Tag: suspense

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Do you want to know how I got these scars?

Breaking news! Endemic has gone wide!

Everybody relax. This announcement is not about measles. I’m talking about my multiple award-winning novel Endemic, Within Each of Us, A Power and a Curse. Despite Amazon sabotaging the release of Endemic, it went on to win first place in the genre category of the North Street Book Prize.

Now, I’m doing something different.

This dystopian novel has been exclusive to Amazon since its publication. No more! I recently published it widely (hat tip to Draft2Digital for facilitating that release). After getting such a nice review from Publishers Weekly, I decided that I needed to expand my readership and also get into more libraries.

The list is interesting.

There are so many book sales platforms out there, and a bunch I’d never heard of! Aside from the familiar ones like Barnes & Noble, Overdrive, Kobo, Apple Books, Smashwords, and Baker & Taylor, Endemic is also available on Everand, Odilo, Borrow Box, Vivlio, Tolino, Cloud Library, Gardners, Palace, and Fable.

ENDEMIC’s UNIVERSAL LINK

Selling entertainment sounds like it shouldn’t be hard, but book marketing is hard. Having a book on sale everywhere in some ways adds to that difficulty. On the other hand, Amazon already betrayed me with this book from the start, so I want to give it another chance with new readers.

I’ve experimented with going wide in the past and always came back to Amazon because they knew how to sell books. My faith in their system has since faded, and it’s time to expand my reach to new venues and tactics. I’ve written a lot of apocalyptic epics and killer crime thrillers. To reach new readers around the world, I’m committed to keeping Endemic widely available beyond Amazon and will publish more of my novels widely in the near future.

If you’re curious about Endemic, it’s about an introverted neurodivergent book editor turned urban survivalist gardener caught in the midst of a disaster. Hounded by marauders, bullied by her father, and haunted by her dead therapist, Ovid Fairweather has to make her way in a fallen New York City. She was a nail. She will become a hammer.

That’s Endemic by me, Robert Chazz Chute, and now it’s available on Amazon, but now, it’s also available just about everywhere else!

You can get the ebook, paperback, or hardcover. If you dig it, please leave a review. I’m new to all these platforms, so naturally I’ve got no reviews on them yet.

To clarify: Endemic is still available on Amazon, but here’s the universal link to everywhere else: https://books2read.com/u/bQvkGP.

Thanks! Have a great day, or make it one!

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A New Vocab Menace Update

Last week, She Who Must Be Obeyed toured southern France with Business Daughter on a celebration trip. Meanwhile, I had a stay-at-home writing retreat. (I often started each day flailing at my keyboard with gusto at a local cafe, but same, same.) I also perfected a yogurt cheesecake that would blow your mind.

Besides the cheesecake, steaming the carpets, and cleaning the house, I made substantial progress with my next novel. I’ve been reading a lot of forensic psychology to enhance the plot, plot twists, and verisimilitude. More on that in the future.

During my retreat, I took a break from my Vocab Menace video series. I enjoy these quick little video essays so much, I figured it was time for another VM roundup!*

*Note the rare use of that exclamation point to underline my sincere excitement.

Today’s video:

Here’s the latest group of videos from my Substack, also available on my YouTube channel. (Scroll down the blog for an earlier list of Vocab Menace video essays.)

Star Trek and the Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Virtue is Nonsense

Don’t Let Reality Get You Down

When Others Control Your Thoughts

Are You Suffering from Negative Panic?

People are Trying to Manipulate You

The Difference Between Psychopaths and Sociopaths

Charlie Kirk, Karl Popper, and Conspiracy Theories

What You’re Forgetting

Do You Believe in the Mandate of Heaven?

Keep This in Mind Next Time You Debate a Bonehead

What is The Paradox of Intelligence?

What is Your Place in the Universe?

The Great Gatsby is Overrated

How Serious is Your Anger?

Can People Change?

The Catholic Saint Behind Modern Science Fiction

~ If you dig it, please share it, like, comment, follow, subscribe. You know, all the helpful things.

Also, buy apocalyptic epics and killer crime thrillers by me, Robert Chazz Chute. Adventure awaits. 🙂


Gentle Hint:

If you’ve enjoyed my latest release, Vengeance Is Hers, please consider reviewing it on Goodreads and Amazon. That vigilante justice needs more love and attention. Thanks again.

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Publishers Weekly Review of Vengeance Is Hers

(This is a big deal to me.)

Chute’s thought-provoking crime thriller tells the story of Molly Jergins, a bright, restless teenager who grows up in the small town of Poeticule Bay, Maine, a tight-knit, picturesque village floundering and long dominated by a single powerful family. When Keith Faun, the town’s hockey star and the son of its most influential businessman, brutally assaults a younger boy and escapes punishment, Molly finds herself consumed with revenge fantasies. Her petty pranks soon escalate into a campaign to drive the Fauns out of town: she sabotages their family business and publicly damages their credibility, with each act calculated to chip away not only at their sense of untouchability but also the broader community that enables it.

At its core, this novel is an exploration of the insular dynamics unique to small towns—blind loyalty to old families, unthinking hostility toward outsiders, and reflexive protection afforded to their golden boys. What stands out most are not the creative revenge sequences but the way cruelty is normalized: a principal who dismisses violence, a sheriff more concerned with reelection than law enforcement, neighbors who carry on like it’s business as usual. Here, Chute (author of Endemic) pushes readers to consider whether such institutions can really be trusted with justice—or if it falls to individuals to enforce it.

This ethical dilemma is embodied most clearly in Molly herself. While she obviously cares about fairness, her obsessive tendencies leave readers questioning whether she is driven by justice or simply by her power to deliver it. The story’s pace sometimes falters under the sheer number of revenge plots, with these convoluted sequences limiting Molly’s character development—but she remains a complex, morally gray protagonist who readers will want to follow, if only to see how far she will go. Overall, those who are drawn to dark small-town noir will enjoy the clarity with which this gripping tale examines power and complicity.

Takeaway: Dark small-town thriller examining the blurred line between justice and obsession.

Comparable Titles: Gillian Flynn; Paula Hawkins.

My book got a Publishers Weekly review!

Click here to be taken straight to your country’s Amazon store for a great tale of revenge.

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Have you reviewed yet? Please do!

Here’s how to leave a quick review on Amazon:

Just in case you’re not sure how, it’s easy, free, and helps me immensely:

  1. It doesn’t have to be long.
  2. Please, no spoilers. You don’t have to recount the plot at all.
  3. Just a brief paragraph of your opinion is plenty.
  4. Let others know how the story made you felt while reading the novel.

    And that’s really it! Fast and uncomplicated.

    Here’s where to find the button you’re looking for:

On Amazon, click the book you want to review.
Scroll down to the box that reads:
“Write a customer review” and there you go! Done like dinner!

Bonus points:

It’s not required, but if you want to post a picture of the book, or of you holding the book, that gets more attention.

A video gets even more attention if you’re so disposed, but again, it’s not required.

Examples:

Hint:

Of all my work, Vengeance Is Hers is the most recent and needs more reviews. Thanks!

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Armand Rosamilia and I chat about books and such

Don’t forget to subscribe to Armand’s channel. He is super prolific and interviews authors all the time.

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Long Story Short: Better Days Ahead

About Better Days Ahead

Deborah Goodwin wakes up in her tiny basement apartment in Toronto. It seems like it’s going to be just another day in her anonymous corporate job chained to a desk. But something is wrong with her cell phone. The device tells Deborah to power down and turn it back on to “reset.” But it’s not just the phone that is reset. It’s Deborah and the world.

To get peace, first there must be chaos.

This short story is for subscribers only. Subscribe and I will send you a link to the Bookfunnel landing page. You can download the short story or read it in your browser. Enjoy!

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My New Web Series

Find out more about today’s Vocab Menace video post PHARO and PHAROS below.

In almost every interview with a writer, the interviewer will ask, “Where do the words come from?”

They’re always talking about “the muse.”

My answer is “My brain assembles factoids into narratives. Oh, and childhood trauma. Also, adult trauma. And….” Then I gesture vaguely around, alluding to all the nonsense that pervades our common experience. The news, social media, and falling down rabbit holes on Wikipedia provide plenty of raw material to construct delightful fictional conflict.

When I think about where words come from, I take a more literal approach. I own a huge Webster’s dictionary from 1939 (pictured). I forget how it came into my possession, but I’m sure it must have come from a library sale or used bookstore. This particular edition was the inspiration for Jaimie Spencer’s beloved dictionary in my apocalyptic trilogy, This Plague of Days. I had to apply duct tape to keep it from falling apart.


My kids have big vocabularies. Partly, that’s osmosis from growing up in a home packed and stacked with books. Also, we always spoke to them as if they were little adults. As babies, they were no doubt confused at times. Nonetheless, I figured they’d catch up and eventually understand my words and sense of humour.

Recently, I decided to make a video series out of my fascination with words.

It’s easy to post on social media with rabid urgency, “BUY MY BOOKS! BUY MY BOOKS!” Easy, but not effective. I’m always looking for new readers, of course. Every author is. However, I’m allergic to marketing. I do it, but I don’t enjoy it. Exploring the meanings of words and where they come from, though? That gets the happy neural juices flowing.

Vocab Menace was born.

Why call it Vocab Menace?

  1. Words can be fun and interesting.
  2. Your challenge each day is to slip these rare or unusual words into casual conversation as if it’s no big deal.

Imagine the satisfaction you’ll derive from all that simmering, smarmy, and artificial sense of superiority!

Where to find Vocab Menace?

Hey, man, it’s 2025. Ya gotta be everywhere! I post on Substack, Medium, YouTube, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook. (I don’t post on X. Fuck that. X sucks.)

Like, subscribe, and share. All that stuff is sexy.

PLEASE NOTE: I’m away from social media next week (July 28-August 1).

I’m taking a deep dive into isolation to work on my new novel, but Vocab Menace will continue after that brief hiatus.

About today’s post: PHARO and PHAROS

In today’s video, I promoted Lighthouse Legacies by Chris Mills.

Description:

Imagine living your life perched on a tiny island, without electricity, exposed to the fury of the sea, and always at the service of the mariner. This is how lightkeepers and their families spent their lives, even up until the 1960s. We are very close to losing the last of the people who lived this isolated life and experienced the heyday of lightkeeping in Canada. Lighthouse Legacies lets us share in the memories of those who kept the lights.

These stories are presented largely in the words of the people, with context and history by author Chris Mills. Each chapter deals with an element of lighthouse life and is complemented by photos from lighthouse family collections, the Coast Guard and Mills’ own collection.

You can purchase Lighthouse Legacies directly from Nimbus publishing here. (You’ll also find it on Amazon.)

My novel, AFTER Life Inferno, is free to download until midnight tonight! It’s the first in the AFTER Life trilogy about weaponized AI escaping from a genetic engineering lab in downtown Toronto. The fate of all humanity is at stake.

(The basis of the tale was inspired by a fan’s story of how authorities are ordered to handle a lab leak!)


Scan down the right-hand side of this page and you’ll find links to all my apocalyptic epics and killer crime thrillers. Enjoy!

And thank you for being a reader. Thor knows we don’t have enough of them.