Christopher Rice Presents - The Vines! NY Times Bestselling Author!

BEFORE...

Spring House had its portrait painted many times before it was destroyed by fire. Images of its grand, columned facade are so prevalent throughout gift shops in southern Louisiana most tourists to the region return home with a haunting sense they had visited the place, even if they didn’t take a bus tour of the old plantation houses that line the banks of the Mississippi River.  
Hundreds of years after the conflagration that reduced the antebellum mansion to timbers and weeds, the house and grounds were restored to a more tourist-friendly version of their original splendor by one of the wealthiest families in New Orleans. 
Several of the slave quarters were removed to make room for a quaint gazebo, and the cane fields where African slaves labored and died in the punishing heat were replaced by manicured, fountain-studded gardens that have since played host to countless wedding receptions.

The affluent families who pay for these events feel no meaningful connection to the place’s violent, bloody history; otherwise they would have second thoughts about staging such gleeful celebrations atop soil forced to absorb decades of systematic degradation and assault. No doubt, many of the brides in question grew up in homes where an etching or a painting of Spring House hung in the foyer or the upstairs hallway or, at the very least, the guest bathroom, and they too were seduced, sometimes subliminally, by these ever-present

reproductions of its pastoral sprawl and muscular profile.  But there is one rendering of Spring House that continues to cause dispute among academics, and it is not found in gift shops. The sketch is primitive, but telltale architectural details of the old house are plainly visible: the widow’s walk and the keyhole-shaped front door, to name a few. 
It depicts a gathering of slaves who have been forced to stand and watch while one of their own is whipped by a man who is clearly the overseer. 
The inexplicable event that seems to have interrupted the overseer’s work is a matter of great contention among those devoted to the study of plantation history. 
Some shape has descended from the branches of a nearby oak tree and twined itself through the overseer’s airborne whip, capturing it in midair and bringing a sudden halt to the bound slave’s violent punishment.  Even though it has no signature or date, the academics and tour guides believe this sketch to be the work of one of the many privileged white historians who took it upon themselves to document the personal narratives of freed slaves after the Civil War ended. Perhaps these accounts of misery moved one of these well-intentioned writers to work beyond the limits of his abilities, resulting in a crude illustration meant to manifest the sublimated rage of his interview subjects. Or maybe it is the work of a former slave, who summoned all the steadiness of hand she could manage and put her own revenge fantasy to paper. 
But these scholars are sure the sketch does not depict an actual event. It’s a metaphor, they insist, an angry dream spilled in ink. Of this assertion these students, who devote their lifework to studying the bloody and complex history that runs catacomb-like beneath the bus tours and the spinning racks of postcards and the five-figure weddings, are absolutely sure. 
And they are wrong. 

~~~

The Vines

By Christopher Rice

With a title, The Vines, coming from a writer who sometimes writes horror, it was clear what this story was going to be...  Rice even jokingly shares in his video that vines fighting against humans was a major part...

What you don't know at this point is that...it takes "blood" to cause those vines to come alive... Anything else beyond that would be a spoiler alert since the horror can only be "experienced" as you read--we can not tell you, else you won't believe us... Or, if I tell you, like that old saying, then I'd have to kill you.

The history of the mansion, located in Louisiana, is the key issue. As a working farm in older days, the plantation had many slaves who had worked the land, had died there--had been buried there. When the plantation had burned, it might have been taken as an omen--that the land had received so much pain and blood from those days and needed to be cleansed... But it could not destroy the hate of those who had lived, and died, there...

And that hate could be revived... When something in today's world happens...

Caitlin Chaisson is now living in the new southern home that was built more for living and social life...All the signs of the slaves have been taken away and anything that had disturbed the land had been left for hundreds of years. But there was one old picture found that nobody knew who had painted it. It showed slaves being forced to stand and watch as the overseer punished one of the men...at least until something had pulled out of the woods and twined around the whip being used--stopping everything, caught in that moment of freedom...

But all the evil has not left the plantation--because it is the people who lived there which brought the evil to the home... Caitlin had been hosting a party when she came upon a scene of evil...her husband was having drunken sex with a women who'd attended the party...and when they wanted more, they ran out into a shed to continue their tryst.

Caitlin was devastated--it had been a celebration for her birthday, but had now become a mockery of what was supposed to be with her lover, her husband. Instead, this was her final birthday gift... Caitlin runs from the sight of this betrayal, to the gazebo, where she discovers she has cut herself with the women's champagne glass as she had thrown it to purposely break...

She sat there with the blood dripping onto the floor, remembering how she had heard comments about her looks and why her husband would marry her... But somehow seeing their embraces had been much worse than ever knowing that her husband did not love her... Even her best friend, Blake had tried to tell her, but Caitlin had turned from him, not being willing to believe. Now she knew.

And she uses the broken flute  and cuts into her arm, intending to end her  life...until she hears what is happening at her feet, sees what is happening on the gazebo floor... tendrils are arising up from between the boards of the gazebo, slowly moving toward her, now dripping blood... vines, looking something like a calla lilly...and it suckles her arm, her blood. But it is the smell that overpowers her, a smell...like fire... and she dreams?

And so she has no time to wait. She must bring herself to the very raw edge of her power, the place where she can feel a writhing, feral chaos in the darkness on the other side.  The darkness below. The darkness underfoot...

But when the door to the slave quarters behind her blows open, she sees neither the overseer nor Spring House’s bastard owner. She sees a perfectly framed view of her husband, Troy Mangier, halfway out of his suit, bare ass flexing as he drives himself into the beautiful young woman. And Caitlin feels herself jostled inside of her dreaming point of view—who was it? A slave?  The past and present have met in a fever dream...

And when she awakes, her arm is no longer bleeding--it is almost healed...

Caitlin feels a strange new power...and she knows exactly what to do with her new friends, the vines...


It is easy to see why Rice is a best-selling author...The Vines is edgy, creepy, and yet totally involving so that the story, through the main character's eyes, makes perfect sense... But with her best friend coming back into her life, even though she had pushed him away when he'd shared what he knew about her husband, Blake proves a true friend, as he works with her, dealing with what is actually happening... 

With a bit of fantasy, sci-fi, as well as horror, Rice presents a horrifying, exciting tale of what may happen when evil enters into and controls the land it has claimed. On the other hand, how the book ends if quite an extraordinary story in itself and, to me, proves that their is both vengeance and renewal that is possible... Given that today's headlines talks about a governor who is being questioned on being racist, we find that there is still more to learn about the uneasy relationship between Black and White people... Sometimes, The Vines helps make decisions for us... 

Memorable, remarkable in its merge of history with the present, and a lesson for all of us in many ways... This is one of my favorites of his books... Highly recommended.


GABixlerReviews

Christopher Rice is the recipient of the Lambda Literary Award and is the New York Times bestselling author of A DENSITY OF SOULS and the Bram Stoker Award finalists THE HEAVENS RISE and THE VINES. He is the head writer and an executive producer of "The Vampire Chronicles", a television show based on the bestselling novels by his mother, Anne Rice. Together they penned RAMSES THE DAMNED: THE PASSION OF CLEOPATRA, a sequel to her bestselling novel THE MUMMY OR RAMSES THE DAMNED. BONE MUSIC, the first installment in his new Burning Girl series, was released March 1st, 2018, and the sequel, BLOOD ECHO, will be released in February 2019. With his best friend, New York Times bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, Christopher hosts the YouTube channel THE DINNER PARTY SHOW WITH CHRISTOPHER RICE & ERIC SHAW QUINN (#TDPS). THE DINNER PARTY SHOW began as a podcast and Internet radio show. You can download and stream all of their episodes at www.TDPS.tv. He lives in West Hollywood, California. Visit him at www.christopherricebooks.com.

Author photo credit: Cathryn Farnsworth Photography

In Love By Christmas From Fantasy.Visionary Author, Sandy Nathan

...I've always wanted to write a Christmas book. One of those warm glowing things that make you feel good and have a sweet cover.

Aha! Why not combine Leroy and a Christmas book? This is that combo. In Love by Christmas, starring Leroy Watches Jr. and the love of his life. Unfortunately, I am constitutionally unable to write anything soft and fuzzy: In Love by Christmas is the most badass Christmas story ever written...

You've been warned...

The farewell dinner party was that night. So many things had happened at the retreat that Will found himself feeling exalted and pole-axed at the same time. Tomorrow. they'd pack up and go back to Palo Alto and the corporate headquarters. He would never be the same, and neither would Numenon, Inc.

As dusk deepened to night, he strolled around the camp watching Jon Walker, his chef; the three surviving drivers, and a few Indians prettying up the place. Will smiled at the transformation of their vehicles and encampment.

When they got there, the Numenon caravan had consisted of four matched motor homes and his rolling masterpiece, the Cass. They sported the corporate colors: pristine ivory, burgundy and gold. Their impact was tasteful and elegant. Jon had parked them in a circle like a wagon train, turning the central court into an outdoor living room.

Everything was different now. Two nights ago, demons had come streaming out of the earth and roared over the retreat site. They tore up everything, killing everyone they could. They painted pornographic graffiti on the Numeron RVs. The images were disgusting and insulting to his staff and him. And they couldn't get them off...

The spectacular Leroy Watches was on the stage, straddling some kind of enormous wooden drum. Even seated, he looked tall. Broad back and shoulders, massive neck. Slim hips. Feathers bristled from the back of his neck. He looked like a throwback to a primitive age. When his huge hands hit the rawhide drumhead, the whole place seemed to shake It wasn't that loud, it was just Leroy's playing. He played and all the other instruments seemed to fill in the cracks. Get vibrant. Come alive. Hold a beat.

He turned his head to his friends, smiling, and laughing. Will could see his white teeth flash. Energy surged around him. The man was vividly alive. He was Grandfather's blood grandson and it showed,

Will began to feel that the answer Grandfather had suggested would work. His worry--the biggest worry--let up. Maybe he was just dreaming. Maybe the crazy vibe of this place had him fantasizing that  things could turn out right...

~~~

In Love By Christmas

By Sandy Nathan

When Sandy Nathan mentioned to me that she had a Christmas novel, I immediately thought I'd want to read it this month. I admit it never occurred to me at that time that I'd just read a trilogy by Nathan that was, to the say the least, not the average set of books... Even when, in the Introduction, she gave her readers a warning, I went on reading... So, as part of my review, I must say upfront that the violence and sexual abuse is graphic... At the same time, however, this is a story that pits good versus evil in the best possible way... Nathan has unbelievably presented an unforgettable, intriguing story that I highly recommend...if you are willing to confront the reality of good and evil...and see who wins...

Will Duane is the richest man on earth at this time. His company Numenon holds most of the rights on any type of electronic equipment that is being produced. However, he has always been an effective and honest owner of his companies... On the personal side, however, he was not only not faithful, he was involved with so many women nobody could keep track. His wife and daughter were both aware and hated what he was doing to his family...

A perfect time for evil to attack Duane's empire. Now, many of us know that criminals are evil in all that they do...but, Nathan takes it right down to reality. These criminals are actual demons who can transform back and forth to human people. It is this group of demons, led by Enzo Donatore, that have started working to destroy Will Duane and all that surrounds him. Enzo starts by seducing Will's wife and immediately welcomes her daughter, Cass, into his life as well...

At the same time there are those on the Board of Numenon who have started trying to move Duane toward making short cuts aimed to make the company even more profitable... At that point, Duane sets up a retreat with Native American Shaman leadership... Even there, the demons found him, but, amazingly Duane stood up to them and with Grandfather's help, the people at the retreat was not completely destroyed...

During that time together, we meet Leroy, who was also born to be a Shaman and had been training under his Grandfather all of his life. He was a healer who had began using this gift at the age of four... It was when Duane brought out pictures of his missing family that Leroy first saw a picture of Cass, touched it, and knew she was his soulmate--the knowledge between his soulmate and a shaman is like no other earthly connection... Grandfather also looked at the picture and confirmed Leroy's announcement. Leroy had fallen in love with her picture.

Leroy is racially African-American and Native American and stood tall and strong. It was not long before he had agreed to find Cass on behalf of his father... which he did...

Without details, Cass was immediately placed in a hospital under constant care, and on total life support...

In the meantime, as happens to some who have religious experiences, Cass' father began to question the potential relationship between Cass and Leroy and, telling Leroy that he was not allowed to visit Cass, he sent him off to a grand tour during which he would be trained to live "in society..." You know, using the right silverware, how to address royalty...

What Will had not realized was that Leroy and Cass had already formed a bond while Leroy had rescued her and was with her shortly in the emergency room... Leroy was making contact with Cass no matter where he traveled...

I loved the blend, the merge of supernatural, paranormal and fantasy, especially the inclusion of various religions each being used to fight the fight against evil... The surprises happening seem to be considered impossible, but were easily being done by those with the inner power coming to them from The Great One. In fact, the vision of the author moves forward and faster as we read, with no doubt or hesitation in what was being performed in His name... The book is a potpourri of horror, action adventure, spirituality, climaxing in a great wonderful, supernatural mystery!

Although some parts are hard to read, as we see evil at work on earth...the miraculous overcomes and love did come at Christmas...


Highly recommended


GABixlerReviews

I used to be a princess. My parents were born in the hungry days of the Great Depression. They overcame the poverty of their youth by becoming extremely successful. I spent my time showing horses and water-skiing behind my dad’s obscenely overpowered boat. That life vanished when a drunk driver hit my father head-on in 1964, killing him. 

Not instantly, though. My dad's death was the stuff of horror movies and plunged my family into years of darkness. 

My old life disappeared. I lived at close to poverty level for a while. What happened in the following decades opened my eyes. I've seen and lived the over-privileged existence I describe in the Bloodsong Series. I've seen how it can warp those who are lost in it. I've seen how the power of money can mask mental illness and allow evil to ruin lives.

I know the mental and emotional landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, as it has come to be known. I know the physical geography just as well; I lived on the San Francisco Peninsula for fifty years. I made my home in the iconic cities and towns of Atherton, Woodside, Cupertino, and Palo Alto during that time. 

How did such a hothouse flower end up writing the rough and visceral fiction I do? It’s because of what happened in those dark years. 

My writing has a bite. My life has had a bite. Recovering from what happened to me has taken many years. And I have recovered. What was legitimately mine came back to me, along with the fruit of my own labor. If your life echoes mine, you might like to see how I healed; it’s in my books. 

My writing isn’t for everyone. I write about people getting better and the world working out, but it’s not always gentle and nice. A reviewer described one of my books as “equal parts horror, spiritual, romance, and action.” If that’s for you, you’re my reader. 

I consider what I write as falling primarily into the visionary fiction genre, which is about psychological maturation and making the world a better place. I have had huge spiritual experiences all my life, as well as gentler, ongoing inner guidance. Whatever is behind these experiences and this earthly life wants me to tell you my visions through my tales: my darkness and light.

Now for my “regular bio”: I’ve been in school a very long time and have two advanced degrees. I’ve had prestigious careers. My writing has won thirty national awards. I’m very happily married; my husband and I have been together forty years. I have three grown children and two grandchildren. My husband and I live on our California horse ranch and love it. We still ride the trails together, metaphorically and on our horses.

The Headman and The Assassin by Sandy Nathan Closes Earth's End Trilogy!

This is an early trailer before the last book's name was changed...
but still certainly relevant...



Introduction A Note from Sam Good Man 

My name is Sam Good Man. By rights, I could use the name Sam Baahuhd. I can claim that name because I am the oldest descendant of the original Sam Baahuhd, the headman of the village when we had to go underground to escape the atomics. I am the headman now, one hundred and five generations later. Legends are told of lives like mine, but my life doesn’t seem legendary to me. It seems normal. Even ordinary. Well, perhaps a bit more than that. I was born in the underground shelter and escaped from it in its darkest time. I was badly wounded when I escaped and am alive only because Jeremy Edgarton— known by my people as the Great Tek— and his mother, the lady, Veronica Edgarton— saved me.

We found ourselves living on a great stone cliff over a river valley. We were joined by those who had gone to the angel Eliana’s planet to escape the great atomic war: Jeremy the Great Tek, Eliana herself, Henry and Lena, and Mel and James. We had many adventures. The battle for the underground when we saved the children was the greatest. I’m not going to talk about those times. I’m going to talk about what started it all. 

To understand this book, you need to know that I have another name. I am Sam of Emily. I am the last of the line 

of Emily born in the underground shelter. Emily is the woman Sam Baahuhd carried into the shelter just before the bombs went off and sealed us down there forever. I carry inside of me Emily and Sam Baahuhd and Arthur Romero and so many more of the first ones. They sing in me, telling their tales. Every story has a story behind it. This book has one, too. 

After the battle for the underground, we went back to the cliff by the river with the 

children we’d saved. When we got things squared away so that no one was near dying, we started having campfires every night. We laughed and had fun— the best times I’d ever had. At the campfires, the children sang the way we did underground, humming and warbling deep in our throats. The lady said our songs reminded her of the way the monks in Tibet sang. I don’t know about that. It’s just how we sing. Our voices sounded good in the shelter, bouncing off the cement walls. The sound carried a long way, too. You could put different meanings 

into the sound, if you wanted to sneak a message past the Bigs who enslaved us down below. The first time I told a story, I started at the beginning, telling about Sam and Emily and Arthur and all the first ones. I didn’t think it anything special until I looked up and saw that everyone had tears about to spill out of their eyes. When I’d been telling a little bit every night, Mel Abrams started teaching me to read. Mel was a teacher and a revolutionary before the world blew up. He was Jer the Tek’s teacher and friend. He teaches 

everyone here, whether they like it or not. 

After I had told stories for few weeks, Mel got the “wonderful idea” that I should make the stories into a book. “How can I write a book?” I said. “I cannot write.” “This is what we’re going to do,” Mel said. “I’m going to record your stories and transcribe them. When you can spell the words from hearing the sounds, you’ll do it yourself. Then we’ll start polishing.” I would write a chapter or two, and then he would read it 

and say, “Yes, but your POV”— that means “point of view”—“ jumps here, and this goes on too long. You need to watch your punctuation. This doesn’t move the story forward.” Somewhere along the way, I learned to use a computer. That made it easier. Then I wrote this story on the computer, instead of telling it at the campfires at night. I’m glad of that, because I didn’t want to tell parts of this story around the children. There’s nothing wrong with 

people knowing that their ancestors were real people and went to bed with each other and made mistakes. But the kids ought at least to grow up enough to read about it, rather than hearing it by accident at a campfire. Some bad things happened down there. I’d just as soon not tell anyone about them, but a record should be kept. Maybe people will learn from it. In the end, I wrote this book because my ancestors wanted me to do it. They’d come to me, raucous like a flock of crows, and flap around in my head until I wrote what they wanted.

Whatever Mel thinks, I expect that my stories and this book will die on this ledge with me. But, even if they do, those who came before want those who came after to know what happened. I offer you this story with love in my heart and gratitude that I have the life I do. I survived when so many others didn’t. This is the story of my ancestors, Sam Baahuhd and Emily, who loved each other beyond death. Sam Good Man Who is also Sam of Emily, 

the last Sam Baahuhd, the headman of the village and the people who live on the cliff by the river. I am the man who wed the lady and will love her forever.
~~~

The Headman and The Assassin:

Earth's End 3

By Sandy Nathan

It was never intended by Jeremy's family that their servants, their slaves, would be saved in the technologically innovating underground bunker that they had created and built across the world. Those to be saved were scholars, scientists, and others with the expertise to continue to work, survive and come out to begin rebuilding all that had been destroyed...

But it had all come too fast, the destruction had already begun and, unless the bunker would remain empty, the only people who could quickly move into the bunker to be closed were all of the farm workers. None of them could read or write. The small community had been inbred for generations. But perhaps worst of all, the rich owners of the property had cared little about the personal lives of their employees.

Jeremy had cared enough to go to the Headman, Sam, and discuss everything with him, placing him in charge. He had also had one of his fellow staff members willing to go into the bunker with them and hopefully work to train some of the people to handle the system created to keep them all alive...

Jeremy was scheduled to travel to another planet but tried to point out as much as he could about problems Sam might face as leader. Off the top of his head, he quickly told him the facts: continuing to marry cousins was ultimately going to lead to genetic issues and he should ensure that no drink or drugs be allowed.

Sam took his new responsibility and immediately tried to proceed with what Jeremy had told him. But since he was one of the last to enter the bunker, and saw a lone woman who was hurt, he picked her up and took her inside...

The first edict that Sam implemented was that anybody who was married to their own relatives were divorced by his decree. That included his four wives...

Of course, all individuals would be provided for with supplies that had already been stored so that divorced wives would still have everything they needed...except a male companion...

In the meantime, Sam took the outsider into his room to recover and he ultimately fell in love for the first time in his life. Yeah...but... He was so sappy in love that the rest of the people became upset and angry...Sam had forced divorces to supposedly stop the inbreeding...but he was also totally involved with a new woman...

Readers will learn about the proclivities of the community; specifically related to drinking, drugs, and multi-partner sex. Shutting up a small group who had lived that way for many generations could only lead to disaster...the type of disaster that we discovered in book 2 when the inbreeding had created genetic deformities of all kinds...

Now, here's the...yeah, but...it could be assumed, at least I did, that the supernatural powers that the villagers all had to a small or greater extent, was caused by the inbreeding. Sam, the Headman, for instance, could heal people and also could control, when necessary, others by simply using "The Voice..." 

At the same time, he had been just as involved with the "fun" activities of the village and it was well known that he'd been with every woman that was now in the bunker and deprived of their husbands...

And then there were the criminal types who had been living in the village, making the hooch; growing the weed...and selling to make their money. At no time were they even willing to consider eliminating those activities...

But nobody, including Sam, was prepared to learn that there was already a genetic issue, from Sam, that was now a part of nearly all the occupants... And if they wanted to keep the population fairly stagnant as people died, there should only be certain men and women who could mate together...

And one of those men who could breed was a Black man who had volunteered to go underground with them and try to teach the others how to survive... Now racial tension became part of the mix...

I had to wonder whether, if the scholars and scientists had made it into the bunker, how much different it would have been than with the village people. Yes, they would have been able to read and write, but with the assumption that the stay in the bunker might be thousands of years, would the intellect continue to rule or would those same individuals have dropped back, as Maslow stated, requiring their basic needs and instincts had to be met before a human can ever look upward to higher more lofty goals... I've always believe in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and believe that anybody that was suddenly thrown into a catastrophic, isolated environment would ultimately have at least some percentage of the occupants become disruptive and dangerous people in this situation.

And, here's another yeah, but...you see, Emily had some...ah...mental issues...having been trained by the government...to kill...

I'm not going into the love story...it's the only bright spots of the storyline and though it was an unusual love...Sam is a character that quickly earns respect as he stepped up to the plate to lead this long-term mission...to stay alive...and go into an unknown future... He and Sam Good Man were my favorite characters...

Wow! The creative imagination of the author is well beyond what most of us could conceive. Yet, as a trilogy, the three books come together brilliantly as a study of human behavior in the worst of conditions--to keep on living only to keep from dying...

I've already said it's the best I've read in this genre... Especially, since it is based upon nuclear disaster of man destroying man. We are already there, aren't we? Me, I think I'd stay here in my home rather than move into a bunker with a hundred people I didn't know... What would YOU do? It's a lot easier to consider death when you see what could be the alternative...

An amazing, extraordinary, horrific, and yes, a brilliant wake-up tale of where the world may be headed. Kudos to Nathan for this award-winning trilogy, but, more, for being willing to confront many major issues that would undoubtedly appear...If...or when... 

Outstanding and highly recommended of course!

GABixlerReviews

Greeth by Charles LaFave - Full of Surprises and Awe--including a Marriage Proposal!

Setting the Mood...

Peter Buraku rushed up the double flight of sandy colored steps, just a minute shy of being late to his job at Chuo Soap, when he caught the ugly green scent of a corpse on the wind. He kept going. He hadn’t been late to a job in eight years. Not since his arrest. 
If he lost his job, he’d be begging in Taito-ku in two weeks and starving in a month. 
The smell caught him off guard. It doubled up his stomach in an ugly way. He felt and there— gomen, gomen nasai!— he pushed through like an oshiya on the subway. The scent, sticky on the wind, caught in his nostrils more firmly. Nothing smelled quite like that. A deer left to rot in the woods for a good while might smell nearly that way, but not quite. And he heard the sounds, the wet sounds of muscle and bone moving, like someone tearing pot roast apart with two big forks. Vomit caught in his throat and he looked up the stairs toward the sound. It was his father. Eyes like dry stones set deep back in the sockets, nose missing, lips missing, teeth showing through in rictus. Across the forehead, a long green gash showed through to the brains. The body stood near the side of the swinging glass doors Peter had meant to go through. Stood looking down at him, mouthing something liplessly. Pointed a grisly, rot-blackened rot-blackened finger at him. 
Peter crashed into a woman and convulsively vomited on the steps. Eggs, milk, and the wet sloppiness of banana slices soaked in stomach acid churned out. Half seemed to come out through his nose. He stumbled over the slick step, caught the cold iron rail, and threw up some more onto the grass. He heaved until he was empty and spat on top of it. 
The old man still stood by the doors, waiting. Time had done a number on him, but nothing could erase the quietly sad, patient expression in his eyes. The faces of the men and women hurrying into the soap factory showed no sign of surprise or terror. No one else could see the corpse of his father. It was a vision for Peter alone...
If anything, his father deserved a look in the eyes. Peter knew he’d want that look. He remembered how lonely his father could be. How it seemed like, aside from his son, he hadn’t had a friend anywhere.
Peter passed without giving his father the look. "I can’t do anything for you. You need to leave me alone now. You don’t know how much I need this job." His father reached for him, and Peter stepped away and walked through the glass doors.

But as the grave had slowly filled,
an idea already grew in the back of his mind.
 He heard the sound of black wings
fluttering across the yard.
The sound of something pounding at the glass.
~~~

Greeth

By Charles LaFave

Peter Baraku, a man with a destiny, although he never knew about it. Peter from an early age was fascinated with life--with making it. And, as a wizard, he was able to do so. Until he tried it on a human... As a result, Peter, as a wizard, had two hearts which were bound together by authorities which prevented his being able to use his magic...


It had been eight years and he was working in a soap factory, trying to make enough to keep his mother and him alive...Fortunately, one of the golems he had made long ago had remained and she took care of his mother, thankfully, because he'd never have been able to pay somebody to take care of her.

I suppose this doesn't sound too weird yet...but it's going to get there quickly! If you love dark fantasy, I guarantee that this book is one of the most original you will read and that it will be "almost" totally satisfying. I say that only because the ending was not one I would have preferred, but it left me wondering if there was going to be a sequel...we'll see. This book totally stands on its own so you will be mesmerized by the original creativity and the ingenuity it obviously took to write this epic story! This is this author's debut and I was amazed at the quality and the diversity of the material, yet within a cogent underlying continuum that keeps readers moving forward into the climatic action at the end.

Peter flinched at the sound of the word. 

He was thirteen the first time a Japanese

 kid called him uizado. Split Peter’s scalp

 with a rock and ran away. The first signs

 of hatred and resentment exploded after the

 war ended. After the Others put their mark

 on the world. It became an even uglier

 word then, spray painted on people’s doors, 

tied to bricks thrown through windows,

 found pinned to the bodies of the

 dead.

~~~

This is a time when humans and wizards have adjusted to living together and with wizard help, humans certainly have the opportunity to live much longer since the wizards create healing spells that are stocked and maintained for use on humans... Wow! 

But we all know peace doesn't live long and, when some things started happening around the world, like the lost sounds of insects--in fact they just weren't around to bother us anymore--or, more importantly, to help us! So where were they and why had they left?
Unfortunately, later they would find out where...and why...

And then Peter got an offer he couldn't refuse. The father of an old girlfriend of his, who he stilled love, came and offered to get his wizard skills returned...and once done, he'd pay much to have Peter find his daughter and get her home...

And now the real horror of the book begins...Peter and Ishmael, a mega-rich corporate owner, set off. And I'll save you by not sharing what happened to Peter next, other than to say that he was a one-eyed wizard when it was done...

On to Julie...who was now a member of the Praesidium, the group that had taken Peter's wizard skills away!

It's good they can't see me. The Praesidium uniform inspired as much fear as it did awe. She could see it in their faces when they looked at her. Uizado, they’d say under their breath as she passed. They’d be wrong, of course. Julie Alvarez wasn’t a wizard. Just a well-trained human. 

Neither the uniform nor the car technically belonged to her. Her employer issued those. The only things that belonged to her were her underwear and the rapier. 

The latter was a gift from her grandfather when she graduated the fencing academy at eighteen. She had it with her when she took the silver medal at Oslo and later at her grandfather's funeral. Her fingers traced the worn handle absentmindedly, making their way to the brass cage that made up the guard and down to the leather of the pommel. 

You’re pensive this morning, little one. You want to talk? 

"No, Espiga. Not today. I’m just thinking, that’s all." It had been quite a shock, on her eighteenth birthday, when she’d held Espiga, her rapier, and first heard the deep, rasping voice in her mind. Julie had exchanged a knowing look with her grandfather, who then told her the story of the haunted blade. The voice had become so normal she felt lost without it. Julie carried Espiga everywhere.

~~~

So our main male character is now a Wizard. Our female main character, a highly trained human with a magical telepathic sword...Then we also have a brother-sister who we meet concurrently--the sister a hardened warrior and the brother, a wizard whose life is surrounded in music, evening using his guitar (and strings) to defend himself. These four are later brought together to fight...Greeth...and her minions (who have been visiting here today...).

Some scenes are, just, gross! Others will make you gag, but, by that time you will be so engrossed in the story and the desire to find Greeth, that you'll be hooked on the book just as I was! My honest opinion...somebody in the business of fantasy movies should be sent this book...it's made for animation applications for so many of the scenes that you can actually visualize them in your mind.  I would love to see that movie, setting a new standard, I believe, for dark fantasy. Wow! Don't miss this one! It's unbelievably unpredictable, and totally memorable, even the ending which I was sad about...

GABixlerReviews

Growing up, Charles LaFave spent more time with books than with people. One might argue that this is a terrible way to raise a child. Of course it is. Definitely socialize your child if you have one. On the other hand, it undeniably fostered an incredible love for books that continues to this day. Before his writing career took off, he worked as a body removal specialist for a funeral home, a network engineer, a construction worker, blogger, and a paperboy. Not necessarily in that order.

Excerpt from Writer by Erec Stebbins - Coming Soon...

Prologue

I have seen a face whose sheen I could look through to the ugliness beneath, and a face whose sheen I had to lift to see how beautiful it was.

                                                                                                               —The Madman of Gibran

H

ow do you make love to a goddess?

Not to a divinity; this is not a myth. Well, maybe it is a myth. Or rather, the beginning of a myth, where facts and hopes and dreams and the madness of humanity and its desperations maniacally shape the story of the past and future like some child’s clay. Maybe it's the beginning of a legend. The birth of a new Divine. After all that has happened, all that I have seen, I understand why it may seem so.

I come from a land where religion soaks into the very soil, where one thousand ragas encompass every mood and expression of our species, where a million theologies were born, copulated and recombined like genomes to produce monotheists, polytheists, thirty-three and ten million divines and the number zero. Where the stories of the gods and goddesses never ended and a child had no need of a superhero - with charming Krishna, dancing Shiva and beautiful Parvati, there were stories uncounted. Perhaps then, it is no wonder that we so easily worshiped Her. The real wonder is that nearly all do, every nation across this blue and white marble pulled from the ashes.

Even these monstrosities, these aliens now positioned across our world with their own god-like technologies  and cities - they hold Her in awe. In the erased fragments of time, a shattered Earth She made whole. The tyranny of the Dram trembles across the galaxy as Her power sweeps outward like a tide washing clean a tainted shore. She communes with the Orbs, summons their power, opens their portals. She is a Cosmic Messiah, writing anew the story of our universe.

But not to me. To me this is only a beginning.

Standing here as the soft morning sunlight of New Earth streams through our bedroom window, I look down on Her sleeping. The white sheets are nearly blinding, wrapped tightly around Her seductive curves. Her naked shoulder has slipped out of the fabric. It is nearly as white as the sheets - such a contrast to my dark copper. The entire blank canvas is dramatically altered by waterfalls of red curls streaming down to Her waist.

She is beautiful enough to be a goddess.

But not a mere goddess to me. She may be all these things, but to me She is a woman. My lover. She is my dearest, Ambra Dawn.

I was born to love Ambra. I know this from my heartbeat to the deep ache in my bones. It was my destiny made possible only by the miracle of Her powers, born when She had turned the first Dram fleets to dust. Had She been a normal woman, we would have never met. Never loved. Never walked hand in hand on the beaches of New Earth to feel the waves lap our ankles in the reddening sunset. Never made love on a distant world overlooking the colossus of our own galaxy as it painted the night sky like a frozen explosion.

But Ambra is no normal woman, and I, no normal man. I am abnormal in the ways I knew from childhood. Now, in this terrible darkness at the end, I see that my abnormality is deeper than could ever have been suspected. But it cannot be helped. It is not my doing. Can we who are made from the dust and the clay reshape our Maker?

As I look at the swollen, some would say grotesque, form of Her skull resting on the soft pillow, I feel a deep attraction, a pull to touch, to caress. Her Writer powers churn there in the benign tumor that has changed the fate of the universe and given her insight into the inner workings of space and time. Insight into the minds of any She chooses to probe.

This every schoolchild knows and so also I was taught, but this does not explain my childhood obsession with that deformed, beautiful head. Nor how I melt to see those sensual red locks, stopped two-thirds of the way up her scalp, where Her skin shines white and scarred, the hair removed by countless surgeries from a time long ago when She lived in bondage and pain.

I pause even now to dwell on the artificial bone around the enormous, grapefruit-sized bulge, sculpted, implanted by twisted scientists of Earth in thralldom to the Dram. The brain tissue inside altered to feed the tumor in Her adolescence until it grew beyond anything anyone could had predicted. It gave Her a sixth sense and stole from Her the ability to see as we do, leaving Her totally blind with perfectly healthy eyes.

My Ambra's bright green eyes see nothing. And yet, they see everything. They haunt the corridors of Time.

Other schoolmates learned the story of New Earth’s Mother by rote. I plunged my mind into the codified years like a warm sea. I took those lessons - words of Her parents’ death at the hands of monsters, Her abuse, deformation, torture, escape with the help of the angelic Xix, Her turning back of the powerful Dram, and even of Time itself - I took them deep into the core of my consciousness.

There, She impaled my heart. I memorized every event, each line on Her unchanging face from countless holographs, every lilt and tone and nuance of Her voice from audio recordings.  Before I had the hormones to be in love, I loved Ambra Dawn like no man, no human, no saintly Xixian has ever loved another. In the truest sense, I had no choice. At this terrible end, I see the inevitability of it.

And so now, as I walk to the nightstand and open the drawer, it is only in a state of unreal detachment that I remove the weapon. The composite metal should feel cold in my hand, but it does not. I feel nothing. The muscles tighten around the handle of the pistol, but I give no commands, feel no responses, and notice no contractions or tightness in my skin. I can only see as if from a distance, from a vantage point I cannot define in space or in time.

And this automaton, my body, or now rather some alien form that is no longer mine, pulls that weapon out, unlocks the safety, and turns toward the bed, raising the barrel to the elongated head of my beloved, nearly touching the scarred edges near Her hairline.

And before anxiety or understanding can even rise within me, She opens those blind, green eyes with adoration, turning to stare directly into my own, tears trickling down Her white cheeks. I hear Her voice in my mind.

Don’t be afraid, Nitin. I love you.

I pull the trigger.