Category: Book Updates

These Prices–Wow!

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

The Last Banquet (Bell Mountain Book 4) by [Duigon, Lee]

The folks at The Chalcedon Foundation, who publish my books (www.chalcedon.edu/ ), got quite a charge this morning when they looked on amazon.com and found The Cellar Beneath the Cellar selling for $2,900 and change per copy.

“I should’ve held on to more of Lee’s books,” said one. “Is this some kind of money laundering?” asked another. “And to think you get can my autograph on Ebay for only $30,” remarked our president.

But that was only some of the fun. Amazon had priced The Glass  Bridge at $1,471.48 (48 cents?) and The Last Banquet at $689.59. When I checked a little while ago, a used copy of The Last Banquet was priced “from $556.96.” From? You mean it gets higher?

Please don’t tell me anyone has volunteered to pay those prices.

By now, except for that little hiccup with Banquet, amazon.com seems to have rectified the errors. One of our editors thought maybe my books had been swept into the Trump boom. If only!

But I guess y’all better glom onto The Throne before the price goes up. Again.

Finally! ‘The Throne’

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

The Throne (Bell Mountain, 9)

At last, the ninth book of my Bell Mountain series, The Throne, is on sale. There’s been some difficulty in preparing the e-book edition, but the paperback is out and you can order it straight from the publisher, at http://www.chalcedon.edu/ (click “Store,” then “Fiction”), or from amazon.com, where they don’t yet have the picture, but that will probably come today.

Shout-outs to contest winners Savannah and Heidi: Savannah, I have your address, thanks so much for your patience, and I’ll ship your autographed copy to you ASAP (I’ve just received my author’s copies). Heidi, I need your address. Email it to me at leeduigon@verizon.net .

I’ll have more to say about this letter. For now, I’ve got to hustle because I have another doctor’s appointment this morning. *sigh*

And thanks to all of you who kept at it last night and helped me get those 6,000 hits for February!

My Books Are Being Trolled

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Image result for images of cellar beneath the cellar

From time to time I like to check amazon.com to see how my books are doing.

I got a nasty surprise last night, and again this morning, when I discovered one-star ratings among my customer reviews: Bell Mountain first, and now The Cellar Beneath the Cellar. I would rather not give the name of the malicious little nit that posted them.

See if you can follow his logic. Lee Duigon is “a follower” of R. J. Rushdoony. [I am employed, and my books are published, by The Chalcedon Foundation, the ministry founded by Rushdoony. I am not aware of being “a follower” of anyone.] Rushdoony was “a religious huckster” [no, he wasn’t] and “a christofascist,” whatever that is. Therefore, “persons of good character” will avoid my books.

Having read thousands of pages of Rushdoony’s published works, I can truly say this person is talking through his hat. But because Rushdoony was a faithful man of God, libs and other louses have always attacked him viciously.

Thing is, I have few reviews, not many readers know that I exist: so a single one-star rating easily drives down a book’s overall rating. By the time this insect gets around to trolling the later books in my series, it will look like half the readers hated them.

That “christofascist” tag is genuinely offensive. In all probability, the reviewer is some left-wing loon from the Southern Poverty Loon Center, or someplace like that, who thinks everybody to the right of where he is, out on the far-left fringe of the galaxy, is a fascist, a knotsy, and a biggit who should be beaten senseless, etc. That’s the Loving Left all over.

All right, well, I’ve taken one for the team. An inner voice keeps whispering, “It’s about time they’ve come after you! I was beginning to think you were doing something wrong.”

But my books are my babies, and when somebody maliciously attacks them, I do admit I find it hard to laugh it off. It’s a lesson I’d better learn, I guess. I don’t want God to be ashamed of me for yelping about a bug-bite.

Cavall Lives!

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

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If you’ve been reading my Bell Mountain books, you know that Ryons, the boy king who was born a slave, has a guardian who never leaves his side: Cavall, the hound.

This is a picture of a dog who looks enough like Cavall to be him.

In The Thunder King, the hermit, Merry Mary, knowing that she will die soon, commands her dog to stay with the boy and protect him. A child wandering all alone in Lintum Forest needs a wise and valiant dog. Cavall has been with him ever since–to the rescue of the city of Obann, and all the way out to King Thunder’s fortress and back.

At this point I don’t know where they’ll be going next; but wherever it may be, they’ll go together.

Blog Milestone–and New Comment Contest

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

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Less than 200 comments to go for No. 10,000. Hey, that’s a major milestone! Who ever thought this blog would last that long?

Whoever posts Comment No. 10,000 will win an autographed copy of one of my books. If you really want Bell Mountain No. 9, The Throne, as your prize, you can reserve it, it’ll be published soon.

The contest rules are simple. Anything goes, except the following: comments abusive to me or to another reader; anything smacking of blasphemy; comments featuring the f-bomb or other profanity; commercials thinly disguised as comments; or remarks simply too inane to bother with.

Come on, now, folks–this’ll be for 10,000 comments, we really ought to whoop it up.

Coming Soon: ‘The Throne’

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

thethrone

We’re now doing the final edit for The Throne–the text that will actually appear in print. It’s Book No. 9 in the Bell Mountain series, and I hope the gorgeous cover by Kirk DouPonce makes you want to read it.

I had hopes of getting this book in print in time for Christmas, but I’m sorry to say it doesn’t look like that can be done. Oh, well. It’ll make a nice post-Christmas gift.

Meanwhile, it looks like one more chapter, just one, will do it for Book No. 10, The Silver Trumpet. And then I’ll feel like I’ve raised a child and sent him out to seek his fortune in the world: sort of an empty-nest feeling. But the good news is that the story demands another book after this one. When you’re writing history, even the history of an imaginary world, that has a tendency to happen–because history just never stops.

As long as the Lord keeps giving me these stories, I’ll keep writing them.

Down the Home Stretch with ‘The Silver Trumpet’

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

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Given some nice weather over the next week or two, I’ll soon be finished writing The Silver Trumpet (Book No. 10 of the Bell Mountain series). I’ve been at it since April, and I know that when it’s done, I’ll feel a sense of loss.

As of just a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea where the story was going, or how it was going to end. All I could do, every day I sat down to work, was ask God to give me the story that He wanted me to tell. And He did–just as He has done nine times before. He hit me with it all at once, for that matter.

The thing is, if I can and do rely on God to direct me in my work, why can’t I rely on Him to lead me in every area of life? Surely He can! Under His direction, my books have turned out very well: way better than I possibly could have done on my own. Like, maybe I’d be wise to seek His counsel in all things–yes?

It’s hard for a sinner to do that, but maybe I can learn from my own books. Maybe I can learn to be less of a fool.

Because, you lunk-head (he sez to himself), that’s what your cotton-pickin’ books have been about, all along! All ten of ’em! Seeking God’s guidance! Do you get it now? Huh?

Perhaps I’m getting there. Perhaps.

We’ve all got to get there, don’t we?

 

My Eureka Moment

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

I’ve come very far along with The Silver Trumpet (No. 10 in my Bell Mountain series), having been at it since April: 40 chapters, in fact. Even so, as of yesterday, I had absolutely no idea how the story should end.

Years ago, my procedure was to dope out the whole plot, along with all the subplots, before I wrote a word. Everything was on color-coded index cards, with extra material, like detailed biographies for all the major characters. in notebooks.

I don’t do it that way anymore. Instead, I just send up a prayer, asking the Lord to give me the story He wants me to tell, and start writing. I generally don’t know where I’m going till I’m almost there, and I get a lot of surprises along the way.

Yesterday I went to the eye doctor and couldn’t write when I got home, my eyes being too dilated to see properly. So I sat outside, taking advantage of a gorgeously sunny day, with my Mr. Cool sunglasses and a nice cigar, just sitting.

And then, as Rocky Graziano used to say, wham!–it hit me. The whole climax of The Silver Trumpet flashed into my brain in less time than it takes me to tell you about it. It was God answering my prayer, and in a way He has done several times before. I have to say it’s kind of overwhelming!

And I love it.

Now I can go straight ahead and write the rest of the book. I know what I have to do, and all I’ve got to do is write it. I asked the Lord to lead me, and He has.

If I can just get it all done before the cold weather kicks in…

**Sneak Preview Alert**

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Image result for sneak preview

I’ve seen the cover art for The Throne (Bell Mountain No. 9), Kirk DouPonce has done another splendid job… and if I can swing it, I’d like to post it here so you can see it.

I’m hopeful that The Throne will be made available in time for Christmas. My books, by the way, make fantastic Christmas gifts. Well, all right, very small beer indeed, in light of what Christmas is really about–like, it’s only the Word of God made flesh and personally coming into our fallen world to make atonement for our sins and win for us eternal life. So can I say my books my nice gifts, any day of the year?

So, keep your eyes peeled for The Throne cover art, today or tomorrow, and let me know how you like it.