The Deading Makes Summer Buzz Books & Top 25 Anticipated List
Publishers Marketplace & NetGalley get buzzin', while Polygon offers some foreshadowing for the release of The Deading
Having a novel come out is surreal. I’ve anticipated this for more than twenty years. Done just about every wrong thing you can do in the publishing industry. All the rookie mistakes and all that (I’ve repeated many of them). Glad I got those out of my system. Finally, however, I’m gearing up for some big changes. All those dreamy dream things? They’re happening.
First, a big four-chapter excerpt as The Deading has been chosen by NetGalley and Publishers Marketplace as one of its Buzz Books Great Reads for Spring/Summer 2024! WHUUUUT?? It’s true!
So how do you get hooked up with this excerpt? Okay, follow along . . . Go to the Buzz Books page (woot woot!). There, you have a few options. Just under the blue 2024 Great Reads icon (same image as the one above), you can scroll to my author name, or click here for a personalized page where you can pre-order my novel. If you want to read the four chapter excerpt, click “FREE DOWNLOAD” on the Buzz Books page. That will take you to a giant download on Amazon of all the excerpts from all the buzz books, about sixty, in a wide variety of categories. Now, that tome can be tricky to navigate, but when you do a “find” for The Deading or Nicholas Belardes within the document, that will help you navigate to the excerpt. So, it takes some clicking, but it’s there, and it’s free to put on your reading device or computer. If you do read it, maybe leave a review on Goodreads? Maybe pre-order the novel? Maybe tell some folks about it, yeah? Maybe I can come to your area when the book comes out. Let me know! If it’s financially feasible, then I’m all in.
More stuff: If you follow me on social media, you may have seen that The Deading has made a top twenty-five list of anticipated reads: “The 25 science fiction and fantasy books we’re excited for in 2024: Exciting debuts, beloved authors returning, and much more.” It’s a thrill to make a top list of forthcoming works. Racheal Conrad had this to say, “What’s not to love about (and be terrified by) a dystopian horror novel that is described as Under the Dome meets The Last of Us?”
I agree, of course! We need the creepies, the crawlies, the horrrrorrrrrr!
The Deading has received blurbs from Stephen Graham Jones, Erika T. Wurth, Caroline Leavitt, and others. Gonna wait a bit longer to share those, just wanted to let you know that my peers are reading The Deading, and they have positive things to say. This is always the worry, you know, finding endorsements, blurbs that will echo what the book means at its core.
Speaking of what the book means at its core, what about what it means to reviewers? There are already reviews on sites like Goodreads and NetGalley, I just don’t look at them. They’re not all by professional reviewers, and some folks aren’t lovers of literary horror, just horror, just splatter, just whatevers. And many do love the book! Yayyy! I mean, if you dig unsettling literature that will creep you out as well as make you ponder nature and the world, then The Deading is perfect for you. A few days ago I was tagged in a wonderful review from horror review blogger Tasha Schiedel on Facebook. How could I not look at that one? She not only said, The Deading was one of the “best pieces of literary horror” she’d ever read, she added that “it guides you through so many emotions and inner demons of all the characters. From the young to the old, The Deading highlights the differences of what age and time can do to change the strengths and compassion of an individual. While priorities are always different when we grow older, the basic need to survive and to be loved… never changes.”
Wow, I love that. Tasha gets the core of the novel, that even though it may be horror, it still is a story that engages with themes of isolation, love, and longing (as well as scary themes).
What else is happening? I finished a quarter teaching Ethnic Studies at Cal Poly SLO. But now I’m taking a quarter off to finish writing my next book for Erewhon, Ten Sleep. Just this morning in the early hours I was writing about prairie dogs! arf arf! More on that novel soon!
Here in the new year I’m already closing in on finding my 200th bird species for 2024. I’ve set a blistering pace for myself and added six more species today, including brown creeper, varied thrush, wood duck and mountain quail. You probably don’t want to hear about me trekking through muck to find all the cuties, but wow, I just love the birbs. And nature informs my life. I need nature. I need to experience all the grit and grime and loveliness of the world outdoors.
I hope you enjoy the excerpt.
Talk soon,
Nicholas
You’ve already found 200 species? Amazing!! You would love it here in Texas. I’m in the country and have so many birds. I have a crane or blue heron that is at my pond everyday. It hangs out for awhile and then goes to other ponds. I love watching it. I can’t wait to read Deading. I’m so excited for you! Congratulations!