The previous three volumes of Red Tales are still available: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_ath...&search-alias=digital-text&sort=relevancerank I am releasing the fourth volume in episodic form through my blog on wordpress. http://redtales.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/red-tales-delilahs-dilemma-episode-3/ Red Tales is set mostly in Chicago and revolves around a fictional professional soccer team. Follow the players, fans, staff and how they all interact. Action on and off the pitch, the the bars and the stands, road trip drama. Red Tales: In the Beginning covers the 1998 season from April to end. (Hardcover, paperback, & Kindle) Sin Brazos: A Red Tale tells the backstory of Carlos "Sin Brazos" Cortez, a young Mexican soccer star who is a double amputee. (Trade paperback and Kindle) Polish Delight: A Red Tale picks up the story in the Polish head coach's Chicago home on Wigilia/Christmas Eve and curls around into 1999 through spring training and the beginning of the 1999 season. (Kindle only) Delilah's Dilemma being release in episodic format picks up in August 2000 at a watch party for a crucial US Open Cup semifinal match. (pdf format)
Do any of the story arcs exhibit any hardcore elements? I'm a heavy fan of fictionalized football teams/season stories, but typically I only go for the hard stuff in this genre; Hard Football Fiction as the aficionados say
Thank you for you interest. In the first book, we do visit some of the darker hooligan aspects, but more as they pertain to away from the team and as a minor subsect within the Polish immigrant Ultras fan group. It is not a major focus, however, as in the United States there has not been the problems among MLS (which this is loosely based on) that there is elsewhere with rival fan groups. In Volume 4, there is some rival aspect on an away trip that involves an incident that involves the police. Volume 4 is the free in the link above. However, I will be taking those down by mid-October as I convert them for full Kindle publication. The plot is more human interest, some romance, and the interactions between the team, staff, and fans.
May I ask.. what informs your interest in writing football fiction? I have the writing bug too, but I seldom enjoy the volition, so to speak, to do much writing. Most of my "writing" has in fact been mental preparation/introspecting/thinking, towards what I eventually wish to write. Here is my wordpress blog: http://thegunandtheram.wordpress.com/ Cheers
I've been writing as long as I could hold a pen. It's in my blood. One of the other books I have published on Kindle is a bloody vampire/scalping tome called d/Evolve. Lots of heavy metal and grit in that one. As for the interest in soccer, it grew out of what I lived when I lived in Chicago for 8 years. I got involved with the security side and later the fan side of the Chicago Fire. I would hang out and drink with the general manager and others around the team. Road trips on buses, etc. I live 5 hours away from a choice of 2 other MLS teams. So I don't get to enjoy my passion as often, escaping into the writing, for darker or for brighter.
Interesting I've heard said a born writer can no more ignore the call to write, than a leopard to hunt in darkness