I just checked Amazon and got a sweet surprise!  Apple of My Eye has peaked at #29 under Erotic Horror Bestsellers!   Buy a copy for your sweetie this Valentine's Day and help me keep it up!  The collection contains 13 short stories, most of them erotic in nature, guaranteed to scare the pants off you and the one you love!

My short story collection, Apple of My Eye, continues to pique book reviews' interest.  I'm thrilled the book has left so many of my readers hungry for more!

I personally guarantee Apple of My Eye will distort your perceptions of reality and all that's good and right in the word by exploiting depravity and deviant behavior.  Have a good scare or two and some unexpected thrills, on me.  If you're not completely satisfied, I will refund your sanity...See, you really have nothing to lose.

Here's another rave review for Apple of My Eye, which currently has a sales rank of 666,603 over at Barnesandnoble.com.  Note the 666!  I'm thrilled the book has found its  audience!  Lucky for me there are a lot of sick people out there!  Hehehe!  At a signing a few months ago, a father asked me if I could make Apple of My Eye to his son, Andrew.  I didn't think to ask how old Andrew was, so if he wasn't a man before he read my book, he is now!!

I'd like to thank Michael Amorel over at Two Backed Books for believing in my deliciously dark brand of Horror!  A big THANK YOU goes out to Jay Bonansinga, for his sharp, witty back cover blurb.  Let me know next time you're in NYC--I owe you a drink!  Thanks, to all of the Readers and Reviewers who have helped make Apple of My Eye a huge success!

Admit it, if you're an Author with books for sale on Amazon.com, like, me than you may have wondered how Amazon calculates Sales Rank.  My short story collection, Apple of My Eye,  has gone as high as 330,00, not bad for a first-time collection!    Amazone has 100 copies in stock!  This makes me very happy!!!  Get your copy before they're all gone!

Go ahead, check your sales rank.  You know you want to!

Head on over to Monster Librarian and check out the latest Apple of My Eye review!

Great news! Michael at Two Backed Books just informed me that the first batch, 200 copies of my debut short story collection has sold out! We've entered the second print run! Get your hands on this Apple at Shocklines.com, Barnesandnobel.com, or at Amazon.com.

Every few weeks, I Google the phrase, Apple of My Eye by Amy Grech because book reviews are busy people and they don’t always remember to send me links to their reviews.  I just found the Official Two Backed Books Press Release!  Read it, then order your very own copy of Apple of My Eye to love!

Note:  This Review is scheduled to appear in The Horror Fiction Review #17.

Title: Apple of My Eye
Author: Amy Grech
Publisher: Two Backed Books
Pub. Date: 2006
Price: $11.95
Website: twobackedbooks.com
Reviewed by: Christine Morgan
 
This slim paperback with a spooky eyeball-apple on the cover collects thirteen tales that mostly revolve around the theme of love gone wrong. All kinds of love, and all kinds of wrong. There’s blood, sex and atrocity aplenty within these pages, so this book is definitely not for the prudish or the squeamish.
 
Overall, the writing’s okay and the stories are engaging enough. They have a spare, sparse, modern, urban feel to them. Characters are defined crisply in a few word-strokes, and much of the description is nearly poetic. Sometimes cringe worthy-beautiful in the gorier bits.
 
The primary difficulty I had was with the author’s approach to dialogue. It’s as if Ms. Grech opted to avoid the whole issue of whether to just use plain old simple “said” versus options such as “stated/declared/hissed/whatever” … by chucking ALL of it out the window. Instead, almost every line of character speech is paired with a description of character action. There’s barely a “said” or its counterparts to be found within the entire 128 pages. Coupled with the actual dialogue itself often feeling stiff and informative rather than seeming like the way people would really talk, it had the effect of frequently jarring me out of the story.
 
Therefore, it came as no real surprise to me when my favorites of the thirteen turned out to be ones with the least amount of dialogue. The one-character, more internalized and personal stories. I really liked “Ashes to Ashes,” in which a widow tries to deal with loss and precious memories as well as a disturbing clump of dust that appears in her cellar. “Perishables” is a way-too-short tale of an accidental survivor; I was left hungry for more (given what it’s about, that’s probably a bad way to phrase it!). I’m always fond of a good blustery-October-night Halloween story, so “Damp Wind and Leaves” was another winner.
 
In the category of family dysfunction, you’ll find a dutifully dirty daddy’s girl in the title track “Apple of My Eye,” fatherly advice gone a bit too far in “Crosshairs,” and a cold-blooded case of motherly neglect and payback in “Prevention.”
 
The darker underside of romance is exposed in the stories “Come and Gone” (guy puts household appliances to some creative uses in an effort to get over his girlfriend), “Snubbed” (girl gives abusive ex a dose of his own medicine), and “Cold Comfort” (ain’t no such thing as a harmless fling).
 
For those preferring a more traditional taste, “Rampart” presents a rather different kind of haunted house, and “Raven’s Revenge” a rather different kind of haunting. There’s also “Initiation Day,” a geek-revenge morality play that could be right out of the pages of a classic horror comic.
 
Last but not least … last in the book as well as last one mentioned here … is “EV 2000.” This one is unlike its fellows in many ways. Written in present-tense, for one. Given a futuristic setting, for another. Not my usual thing, but I enjoyed it much more than I initially expected to.

I've got to give nickcato a huge THANK YOU for passing Apple of My Eye on to Christine to review!

Here's the Latest Apple of My Eye Review.  My collection of 13 short stories represents 10 years of my writing; it's an interesting evolution--my work runs the gamut:  Erotic Horror, Extreme Horror, Psychological Horror, Subtle Horror, and even a Horror/Science Fiction Hybrid.  Zombos Closet of Horror Blog has a sweet spot for my quieter tales, there's nothing wrong with that!  He did notice that some of my stories ended rather abruptly, he's absolutely right, those were my earlier stories--I'm always honing my craft, constantly striving to take my writing to the next level.  I am a work in progress...

Three months from today I will turn 35.  I still can't get over it!  I don't feel that old...When I meet new people at parties and we get to talking, I'll ask them how old they think I am.  More often than not they'll say, "28."  or "You look like you're fresh out of Grad School."  This always makes my smile...I guess I'm young at heart; besides, I didn't go to Grad School!

A few of my friends have been married for a very long time and are working on their third kid...They ask me when I'm going to get married and have kids...Well, I'm married to my work, I love what I do and am quite good at it.  As for kids, I've had over 100 stories published, and each and every one of them are like children; granted a lot of them behave badly, but they don't come with stinky diapers...

I've set a few goals for myself over the years and I've accomplished all but one:

Start my own business before I'm 30.
Behold, Crimson Screams Productions, which I founded at the ripe old age of 27.

Write and publish a novel before my 30th Birthday.  Here's The Art of Deception, published when I was a mere 28 years old!

Find a Publisher for my short story collection, Apple of My Eye before I  turn 35. Two Backed Books really fit the bill!

Find my soul mate.  The jury's still out on this one...Whenever I let my guard down, some guy kicks me in the teeth and I end up getting hurt.  Maybe that explains the $1,200 Crown I had to get a few years ago...Seriously, I'm so busy working I don't get out as often as I should, but that's about to change!  Guys, you've been warned!  I'm on the prowl...

I'm looking forward to the 400th Episode of The Simpsons tonight.  Wow, has the show really been around that long??

Check out my latest interview. In it I talk about my collection, Apple of My Eye, who inspires me, what scares me and much more!

I'm gearing up for I-Con this Friday - Saturday; I've been an Author Guest at this exciting convention, held at SUNY Stony Brook for seven years in a row!    Wow, has it really been that long?!  I've grown tremendously as a writer since then.  I've had over 100 short stories published, not to mention my novel, The Art of Deception and my collection, Apple of My Eye.

In other news, I've got a couple more Apple of My Eye Related Podcasts in the works. Remember, an Apple a day keeps the doctor away!!
Watch this space for all the gory details.