Enter the Rafflecopter to win your choice of a Kindle Fire, Nook HD, or Kobo Glo, as well as signed books and audiobooks in the Home for Halloween giveaway from author Scott Nicholson.
The giveaway celebrates the launch of paranormal thriller The Home. Experiments at a group home for troubled children lead to paranormal activity—and the ghosts are from the home’s dark past as an insane asylum. In development as a feature, it’s available in ebook at Amazon US, Amazon UK, BN.com, Kobo, and Smashwords.
Synopsis:
When twelve-year-old Freeman Mills arrives at Wendover, a group home for troubled children, it’s a chance for a fresh start. But second chances aren’t easy for Freeman, the victim of painful childhood experiments that gave him the ability to read other people’s minds.
At Wendover, Freeman and the other children are subjected to more secret experiments, organized by a shadowy organization called The Trust. But the experiments do more than open up clairvoyant powers–the electromagnetic fields used in the experiments are summoning the ghosts of the patients who died at Wendover back when it was a psychiatric ward.
Now a new scientist has been brought into the project, an unstable and cruel pioneer in ESP studies who performed most of his work on a very special subject: his son, Freeman Mills.
About Scott
Scott Nicholson is the international best-selling author of The Red Church, Liquid Fear, Creative Spirit, Speed Dating with the Dead, Drummer Boy and
more. Learn more about his work at www.hauntedcomputer.com. This is Scott’s preferred, DRM-free edition of the 2005 U.S. paperback.
“Scott Nicholson knows the territory. Follow him at your own risk.” –Stewart O’Nan, A Face in the Crowd
“Always surprises and always entertains.” –Jonathan Maberry, Patient Zero
“Scott Nicholson understands that the best horror novels achieve primal fear through a combination of sustained atmosphere, richly drawn characters, and believable if uncanny evils that draw unholy power from everyday lives.”—Christopher Ransom, The Birthing House
“Keep both hands on your pants, because Nicholson is about to scare them off.”–J.A. Konrath, Origin
EXCERPT: THE HOME
By Scott Nicholson
(From Chapter7)
Freeman ended up in line behind the skeletal blonde. He wasn’t sure if he’d slowed his pace to arrange the encounter or if it was coincidence. Her hair hung halfway to her waist and looked so soft it was almost translucent against her baggy black shirt. Freeman stared straight ahead, hoping she didn’t turn around and speak to him.
She scraped her plate into the garbage can. It was obvious she had stirred her food but had eaten nothing.
One of the counselors came over, a man in a vee-necked sweater and carefully-trimmed mustache. “How was your dinner, Vicky?”
“Fine, Allen,” she said.
“Looks like you had a big appetite tonight.” Not a hint of sarcasm.
“It was yummy.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “We’ll have you up to fighting weight in no time.”
Allen left and Vicky brushed her hand across the spot he had touched, as if ridding herself of cobwebs. Freeman couldn’t believe she had fooled the counselor so completely. Either she was smart, or Allen was stone dumb. Or maybe a little of both.
Freeman put his tray in the window slot. A conveyor belt carried the dirty dishes into the mysterious depths of the dishwasher’s room. The churning of water and the hum of rubber belts reverberated inside the little space. Freeman stuck his head in to see if an actual human being did the work or if the system was automated like something out of “The Jetsons” cartoons.
Standing beside a large rack of glasses was the strange old guy Freeman had seen shuffling down the hall earlier. Maybe he was a janitor after all. No, not a janitor. Custodian. Everybody got a special name for their jobs these days so they could feel good about themselves.
The man didn’t take any notice of Freeman. He probably saw dozens of kids come and go, change placements, rejoin their families, or have the juvenile justice system finally catch up with them. The man’s blank eyes were undoubtedly a gift of evolution, a survival mechanism. The less you see, the less you know. The less you know, the better off you are.
Sounded like a pretty good philosophy.
If the game was to be invisible, then the man in the dirty gown was a master.
Freeman tossed his fork into a pan of soapy water, then turned and found himself face-to-face with Vicky.
“By the way,” she said. “You didn’t accidentally read my mind. I read yours.”
She walked away, joining the herd of kids gathering to go outside. Her next words slipped inside Freeman’s skull without the benefit of sound: You’re not the only one who’s special.
THE GIVEAWAY!!!
(Click the link below to go to the entry form)
Awesome Mr. Nicholson!
Yeah…we like Scott, he’s a good egg 🙂
Thanks for posting, Misty!
Of course!