As You Wish Reviews: Promotional Event ~ Sliding Beneath the Surface by Doug Dillon ~ Free

Book Title: Sliding Beneath the Surface (Book 1)
The St. Augustine Trilogy
Author: Doug Dillon
Release Date: August 24, 2011
Print Length: 166 Pages
Genre: YA Paranormal
Presented by: As You Wish Tours

Hello St. Augustine Fans! Let’s not forget the YA Paranormal Fans!

For three days, the Kindle version for Sliding Beneath the Surface will be available FOR FREE on Amazon.com—a special promotion. Those days are Today (May 3rd), May 4th and 5th. Spread the word and tell everyone you know about this wonderful opportunity. This is also a final chance for anyone who has not yet entered the Puzzle Ball Contest to do so. “Buying” one of these free books on Amazon will count for one half of the contest requirements. All you would then have to do for the other half of the contest requirements is to write a quick review on Amazon.com before the contest ends on May 10. Yes, this gives you only 8 days to purchase (for free), read & review before the contest ends. You’ll find the rules to the contest and more here: About the Contest / What’s going on here?

You may Enter the Contest Here

BRIEF SYNOPSIS

In old St. Augustine, Florida, fifteen-year-old Jeff Golden’s recurring dream of being stabbed in the chest and bleeding all over his bed is driving him crazy. It’s causing him to lose sleep and giving him severe headaches. When his psychically gifted friend Carla and an ornery Native American shaman named Lobo try to help, Jeff is inundated with terrifying paranormal experiences.

Reaching out of Florida’s distant past, something increasingly entangles Jeff in tentacles of danger that threaten his sanity and eventually his life. But the harder he tries to understand, the deeper he gets. When comprehension finally dawns though, time has almost run out. Lobo does his best to prepare Jeff for what he must face in order to survive but it may be too little and too late.
It’s at this point that both Jeff and Carla find themselves swept headlong into an alternative reality from which they may never return. If they don’t quickly and fully adapt to this situation, all hope is lost. From Lobo they know how it might be possible to change what is happening but the question is, can they? Repeatedly, Lobo has told both teens, “You create your own reality whether in this world or in another.” If acted upon properly, that advice just might save their lives and end suffering on an even wider scale.

BLURB

A new resident of America's oldest and most haunted city, St. Augustine, Florida, fifteen-year-old Jeff Golden suddenly finds himself up to his eyeballs in frightening paranormal experiences. At the end of his rope in trying to figure out what is happening to him, Jeff decides to rely on his friend Carla Rodriguez, and Lobo, an old Native American shaman, for help.

Despite this guidance, things get even worse. Jeff's spine tingling encounters increase in number and intensity at an alarming rate, scaring him even more. Eventually, he makes the startling discovery that unresolved circumstances involving a bloody event directly out of Florida's distant past threatens his sanity and possibly his life.

Finally, overwhelmed by forces he cannot understand or control, Jeff's world shifts from frightening to downright terrifying. In desperation, and on Lobo's advice, he leaps headlong into the unknown in order to save himself. What Jeff discovers though is that he has entered a level of reality he is completely unprepared to handle while unwittingly dragging Carla with him.

Like all the books in THE ST. AUGUSTINE TRILOGY, the premise for Sliding Beneath the Surface is simply this: You create your own reality.

EXCERPT

“So tell me about this dream,“ Lobo said to me in his rumbling voice as he sat back down in his chair.

“Dream?“ Neither Carla nor I had mentioned my dream yet. If anybody else had brought me there besides Carla, I would have sworn that person had already talked to Lobo about my problem.

“Am I not speaking clearly enough for you?“ The man replied with this sour look on his face.

“Yes, your dream.“

“Uh … OK. My dream. Well, for the past three nights I‘ve been waking up with a horrible pain in my chest like something has stuck me hard while I‘m sleeping. When I sit up and look down, my bed is glowing and there‘s something long and pointy coming up out of the mattress trying to get me. Blood is everywhere, all over my chest, my stomach, my sheets and on the pointy thing. It's all so real, like it‘s actually happening. Then when I jump out of bed and turn the ceiling light on, it all goes away, but my chest still hurts. I still feel like I‘ve just been stabbed. I‘m telling you, it scares the crap out of me.“ I hadn‘t planned on saying that last part. It just popped out.

Lobo grunted and looked all around me in his weird way, his unblinking gaze all fiery.

Everybody blinks, right? Not him. I‘m telling you, it felt really odd to be talking to somebody who keeps his eyes constantly open. Shifting his attention away from me, he put his water bottle down on the coffee table, got up and went to the display case I had touched earlier, the one with all the weapons. As I watched him, for the first time I noticed the circular display case over the fireplace held a huge collection of arrowheads, spearheads and stone knives. I wondered if they were Seminole. “Come over here,“ he said, his words a rumbling command. I could feel my stomach twist the way it does when adults try to boss me around, but I resisted the temptation to say something back.

When I got to the case, he asked, “That something sharp coming out of your mattress look like any of the objects in here?“ He squinted as if he somehow wanted to see the answer within me as much as hear it. I guess by then I was a little paranoid about the possibility of him being able to get inside my head. After what I had experienced while standing there before, I wasn‘t sure I wanted to look, but I did. As I searched, my headache intensified, making me wince, but even so, my eyes stayed glued to this one item.

About the Author
A former award winning educator, Doug writes about things paranormal and historical. His interest in the paranormal comes from personal experiences as detailed in the nonfiction adult book he and wife wrote titled, An Explosion of Being: An American Family's Journey into the Psychic. Out of those events and extensive historical research, he then created Sliding Beneath the Surface for young adults, Book I of the St. Augustine Trilogy. Doug set his trilogy in the oldest and most haunted city in the United States, St. Augustine, Florida. Books II and III of the trilogy are on the way.