Paul F. Olson has announced the release of his novel Alexander’s Song for the Kindle. The genre-straddling book was published for Amazon’s digital platform March 6.

The novel’s description is short and to the point:

Planning a series of articles on the life of a literary master, Andy Gillespie visits the writer’s hometown, looking for clues to his past. What he discovers is a decades-old story of mystery, madness and murder — a chain of darkness that began more than sixty years earlier and is not finished yet.

But according to Olson, that summary may be deceiving: a thumbnail sketch of a novel that is long, involving and complex.

“This was the classic example of writing the kind of book I wanted to read,” Olson says. “It’s not a fast read, and it’s not always an easy read. It’s the kind of novel you can get lost in for days, where you have to think while you’re reading it, where you have to ponder and analyze as you go along, where any stray comment might be a clue, and where jumping to conclusions will probably lead you to the wrong spot. I love reading books where you have to keep your wits about you at all times, and Alexander’s Song is one of those.”

Although it’s being published now for the first time, Alexander’s Song was actually written nearly twenty years ago. Early readers of the novel praised the book, but no one could quite figure out what to do with it.

“It was that age-old problem,” Olson says. “The book just didn’t fit into a niche. It has elements of mystery, dashes of suspense, a bit of thriller, a touch of horror, and a trace of traditional mainstream fiction in it, too. All of that was very deliberate on my part. I wanted it to defy labels. But I was a guy known for writing ghost stories and a vampire novel, and everyone said the same thing: they loved it, but it didn’t fit the so-called ‘arc’ of my career. I was actually told, more than once, that bookstores would shy away from it because they wouldn’t know where to shelve it.”

Fortunately, he says, the digital age eliminates those concerns, allowing books to find their ideal readers, regardless of labels and preconceptions.

“Digital publication allows a good story to be just that – a good story – which, of course, is the only thing that ever really matters,” Olson says.

The novel is available to buy or borrow here: Alexander’s Song

About the Author: Paul F. Olson has been a professional writer and editor for over thirty years. He has published numerous short stories, articles, interviews, essays, book reviews and more.

He is the author of the novel Night Prophets, published by New American Library. Teaming with David B. Silva, he co-edited two anthologies of horror stories, Post Mortem and Dead End: City Limits, both published by St. Martin’s Press. Post Mortem was later reprinted in paperback by Dell/Abyss.

In the 1980s Olson launched the non-fiction trade magazine Horrorstruck: The World of Dark Fantasy, which was nominated for the British and World Fantasy Awards, and ten years later partnered with Silva again to create the Hellnotes newsletter.

Olson lives in the small town of Brimley, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

He can be contacted through his website: Paul F. Olson

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