The Devil in the Detail
“The Devil in the Detail,” is a
paranormal erotica tale about a man’s one-night-stand with a succubus that goes
the way neither has planned. I promise you, it’s not your standard “guy meets
succubus-succubus seduces guy-guy has best sex ever with succubus-guy realizes
too late it will cost him his soul-and finally, of course, succubus steals
guy’s soul.” If you want a sexy, seductive succubus story that ends differently
than 99.9% of the others, I promise you won’t be disappointed and you won’t see
what’s coming.
When I released this book, I had no
idea what I was doing. I had no takeover, no PA, no pre-media blitz with
teasers or trailers. Hell, at that time, a trailer was something I had once lived
in. I just posted it on Smashwords and Kindle and then hoped for the best.
Luckily, before I released my second book, I was destined to meet a lot of
wonderful people who would help me tremendously, chief among them my PA, Tania
Fitzgerald. I still have a lot to learn, but I’m learning from good folks now
and that’s what counts.
Like A Fox on the Run
On August 24th of that same
year, I released my first full-length novel, “Like A Fox on the Run,” a sci-fi/ fantasy adventure that is a bit
out of the norm, but a tale that fuses many genres into one action-packed
story.
I grew up in the days of Battlestar
Galactica, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc, so the space western/ opera has always
been a love of mine! I like to describe it as “Buck Rogers meets the Dukes of
Hazzard!” This book incorporates many different elements from a number of
genres: Science fiction/ Fantasy/ Romance/ Dystopian Future/ Erotica/
Adventure/ Space Western and much more! I think it has something for everyone
to enjoy!
In the fall of this year, both books,
“The Devil” and “Fox” won New Apple official selection awards for 2018 in the
literary erotic and sci-fi categories.
A Time Apart
Last
September I released my second novella, “A
Time Apart,” a time travel romance that was rated #36 of the Top 50 Indie Romance
Books of 2018 on the readfree.ly website. While it is a sci-fi fantasy in
genre, it is first and foremost, a romance, and a bittersweet one at that. It
is a bit of a departure for me from the wild and lusty “Devil” and the adventurous romp of “Fox,” but it was one that came from the heart and will always be a
special book for me.
Tales from the Naughty List Vol II: Christmas Party Confidential
This past
December, I released my second annual Christmas story, “Tales from the Naughty List Vol II: Christmas Party Confidential.” Christmas
is my favorite time of the year and I’m a firm believer that the holiday season
should be fun … in every way possible!
Presently,
I’m in the process of releasing my second full-length novel, “Southern Born, Southern Bled,” my second
foray into the PNR genre. We’re looking at probably April, if things go well. I
don’t want to give away too much about the book right now, but you should start
seeing some teasers coming out next month.
People ask me
what the hardest thing about writing is, and I tell them that’s and easy one to
answer: Finding time to write. When you work a full-time job that requires a
good bit of overtime, juggle family obligations and then throw in all the
peripheral chores an indie author has to do, it’s amazing we sometimes get
anything written. After all, we have no large publishing company’s marketing
department or sales staff working for us. If we, our PA’s and our devoted fans
who do it because they love our work don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. I thank
God for those who believe in me enough to put in a few minutes every day to
promote my books and my name. It’s those folks that make this all worthwhile.
It’s been a
whirlwind of a couple of years. There’s been up and downs, but I wouldn’t trade
it for anything. I’ve met some good people and I’ve learned a lot about myself
along the way. I’d like to think I haven’t changed all that much. Whether
that’s good or bad, I’ll leave to your individual interpretation. I have no
illusions about this. I don’t do it for fame or fortune. I do it because I
enjoy it. I still work for a living. I’m a second-generation union man and a
third-generation Democrat and I still have to wash my hands at the end of my
shift. I’m not one of the “beautiful” people and I wouldn’t be if I could. I
wanna be me and I wanna always be a down-to-earth guy who knows his readers on
a first name basis and can carry on a conversation with them about anything
they wanna talk about and not sound fake and contrived doing it. Because
without my readers, I’m just wasting my time.
About J
Morgan Woodall
I’m J. Morgan Woodall, and I’m an author of
adult sci-fi and fantasy. Reading has been my life. Books have been my passion,
my escape and now, as a writer, my outlet for the stories, thoughts and dreams
that have filled my head since childhood. Like a valve on a high-pressure steam
line, I now have a way to release upon the world the stories, tales and
characters that populate my imagination. Some talk about missing the good ol’
days, but for me, these are wonderful times.
My story began, as they say … a long time ago,
in a world, far, far away in a city not always remembered as a shining example
of brotherly love and tolerance. I was born and raised in the Birmingham,
Alabama area, and it’s here I’ve lived my entire life. In those days,
Birmingham was known as the “Pittsburgh of the South.” Iron, coal and steel
ruled, and the city was a polluted little burg of factories, foundries and steel
mills, their smokestacks filling the sky with the toxins of industry. It was
here my father, a poor sharecropper’s son from the cotton fields of southern
Tennessee, came to find steady work and good pay. He got himself a union job
and he fell in love with a city gal. Not long after, he and mom settled down
and started the consummate middle-class family.
I grew up in a small community about thirty
miles out of Birmingham that wasn’t even on the map when I lived there. Yet,
there was always a strong sense of community. There was no internet and you
didn’t talk to people a thousand miles away or halfway across the world. The
world seemed so much bigger then and far more impersonal. The only people you
knew were the people you grew up with, went to church with, saw at the store or
lived down your road. No matter what kind of season the football team was
having, the home stands were always full. Looking back, it wasn’t about
football. It was the only chance for the whole community to come together as
one.
I am happy to say my childhood was drearily
normal. I wasn’t abused, molested or otherwise maligned. My parents loved me
and supported me. I wasn’t a delinquent. I never did jail time and I never
killed anybody. I was raised up Southern Baptist and Southern Democrat. In those
days, family came first. I was taught that a real man paid his bills first
before any frivolity, provided for his family and put food on the table; that
there was nothing wrong with getting your hands dirty doing a hard-day’s work
and that a piece of paper didn’t necessarily make someone smarter that you.
Sadly, those days are gone forever. The little
town I grew up in that had two gas stations and a school that you started in
kindergarten and graduated under the same roof now has a Burger King, a Subway,
a bank and a Dollar General. The steel mills of Birmingham have long since shut
down, the coal mines played out, the factories shuttered and those good-paying
union jobs shipped overseas to slave labor so we can save a nickel on a shirt.
Once-safe neighborhoods are now drug-infested war-zones. Change, they say, is
inevitable. Change, my friend, isn’t always progress.
As for me, I guess I turned out ok. I am
married to my junior high sweetheart and live with her two teenagers and a pit/
lab rescue appropriately named Hulk. I have an adult daughter and two
grandyounguns from a previous marriage. We live in the ‘burbs with the
“beautiful people” who put stick figures on the back of their SUV’s, watch Fox
News and spoil their kids. My brother now calls me “citified” and sadly, I
think he may be correct. Still, I take pride I don’t have a stick family on my
pickup truck. You gotta draw the line somewhere.
One thing that has never changed is the love
for reading I developed from virtually the first time I read “Dick and Jane.”
My love for reading may be the one true constant of my life. I’m a bit OCD when
it comes to reading. If I get on one subject, I will read everything I can
about it until something else catches my eye. Before Google, Wikipedia and the
internet, all I had was a set of World Book encyclopedias and a library card. I
wore out both.
So, what do I enjoy reading? Anything. I’m the
guy who actually reads the pre-flight safety instructions just to read. As far
as books, I like true crime, westerns, sci-fi, military and alternate history
fiction. I love history and believe in the old adage about those failing to
learn from it … I consider myself a bit of an expert on the Civil War, but I’m
fascinated with other periods of history, as well. I’m a nostalgia buff, as I
get older, I tend to long for the good ol’ days as I slowly turn into my Dad,
but don’t we all? Seriously, I do love old stuff, especially early twentieth
century knick-knacks and doo-dads. I am an avid collector of pottery and glass,
pocket knives and flashlights and firefighter and railroad memorabilia. But my
greatest weakness is cookie jars. I lost count at one hundred and have slowed
down drastically as I have run of out space.
I’ve wanted to be a writer as long as I can
remember. Sometimes, I tell people I’m more a storyteller than a writer,
something that is considered an art in its own right here in the South. I’ve
always had a head full of stories, even when I was back in my school days,
drawing crude comic strips and scribbling short stories in my notebook in the
back of the class. In fact, my dream was to be an artist, creating fantasy
scenes like the masters, Vallejo and Sorayama or doing covers for Heavy Metal
magazine. But I was pretty average as an artist and I saw quickly there was no
future there. I thought I had potential as a writer, maybe, but I never pursued
it as a career. Real life has a way of rearranging your priorities when bills
start coming in, your daughter needs diapers, and your wife wants a house. Alas,
those fanciful dreams of youth are the first things that get kicked to the
curb.
Years later, with kids grown, my
financial situation more secure and with the advent of self-publishing, I
decided to give my writing another shot. In February of 2017, I released my
debut book, “The Devil in the Detail,”
a short story/ novella (depending on whose word count rules you go by).
Please visit
my webpage at:
Feel free to
join my Facebook reader’s group, The Rocket City Café:
On MeWe, you
can join my readers group at:
Below is a
list of some of my other links:
Amazon Author Page:
Please click on the “follow” link to keep up with my latest happenings!
Twitter: @WoodallBooks
Email: booksbyjmw@gmail.com
Like A Fox on the Run
Page:
The Devil in the Detail
Page:
Interview With J. Morgan Woodall:
1. Can you tell us a little about your books?
I’m an adult fantasy
writer. The biggest difference in my work is I’m an adult fantasy writer who’s
also a good ol’ Southern boy and that’s probably a bit out of the norm, but I
write what I enjoy. So far, I’ve written about devils and angels, sexy
anthropomorphic vixens, swashbuckling space pilots, also even time travel and
naughty Santa Clauses. And the common thread through all my stories are the
Southern flavor. I’d like to think they have a unique charm to them. I don’t
try to overpower my reader and make their heads swoon with a lot of bullcrap
just to let them know I’m smarter than they are and I certainly don’t try to
insult their intelligence. I don’t like when authors do that to me. Today’s
readers are smarter than that. I want my characters to be relatable, human and
fallible. I think people identify very easily with these much more than they do
with some stereotypical protagonist who gets blown up, shot and falls from a
skyscraper and never even gets a smudge on his face.
2. What inspires you to write?
Any number of things.
Things that happen to me in every day, mundane life can inspire fantasies. For
instance, “A Time Apart” was inspired by a vacation to the beach. We had a day
or two of rain, and I thought, “Damn, it would suck to spend your whole
vacation stuck in a house all cooped up with nothing to do!” And it kinda
snowballed from there. “Like A Fox …” was inspired by Japanese anime and the
classic TV space series “Firefly” and from a song. I’ve been inspired to write
from dreams I’ve had. A lot of what I write are from ideas and stories left
over from teen years.
3. How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?
I have, to date,
published two novellas, “The Devil in the Detail” and “A Time Apart” and one
full-length novel, “Like a Fox on the Run.” I’ve also published some
Christmas-themed short stories. Now, notice I said published. I have other
works that haven’t seen the light of day yet.
My favorite so far,
probably no surprise to anyone who knows me, would be “Like A Fox on the Run.”
I think it’s my most comprehensive book, offering something for everyone. It
has everything in it. Romance. Adventure. Fantasy. Science Fiction. Humor. And
of course, sex. Lots of that. But seriously, I was really proud of how it all
came together and turned out. Also, I must give credit where its due. Kaye
Blanchard did a masterful job of editing it.
4. Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?
I have a full-time job,
so I write when I can. It’s never easy, especially when you throw in family
obligations. Most of the time I write in the evenings and weekends. Sometimes
I’ll even write on my lunch hour.
5. Do you have a favorite spot to write?
My office. I’m old
school. I like my PC and a desk, my big high back office chair and a widescreen
monitor where I can open windows, write and research with ease. I don’t like to
write on my phone or a laptop. I have big thumbs and they’re not all that
flexible.
6. If someone who hasn't read any of you books yet, which one would
you suggest they read first?
I’d suggest starting at
the beginning with “The Devil in the Detail.” If you like that one, I think
you’ll like pretty much anything I’ve written. It also gives you a chance to
see how I’ve evolved through the years. “A Time Apart” is a far cry from
“Devil.” It’s more of a romantic, heartstrings puller, very different from my
other books, but I like that. I don’t want to churn out the “same ol’ same ol’”
over and over. I like to give my readers a little something different and new
each time.
7. If you could spend 24 hours as a fictional character, who would
you chose?
Tiger Thomas, from “Like
a Fox on the Run.” He’s an adventurer, albeit a very human one. He’s not
perfect, he’s quite flawed, and a bit of an enigma sometimes. But that’s what
gives him character. He’s courageous to the point of foolhardy. He gets
flustered sometimes. He isn’t always the calmest and coolest. Women are a
weakness for him, but there’s only one he’ll ever truly love, and deep down,
he’s a hopeless romantic. But most of all, he fights the fights that no one
else will. He hates bullies, whether it be faceless corporations or cruel
criminal thugs. He’ll fight for a cause even when it’s lost, not for money or
notoriety, but simply because someone has to.
8. What writing projects are you currently working on?
Right now, I’m in the
process of editing my second full-length novel, “Southern Born, Southern Bled,”
which I hope to release this spring. Actually, it’s the first book I ever wrote
from years back and I’ve always had a soft spot for it. After a year or so of
debating with myself, I decided to go back and revamp it. Now I’m going to kick
it out of the nest and see if it’ll fly. I didn’t realize how much work it
needed. I don’t consider myself much of an author now, but I was really green
back then. So, I guess we’ll see.
Also, I’m working on
finishing the sequel to “Fox” which is entitled, “Rocket City Blues,” which
will continue the adventures of Tiger, Amber and company. I’m hoping to have it
out by then end of the year or the first of ’20. But I can’t make any promises.
Always seems something comes up that makes me a liar, so don’t hold me to it,
folks!
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