First Chapters: Spit by Carlie Simonsen

Spit is the first book in the On Patrol series by Carlie Simonsen.

Spit is following a group of Sneakers to see how they are getting into the Border Patrol supply depots, when he is captured—but not by Sneakers. Another group, one that has snake people and lizard centaurs working within its ranks has taken him captive. The question is: Are they friend or foe? Spit has no idea, but when they come across a base under attack from a large group of Sneakers, he has to find out.

Spit is the first book in the On Patrol series. Set in the near future, in a world on the edge of war, the series follows Spit and his people in their efforts to protect their homes and loved ones.

Spit is currently available on Smashwords, Amazon Kindle, Create Space, Nook, Kobo, and iTunes.

Spit

First Chapter: Sneakers

Spit watched the Sneakers through the swaying leaves. They all wore black. They all walked without making a sound.

He watched as they walked closer to the chain-mesh fence, ducking nearer to the ground as their leader looked carefully around. Spit did not want to be caught by the Sneakers, so far from his base.

The leader seemed to look too long at the trees where Spit was hiding. The leader wore a mask like a skull. It gleamed whitely in the half-dark of late afternoon.

Spit shivered. He wished he could stop looking at the Sneakers at the fence. He wished he could leave, but he knew he couldn’t. Spit had to find out how they were getting into the supply dump, and then he had to stop them.

The Sneakers’ leader turned back to the fence. Spit held his breath as the man took something shiny from his belt pouch. He squinted, trying to see what it was.

It was too dark and by the time Spit had lifted his binoculars to his eyes, the tool was back in the leader’s pouch. The binoculars still helped him see how the Sneakers rolled a portion of the fence back and clipped it they could pass through.

Once all the Sneakers were inside, the leader unclipped the fence and allowed it to drop back in place, then he led his team into the shadows between the sheds behind the fence. Spit watched as the fence sparked where the broken mesh touched.

Once, twice it sparked and then the sparking stopped.

Spit waited until the Sneakers had gone around one of the buildings behind the fence, before he slipped out of his hiding place. He had to follow to see what they did, and how they escaped.

When he reached the fence, he couldn’t see where the Sneakers had lifted the mesh. He ran his hands along the section of fence but could find no breaks.

That’s not possible, Spit thought, looking cautiously towards the sheds. When he saw no one there, he pulled a small torch out of his pocket. Maybe I’m not standing in the right place.

The torchlight seemed too bright in the dimness of the coming night. Spit looked towards the sheds once more. Still nothing moved. He turned his eyes to the ground.

The Sneakers’ tracks weren’t too hard to find. They stopped in front of the section of fence he had just looked at. Puzzled, Spit turned his torch to the fence itself.

After five minutes of looking at the mesh, he thought he could see where it had been cut but he couldn’t be sure. There were no breaks. The fence had mended itself!

Knowing, he couldn’t get in the same way as the Sneakers, Spit decided he’d just have to use the front gate. His identity card would get him past the guards there.

If there’s still a guard to get past, he thought. The Sneakers had killed the guards on all the other supply dumps they’d gotten into.

He broke into a run that took him along the fence line towards the front gate. If he was quick, he could warn the guards that the Sneakers were there. I hope I’m not too late.

Spit didn’t see the ghost-pale shadows that rose out of the bushes behind him. He didn’t hear their quiet footsteps as they followed him down the fence-line.

END FIRST CHAPTER

If you would like to read more, Spit is currently available on Smashwords, Amazon Kindle, Create Space, Nook, Kobo, and iTunes.

Two New Covers, Two New Releases: Carlie Simonsen, C.M. Simpson

Tag Man One

 Carlie Simonsen:

When Jerry sees something flash on a hill overlooking the air base where his brother works, he thinks it might be a bottle reflecting the sun. His brother takes a different view, and reports it to base security. They have not had time to investigate before the base is attacked, and Jerry must do his best to get his brother out alive.

Tag Man One is the first chapter book in the Air Ace Adventures series. Set on an imaginary air base, it tells part of the story of two brothers, who share a love of flying and look out for each other.

Tag Man One is available from Smashwords, Amazon-Kindle and CreateSpace and will be distributed from Nook, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and iTunes.

Gods in the Lianreida

 C.M. Simpson: 

When Larias, god of problem-solving and secrets, flies over the forbidden lands of the elves, he only hopes to discover what force is powerful enough to breach the elven magic protecting the forest. What he finds, instead, is a battle in which he is compelled to intervene, but, regardless of intent, when gods meddle in the realms of other gods, there is always a price to pay.

Gods in the Lianreida is a short story taken from Shadow’s Fall, the third novel in the Shadow series. It is currently available as a chapter in that novel or a stand-alone story, but will be eventually incorporated in An Anthology of Gods and Older Magic, and the collection, Short Stories and Poetry from 2013.

Gods in the Lianreida is available from Smashwords, Amazon-Kindle and CreateSpace and will be distributed from Nook, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and iTunes.

New Release: Spit by Carlie Simonsen

Spit is now live!

Spit is following a group of Sneakers to see how they are getting into the Border Patrol supply depots, when he is captured—but not by Sneakers. Another group, one that has snake people and lizard centaurs working within its ranks has taken him captive. The question is: Are they friend or foe? Spit has no idea, but when they come across a base under attack from a large group of Sneakers, he has to find out.

Spit is the first book in the On Patrol series. Set in the near future, in a world on the edge of war, the series follows Spit and his people in their efforts to protect their homes and loved ones.

Spit is currently available on Smashwords, Amazon Kindle, Create Space, Nook, Kobo, and iTunes.

New Cover: Spit by Carlie Simonsen

E-book cover for Spit

Spit is following a group of Sneakers to see how they are getting into the Border Patrol supply depots, when he is captured—but not by Sneakers. Another group, one that has snake people and lizard centaurs working within its ranks has taken him captive. The question is: Are they friend or foe? Spit has no idea, but when they come across a base under attack from a large group of Sneakers, he has to find out.

Spit is the first book in the On Patrol series. Set in the near future, in a world on the edge of war, the series follows Spit and his people in their efforts to protect their homes and loved ones.

Spit is currently available on Smashwords, Amazon Kindle, Create Space, Nook, Kobo, and iTunes.

The cover for the print-on-demand version is slightly different:

Print-on-Demand cover for Spit

 

First Chapters: Rocky to the Rescue by Carlie Simonsen

Here is the first chapter for Rocky to the Rescue.

When Rocky wakes up one morning, he discovers his house is deserted. With his mother, father and little sister nowhere to be found in-doors, he goes outside and discovers the animals are missing, too. When aliens arrive, Rocky realises that something has gone horribly wrong. Stowing away in the alien skimmer, Rocky sets out on his first and most important rescue mission, ever.

Carlie Simonsen’s Rocky to the Rescue is set on a station in the Australian outback, where help is often a long, long way away and the people must rely on themselves and each other. Twelve-year-old Rocky must either track down his family and take on alien invaders, or travel fifty miles to ask a neighbor for help. Well, what would any twelve-year-old do if they were in his shoes?

Rocky to the Rescue is available from Smashwords, and will soon be available from Amazon-Kindle, CreateSpace, Kobo, iTunes, and Nook.

Rocky to the Rescue

First Chapter: Rocky on his Own

Rocky woke to find the house empty.

There was no one walking in the hall or cooking breakfast in the kitchen. No noisy stockmen on motorbikes outside the window. No one whistling to the dogs.

He took two biscuits from the pantry and wondered where everyone was.

Maybe aliens had come in the night and taken everyone away. Maybe they hadn’t found him because he had been sleeping under his bed. He’d been pretending to be a famous explorer sleeping in a cave.

Or maybe a bunyip had come and taken his baby sister and everyone had gone out looking for it so they could get her back. Anything could have happened. Rocky knew he would have to be careful.

He knew he had to find and rescue everyone who had disappeared. He sat in the pantry and thought.

If he was going to find his mum and dad, he would need a few supplies. He packed some lunch and took two bottles of water.

It was summer and there wasn’t much water in the dams. There wasn’t any water in the river bed that ran past the house. Rocky made sure the two bottles were full. He thought about a third, but didn’t have anywhere to put it.

Next, he looked through the sheds and the school house and his teacher’s caravan. He still didn’t find anyone. He didn’t find any of the animals, either.

The dogs weren’t tied to their kennels. The horses weren’t in their yard, and he couldn’t see a single sheep anywhere. He couldn’t even find the cat.

“Something really strange is going on around here,” Rocky muttered to himself as he began walking back to the house.

He had just reached the back of the motorbike shed when he heard the sound of a car. He nearly ran out to see who it was, but then he remembered—something strange was going on.

He slipped through his secret door at the back of the shed and hid behind his dad’s work bench.

The car came closer to the house. It was the strangest sounding car Rocky had ever heard. Sneaking to the front of the shed, he peered out.

It wasn’t a car. It was a skimmer. Rocky had read about them in books.

His mum and dad said the books weren’t true. They said no one had built spaceships except to go to the moon. They said no one landed on other planets. They said there was no such thing as a skimmer.

Rocky hadn’t believed them. They didn’t know everything. He wished they could see the skimmer. They would have had to believe him then.

The door to the skimmer opened, and Rocky wished he was still under his dad’s work bench. The people inside the skimmer weren’t people at all.

END FIRST CHAPTER

 

If you would like to read more, Rocky to the Rescue is available from Smashwords, and will soon be available from Amazon-Kindle, CreateSpace, Kobo, iTunes, and Nook.