Skip to main content
Today I am taking part in the Work in Progress blog tour, to help people get to know some new writers. This blog tour has some rules (which I, like several of those before me, will break), but just so you know:

– Each writer posts a little something from their work in progress. It's supposed to be the first sentence from the first three chapters, but in my case, I'm giving the whole first chapter because it's short.

– Like back to the blog post of the person who nominated you. Like Elyse, who nominated me, I'll do more than link because she deserves to have people know about her.

– Nominate three other writers. No problem there, I can think of a dozen who deserve a little spotlight time. Picking just three was the hard part, so I did four.

Okay, here we go.

***

I was nominated by Elyse Draper, a highly talented writer from Colorado. We've known each other since 2008, when I first read FREEWILL (book 1 of her Freewill trilogy), an astounding piece of modern fantasy that immediately grabbed me with its prose, which border on poetic. If you haven't read this book or its sequels, CONSEQUENCES and VINDICATION, do so right away. Elyse also writes horror, non-fiction, and all sorts of other stuff from her mountainous lair. Plus she has an intense love of art, nature, and animals, all of which helped make us fast friends.

Find out more by visiting her website, http://elysedraper.webs.com/, and her blog https://elysedraper.wordpress.com/about/













***


DEAD STALK (tentative title)

Alex Bay existed in a world that alternated between black and red.
During the black times, he ached, physically and mentally. His limbs throbbed, his head threatened to explode, and a hollow, empty feeling made him want to double over and grip his belly, but he couldn't move. The hunger roiled inside his guts, begging to be filled with terrible things.
Worse were the memories that came to him, digging at his heart and soul like acid-coated claws. His name. His job as a New York City police officer. Coming home after a long night at work and finding Carl Meriwether, one of Andrea’s co-workers, waiting in front of the building. A burst of white-hot pain as Meriweather's knife stabbed into his chest. Lying on the ground while Meriwether told him he didn’t deserve a fiancé like Andrea, that now it was his turn. Meriweather's blade hovering in the air, shining in the glow of street lights. Closer. Closer. Pushing past the pain to speak. Telling Meriwether he’d do whatever it took to make sure Andrea stayed safe. A moment of pure, all-encompassing agony.
The black times never lasted for long, though. The red always returned, riding in on a fiery rage that saturated him to the point where nothing existed except his desire for revenge and a terrible craving to tear someone into bloody pieces, sink his teeth into hot, salty flesh.
Black and red. Black and red. Over and over.
Until the moment when his legs moved and he felt something else other than burning hatred and desperate hunger.
Cold. Cold against his skin.
In that moment, Alex knew he’d returned.

***

My Four Nominees:

Chantal Noordeloos

Chantal Noordeloos hails from The Netherlands and is one of my best friends in the biz and a helluva writer. She is living proof that women writers can scare the blood out of your body. My first exposure to her prose was when I read her aptly-titled collection of short stories, DEEPLY TWISTED. A mix of horror and sci-fi, they range from thought-provoking to downright terrifying. Her first horror novel, ANGEL MANOR, came out in 2014 and it solidified her as a talent in the genre. But she write in other areas, as demonstrated by her amazing steampunk/weird western books, COYOTE: OUTLANDER and COYOTE: THE CLOCKWORK DRAGONFLY. They are fun, fast reads, and I recommend them to everyone.


You can follow her here: http://www.chantalnoordeloos.info/

***

John Palisano

John Palisano is one of those people who make you marvel at all his talents. I first met him at a convention, where he was up on stage with the band. An astounding guitar player, he's also just as talented at writing frightening stories. His first novel, NERVES, was a chilling read, and his latest book, DUST OF THE DEAD, is a fun, quirky take on zombies. John's short fiction has appeared in many magazines and ezines, and on top of that he's also very active in the Horror Writers Association, the film industry, and god knows what else as he stalks the streets of LA at night. 



You can find out more about him and his books here: https://johnpalisano.wordpress.com/



***

J.H. Moncrieff

Check out this bio: "Raised in the far north, amid Jack London’s world of dog sleds and dark winters, J.H. Moncrieff has been a professional writer all of her adult life. During her years as a journalist, she tracked down snipers and canoed through crocodile-infested waters. She has published hundreds of articles in national and international magazines and newspapers. When she’s not writing, J.H. loves to travel to exotic locations, advocate for animal rights, and muay thai kickbox." I only got to know J.H. recently, as we are both part of Samhain Publishing's Childhood Fears collection, but how can you not have unusual and interesting ideas floating in your head after a career like that? J.H. didn't let me down; when I read THE BEAR WHO WOULDN'T LEAVE, I knew horror had a brand new voice to follow. Discover J.H. for yourself here: http://www.jhmoncrieff.com/
















***


Russell R. James

Russell is another writer I've only recently discovered, but I'm doing my best to catch up on his works, which include DARK INSPIRATION, SACRIFICE, and his latest, DREAMWALKER. With a background in the military and a life of reading/watching horror and science fiction, Russell brings a unique take to everything he writes, whether it is novels or short stories, creatures in the shadows behind your house or ghosts inhabiting distant space stations. If you haven't read his books yet, now is the time.









Comments

Popular posts from this blog

October Frights Blog Hop Day 5

 WHEN AUTUMN ARRIVES   Fall is here. I can smell it.   The air of each season has a certain feel, a certain smell, that defines it. For a long time, I thought this was just a subconscious thing. We know the date and thus the moment you get a cool day at the end of August, you start thinking about fall.  But a few years ago I decided it has to be more than that. There must be some internal mechanism, an interpretation of the data the senses are gathering, that lets a person know change is in the air. Just like you can sense when a storm is coming even if the sky is clear. It happens all the time. You go outside on a beautiful summer day, maybe to check the garden or walk the dog. Fall, Halloween, the end of summer, none of that is on your mind. Yet the moment you step outside, a cool breeze greets you and you instantly think, "Autumn is here." There’s no reason to actually feel this way. The day is warm; that slight chill in the air is just a stray current, same as whe

Women in Horror Month Guest Blogger: Yvonne Navarro

Yvonne Navarro has written more than 20 novels and 100 short stories. Her novel deadrush is recognized as one of the most inventive takes on the zombie myth. She’s won more than 5 writing awards and been nominated for several others. Her short stories are frequently features in annual Year's Best Horror anthologies. She is a font of knowledge about writing, but in today’s blog she’s talking not about the craft of writing, but the life outside it. ====================================== Live in the Moment by Yvonne Navarro             So here I am, having agreed to write a blog (again) and with no concept of what to write about (again).   I’m a writer, so I should write about writing, right?   Please.   I’m one of the Old Ones.   No, I’m not ninety years old (although sometimes I feel like it) and banging this out on an antique Remington typewriter where I hear a ding! and have to use the carriage return lever at the end of every sentence.   But there were

Friends Unseen

 Catherine Cavendish is the author of  several novels and novellas, including The Devil's Serenade, Dark Avenging Angel, Saving Grace Devine, and The Pendle Curse. Today she's here to talk about some rather unsettling imaginary friends. When you were growing up, did you have an imaginary friend? Did they seem real to you? Maybe sort-of-real. You could talk to them, imagine their responses, play with them - but you probably kept the ‘relationship’ within certain boundaries, however young you were. In my case, I invented an entire family of siblings – three sisters (two older, one a few years younger) and an older brother who looked out for us girls. Being an only child, I found them comforting, and fun, but I never imagined them to be real. They, in turn, kept themselves firmly lodged in my own mind and never attempted to cross any boundary into the real world. In my novel, The Devil’s Serenade, my central character also had an imaginary family when she was a child