted from wildland firefighting, Mace’s last shot at redemption lies in finding a murderous fugitive who can expose Marshall’s deadly conspiracy.
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Here’s a throwback video about my first major writing project, the historical fiction novel that I wrote in high school called Until Death.
My interest in the medieval period came from reading Michael Crichton’s Timeline, one of my favorites of his. I always saw my book as a movie and I wrote it cinematically, with a strong influence from Gladiator (and probably some Redwall too).
Prior to Until Death, I’d only written short stories and comics, like Star Wars fanfic or a raunchy unauthorized biography of Wishbone the dog, and often in collaboration with my friend Andrew. So completing my first novel was an important step.
19 years later, my writing journey continues.
My debut novel Fireline is available on Amazon and Bookshop.org, and I’m working on the sequel.
What are your favorite books? What novel is so intense you stay up reading it deep into the night?
I picked my top five novels for an intense read, and you can see my list here.
Shepherd.com gives readers fun new ways to find their next book. You can see what your favorite authors are interested in, or browse by a topic, like with this deep-dive Good & Evil bookshelf.
There are some great lists and interesting topic areas on there!
Check out my interview with the folks at ManyBooks! We talk about the inspiration for Fireline, my influences, and more. Click the image or the link below for the interview.
If you tried to reach me via the Contact form on this site over the past few months, I didn’t receive your message due to a technical issue. Those messages are lost in the ether. It’s now fixed, so if you still need to reach me, give it a go! You can also comment on this post.
And if anyone needs to reach out in the future, please do. It’s all set.
This book was such a joy to read. It’s got page-turning tension, a heartwarming friendship story, and science-nerd pleasures galore. I couldn’t put it down. My sister’s dog Cassidy seemed to like it, too!
This is Weir’s third novel. His most well-known is The Martian, which was also his debut. I enjoyed that book and thought they did a great job with the movie. The protagonist is once again an ultra-nerdy dude stuck in space (Ryland Grace), but Weir’s character work is the best it’s ever been here. Ryland has a compelling arc that is revealed in non-linear fashion due to the character’s amnesia, and the scientists with which he works are fun and well-written.
**Spoilers ahead**
I loved that Weir made the alien life forms truly alien in this story. First off, there are the Astrophages, a space-faring microorganism that feeds on stars. Awesome! And then, Ryland makes first contact with intelligent life, a 5-clawed spider-like being that lives in a pressurized ammonia environment. I absolutely adored the friendship that formed between Ryland and “Rocky” the alien. When the book first started, I was really worried it was just going to be Ryland alone in space, which would have been a bit too much of a Martian rehash. Luckily, that didn’t end up being the case, and the flashbacks to Ryland’s time on Earth illustrated another really interesting side of the story. Like I said: this one’s a real page-turner!
Humans have a primal fascination with fire. The popping logs, glowing embers, and flickering flames of a hearth or campfire bring a fundamental sense of comfort and provide simple but satisfying entertainment. Uncontrolled flames, on the other hand, strike fear, and to survive their hungry spread is to experience a life-affirming rush of adrenalin. The firefighter thriller is a novel fueled by this rush.
Anthony DeCapite, for Mystery & Suspense
Check out the article I wrote for Mystery and Suspense Magazine on the power of this small but exciting subgenre. Click here or on the image below for the full article.
Congratulations to Tracy P. from California, Jeremy B. from Oregon, Susan B. from Indiana, Connie R. from Pennsylvania, and Rebecca H. from British Columbia, Canada. Your signed copies of Fireline are in the mail!
If you entered but didn’t win, the Kindle version of Fireline is only $3.99. Happy reading!
You can enter to win a free physical copy of Fireline through this giveaway!
Giveaway ends March 20, 2021.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter Giveaway
Gritty, fast-paced, suspenseful — that’s an understatement!
Stacy, co-host of the nuwriters podcast on Fireline
Hosts Annie and Stacy called the novel an emotional ride filled with grit and honesty. They had a great chat about their “love-hate relationship with the prisoners who become firefighters” and how they relate to Fireline’s message of redemption.
**2022 Update: The nuWriters Podcast is no longer available.**