Now to keep the interest going here are a few snippets from the book. Jackson does not snark for free. He expects money or praise–he’s equal opportunity.  So…see below:

Jackson’s psychic view on cats:

“I wonder if I brought my Silly cat in…I call her Silly short for Priscilla. I inherited her from my mom who had a huge thing for Elvis. But if I snuck her in, could you tell me what she’s thinking? Or why she pees in my boyfriend’s shoe instead of the litter box?”

She was an Abby clone. It was the only explanation. “I can tell you what she’s thinking right now, no touching necessary,” I drawled. “She’s thinking if she were three times her size bigger, she would eat you.” Funny, yes, and every cat person asked it sooner or later, but funny or not, it was the truth.

Jackson’s psychic view on government employed power-hungry scientists who play with what men ought not know:

I heard Hector blow out a frustrated breath before adding, “Two more sociopaths and one psychopath? Are you positive?”

“Scientists who want to work on a project that could lead to US dominance of the entire world’s intelligence community. That reads like a job application for some kid’s comic book super villain. Did you think you weren’t going to get some bad apples? I’m surprised there are any good apples. Didn’t you have some sort of psychological testing done on the applicants?” Now my jaw was locking up more from the irritation than the pain.

“They are all highly respected in their fields, all with PhDs and some with multiple PhDs.” He sounded defensive. Good. He should.

“Because the men who invented the hydrogen bomb only had their GEDs and look what a great idea for the world that turned out to be,” I snapped back.

Jackson’s highly annoyed view of being shot:

I’d just completed that thought when the things that weren’t my business shot me in the back.

Laying flat in the same red earth the county had buried Boyd in, logic told me I’d fallen. My mind told me that the ground had reared up and smacked me in the face. “Jackson!” Hector’s hand was on my shoulder, squeezing hard.

I coughed and pushed out the words, “Nothing…you…can…do. Go…get…the…dick.”

He hesitated then there was the sound of his feet pounding against the dirt as he ran. I continued to stay flat, both to be less of a target and due to the fact breathing was agony. I didn’t want to imagine what trying to move would be like. The only part of me that disagreed were my fingers that dug into the dirt as the pain crushed my ribs in a massive fist. It ebbed and flowed, the fiery stabbing ache and finally focused on the left side of my back.

“Jackson?” Hector was back. He didn’t sound as if he was waving a flag of victory. I felt his hand below my scapula, his fingers probing. “Okay. I got it. The son of a bitch nailed you right over the heart.”

“The same son of a bitch that I take it got away.” The pain was the same, but I no longer felt as if my lungs had taken the weekend off. Breathing was easier and talking doable. I appreciated that because I had something to say. “I asked you for a bulletproof vest. I felt the bullet fine. I didn’t feel the damn proof in it at all.” I pushed up on my hands and knees and groaned at the spike of pain. “Ah shit. What’s it made out of? Your grandma’s leftover yarn? Christ.”

He hooked his arm under my right one and helped me stagger to my feet before juggling the blob of metal in the palm of his other hand. “It’s a big enough round. Nine millimeter, same as I use. Without the Kevlar it wouldn’t have just hit your heart, it would’ve exploded it.”

“I told you the vest was a better choice for me than a gun.” I winced as I tried to straighten. “But I still think someone at the nursing home crocheted the damn thing. It feels like my rib is broken.”

“I’m sure it is.” There wasn’t much sympathy in the pronouncement. I could’ve used more–a whole lot more. “But a cracked or broken rib is hundred percent better than dead,” he finished matter-of-fact.

“And you didn’t catch the bastard?” I could be wrong. Ghosts could exist. This guy appeared and disappeared at will like one.

“I didn’t even see him and this isn’t a sniper’s bullet by any stretch of the imagination. He had to be close.” Once I could stand semi-upright and take a step without the threat of being shoved in a Notre Dame bell-tower, he let go of my arm.

“I swear, Allgood, if you had been behind me instead of beside me, I’d say you were the shooter. This guy’s goddamn invisible.” I swore out loud and proud with every step I took. I knew…knew I could feel the broken edges of a rib grating against each other.

“You’ve already read me. You know I’m noble and true. Red, white, and blue. Practically Superman I’m so damn heroic, but I couldn’t find a killer if you dropped me on Death Row at a Supermax prison,” he said bitterly.

“I’m lacking in social skills except when it comes to flattering my older female clients, but I have a feeling I should say something here. Something to comfort you in your time of emotional upheaval.” I took one more step, blasphemed against God, his son, and the Virgin Mary as my rib howled again. “Here it is: fuck your emotional upheaval. Be a man for God’s sake. At least your ass wasn’t shot.”

Strangely enough, that did the trick.

 Twelve Years Ago

Niko

“Our neighbor is a serial killer.”

It was that kind of day.

There had been tutoring no-necked football players lacking enough in brain cells that I was surprised they didn’t have calluses on their knuckles from walking on them. It would’ve gone well with their gorilla grunting. Following that had been the food poisoning caused by a casserole brought in by Mrs. Cornelius. The teacher’s lounge had been liberally labeled a biohazard. The color of which is not orange like they tell you, but the bile green of non-stop vomiting. I stood witness to that. I’d gone through three mops.

And now we had a serial killer.

I closed the door behind me and locked it, not because I was immediately on board with the serial killer comment just issued, but we rented in a bad neighborhood. For us, an average neighborhood would be a more truthful way to put it. We’d not lived in better and we’d sometimes lived in worse. This cramped little house with a pronounced lean, no insulation, and cracked windows in east New London, Connecticut was nothing special in one way or the other. When we didn’t stay anyplace longer than five or six months, thanks to our mother’s ‘occupation’, it was all the same. I put my duffle bag containing my school books and janitor uniform by the door and took off my worn, but warm Salvation Army coat to hang from a rusted hook by the door.

With everything in its place I moved to the kitchen table, which wobbled, where my little brother with pencil and paper sat in a chair, which also wobbled. I lightly ruffled his black hair, shaggy in length but with a gloss like silk. Thanks to Cal being a good brother, he let me without complaint.

“Are you doing your homework?” I asked with a little disapproval for him to hear. It was six PM—although I couldn’t make it home at the same time as he did, I made it there before dark. Always.

The homework that he should’ve been done with by now. There was also a pan crusted with burnt Spagetti-Os in the sink, some less scorched fake pasta in spots on the cracked linoleum floor, and a purple handprint, Grape Crush probably, on the door of the groaning refrigerator.Cal was a good brother, but there are all sorts of definitions for good when it came to an eleven year old.

“Yes, Nik. I’m doing my homework. Watching the serial killer made me get behind.” I didn’t have to see his eyes to know they were rolling with the disdain and sarcasm only an eleven year old could manage, and I gave him a gentle swat to the back of the head.

I took the other chair and sat down. “All right. Tell me why our neighbor is a serial killer,” I said with a patience I didn’t have to fake. I listened to Cal when he had something to say. I always listened to him. I had even when he was three and thought a monster lived under the bed, because in our world….

In our world, there was every chance that he wasn’t necessarily wrong.

Demona1103
-$15 iTunes or Amazon Gift Card [For the DOUBLETAKE Dream Soundtrack]
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Choice of Gothic Beauty or Rue Morgue Magazine w/ DOUBLETAKE Ad In It [1 copy/issue]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

Anna
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

TDoc
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

FROM FACEBOOK:

Andrea Bond
-$15 iTunes or Amazon Gift Card [For the DOUBLETAKE Dream Soundtrack]
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Choice of Gothic Beauty or Rue Morgue Magazine w/ DOUBLETAKE Ad In It [1 copy/issue]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

Skye Storey
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

Matthew Rios
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

**FROM TWITTER:

@tebibeawulf
-$15 iTunes or Amazon Gift Card [For the DOUBLETAKE Dream Soundtrack]
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Choice of Gothic Beauty or Rue Morgue Magazine w/ DOUBLETAKE Ad In It [1 copy/issue]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

@altpointofview
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

@SarahReads
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

@poetphoenix
-One Autographed Rob Thurman Book of Choice [Excluding Anthologies]
-Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard
-Cal / Trickster / Chimera Bookmark

**We chose four winners from Twitter [instead of three] because of the Twitter Twosday DOUBLEtake portion of the contest.

Congratulations, everyone! You’ve all been contacted by me… the sooner you get back, the sooner y’get your swag.

Now then: Get ready for ALL SEEING EYE July 31st! We’re going to do some huge things for that book, since Rob has now gone MAINSTREAM with this new snarky, supernatural thriller!

xxx,
-Jayda

Collectible DOUBLETAKE Postcard Front and Back - Click to Enlarge

Click for Larger Image

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Cal Leandros novels comes a bold new supernatural thriller.

Picking up a small pink shoe from the grass forever changed young Jackson Lee’s life. Not only did its presence mean that his sister Tessa was dead—murdered and stuffed in the deep, black water of a narrow well—but the shoe itself told him so.

Tessa’s death triggers an even more horrific family massacre that, combined with this new talent he neither wants nor can handle, throws Jack’s life into a tailspin. The years quickly take him from state homes to the streets to grifting in a seedy carnival, until he finally becomes the cynical All Seeing Eye, psychic-for-hire. At last, Jackson has left his troubled past behind him and found a semblance of peace.

That is, until the government blackmails him. Helping the military contain the aftermath of a bizarre experiment gone violently wrong, everything Jackson knows about himself will change just as suddenly as it did with his little sister’s shoe.

And while change is constant…It’s never for the better.

[ Prologue ] [ Chapter 1 ] [ Chapter 4: Thirteen Years Later ]

Thank you for putting together one kickass dream soundtrack for The Leandros Brothers. Below is a collage of all the album art that links to the iTunes playlist.

Note: the songs are not listed in order of popularity – it’s more like a “mix tape” to share with each other.

Three winners will be “gifted” this soundtrack, and we are very close to announcing all of the winners – ten total – for the entire DOUBLETAKE contestapalooza. We hope you loved this contest as much as we did!

To be continued…
-Rob and Jayda

Click to View in iTunes

Caliban Leandros: Sinning With a Grin

So… we’ve pretty much decided which tracks you all submitted should be the top ten. But we’d like to have fifteen total songs on the soundtrack, and we’re torn on which five to choose out of tracks 11 – 20.

So!

We’d love to get your opinions by voting in this poll. Yes, it is enabled for multiple selections, so pick your favorite five. Once that’s done, we’ll be announcing contest winners and giving you VIP access to two sneak preview excerpts of Rob’s July release, ALL SEEING EYE.

Thank you for making this a truly great contest season for DOUBLETAKE!

-Rob and Jayda

Poll Closes @ 11pm/ET – Wednesday, April 4th

Animal I Have Become

I can’t escape this hell
So many times i’ve tried
But i’m still caged inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
I can’t control myself

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it’s not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal
(This animal, this animal)

I can’t escape myself
(I can’t escape myself)
So many times i’ve lied
(So many times i’ve lied)
But there’s still rage inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
I can’t control myself

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it’s not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal I have become
Help me believe it’s not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal

Somebody help me through this nightmare
I can’t control myself
Somebody wake me from this nightmare
I can’t escape this hell

(This animal, this animal, this animal, this animal, this animal, this animal, this animal)

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it’s not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal I have become
Help me believe it’s not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal
(This animal I have become)

And the video is just as perfect for Cal as the song!

Sin With a Grin

Take a good look at agony
Force fed pass down
Time release
I’m inspired to find the liar
Black list X on the back
Of a soulfull man
I’ve got way’s you understand
Look left, look right, but I’m
Behind you
I never noticed, until I focused
On everything you did, you said,
You lit the fuse inside my head

[Chorus]
Thank you for reminding me
Of why I’m sick inside
Thank you for the venom, did
You think it would paralyze?
These scars I scratch, I tear
Are there under my skin
Where you’ve always been
Thank you for reminding me,
To sin with a grin

Hangman
Standing on a twisted 2×4
Built your house, but forgot
To lock the door
I’m inside with two black eyes
I have not one shred of sympathy
I have no use for apologies
I’m inspired to find the liar
I never noticed, until I focused
On everything you did, you said,
You lit the fuse inside my head

[Chorus]
Thank you for reminding me
Of why I’m sick inside
Thank you for the venom, did
You think it would paralyze?
These scars I scratch, I tear
Are there under my skin
Where you’ve always been
Thank you for reminding me,
To sin with a grin

Thank you for reminding me
Of why I’m sick inside
Thank you for the venom, did
You think it would paralyze?
These scars I scratch, I tear
Are there under my skin
Where you’ve always been
Thank you for reminding me -

Of why I’m sick inside
Thank you for the venom, did
You think it would paralyze?
These scars I scratch, I tear
Are there under my skin
Where you’ve always been
Thank you for reminding me,
To sin with a grin

Sin with a grin [x3]

You mean like this??

Caliban Leandros: Sinning With a Grin

Monster

The secret side of me
I never let you see
I keep it caged
But I can’t control it
So stay away from me
The beast is ugly
I feel the rage
And I just can’t hold it
It’s scratching on the walls
In the closet, in the halls
It comes awake
And I can’t control it
Hiding under the bed
In my body, in my head
Why won’t somebody come and save me from this?
Make it end!

[Chorus]
I feel it deep within,
It’s just beneath the skin
I must confess that I
Feel like a monster
I hate what I’ve become
The nightmare’s just begun
I must confess that I
Feel like a monster
I feel like a monster

My secret side I keep
Hid under lock and key
I keep it caged
But I can’t control it
Cause if I let him out
He’ll tear me up
And break me down
Why won’t somebody come and save me from this?
Make it end!

I feel it deep within,
It’s just beneath the skin
I must confess that I
Feel like a monster
I hate what I’ve become
The nightmare’s just begun
I must confess that I
Feel like a monster
I feel like a monster

It’s hiding in the dark
It’s teeth are razor sharp
There’s no escape for me
It wants my soul,
It wants my heart
No one can hear me scream
Maybe it’s just a dream
Or maybe it’s inside of me
Stop this monster!

[Chorus]
I feel it deep within,
It’s just beneath the skin
I must confess that I
Feel like a monster
I hate what I’ve become
The nightmare’s just begun
I must confess that I
Feel like a monster

I feel it deep within,
It’s just beneath the skin
I must confess that I
Feel like a monster
I’m gonna lose control
Here’s something radical
I must confess that I
Feel like a monster

I, I feel like a monster [x4]

Pretty self-explanatory, eh?