From now until the 22nd The Wounded King – “a character study in evil” and the first story in The Martuk Series, Vol. 1 – is FREE over on Amazon.
You can go ahead and click HERE for an excerpt.
And how about a look at the cover?
Category Archives: Amazon
a dangerous path to a surprising end
A brand new FREE short story from the Eidolon Avenue universe.
A heartbroken widow. An infamous building. A darkness desperate to feed. This is Eidolon Avenue.
Young, bereaved and abandoned, the recent Knickerbocker Crash having taken more than just her savings, Mrs. Artatlan Fogoly considered herself lucky to have found a room to let. But when devout visitors refused to darken her door and an impossible stain appeared on the wall, what had felt like the beginning of something new and wonderful soon became a dangerous path to a surprising end.
The Realtor, an Eidolon Avenue Short, is the tale of how a heartbroken widow turned into Eidolon Avenue’s constant revenant. A siren call for those destined to end their wretched days in that wood, those bricks, that stone. The captive wraith who opened the door and brought the damned home to die.
And what of those wretched damned? Their stories are found in Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast as well as the upcoming Eidolon Avenue: The Second Feast.
This story is merely a glimpse of Jonathan Winn’s work, so if you enjoy this introductory story, be sure to pick up Winn’s Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast, available from Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.
and I remember fear
“literary alchemy”
From yet another five star review for The Tall Priest
“Flowing and visceral…A rare find of finely detailed beauty and heartbreaking tragedy…Literary alchemy.”
beauty and pain, magic and tragedy
From a new five star Amazon review of The Tall Priest from Zak over at The Eyes of Madness:
“…This world is the perfect amalgam of beauty and pain, magic and tragedy. Immediately engrossing and perpetually heartbreaking, The Martuk series of shorts are the stories I recommend most often…”
“Horrifying, grotesque, stomach turning”
“A horror like no other. Cringed the entire time I was reading it. The way Winn paints a scene is amazingly graphic and riveting. You will find your self rubbing shadow pain from your limbs and brushing away unseen creepy crawlers as you read this.
Horrifying, grotesque, stomach turning. Another great book from Winn.”
From a new five star Amazon review for Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast.
“ever deeper into the abyss”
“Jonathan Winn has penned a fantastic book full of sharp, stylistic darkness. EIDOLON AVENUE manages to be both literary and transgressive, drawing the reader ever deeper into the abyss. A cornucopia of horrors abound within, some subtle and many overt, but all are displayed in a manner befitting the tales.”
For more of this new five star review of Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast click here
It Continues.
With The Wounded King still free, now it’s time for the sequel, The Elder, to be free as well.
So it is.
In The Elder, the latest installment of The Martuk Series, Jonathan Winn, author of Martuk … The Holy, digs deeper into the world of ancient Uruk. A world of power and absolute rule. Of magic and superstition. Of Dark Gods and mysterious Ancients, magical Immortals and unseen Seers. Of powerful Priests cloaked in robes of red and gold and a Man from the Mountains who has yet to arrive.
From the innocence and depravity and blood-drenched chaos of The Wounded King, we now follow The Elder, a Priest desperate to rule, blinded by power, afraid to die. A man who climbs deep into caves beneath sun-scorched mountains and sacrifices anonymous flesh in a blood-stained Temple. A desperate soul driven by words whispered from the lips of a doomed Child and haunted by the warnings of an Immortal buried in ash. One who makes an impossible choice for the promise of Life Everlasting and, riddled by doubt, chooses again, this final act of violent desperation opening the way for an ancient curse from a Darkness older than Time.
From the whispered pleas to the Darkest of Gods to the anguished screams of the stolen innocent, this is … The Elder.
How cool is that? Oh, and here’s a review of The Elder from Amazon:
Once again Jonathan Winn has successfully made me cringe with yet another wonderfully descriptive piece. I loved Martuk…the Holy, and these short stories that delve into other characters from the story line are just fabulous. Never before have I had to set a book down and take a breath in order to regain some composure. The vivid imagery that Winn brings forth in his writing is amazing. I can see and feel every bone popping, tendon splitting, blood curdling scene that he describes.
Winn’s style is unique and special. Go out and read Martuk if you have not already, then devour this series after! If you’re looking for a great book that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and your face cringe, then look no further.
And tomorrow? Yep, you guessed it. Red and Gold, the third in the series.
Enjoy!
A King for Free?
Wait, what? A #book ? For #free ? On #Amazon ? This one? Yep. (please forgive the hashtags, but I’m trying to promo here, ya know?)
Listen, I’m a writer. You know that. But do you know what I actually do? Have you taken a peek at what I put on the page? If not, and if you’re still curious, here you go:
A sacrifice. A dying King. Bones in the stone, blood in the wine. A Queen consumed by the Darkness.
From ancient Uruk, The Almost King tells his tale. Of The Elder and his cunning Priests in their robes of red and gold. Of an Old Woman who can call the power of the Dark Gods. Of his mother, the Queen, and his dying brother, the King.
And of the Darkness, an evil from before the Time of the Moon. Inescapable, its hunger never-ending, its shadow fed by the Priests, slowly overwhelming his family.
Drowning in a sea of red and gold, the Almost King battles an unwinnable war as he navigates the wreckage towards his fate as … The Wounded King.
The Wounded King is the first in a short fiction series based on the full-length novel Martuk … the Holy. But not only am I running a Free Promo for The Wounded King, I’m following it with free promos for The Elder and Red & Gold (books Two and Three of The Martuk Series) with Martuk … going for free on Halloween.
Cool, huh?
worse than mediocre – NY Times
A recent diatribe in response to a NY Times piece about Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program:
Although the article focused on the problems with Kindle Unlimited (which I agree is grossly unfair to self-published authors) what really stood out for me was the claim that the last few years have been a ‘golden age” for writers. In my opinion, for readers, it’s been anything but.
As more and more decide they can “write”, quality plummets. And if you have a large social media platform, the chances of your sloppy, abysmal work gaining a following, becoming a bestseller, and getting hundreds of “OMG, this is SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!” five star reviews is great. Which enables really bad writers to continue putting out really bad books. What also happens is you have a whole generation of readers who are never exposed to truly great storytelling and interesting, unique characters, and potential writers who hold up this bad work as the standard to aspire to.
How is that a “golden age”?
I have no idea what Amazon will do with Kindle Unlimited. Truth is, I don’t think they care. What I’m more concerned with is returning to the time when books were good and hacks who were slightly worse than mediocre weren’t applauded and rewarded.
Jonathan Winn
author of Martuk the Holy: Proseuche
Martuk ... the Holy 