Ronan Cray Takes Manhattan!

If you happen to duck into St. Mark's Bookshop in Manhattan; if you happen to browse the Mystery section for the likes of Robin Cook, Michael Connelly, and Harlan Coben; and if you find yourself staring into the eye of a hurricane, it's your lucky day! You just found a signed, first edition copy of Red Sand. That's right, Red Sand is now available in stores!

Red Sand Book Launch a Success!

Thank you to everyone who suffered a bitterly cold New York night to attend my book launch. As a writer, I spend long hours in front of a computer screen with nothing but Netflix for company. It’s nice to see other human beings once in a while. It was a great night with beer, friends, and frivolity. I admit I really enjoyed the attention! It’s good to see stacks of Red Sand in print, and even better to see those stacks dwindle into eager readers’ hands. My little books have started their journey. Like a sail, they’re meant to unfurl, not to decorate the deck. My aspiration is to spot my work in a used book store someday. A book that holds value through several hands is a success, and only time makes it so. For those of you who missed it, I’m planning another launch in January. Until then, Cheers!

How to Write a Book

My writing desk. If only we had time to write long hand. 

After Red Sand came out, friends and strangers have been asking me, "How did you do it? How did you write an entire book?” With almost 1.8 million book titles on Amazon, I’m hardly unique, but not all of those authors are sharing advice.

I think everyone has a book in them. My only goal with the following information is to inspire you to write a book of your own. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. But first, here are a few tips:

Rule Number One

Published!

After years of cogitation and nine hard months of writing, my first book, "Red Sand", is now available for download and purchase! Buy it for any e-reader device on Smashwords now, or check our a print version on Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble or wherever books are sold.  It costs less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks and it lasts a lot longer!
What is it about? It's a thriller, a suspenseful roller coaster that will leave you gasping for air. Not enough? You need to know more before before plunking down little more than a one-way trip on the NYC Subway? Okay. Here it is:
The cruise ship Princess Anne sinks under mysterious circumstances. A handful of survivors find themselves rescued by rickety old lifeboats and strange white-haired men, one of them without a tongue! They are carried to a desert island where they are welcomed as "guests" but treated like slaves. Promised a speedy salvation, they instead disappear one by one. Something lives beneath the sand, something even the natives fear. They live behind a great wall on the lava flows, but the survivors of the Princess Anne do not. Why? What is stalking them? When will they leave? As the political structure of the native's camp disintegrates, and a hurricane approaches, the few remaining survivors realize they have only one choice - get off the island at any cost.
Hooked? Buy it here!
I followed a simple formula to write it:
Fear the Island.
Fear the natives.
Fear each other.
Fear yourself.

I guarantee you will enjoy it more than that cappuccino, and certainly more than that subway ride.

Shipwrecks of the World

I've always had a fascination with shipwrecks, which is why they figure so prominently in "Red Sand". There is something majestic and terrifying about these tempest tossed relics of man's inferiority. Once proudly sailing above, now crushed by their own vanity, these rusting hulks represent man's neverending struggle against nature. What is a storm but the personification of man's frailty before nature's wrath?
I'm partial to shipwrecks that remain above water. To sink at sea is one thing, but

How to make Soap and a Hot Shower on a Desert Island

How do you make soap and a hot shower on a desert island? In "Red Sand", survivors stuck on a desert island struggle with natives, sand fleas, a mysterious killer, and certainly hygiene issues. The mechanics of a hot shower would have slowed down the plot, but if you read it wondering, "How did they stay clean?", here's the answer.
Surrounded by stinky castaways? You're not the first. Among the travails of marooned mariners, hygiene typically gets the short shrift. It's hard for us modern folk to focus on famine, disease, and elemental exposure when the guy next to you stinks to high hell.
Luckily, even the rudest island has all the ingredients necessary to take a hot shower with real soap.
The following recipe