JAMES SWALLOW

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2K19 Books

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My second annual year-end blog looks at my reading habits for 2019…

In 2019, I used the Reading Challenge counter on Goodreads to set myself a target of one book a week, and I made that with a solid margin (although a bunch were short audio books, so that might be cheating a little…) Science fiction titles won out over other genres, but thrillers were a close second, and I also got some good non-fiction reading in as well.

My top picks for the year were Eric Haseltine’s unexpectedly page-turning true life thriller The Spy in Moscow Station, Adam Hamdy’s Black 13 and Lightless by CA Higgins.

Half-Horn (Josh Reynolds), The Deserter (Justin D Hill), Expectatio (Matt Keefe), Skyjack (KJ Howe), Vox Tenebris (Robbie McNiven), Agent of the Throne: Blood and Lies (John French), The Heart of the Pharos (LJ Goulding), Children of Sicarius (Anthony Reynolds), Titan’s Bane (Chris Dows), The Geld (George Mann), Agent of the Throne: Truth and Dreams (French), Deadly Cargo (James Patterson with Will Jordan), The Way to the Stars (Una McCormack), Sea of Rust (C Robert Cargill), Learn WordPress In A Day (Acodemy), Sleeping Giants (Sylvain Neuvel), Waking Gods (Neuvel), Only Human (Neuvel), The Chain (Adrian McKinty), Buy a Bullet (Gregg Hurwitz), Unsold TV Pilots: The Greatest Shows You Never Saw (Lee Goldberg), The Little Book of Iron Man (Roy Thomas), Hot Wheels (Paul Biedrzycki), Reno 2: The National Championship Air Races (Mike Jerram), The Looting Machine (Tom Burgis), Why Johnny Can’t Speed (Alan Dean Foster), Hunted (Patterson with Andrew Holmes), The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein), The Janson Option (Paul Garrison), Killing It (Asia MacKay), Absolute Zero (Patterson with Ed Chatterton), Heist (Patterson with Rees Jones), Party Animals (David Aaronovitch), Boss Fight Books presents: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (Alex Kane), Lightless (CA Higgins), Cold Storage (David Koepp), The Undefeated (McCormack), High Rollers (Jack Bowman), Broken Dawn (Alex Irvine), The Spy in Moscow Station (Eric Haseltine), Alien Isolation (Keith RA DeCandido), To Kill The President (Sam Bourne), Star of the North (DB John), The Robert Ludlum Companion (Martin H Greenberg), The Man Who Stole The Cyprus (Warwick Hirst), The Nursery (MacKay), X-Planes: North American XB-70 Valkyrie (Peter E Davies), X-Planes: TSR 2 Britain’s Lost Cold War Strike Jet (Andrew Brookes), Black 13 (Adam Hamdy), Scorpion Strike (John Gilstrap), Red Strike (Chris Ryan), Cobalt Squadron (Elizabeth Wein), Sixteenth Watch (Myke Cole), Remember Me (Amy McLellan), False Value (Ben Aaronovitch), Deep State (Chris Hauty), Brothers in Blood (Amer Anwar), The Enterprise War (John Jackson Miller), The Beast Inside (Darius Hinks), Iron Devil (CL Werner), Heroes For Wargames (Stewart Parkinson), Alone (Joe Parrino), Guardians of the Whills (Greg Rucka), Spark of the Resistance (Justina Ireland), Alphabet Squadron (Alexander Freed)

The SHADOW Blog Tour (Compilation Edition!)

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Shadow paperback edition

My ten-day tour of book blogging sites to celebrate the paperback release of Shadow has reached its conclusion, and I wanted to say a big thank you to all those involved for hosting me and posting up some great reviews!

If you didn’t get an opportunity to follow the blog tour entries, look below for a collection of links…

Check out these great reviews of Shadow!

“An incredibly pacy, very well-written action thriller read…” – Books, Tea & Me

“A full-throttle, high-octane, action-packed thriller; I am now chomping at the bit to read more…” – The Book Magnet

“The plot is scarily believable…” – Ginger Book Geek

“A hard-hitting narrative that will leave you reeling…” – The Travelling Book Junkie

“Tension, fast paced action, and a plot that keeps you wondering and on the edge of your seat…” – Madeup Book Reviews

“A clever and compelling plot… Thoroughly entertaining…” – The Bookwormery

The blog tour also featured a few articles by me…

At BOOKSAREMYCWTCHES, I talk about what inspires me as a writer…

I talk more about inspiration with Pufflehuffle Kitteh…

At Sarah’s Vignettes, I discuss the soundtracks for my writing and for Shadow in particular…

I give some of my Top Book Choices for 2019 at Damppebbles.com…

And outside the Blog Tour, I also wrote a piece for the writing.ie site about “Telling Details”, and you can find that Here.

Much appreciation to Tracey Fenton, Lesley Budge, Jacq Frost, Cass, Amanda Oughton, Michelle Ryles, Emma Welton, Sarah Swan, Susan Corcoran, Tamason Gamble, Books Tea & Me, and Francesca at Bonnier Books!

For more details about Shadow, click Here – and to order a copy of the new paperback edition, click Here!

The SHADOW blog tour

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December is release month for the paperback edition of my 4th MarcDane novel Shadow from Bonnier Books, and I’m taking part in a virtual tour with a bunch of great book bloggers from today; check out the full list below…

The SHADOW Falls…

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This month, my fourth Marc Dane action thriller novel SHADOW arrives in a new paperback edition…

Shadow paperback edition

Marc and his partner – former US Delta Force sniper Lucy Keyes – are pitted against their most terrifying challenge yet, when a genius bio-researcher with the ability to create a deadly biological weapon is kidnapped by a ruthless terrorist.

Their desperate search for the missing scientist takes them across the world, from the desolate wilderness of Iceland to the slums of the Near East and the dark underbelly of a fracturing Europe, where they will discover a shocking atrocity in the making.

Backed by shadowy interests, a cadre of hard-line ultra-right-wing extremists plan to unleash a lethal virus among the population of a major European city.

For more details about SHADOW, check out the book page Here, and to pre-order a copy of the novel in paperback, go Here.

Daggers & Blood

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Some new grimdark fiction is on its way this month from the Black Library…

First up is the new trade paperback release of my latest Horus Heresy novel The Buried Dagger (already out in hardcover, eBook and audiobook editions); this is the “final” Horus Heresy volume (even if it’s not the end of the story). After an incredible 54 books, the bestselling series is finally drawing to a close with a long-awaited story – the fall of the Death Guard into Nurgle’s embrace as they make their way to start the Siege of Terra.

Horus Heresy The Buried Dagger cover

Visit Black Library’s website Here to order the paperback of The Buried Dagger, due out later this week…

Also on sale this month is On Wings of Blood, a Warhammer 40,000 anthology of stories with an “air war” theme. The collection is coming out alongside a new edition of the Aeronautica Imperialis tabletop miniatures game, and it features a dozen great stories – including my short fiction “Wings of Bone“.

“Wings of Bone” was my second piece of writing for Black Library and it hasn’t been back in print since its initial publication in Inferno! magazine fifteen years ago! I’m really pleased to see this one back out in the world for readers to enjoy – it’s my one and only pass at writing an Imperial Army story for the Warhammer universe.

As well as my story, the collection also includes “Medusan Wings” (Matt Westbrook), “Raptor Down” (Gav Thorpe), “Sturmhex” (E J Davies), “Wraithbound” (J C Stearns), “In Service Eternal” (Matt Smith), “Stormseeker” (Alec Worley), “The Emperor’s Grace” (Nicolas Alexander), “Wraithflight” (Guy Haley), “Doom Flight” (Cavan Scott), “Ancient History” (Andy Chambers) and “Acceptable Losses” (also by Gav Thorpe).

Visit Black Library Here to order the paperback of On Wings of Blood, due out later this month…

MARC DANE #5

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I’ve had a busy few months recently – I spent a fair bit of July in New York City for the big ThrillerFest XIV convention, where I got to rub shoulders with great thriller writers like John Sandford, Harlan Coben, Peter James, Brad Taylor, C.J. Carver, Mark Greaney and many more! I also took a moment to visit the amazing SpyScape museum – where I signed a few copies of the American Forge editions of my Marc Dane novels – and I recommend it to any thriller fans visiting the Big Apple.

Speaking of conventions, I’m also appearing and signing books at London’s Capital Crime at the end of September – I’ll be on a panel with Adam Hamdy, K.J. Howe and Chris Ryan, and you can learn more about that event right here. Tickets are selling out fast for what looks certain to be a blockbuster event, and I hope to see some of you there!

But of course, the thing that’s been taking up most of my time is my current writing project – the 5th Marc Dane novel! And so without further ado, I’d like to reveal the title and a brief synopsis…

Six months have passed since the events of SHADOW, when resourceful ex-MI6 field technician turned reluctant intelligence agent Marc Dane and his partner – former US Delta Force sniper Lucy Keyes – foiled the plans of right-wing terrorists to release a lethal bioweapon in Europe.

But in the aftermath, a dangerous group of global power brokers known as the Combine – a cabal of amoral billionaires who bank-roll extremist groups and manipulate the war on terror for their own ends – have turned their full attention to destroying Marc and his team. Dane and Keyes have thwarted their schemes for the last time, as the Combine launch an insidious plan to wipe them out once and for all.

After British agents are savagely murdered in Norway, in a brutal echo of Marc’s past, his MI6 mentor reveals a terrible truth as a face from the dead threatens to tear Dane’s world apart. As the Combine move to obliterate everything Marc and Lucy hold dear and turn the world against them, they are forced to become fugitives – hunted across the Mediterranean from the glitz and glamour of Monaco to the dust and fire of East Africa.

There, in a lawless warzone where long-buried secrets come to light and loyalties are tested to the limit, old enemies return and new foes strike in a deadly showdown that not everyone will survive…

Coming in Summer 2020, the new novel in the bestselling Marc Dane action thriller series…

I’ll be updating with more information in the months ahead about the paperback release of SHADOW and more details about ROGUE…

…Bur if you can’t wait to pre-order ROGUE, you can find it online at Amazon right here.