Exclusive Extract from my new Novel: ‘I am just going Outside…’

 

Your A.J. Kirby Advent Calendar: What’s Behind Door Number Twenty-Four?

It’s Christmas Eve, and behind door twenty-four, we’ve another treat for you. The tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve goes way back. Today, if you’d like, I have a free ghost story for you to read around the fire. But be warned. This isn’t an easy read or listen. Hangingstone is available as a free ebook download from Amazon from today (for the next five days) and if you’d like to download it, please go here. Alternatively, if you’d like to part with a little cash for your treat this Christmas Eve, you might be interested in another of my ghostly tales, the recently released Deafening, which you can read as an ebook or print novella by going here.

ABOUT HANGINGSTONE

‘Hangingstone’ is a supernatural tale of madness, motherhood, and revenge.

Set on the wild Yorkshire moorland near Ilkley, it is the story of one mother’s desperate attempts to reconcile herself with the (ghostly) child who was taken from her many years ago.

Hangingstone Rocks are two monoliths of millstone grit which look out upon the seemingly idyllic town of Ilkley, a place which has stored up a wealth of terrible memories, particularly in its treatment of our less than fortunate mother, who returns to the rocks again and again in order to try and find a way back into the past, to the moment her child was taken away from her.

By the Amazon top-selling dark fiction author of ‘Bully’, ‘Sharkways’, ‘Paint this town Red’, ‘The Black Book’, and ‘The Haunting of Annie Nicol’.

Your A.J. Kirby Advent Calendar: What’s Behind Door Number Twenty-Three?

Behind door number twenty-three, my publishers White House Press have another freebie treat in store for you: they’ve given me the details to pass on regarding a free promo for another of the writers in their stable, Andy Jacobi, who won their First Novel Award in 2014 for this brilliant novel, Kidney Punch. You can download the free ebook by following this link.

ABOUT THE BOOK

***WINNER OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2014***

Shane Jackett is a fighter, born and bred.
He’s had to fight for everything, all his life.
It is all he knows how to do.

But when his family is threatened to be torn apart for a second time, Shane faces a terrible choice.

Unflinching in its honesty, and often brutal in its outlook, ‘Kidney Punch’ is the story of Shane’s coming to terms with his own masculinity in a world where there are a severe lack of adequate role models.

It’s a story about men escaping from responsibility, through drinking, fighting, running away.

It’s about trying to do the right thing when things get so bad it is not even clear what the right thing is.

This is the first novel by North-West England-based author, ANDY JACOBI, and it is already garnering high-praise from critics.

Your A.J. Kirby Advent Calendar: What’s Behind Door Number Twenty-Two?

Behind door number twenty-two is my sinister short story ‘Death by Insurance Salesman’, which appeared in Sein und Werden magazine’s Not Quite Human issue. You can read the story by following this link.

Your A.J. Kirby Advent Calendar: What’s Behind Door Number Twenty-One?

There’s another free fiction short behind door number twenty-one in your A.J. Kirby advent calendar. Follow this link to read (for free) my short ‘Behind the scenes at the London tour’, which was published by Wordland magazine.

Your A.J. Kirby Advent Calendar: What’s Behind Door Number Twenty?

Behind door number twenty is another FREE EBOOK. Today’s offering is my novella, The Gavel, and it will be available on Amazon FOR FREE until Christmas Eve (Christmas Eve!) Find it by following this link.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

White-collar crime has never had such devastating consequences…

Ian Hopewell is in the dock. He is the face of corporate greed and he stands accused of contributing to the global financial crisis because of his fast and loose investment policies.

But this isn’t an ordinary court. This court is marsupial and likes bouncing across the Australian outback on two spring-like legs. And Farmer Bray is no ordinary judge. No, he’s full of Old Testament rage at men like Hopewell. ‘In my experience,’ he says, ‘those who beg for mercy seldom deserve it.’

But does Ian Hopewell deserve his cruel fate, which is sealed the moment Bray cracks the gavel down in righteous judgement? This chilling fable explores the case through Hopewell’s eyes, examining some of the crucial decisions which lead him to the end of the road and the brutal vengeance which will be meted out to him by Bray and his sons.

AJ Kirby is the author of the novels ”Perfect World’, When Elephants Walk Through The Gorbals’, ‘Sharkways’, ‘Paint This Town Red’, ‘Bully’, and ‘The Magpie Trap’. He lives in Leeds, UK, with his partner Heidi, and son Leon.

Your A.J. Kirby Advent Calendar: What’s Behind Door Number Nineteen?

Behind door number nineteen is another FREE story for you. This one’s a flash fiction entitled ‘The Editor’, which was published to mark National Short Story Day in Flash Flood magazine. You can read the story for free here.

Your A.J. Kirby Advent Calendar: What’s Behind Door Number Eighteen?

Behind door number eighteen is another FREE ebook download. We’re on a roll here. Today’s offering is the sinister novella, The Policy of Truth, which you can download FOR FREE from Amazon from today, up until December 22nd. Go here to get your hands on the book.

ABOUT THE BOOK

“In my line of work you kind of get to know other people’s stories. I used to call it ‘the osmosis of carrying the sack’. I’m the mailman and I carry your secrets.

Once you get down to the brass-tacks of it, life behind the hedges and up the garden paths of brassy north east Leeds resembles a soap opera. And where there is brass there is indeed muck.

I can’t resist riffling out a few letters every day. I take them home, steam them open, get comfy in my chair and then feast on the truth of them.”

But what happens when the truth occurs a little closer to home? What happens when you find out a terrible secret which could tear a family apart?

What happens when the truth becomes too much to bear?

A.J. Kirby’s ‘The Policy of Truth’ is a dark, disturbed masterpiece of a short story. Compellingly told through a highly unreliable narrator, the tale examines the wounds left behind when the band-aid of secrecy is yanked off and the awful truth is revealed.

Your A.J. Kirby Advent Calendar: What’s Behind Door Number Seventeen?

Behind door number seventeen is another FREE short story. Today’s offering is ‘The Kings of the Swingers’ which was published in Roar and Thunder magazine. To read the story, please follow this link.

Your A.J. Kirby Advent Calendar: What’s Behind Door Number Sixteen?

There’s another mega surprise behind door number sixteen: another FREE A.J. Kirby ebook. Today’s special is Things Won’t Fix, which was first published in 2015. You can download your FREE copy of the book by following this link. The free promo will be active from 16th-20th December.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Kirstie Smith’s nickname is Kirst, and she believes she is cursed. She’s lost her boyfriend, her job, her self-esteem. She’s in danger of losing her house too.
It all goes back to one bad mistake she’s made. A mistake which has the potential to change her whole life. She believes she’s been somehow chosen to become a kind of magnet to which all the bad stuff in life can get attracted.

Alex Chase also has an apt name. He’s chasing seemingly unattainable dreams, on the hunt for fame at any price. He too thinks he’s been chosen, only, for a very different fate.
But Alex’s luck is running out, he’s starting to get found out. And, more worryingly, he’s being chased by a mysterious bald man in a charcoal suit, a man who has something very important to tell him.

Things Won’t Fix is a black comedy novel which lays bare the world of work in this difficult financial climate.
It also examines how human relationships fare when they are squeezed by so many outside influences.
As Alex and Kirstie’s lives weave and dance around each other, will they be able to escape?
And will it be together?

The novel is very readable and quirky, containing a strong sense of intrigue right from the start, with close attention paid to pace. The contrast between Kirstie’s desperation and Alex’s laid-back attitude is the crux of the novel, and their character arcs inform the narrative.
However, this is more than just a tale of two halves however. In a way, it is a character study of a modern city in recession. It’s a State of the City novel.

AJ Kirby is the author of ‘Perfect World’, ‘When Elephants Walk Through The Gorbals’, ‘Bully’, and ‘The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters’.