Buzz about Black Sails, Disco Inferno — and a giveaway

Over the past couple of days, we’ve been hit by some absolutely sensational feedback to and media support for the new novel, which I couldn’t resist sharing here (sorry) before unveiling a Goodreads paperback freebie we’ve arranged — see below — which ends on July 24.

I can’t thank these readers enough for the simple act of swinging past the fly page, let alone for ploughing through the other 280-odd pages. The fact that they dug what they uncovered, and wrote about this, is something I still feel extraordinary and generous six books later.

First cab off the rank is Karen Chisholm at AustCrimeFiction, who wrote:

“Of all the things that Black Sails does well, it absolutely excels at character… Around the two main characters there’s a wonderfully elaborate cast of good and bad and the slightly misunderstood. I was expecting this to be good. It exceeded good by a very big measure.”

David Prestidge of Crime Fiction Lover assessed, “Medieval legends as an inspiration for crime fiction? Why not! Painters and musicians have been entranced by the 12th century story of Tristan and Isolde, and now Bergen retells the timeless tale within the frame of a 1970s dystopian world of disco music, drugs, violence, betrayal and casual sex. Corrupt coppers and flying bullets will delight fans of both the pulp and noir sub-genres. Bergen’s twisted vision was also evident in last year’s graphic novel Bullet Gal. His latest is out now.”

Over at Cultured Vultures, Matthew Lovitt felt that:

“It’s a complete trainwreck.

An awesomely magical trainwreck.”

(In a good way!).

Criminal Element kindly ran with an excerpt chapter of the book yesterday, and I got to gasbag to my heart’s content (well, almost) over at Omnimystery News — ta, mates!

So, yep, it’s been great tidings all round, except one area.

Sad to say, reported book sales are still not quite reflecting the critical feedback… again.

We’ll see how it all goes eventually (these are early days yet), but fingers crossed all the same. I won’t be crossing chopsticks anytime soon! And if you are one of those fine people who actually have bought Black Sails, Disco Inferno — thank you.

Anyway, here’s the giveaway: