Christmas Kindle Sale: 3 Books at 0.99

To celebrate the Christmas season, from now until January 6, On the Soul of a Vampire, the first book in the On the Soul Series, and both books of the Friar Tobe Fairy Tale Files, Mareritt and Vingede, are on sale on Amazon Kindle for only 0.99.

For some it takes a lifetime to discover their raison d’être. Imagine searching for eight centuries. In 1997 Philadelphia, an 800 year old vampire comes face to face with his reason to be when he discovers a young mortal woman whose understanding of immortality is about to change all he’s known as truth. Obsessed with the mystery of her knowledge, he embarks on a journey that leads him not only to his childhood home in the Provençal Alps, but into his greatest hopes and dreams, fears and disappointments, and into the strange and frightening past that shaped him. A novel about faltering faith and never-ending hope, On the Soul of a Vampire will not only alter everything you think you know about vampires, it will change the way you see your very soul.

 

 

 

As beauty lies sleeping…

 

Four pretty, partying high school seniors, four strange and startling accidents the police believe the girls have brought on themselves. Do demonic nightmares and fairy tale visions bury a dark secret haunting the girls or is the past simply struggling to reach the light?

 

Twenty-eight year old former novitiate turned PI, Tobias Berger, hired to discover who, if anyone, is threatening the four troubled young women, is about to embark on a wild “mare ride” to slay their dragon and uncover the truth.

 

A dark fairy tale mystery with a touch of mystic light.

 

 

 

A possibly schizophrenic adolescent boy who speaks mysterious, rhyming riddles… a mute teen girl who can only communicate through art and has an odd collecting habit… Two young people held captive by unrelated mental illness or is there a sinister connection between the cases – a swan song cry no one has yet heard?

 

When former novitiate turned PI, Tobias Berger, is hired by the foster father of a teen whom his unusual new client believes may have knowledge of an undiscovered crime, the private eye finds himself immersed in two cases stranger and darker than the one which introduced him to his current secretary, a young woman who’s much more to him than an employee. As the pieces in an eerie puzzle come together and the couple begins a relationship that Tobias has been hesitant to let take flight, the two discover that the supernatural is far from done with them and that the mystical may well be at work in more than one aspect of their lives.

 

Another fairy tale mystery in which the paranormal proves itself business as usual.

 

 

I'm also currently finishing work on my fifth book, a new stand-alone novel, called Unless, which is in a different genre from my previous supernatural/metaphysical fiction stories. It's a New Adult/Contemporary Fiction novel about power, pain and the problem of physical pleasure that can know a body but can't know a person. A sneak peek at the cover and preliminary book description will be coming soon and an early 2014 release is expected.

 

A beautiful and blessed Christmas to those who celebrate it and a happy holiday season to all.

 

New Editions and On the Soul of a Vampire on Sale

This month I am releasing new paperback editions of my gothic, speculative fiction novels  On the Soul of a Vampire  and  Pro Luce Habere Volume 1  to celebrate the paperback release of  Pro Luce Habere Volume 2.  All three novels have new interior formatting and artwork, as well as updated covers, and will be available at new, lower prices.  Aiding in the celebration, Amazon is presently offering the new edition of  On the Soul of Vampire on sale for only $8.92, which is a five dollar savings from the regular price.  Just click on the book cover link to Amazon below where you can take a peek inside the book.

The answer is neither in blood nor in life; the key to the mystery resides in the human soul.

 

For some it takes a lifetime to discover their raison d'etre.  Imagine searching for eight centuries.  In 1997 Philadelphia, an 800 year old vampire comes face to face with his reason to be when he discovers a young mortal woman who knows everything about him and whose understanding of immortality is about to change all he's known as truth.  Obsessed with the mystery of her knowledge, he embarks on a journey with her that leads them to his childhood home in the Provençal Alps, as well as into the strange and frightening past that shaped him.  A novel of faltering faith and neverending hope, On the Soul of a Vampire will not only alter everything you think you know about vampires, it will change the way you see your very soul.

 

The new edition paperbacks of  Pro Luce Habere Volume 1  and  Volume 2  will be available within the next two weeks.

 

 



M.R. Gott's Cutis Anserina: M.R. Gott interviews...Werner A Lind

Supernatural and speculative fiction fans, check out this fascinating interview with the very talented, Werner Lind, author of the wonderful vampire novel, Lifeblood, on M.R. Gott's blog, where he talks about his inspiration, influences and his writing of this historical and faith-based paranormal tale.  And a big thank you to Werner for his very kind mention.

M.R. Gott's Cutis Anserina: M.R. Gott interviews...Werner A Lind: Please Welcome Novelist Werner A. Lind to Cutis Anserina... Your novel Lifeblood is a century-spanning vampiric romance; what were t...

On the Soul of a Vampire FREE on Kindle August 21 & 22

Read a vampire novel that's much less about darkness and death than it is about light and life.

On the Soul of a Vampire, Book I in the On the Soul series is FREE on Amazon Kindle Tuesday and Wednesday, August 21 & 22.  Just click on the book cover link below:

The solution to the mystery has always been in the human soul.

On the Soul of a Vampire FREE on Kindle Tuesday, August 7

On the Soul of a Vampire, Book I in the On the Soul series, will be FREE on Amazon Kindle this Tuesday, August 7, 2012.  Discover how the truth behind the legend has always resided in the human soul.  Just click on the link below to start the journey towards a secret as old as mankind:

Celebrate Bastille Day/La Fete Nationale with a Free French Twofer (Sort of)

In honor of France’s National Celebration of the start of the modern nation, On the Soul of a Vampire, whose narrator is of French/Provençal origin (and who sometimes resorts to a French phrase or two), will be FREE on Amazon Kindle Thursday, July 12, 2012.

 

And my dual language story, The Lion Hunt, an English translation of Alfred Assollant’s parody/adventure La Chasse aux Lions, which includes the original French story, will be FREE on Kindle Saturday, July 14 (Bastille Day), 2012.

A happy celebration to all who commemorate the day – French, Francophone, Francophile and simply French at heart!

Pro Luce Habere FREE on Kindle Tuesday, May 8

Get Pro Luce Habere, the two volume prequel to On the Soul of a Vampire, FREE on Amazon Kindle Tuesday, May 8. That's two full-length novels, combined in one edition, for free and, as a prequel, it can be read before reading On the Soul of a Vampire.

Just click the book link below:


What does a vampire see when he dies?

The death, destruction and darkness rife in human history…
and the living light in the human soul which somehow shines through it all.
A horrific deception that just may lead to the ultimate truth he’s sought for eight centuries…
and mystical visions of a little girl who could hold the key to the mystery of a legend as old as mankind.

Dying isn’t the end of knowledge; it’s only the beginning.

On the Soul of a Vampire FREE on Amazon Kindle Mon. & Tues., March 5-6

On the Soul of a Vampire, Book I in the On the Soul series, will be FREE on Amazon Kindle Monday and Tuesday, March 5th and 6th, 2012.

Just click on the book link below:



A vampire's desire isn't blood or life; the key to the mystery is in the human soul.

Pro Luce Habere FREE on Amazon Kindle TODAY thru SAT.

Pro Luce Habere, the prequel to On the Soul of a Vampire, is FREE on Amazon Kindle today (2/23) through Saturday (2/25). Just click on the book link below:



Look beyond fiction and folklore and believe again.

Pro Luce Habere FREE on Kindle Feb. 23 through Feb. 25

This Thursday through Saturday, February 23-25, 2012 get Pro Luce Habere Volumes 1 & 2 combined edition FREE on Kindle.

Just click on the book cover below:



The power’s not in the blood, but in the sacrifice made in spilling it.

See History Through the Eyes of an Immortal Legend

Pro Luce Habere Volume I only $0.99 on Amazon Kindle.

From now until December 30, 2011, get Pro Luce Habere Volume I on Kindle for only $0.99.  And check out the just released Pro Luce Habere Volume II on Kindle for only $1.99.  Both are full-length novels and Pro Luce Habere is a stand-alone story that can be read before Book I, On the Soul of a Vampire.  This dark epic tale of eight hundred years of human history through the eyes of an immortal is also available in a combined Volume I & II e-book edition for only $4.99 on Amazon and Smashwords.

Volume I

In the place between life and death, the soul is exposed to the light. Relive the memory of an 800 year old vampire's descent into darkness as he does, from child of faith who set out on the Children's Crusade in 1212 to desperate 14th century creature of the night. Sometimes the key which unlocks the secret of what's to come is hidden in the past. Book II of the On the Soul Series.

Volume I on Amazon 

Volume II

After an earth-shattering revelation, vampire Valéry seeks a new world, free of the Old World's pain. Trapped in the darkness he can't escape, his attempt to determine who really is the monster further leads to him becoming one whose greatest deception is the lie he tells himself. Until the illusion is shattered to behold an enigmatic mortal girl.

Volume II on Amazon

Volume I & II Combined Edition

From his departure on the Children’s Crusade of 1212 at fourteen through his remaking as a creature of the night, Valéry seeks answers to the mystery and meaning of his existence over the course of eight centuries of human history. Forced to kill so he might live, but cherishing the lives he knows intimately in death, he is both shaped and haunted by the battle between light and darkness within his victims and within himself. See the inquisitions and witch hunts of the Middle Ages, two history-changing revolutions, world war and modernity through the eyes of this living myth, before the final unfolding of the mystery in the legend’s origin and purpose and the incredible revelation of how profoundly it is linked to that of every human soul.

Volume I & II on Amazon

The On the Soul Series on Smashwords

Excerpt from Pro Luce Habere Volume I:

“I see Heaven,” he breathed to me, his voice soft and distant and, it seemed, filled with joy.  I tightened my hold on him as he grew more relaxed against me, and I felt his heartbeat speed up in his chest, to a rate even beyond that which my touch had provoked.

I closed my eyes and I knew him.  All he was, this man not much older than my own nineteen years, who had nevertheless lived a life just as long.  His wish to be free of the family that did not understand the passion in him was my wish, and the music he made to ease his pain and celebrate life, was also for a moment mine.  His faith in God gave me back my own faith and for those brief moments that I held him, I believed again with all the fire of my mortal youth.  All his dreams, all his hopes, his every wish and fear and desire, they were all mine and they were touchable, somehow made a reality I could hold in my hands.  All the pleasure he had ever known and all the sorrow in his knowledge filled me; and I knew the answer to it all was there.  Not close, not painfully near and just out of reach, but right there, and a light penetrated my entire being.  A light brighter than any sun and a living force of shifting color more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen.

His heart stopped with a final violent beat like an explosion, and his lifeforce seemed to remain there for a moment, uncertain, while I reached out with a part of myself I barely recognized, trying to touch it.  Wanting desperately to make it mine as it merged into that light and so make its knowledge and final acceptance my own.

And then it was gone.  I held his inert body in my arms – a shell now, it seemed, which no longer contained the thing I’d so badly wanted of it.  The thing in him I’d loved with a love I’d never even imagined could exist.

He is dead, a meek, numbed voice spoke inside my head.  Dead, dead, dead, and you are the reason.

I lowered his body away from me and rocked forward on my knees, lowering my head to his chest.  I stroked it in the place over his heart, as if my touch could make it beat again.  Then I lifted my head a fraction, staring at his face, still and serene and at peace.  The peace Sebastian should have had, I thought, but he hadn’t, and it did not matter that I’d tried to give it to him through this young man.  However I might want to justify what I’d done to recognize I’d taken him to death in great pleasure and erased every fear a dying man might hold in his heart, it changed nothing.  He was dead and I was the reason for it and as much as I wished it, I could not bring him back.

I gathered his lifeless form into my arms and I rocked him.  For minutes or hours, I didn’t know.  All I knew was that this was going to be the result with every human being I touched – for eternity, if Lukios had not lied.

“Oh God, oh please… make it stop,” I whispered once or twice or a hundred times.

My heart constricted so tightly it was excruciating; my breath came in ragged gasps.  Then I leaned forward over the man I’d just murdered, the human being whose very life I’d experienced the greatest pleasure I’d ever known to feed on, and I vomited up the blood I’d not long ago drunk with no qualms.  The blood that had tasted so sweet in its promise of fulfilled desire.

“Make it stop!” I screamed, rising to my feet and lifting my arms to the sky in desperate supplication.  “God, my God, strike me down.  Kill me.  Please, kill me now!”

But no bolt of lightning struck me; no fiery death rained down from the sky.  God did not answer in voice or in action, just as He never had before this monstrous desire made me the killer I’d never believed I could be.

I fell to my knees, vomiting again, and as I fell forward, my hand landed on the dagger I’d just taken a life with – an innocent, beautiful life that I had known so intimately it might have been my own.

Screams were torn from me again, but this time there were no words – just terrible sounds that could not convey the horror which provoked them – and I raised the dagger above my head then slammed it down, driving it through my wrist so forcefully, it pierced my arm completely and pinned it to the ground beneath it.

I pulled it back out and, watching the blood gush from it, I wondered dazedly if I’d have enough strength to do with my right hand what I’d just done with my left.

But then someone was rocking me as I’d rocked the young troubadour’s body, clamping my bleeding wrist in his hand.  And as a blessed darkness descended, I heard a soft sob that sounded like “I’m sorry.”

Pro Luce Habere Volume I is also available in paperback.  Volume II and the combined edition coming soon in print format.

Damascus Road by Ellen C. Maze

5 *****

With Damascus Road, author Ellen C. Maze continues her fascinating Corescu Chronicles, and in this fantastic sequel to The Judging, readers are not only plunged into darker twists and turns, but into some profound and thought-provoking spiritual questions as well.

Mark Corescu, horrified by how he has used the excuse of judging the wicked acts of sinners to justify satisfying his bloodlust, has fled to a remote location in Europe to protect humanity, leaving newly-made vampire, Paul Black, without his mentor. For this, Paul blames Tony Agricola, and his revenge on this man of God who helped open Mark’s eyes is a most terrible one. Despite his repulsion and Paul’s constant torment, Tony succeeds in convincing Paul to feed his bloodlust on only him and preacher Big John Jenkins, who reluctantly agrees in order to keep others safe and for reasons of his own. But Paul and Mark have left a trail of bodies that have set two detectives on a mission to solve the mysterious case and, finally, Tony and Paul are forced to flee to Germany in search of Mark, with the abandoned woman who loves him, Hope Brannen, hot on their heels. But will finding the ancient vampire really lead to the answers they each seek?

Damascus Road is another amazing story by Ellen Maze that doesn’t just offer non-stop suspense and fascinating characters, but also provides an extremely unique way to look at human spiritual dilemmas. I loved the development of the characters Tony and Paul in this sequel. It’s possible to sympathize with the two in both their strengths and their weaknesses and their complex relationship is absolutely spellbinding. Even when Paul’s cruelty and constant sarcastic barbs and Tony’s often too patient suffering soul make the reader want to shake them, it’s still impossible not to feel for them and see them as simply human – fallible and redeemable, both. The questions their story poses about selfishness and self-sacrifice, temptation and faith offer great depth, raising a suspenseful paranormal horror story to a wonderful piece of speculative fiction, as do the challenges and struggles of new characters, Big John Jenkins and the pursuing detectives.

Another excellent work by an author who has become one of my favorites for her incredibly imaginative and well-written stories that don’t just entertain, but give me so much to think about. I can’t wait to read the next book in the Corescu Chronicles. If you haven’t read any of her two series or short stories yet, don’t miss out!

The Real Vampires Don't Whine Myth

…holds up about as well as the real men don’t eat quiche myth, I’d imagine.

The thing is this:  Unless the vampire in question is an alien species or a “born” vampire (from another planet or something like a surviving Neanderthal with fangs, I’d guess; but I assure you, we are neither), the dreaded creature is, for all intents and purposes, human.  Or that is to say, he was a human being who was altered in some fashion by being bequeathed bodily immortality and sharp teeth.  We’ll leave aside the argument of whether he is still human after this change, but for the little mention of a couple other animals who go through a rather profound metamorphosis, yet remain the same creature in essence – namely, the caterpillar and the tadpole.  Without putting too fine a point on it, for those not ready to change their stance on what makes a being what it fundamentally is and on when in its stage of development it “becomes” that being – these two creatures seem rather definitive proof that one is what one is from the moment of conception and despite any and all change to the body.  Feel free to argue a caterpillar isn’t alive until it becomes a butterfly or a tadpole alive until it becomes a frog – I’m all for spirited debate – but I daresay there’s no logical way to win that argument and it would merely be a distraction from the main dispute on the table.

Therefore, sneaky vampiric pontificating aside, the point here is:  it would seem that if a vampire starts out human, then he’s fundamentally always human, whatever changes his body may have sustained through his receiving of earthly immortality.  As such, he would be as likely to whine as any other human being.  (Whining being understood by those employing the word to mean any expression of unhappiness, dissatisfaction or upset with one’s present state.)  Now, human beings, I’m sure you’d agree, are pretty darn good whiners in general, and it might be argued that a vampire has more excuse to voice grief with his state of affairs than the average human.  Unless he checked his conscience at the door or started off a very dark-souled human indeed, isn’t it doubtful that he’d accept he now must kill and feed on his fellow man with the ease and even joy some writers like to propose?  And if he was made a vampire against his will to boot, as is so often the case in both fiction and folklore, all the more reason to be a bit disturbed, even perhaps outright horrified, about this new blood-soaked and murderous existence, wouldn’t you agree?

So, some recent suggestions by authors and readers alike that “real” vampires ought not to be whiny, emotional types, but should instead be returned to the personification-of-evil, revel-in-one’s-wickedness and celebrate-one’s-new-parasitical-status creature of old, puts more than a few “hey, wait a minute’s” on this vampire’s bloody lips.

First off, if you think that Dracula and his ilk are the “true” vampire of old, you’ve missed out on about four thousand or so years of creature of the night lore previous to the Count’s debut in 1897.  There are a near countless host of descriptions of vampire-like creatures prior to this royal bloodsucker’s fictional tale and they are not all painted as the epitome of evil.  In fact, some are much more tormented revenant than bloodthirsty undead beast.  Secondly, Dracula was not such a nice guy during his mortal lifetime.  His story was based on the infamously cruel Vlad the Impaler, whose name, I think, pretty much says it all.  As such, it seems fair to assume he went into immortality with quite the bloodlust and lack of conscience, both; so that he reveled in his new murderous lifestyle could be consider not a very far leap for him across the morality spectrum.

What’s most troubling to this vampire, however, is the philosophy which seems to lurk behind recent proclamations that real vampires should be evil and, furthermore, that they ought to celebrate this license to kill (and as much recent fiction also suggests, this license to have sex free of responsibility and consequence with as many people as possible as often as possible – for, after all, if you’re going to enjoy treating people as a resource, you might as well use them in every way that floats your boat).

First, the concept that the “best” vampire is the horrific, undead monster variety seems to indicate a tendency enlightened man has sworn he wishes to see put to rest.  That is, the tendency to designate another more evil, so as to avoid seeing any wrong within oneself.  This can range anywhere from “I’m not really an alcoholic because that guy drinks so much he can’t hold a job” and “I’m not really a liar, because that guy never tells the truth, while I just fib a little” to painting certain persons or groups as wicked enemies, somehow less human than oneself.  Creating a conscienceless, soulless vampire who revels in his monstrosity to function in this regard is a great way to see the monster without instead of the one within but, I fear, it’s not a great sign of enlightenment – man’s been pulling that one out of his sleeve for all of blood-drenched human history.

Just as worrisome, though, is the sentiment that a vampire who “whines” (as in expresses any qualms about his actions) is somehow more annoying and offensive to modern sensibilities than a vampire who enjoys killing and loves his perceived newfound status of living outside any moral code whatsoever.  That a conscience and a voicing of pain caused by the same are now seen by some as more negative qualities than leeching off one’s fellow man both physically and emotionally and equating said behavior with simply embracing one’s lifestyle is, I admit, a bit of a frightening idea to this frightful creature of the night.

Not that I’m one to preach, all things considered.  Just some food for thought from one who knows human beings better than you’d think – and in more ways than one.