The Orphan Ship now exclusively on Amazon/Kindle

With a lot of technical assistance from fellow author Tamara Ward, I published The Orphan Ship on Kindle; it will be available exclusively from Amazon for the next three months. Only $3.99, but keep an eye on my blog because I will have it available free for a few days in July.

The Lost Sheep, if there are no major snags, will also be on Kindle this summer.

I'm still revising!

I'm getting sick of my laptop! But I hope to have The Lost Sheep out on eBooks by @June.

Holly Springs Cultural Arts Festival

Please join me and other local authors and artists at the Holly Springs Cultural Arts Festival this week, Tuesday - Friday from 4:00 - 9:00 pm; Saturday from 10:00 - 4:00 pm. There will be free writing and art workshops offered all week, and lots of activities for the kids, so bring the whole family and drop in anytime. Location: Holly Springs, NC, Library-Cultural Arts Center, just behind the Town Hall on Main St. (It's a very small town and easy to find!)
I will be on an author Q&A panel on Saturday from 2:00 - 4:00 pm, if you have any burning questions about writing or publishing, and The Orphan Ship will be on sale, of course, all week, for $15. I hope to see you there!

Happy 2013!

I'm nearly done with the rough draft of The Lost Sheep, the sequel to The Orphan Ship, but I'm sure revisions will take several months. I hope to get started on the third book (it will be a trilogy) that I haven't chosen a name for yet. For those of you who have been asking for the next book, I'm sorry to say that you'll have to wait until 2014 for the next two books. I have to wait until my publishing contract expires in January '14 so I can release the trilogy with a new publisher. (A new publisher won't consider books 2 and 3 unless he/she can also have the rights to The Orphan Ship.) Sorry for the wait, but I hope it will be worth it!

Meanwhile, The Orphan Ship is still available for order from the sites on the right hand side of the screen. Or, if you live in the Raleigh, NC area, you can buy a signed copy directly from me for $15. Email me if you're interested: SterlingRWalker@yahoo.com. I will try to post to my blog more often this year, and hopefully share more than just my writing updates -- boring, I know.

Happy New Year!

Signed copy of The Orphan Ship with free shipping, just in time for Christmas!

If you'd like a signed copy of The Orphan Ship, just send me an email at sterlingrwalker@yahoo.com. Pay the list price of $18.95, and I'll ship the book for free. Books make great Christmas gifts! This is a limited time offer because I don't have many copies, but if I'm ever famous (yeah, right), you'll be glad you have a signed first edition! Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year!

My first book award!

The Orphan Ship has been awarded a 2012 silver Children's Literary Classics award.  www.childrensliteraryclassics.com 

An excerpt from my sequel, The Lost Sheep

        

Blaze lowered his voice as he took a bite of sticky rice. “What did you say to Lorina?”

Marco dropped his gaze to the table. “I told her the orphanage would be a challenge for Captain Shepherd over the next few years.”

“That wouldn’t make her cry,” Jake said. “What are you leaving out?”

Marco was trapped. He couldn’t tell them the rest. “I don’t remember.”

“Liar!” Jake’s right fist was halfway to Marco’s nose before Blaze intervened.

“Stop!” The engineer deflected Jake’s punch with an outstretched arm. “Take it easy!” Blaze lowered his voice. “We all want to pound him, but we need to hear what he has to say first.”

“I’m not going to sit here and listen to lies!” Jake’s face was turning red beneath his tan. “You know what you said to her, so you’d better spit it out!”

Marco could feel his own face heating up. He was starting to shake from a combination of fear and anger. Stay silent and take a pounding, or take a pounding after I tell them? He didn’t care for the limited options.

“They say confession is good for the soul,” Vipul spoke up.

Marco shot the older man a withering glance.

Jake sneered. “Ting doesn’t have a soul.”

That remark did it for Marco; he was livid. “You want a confession, O’Brien? Here it is: I told Lorina someone close to her was going to die!”

There was instant silence at the table. The color drained from Blaze’s face.

Jake appeared to be having an internal battle with his emotions, his mouth working silently but furiously until he roared, “Who! Which of us is going to die? Is it me, or Blaze, or Niyati?”

“Don’t you have a shred of decency?” Blaze asked. “How could you say something like that to her?”

“Who is it!” Jake demanded.

“I don’t know.” Marco’s adrenaline was racing. He’d taken on bigger men than O’Brien, and he was ready to defend himself.

“Liar!” Jake cleared the table with a sweep of his arm, sending plates and food flying across the galley. He reached across the table again and seized Marco’s collar with both hands, yanking him up from his chair. “Tell me!”

“I don’t know!” Marco grabbed Jake’s wrists and pried his grip free. “Get your hands off me!”

Jake shoved him backwards; Marco’s chair seat swiveled and dumped him onto the floor. “I can’t believe we have to work with a psychopath like you!”

Marco was on his feet in an instant. He threw himself at Jake, driving his shoulder into the medic’s abdomen. The two men crashed to the floor between the tables. Marco managed to land a single punch to Jake’s ribs before he felt large hands gripping his shoulders, pulling him off O’Brien.