Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for Cold Sleep organized by Goddess Fish Promotions.
Author Luke Hindmarsh will award a $20 Amazon or B&N Gift Card to a randomly drawn winner. Don’t forget to enter!
And you can click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Cold Sleep
by Luke Hindmarsh
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Genre: Science Fiction
Synopsis
It’s the perfect score—stealing valuable data from a VIP in cryo-freeze midway through a decades-long interstellar crossing. If it works, Kara will have enough money to buy what she’s always wanted—a Captaincy.
But with the rest of the crew and the cargo of one hundred thousand colonists still frozen, Kara and her accomplice, Zed, realize they’re not the only ones awake. The murdered woman they find is only the first victim of whoever or whatever has woken from Cold Sleep.
Enjoy this peek inside:
Stretching out the stiffness, my joints pop and crackle. One of the problems with lying in cold-sleep: you wake up feeling like arthritis has set in. With the synthetic dopamine and endorphins fading, I’d probably just want to curl up somewhere but good old synthphenethylamine’s still getting me going. A few seconds more for the upload of the quasi-intelligent virus to the ship’s system to finish.
Speaking of risks, getting caught with QI tech would see me court-martialed and spaced before any appeal notice could reach Earth. But this gig is worth it; it’s not for the thrill, it’s for what the payoff will get me.
Upload complete. And the ship’s systems stop registering our unscheduled revival.
A quick check back through the records shows all evidence of disruption to the normal cold-sleep routine has been erased. My little QI viral hitchhiker is back safe in the link-key, its work done for now.
Of course, a full virtual forensic check, stripping away every level of the programming and examining the source code, will make my tampering as obvious as a cometary impact. But the QI virus has laid the same evidence trail to each of the eighteen crew, four officers, and one hundred thousand passengers on board.
If you can’t hide your crime, make sure the evidence points to someone else. Better yet, everyone else.
For now, we’re ghosts aboard a sleeping ship.
About Author Luke Hindmarsh:
A Brit now living in the Scandinavian wilds of Denmark with his wife and half-Viking kids, Luke worked as a Criminal Barrister in and around London for over a decade dealing with everything from minor theft cases to a real life axe murder and everything in between. Thanks to parents in the military he grew up being dragged around the world–while living in the Far East he picked up a love for the martial arts which continues to this day, as he passes on what he’s learned to a select dojo of students. Cold Sleep is his third novel. His first was Amazon cyberpunk bestseller Mercury’s Son, his second a UK set supernatural suspense novel 3:33 AM.
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I am intrigued.
Hi Mary, you’ve just given every writer’s ideal comment! Please feel free to ask me anything about Cold Sleep or my other novels and maybe my answer will pique your interest to the level of peak intrigue… Hmm, you can tell I haven’t had my morning coffee yet.
Hi, I’m Luke Hindmarsh. Thank you Laura for hosting my book.
As noted in my bio above, I’m based in the wilds of Scandinavia so if I’m slow to respond to any comments, it’s either a time difference issue or else I’m having to defrost the internet connection (joking!). Anyway, I will reply to comments as soon as I see them! And please feel free to ask me anything—I’m a writer, not a biter!
I like the cover! The design is eye-catching.
Thank you, Jeanna. I did an original design which the cover artist at my publisher then improved upon. We had quite a discussion over whether her eyes should be open or not but that at least means I can use the open eye cover as part of an animated book cover/book trailer. You can see it here: https://twitter.com/LukeETHindmarsh/status/1642823746351144963
Thanks for hosting!
I enjoyed the peek inside. Sounds like a great sci fi read.
I shared this one tool. Everything about it looks and sounds great!
Thanks, Sherry. I really appreciate the share!
this sounds great, nice cover too
this sounds very interesting, thanks
Well, the problem I see here, wouldn’t the food supply be frozen as well until most of the crew wakes up?
Thanks for the question, sorry for the slow response. Easter Weekend and all.
You’re assuming they plan to be out of their cryonic suspension long enough to need to eat anything. The premise is a quick heist leaving as little evidence as possible before returning to their hibernation for several more years. Whether that works out or not is the point of the novel, so I won’t spoil that here, however, *if* it went badly wrong, food shortage might indeed become relevant. Particularly given the vessel’s supplies are not intended to cope with the crew or the cargo of 100,000 colonists being unfrozen.
This definitely is a different kind of murder mystery than I am used to. But definitely one I would enjoy!
This sounds interesting!
love reading about the author, so interesting
The book sounds intriguing. Great cover!
is it hard to come up with ideas for your books
Hi Wendy,
Sorry for the slow reply and thanks for your comments.
The problem for me isn’t coming up with ideas, it’s choosing which ones are worth giving my time to. What I find is that if an idea keeps recurring, that’s the one I pursue. Hence, I used to write down ideas in a journal so I didn’t forget them until I realised that ideas I could so easily forget probably weren’t that good in the first place. In the unusual situation where my imagination fails me, I take a break. Go for a walk or do something else. I find practical work, preferably outdoors, is a great way of recharging my creativity.
What was the inspiration for the ship on the cover?
Hi Denise,
Sorry for the slow response.
I was lucky to be consulted about the cover design (probably because I sent a mock-up of what I wanted to the publisher). Ultimately, the choice of vessel on the cover came down to how scientifically plausible it looked. It’s a close match to the ship I have in my mind’s eye. The ship in the novel operates using real-world scientific principles which I spent a long time making sure were believable. Of course, I then had to make sure that it didn’t bore my long-suffering readers with all of that technical talk.
Modern book cover design often involves the use of stock imagery–the ship on the cover is likely one of those. The only part of the cover I am certain is original artwork made for this book is the image of the frozen woman. I know that because I made it! Hope this answers your question.