Friday, May 11, 2012

Graham Parke Giveaway and Promo

I don't normally take cold requests for guests and promo, but sometimes somebody catches my eye, whether it is the wit or the book, or in this case, both... Graham is launching his second book and his first is being made into a movie--(Wow, right?)  But that first line of the promo below is what REALLY grabbed me. I want to be both luckier AND more attractive!

So I will let Graham give you the scoop!

Unspent Time Launch Party

Get free books and win a Kindle Fire or a Kindle Touch




Warning: reading this novel may make you more attractive and elevate your random luck by about 9.332%*
(* These statements have not been evaluated by any person of consequence!)

From the award winning author of ‘No Hope for Gomez!’ comes a collection of impossible tales. Permeating the cracks between the past and the present is the realm of Unspent Time; time that was allotted but never spent. This is where we find the stories that could have been true.
Read how to enter below.

Excerpt
Saturday. Decided to do a little detective work. Headed over to the hospital and queued up at the front desk to ask about visitor's hours. The nurse told me they'd just started.

"Great," I said. "Can I just walk in?"

"You can," she said. "Who did you want to see?"

"Mr. Joseph Miller. He was brought in two days ago."

The nurse consulted her computer, frowned, then shook her head. "No, I'm sorry," she said. "Mr. Miller's dead. He died late last night." She looked up from her screen. "Would you like to see somebody else?"

"What? No! I really need to talk to Mr. Miller. Are you absolutely sure he's passed away?"

"I can recheck if you want." She typed away. "Sometimes this program mixes up some of the... ah, I see what I've done now." She gave me an apologetic smile. "Stupid little me," she said. "I had the stats of several files mixed up."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "So, he didn't pass away?"

"Oh, no," the nurse said, shaking her head, "he's still dead, but he died this morning rather than last night." She held up her hand with a small amount of space between her thumb and index finger. "You missed him by that much."

"I see," I said. "Does it at least say what he died of?"

She browsed her screen, bit her lip, and mumbled, "Yes, no, wait a minute. I saw something about.. Ah, yes. Yes, it does." She looked up again. For a long moment we stared at each other. When I finally arched an eyebrow, she said, "Are you a relative? I'm not supposed to give out this kind of information to just anybody."

I tried to think fast. I really needed that information but I didn't know Joseph other than from the clinic waiting area. We'd never even spoken. Then, out of nowhere, the perfect answer just came to me. I told her, "Yes."

"Okay then." She was about to tell me when her face clouded over again. "You really should be getting this information from his doctor, though."

I waved it away, told her it would be fine.

"Well," she said, reading from her screen, "it says here he died of dehydration and malnutrition."

"He was found passed out in his apartment," I told her. "Apparently he'd been out for a while. Does it say what caused him to lose consciousness in the first place?"

The nurse perused the file for a long time, then shook her head. "No, sorry," she said. "I'll have to get the doctor for that. Just a moment." She reached for the phone.

"That's okay," I said. I didn't want to get into trouble for impersonating a relative. "I need to go. Pressed for time. Thank you."

As I turned to leave, she called after me, "Are you sure you don't want to visit anyone else? There are some really nice people up on the second floor. Much nicer than Mr. Miller. They'd love to talk to you."

... continued in No Hope for Gomez!

How to enter:
For the launch of the new novel I decided to discount it to $0.99 for today (PC and eBook), give away some exclusive content, and raffle off two Kindles. All entrants will get:

  • An exclusive spin-off novelette (not available for purchase anywhere!)
  • Making of Gomez: behind the scenes eBook
  • Signature for their paperback or kindle edition
  • Chance to win a Kindle Fire or a Kindle Touch

(Prizes can be traded for Amazon gift certificates if you already own them.)
Just email your receipt to nohopeforgomez@gmail.com to enter.
Each purchase counts, so stock up on birthday presents (for people you don't like that much, for instance) The discount ends today, but be sure to send the receipts no later than June 1st.


(Or order the books from any bookstore.)
Coupon code for today: ZB77D

And then get by ing about your purchase and another by mentioning it on facebook

Sound bites from Unspent Time:

“I'm looking into my past lives. I'm convinced some of them still owe me money.”

“I'm very polite by nature, even the voices in my head let each other finish their sentences.”

“I didn’t actually want to do it,” Kiala told the boy. “The universe just kind of conspired to force me to make a fool of myself. It does that quite a lot, actually.”

“Sadly, my socks are like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike.”

Here's what reviewers had to say:

"A veritable page turner of nonstop laughs!" -- Reader Views
"An unputdownable read. a Coens Brothers' film in book form." -- BookReview.com
“Extremely witty and clever writing.” -- California Chronicle
"A Party for your Brain!" -- Warren Baxter


Bio:
Graham Parke is responsible for a number of technical publications and has recently patented a self-folding map. He has been described as both a humanitarian and a pathological liar. Convincing evidence to support either allegation has yet to be produced.

www.grahamparke.com
www.grahamparke.blogspot.com
GoodReads
Facebook

5 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Well, who doesn't want to be more attractive?

Hart Johnson said...

But do you want to get LUCKY!?

Anonymous said...

I don't care about being more attractive. I'm married now. Seriously, good luck to Graham Parker!

Graham Parke said...

Thanks for hosting Hart, the post looks great. Currently working on improving my self-folding map and developing a means of mental teleportation. Next book should also be interesting ;)

Helena said...

Per usual, I'm so out of it that I'm only now reading this post. I love the humor in your writing, Graham, so I'm printing this post and will be checking it out when I'm ordering a couple more books (any day now when I get organized...)