This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.

Book 1, recently re-titled What Boys Are Made Of, is nearing its release date of March 15th, 2016. And here it is!

In this gritty debut set in a near-future Appalachia, S. Hunter Nisbet presents a stunning story of surviving the choices we make—and those that are made for us.

Simon “Saint” Flaherty is sixteen the day he enters a back-alley mixed martial arts fight in his Appalachian town. The odds are overwhelmingly in his favor, but no one expects him to win by accidentally killing his opponent, least of all Simon. His coach uses the publicity to set Simon up in the fight of his life in scarcely a month’s time, but physically ready doesn’t mean mentally ready.

Erin Livingston has taken care of Simon since he was orphaned at the age of eleven, a replacement son for the one stolen away from her by a war that tore the country apart and left her hometown in isolated ruin and at the hands of despot cartel leader Jeff Petrowski. Not only does Petrowski keep an iron grip on the community, but his grasp is also rapidly closing in on Erin as Simon’s limelight reveals a secret she’s desperate to keep hidden from the world. Now Erin is searching for a way out, any way out.

Nothing can stop Simon’s next fight, barreling toward them at the speed of a shotgun shell. No one dares stop Petrowski, not if it means risking their lives against a man with no mercy. In this tightly woven story of enduring in the face of violence, Simon and Erin must decide whether a chance to escape a life not worth living is worth the danger of losing it altogether.

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Ahead of the release, I’ll need a few of what we call in the business “Advance Readers.”

Not that you have to be advanced–you’re getting the book in advance of the release date!

That’s right. I’m giving away twelve PDF copies of What Boys Are Made Of for free to twelve interested readers. In return, when my book goes up on Amazon, I need you to write an honest review there.

Even as I write this post, one two of those copies are already claimed, so I’m looking for ten more readers. Love to read literary suspense? Excellent. Enjoy complicated characters and plot twists? Even better.

(Have a platform of sixteen thousand readers who you want to share my book with? …Who are you and how did you find my blog, and yes please!)

But mostly I want people who look at my book and go, “Hey, this looks like my kind of read.”

Take a look at the details below:

The Book: What Boys Are Made Of by S. Hunter Nisbet, Book 1 in the Saint Flaherty series.
Genre: Literary, Suspense, Psychological, Appalachian Grit
Details: First person, present tense, 351 pages
Comp Titles: Think Ron Rash’s The World Made Straight meets Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. Though I’m telling you, if you enjoyed the manga Banana Fish by Akimi Yoshida, I wrote this book for you. Ditto for Sarah Monette’s Doctrine of Labyrinths series. And if none of those sound familiar, go read my short story “The Foreigner’s Loneliness” and see if you enjoy it.

What you get:

A copy of the book in PDF form for you to download to your e-reader or simply read on your computer screen. Or, hey, print it out and enjoy it that way (not recommended as that’s a bit pricey in terms of ink, but sure, if that’s what you want.)

If the only way for you to read it is in print form, I will be getting those together, but they take a little longer and they’re not exactly free for me. Those I can only distribute within the US as well, because holy crap have you seen shipping prices for international mail? If you need one of these, talk to me and we’ll figure something out.

Why I’m giving these out:

In exchange for receiving a free copy of my book, you agree to leave an honest review on Amazon and anywhere else you would like to leave it, on the release date (or as soon after as possible).

And yes, I do mean honest. You love it? Awesome! Tell us about it. You don’t like it? Say that, and preferably why. Say what you thought was creepy, what you enjoyed. Do a short review or a long one, just leave something, that’s all I ask!

Why?

Reviews boost a book’s visibility and make sure more people see it. Right now I’m a lone mouth at a shouting contest. Your voice makes me much louder! After all, aren’t you more likely to go to a new restaurant after a friend recommends it? Readers are the same way–we want to read what’s good, and we know something is good when the people around us like it too.

If you enjoyed “The Foreigner’s Loneliness,” you’ll probably love What Boys Are Made Of. So why not help me out and be an advance reader?

How to volunteer :

Leave a comment below, or on my Facebook Page. You could connect with me on Twitter, or shoot me an email at shunternisbet [at] gmail [dot] com. You could even knock on my door (okay, don’t really do that, that’s creepy, but you know what I mean). I need to know your name and your email address, and that’s it!

The release date for What Boys Are Made Of is Tuesday March 15th, 2016.

I will begin sending out advance copies out on Wednesday, February 3rd.

Interested? Please let me know!

Be sure to sign up for my monthly newsletter to get all the updates on the release!

Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from a few of you soon.