BLOOD CHILD NOW AVAILABLE

NEW RELEASE: BLOOD CHILD, a paranormal thriller about a man with a dark destiny and a parasite on his soul.

Available as an ebook from Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords for only $1.99.

Blood Child is a prequel story in the urban fantasy series The End of the World and Some Other Things. Earlier this month I had released The Man with the Devil’s Tongue (which you can get for FREE from Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and iTunes – it remains $0.99 on Kindle). The Man with the Devil’s Tongue introduced you to the female lead of the series, the young April Frausini. With Blood Child, you are introduced to the male lead, the newly chosen Pale Rider, Trey Decarr.

Blood Child is a bit different from The Man with the Devil’s Tongue—a bit nastier, more violent, and a tad darker in tone. This is partly because it’s a book where Death himself is the hero. Decarr’s a bit of a bastard, but he’s trying. He used to kill people for a living until he caught the attention of the Powers That Be. They named him Death, the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Instead of helping to bring about the end times, Decarr rejects his role and does what he can to prevent the coming Apocalypse, making him an enemy of demons everywhere. In Blood Child, his rebellious choices enrage the long dead Ivan Tarkovsky, the man who was chosen to be Death during World War II. Tarkovsky leaves the comforts of Hell so that he may possess Decarr and set him on the ‘proper path’…

A bit of background info for those interested: Blood Child was written during 2013’s NaNoWriMo. This was my first attempt at the competition and I did rather well, completing my manuscript well before the end of November. Lots of time on the shelf, followed by a few rounds of edits, and you have the book you see now. I rather like it. It’s like a sort of American road trip horror show mixed with paranormal/urban fantasy stuff. I dig it. I hope you do, too.

Blood Child is available for $1.99 for Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, and iBooks.

A paperback copy will be available at some later date for around $10. It was always my intention to make the paperback available at the same time as the ebook, but when I decided to publish three books in six weeks I knew that something was bound to go wrong. I’ll let you know when the paperback becomes available.

Death's Good Intentions ARCs

One of the common ways to drum up sales and support for a new novel is to offer an advance-review-copy (also known as an ARC) to readers who are willing to post a review in exchange for the freebie book they receive.

So! I am offering free ARCs of Death’s Good Intentions to anybody willing to write an honest review. Heck, if you're interested in the other books, I'm willing to send you an ARC of Blood Child and The Man with the Devil's Tongue, too.

CLICK HERE to learn more and fill out a form to request your ARC today!

Cover Reveal and Release Dates for Death's Good Intentions and Prologues

It is finally time to reveal some cover art and release dates for the first books in my new dark, urban fantasy series The End of the World and Some Other Things.

 Available September 9th 

DEATH'S GOOD INTENTIONS

THE END OF THE WORLD AND SOME OTHER THINGS

BOOK 1

Trey Decarr used to be a well-respected hitman. He kept his clients happy, limited civilian casualties, and lived his life with a moral code that allowed him to think that what he was doing was just. Along the way, Decarr must’ve impressed someone up on high, because the next thing he knows the world’s a lot weirder than it used to be. . . 

Demons walk the streets. Angels hover up above. Vampires hunt like wolves. And some jackasses in nice suits are saying that Decarr’s been chosen.

Decarr is to become Death, the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse.

But then Decarr does something that they never expected. He resists. Instead of accepting his role in the end of days, he decides to hunt down his Horsemen brethren in a crazed attempt to save humanity.

Hell now views him as an enemy and Heaven sees him as a reckless wildcard that threatens to undo prophecy. 

April Frausini, a young recruit in a secret order within the church, is tasked with finding Decarr and stopping him before things get out of control.

April’s orders are simple: kill Death. However, April is conflicted, and senses purpose in Decarr’s violent rampage. When she meets this man called Death, will she pull the trigger? Or can she reason with him and perhaps make the Pale Rider into a powerful ally in the fight to save the world from annihilation?

In addition to Death's Good Intentions, there will be two prequel stories. These books can be read before or after Death's Good Intentions as they tell separate stories from the main arc of the series, but they will be released in the weeks prior to DGI. 

Available August 5th

THE MAN WITH THE DEVIL'S TONGUE 

A Prologue to The End of the World and Some Other Things

April Frausini can see ghosts. When she was younger, her parents had treated her like a child with a broken brain. They took April to doctors. The doctors sent her to specialists. The specialists put her on drugs. And when the drugs failed to stop the visions, the specialists zapped her brain. 

After that, April told them that the ghosts had gone.

She lied.

Now she’s in college and trying to forge a future for herself, but a chance encounter with a dark spirit in a bar puts a bit of a hold on things.

A man named Jameson Talbot reaches out to her, explaining that there are worse things than ghosts to be afraid of. The spirit she saw the other night was no mere ghost, but the Devil himself in spectral form. If she chooses, Talbot promises to teach her to control her gift of sight, so that they may help others who have been tormented by these spirits, and potentially put a stop to whatever the Devil has planned.

April must choose. Go back to a life where nobody understands her or her visions? Or follow Talbot, find a purpose, and walk down a dangerous path in search of the Devil himself?

 

Available August 26th 

BLOOD CHILD 

A Prologue to The End of the World and Some Other Things

Ivan Tarkovsky was one of the Soviet Union’s finest soldiers in World War II. A warrior feared by the Nazis and his own men, he was set loose upon the battlefields of Europe with the sole purpose of putting Hitler’s decapitated head on a pike. However, upon reaching Berlin, he led his men into an ambush. Tarkovsky was the only survivor.

Taken hostage by the Nazis, Tarkovsky was hauled into Hitler’s bunker and told a most unbelievable fantasy: Hitler was gathering the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Tarkovsky was believed to be the Pale Rider himself.

They told him he was a man of great purpose, a man with a destiny. He told them he didn’t want a destiny and had to cut their throats to stop their jabbering. . . He did not escape Berlin alive.

Tarkovsky fell to the deepest pits of Hell where the Devil labeled him a traitor. For decades, Tarkovsky was tortured and twisted until he became a self-made demon, one filled with regret over the misuse of his time on earth.

Now Tarkovsky has learned that the modern Death, an American named Trey Decarr, is repeating similar mistakes. Tarkovsky decides it is time to leave the comforts of Hell, take hold of Decarr’s soul, and set him on the proper path. . .

Check out my Author Profile on Goodreads, where you can add the books to your To-Read shelves if you so wish!

Some time before the September 9th release date of Death's Good Intentions I hope to have a giveaway program up on Goodreads. I will also be looking for reviewers interested in ARCs. Keep checking back here for updates!

And thanks for reading.

Coming soon... The End of the World and Some Other Things

So, I wanted to take a moment and give an update on what I’ve been working on.

For the last couple years I’ve been writing a dark fantasy series called The End of the World and Some Other Things. If I was to give it the Hollywood pitch, I’d say it’s like Hellboy meets 24.

The first book of the series, Death’s Good Intentions, centers on Trey Decarr, a contract killer chosen by fate to become Death, the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Disgusted by his new post, Decarr decides to resist rather than serve, making himself an enemy of Hell and an unpredictable nuisance for Heaven. Decarr finds himself in a losing battle against both angels and demons, while he scours the globe hunting the other Horsemen in a desperate attempt to stave off Armageddon. Meanwhile, a secret order of the church called the Gatekeepers is tasked with killing Decarr, likening him to a rabid dog that needs to be put down. Leading the team that hunts Decarr is young April Frausini. Her orders are simple: kill Death. But April is conflicted, sensing purpose in Decarr’s wild actions, and believes he could become a trusted ally in the fight to save the world from annihilation.

In addition to Book 1: Death’s Good Intentions, I wrote a couple of shorter prequel stories, which I'm calling Prologues.

The first Prologue is called Blood Child, which follows Ivan Tarkovsky, the man chosen to be Death during WWII. Tarkovsky resisted much like Decarr and suffered in Hell for his defiance, eventually becoming a twisted demon of a man. When Tarkovsky sees Decarr repeating his mistakes in modern day America, Tarkovsky makes it his mission to corrupt Decarr’s soul and put him on the 'proper path.'

The second Prologue is titled The Man with The Devil’s Tongue and focuses on April’s initiation into the Gatekeepers. April learns from her teachers how to master her gifts of sight and see the demons that lurk in the world of man. Meanwhile, one of her college classmates has become possessed by the Devil himself, and seeks to stab at the heart of the Gatekeepers by killing its leaders. 

The Prologues were actually written after Death’s Good Intentions. The original purpose was simply to give readers a cheap gateway into the series—but I really enjoyed working on these prequel stories. It gave me a chance to explore the world and the characters in more detail without worrying about the main story of the series, which doesn’t allow for such deviations. In the future I may write additional Prologues, either focusing on Decarr or April, or maybe other supporting characters that never had the chance to act as the lead.

The stories are completed but I am editing them right now. My plan is to self-publish them sometime in May or June. Still gotta get coverart, too. I’ll offer further updates when I have them.

I’m excited about these stories. The story of Decarr has been in my head for years and it’s gone through many variations (including one abandoned 650 page novel and a sequel to that novel) before becoming what it is today. I like the way it’s turned out and I look forward to sharing the stories with everyone when they’re ready.

In addition to the books of The End of the World and Some Other Things, I’ve also been working on a giant monster epic (I love kaiju!!!). Plus! a short story about creatures living in holes on a deserted island—that one’s weird.  But more on those later!

Thanks for reading!