Book Trailer Video for “The Curse of Dead Horse Canyon: Cheyenne Spirits”

Nothing gets my endorphins pumping like the creative process. Writing novels is my first passion, but when they’re finally published I find it tremendous fun to put together memes and a short video to get the word out to potential readers. It’s a considerable challenge to compress an entire novel into a two or three minute video. Doing so forces me to distill its essence into something that others can relate to and hopefully tickle their curiosity enough to want to read the book. Here’s my latest for “The Curse of Dead Horse Canyon: Cheyenne Spirits.”

New version with spelling issue noted in comments corrected. Clearly right-brain creativity doesn’t always operate in concert with the left-brain. 😉

So what did you think? Curious? Assuming the video achieved its objective, here are links where you can pick up a copy of your own in either electronic or paperback format.

Amazon

Barnes & Nobles

Google Play

Kobo

iBooks

Other Sales Options

Goodreads

You can learn more about the story, which is the first volume of a trilogy, on its website here.

Nano Surveillance by Mark Donovan

This story was well-developed as far as the conspiracy thriller plot and technology were concerned. The author clearly knows his stuff about a variety of topics including flying and surveillance technology where the details enhanced the story’s credibility and imagery. While this expands into the realm of science fiction (at least for now) it was believable, which is required of good fiction–even fantasy needs to be believable to work.

The political intrigue was right out of the headlines and well developed as well, but leans heavily toward the conservative, so bear that in mind, too. In other words, if you lean to the left you probably won’t like it, period. The plot is loaded with suspense, kept moving, and would make an excellent action movie.

However, there were a few things that kept it from being great, primarily the desperate need for editing. The story demonstrated imagination and knowledge of technology,  but strong writing skills are necessary to engage the reader. I found the lack of flow made it awkward, even  painful to read. While, to the author’s credit, there were only one or two typos, there was far too much reliance on prepositional phrases. There were also numerous instances of homonym misuse and incorrect punctuation, particularly in the dialog. When the style (or lack thereof) throws the reader out of the story on a regular basis, it’s distracting as well as disappointing.

I want to stress there was nothing grammatically “wrong” with the writing. It simply didn’t employ the complex sentence structure that demonstrates strong writing skills. If it had, this thriller could have been a five-star read; as it stands, I’d give it three stars. In other words, by investing in editorial help or some advanced writing classes, this author could produce an outstanding story, perhaps even a best seller.