'Banshee' and Classic Victorian Ghost Fiction

This book was one of three with which I started my writing journey (Icarus in Flight and Masks: Rise of Heroes -- now a part of my Masks omnibus -- were the other two), and for this, I wanted to lose myself in my favorite genre, which is ghost fiction. Not of the modern interpretation involving killings and monster-like ghosts, but traditional haunted house fiction. 

This was pretty much my first ever attempt at writing a novel-length ghost story. 

For this book as well, I wanted to keep as close as I could to more realistic historical fiction so that the gay relationships are hidden and given the coming-of-age treatment that leads Nathaniel to greater self-awareness. His falling in love with another man is one of the key experiences he has to go through as a teenager in Victorian England as well as the only child of a vicar.  

abandoned old church (image from Pinterest)

This is also one of two books in my backlist that underwent a more recent update in that the final chapter was added once the rights all reverted back to me, and I prepared the book for self-publishing in its final format. The original story ended with a vaguely represented HFN, which didn't sit well with a number of readers who were hoping to see Nathaniel find happiness after the losses he was forced to endure. 

And that thought stuck with me easily enough since I did agree with the readers and saw how unsatisfactory the ending could be for those who wanted to be reassured (me included). So I added the epilogue, which still kept to the more realistic approach to the story while clarifying Nathaniel's future. 

Since I hadn't read Susan Hill's The Woman in Black when I first wrote this book, I did find a lot of inspiration from my favorite ghost story films and horror TV anthologies from the 1970s. There was also The Turn of the Screw, which will forever be one of the stronger literary influences for me when it comes to creating and maintaining tension and atmosphere.  

Banshee is one of two books that's 50% off through the end of August. Go here for the book blurb and links to the stores where you can purchase a copy. 

August Backlist Bonanza: 'Banshee' and 'Helleville'

For August's Backlist Bonanza sale, we have

BANSHEE

Nathaniel Wakeman is the only child and son of a modest vicar, who lives in the quiet and idyllic confines of the Isle of Wight. When his maternal grandfather dies, Natty's mother reconnects with her estranged and wealthy brother and his family in hopes of raising Natty up in the world, to urge him to go beyond the humble life he's always known.

Though his cousins show no particular regard for him, one of them, at least, lures him away from his retired life and introduces him to the world—and to the son of a baron from Somerset, Miles Lovell. Natty gradually finds himself drawn toward the older and worldlier gentleman and returns to his father's vicarage a changed young man. He also seems to have attracted the attention of a ghost, one that has followed him back to the island.

Haunted by a woman in white, who seems to appear when he's at his weakest, Natty struggles with his own nature and with his family's increasing difficulties. His mother is distant, hiding things from him as she never has, and his father is aging before his eyes. Quarrels between his parents grow more and more frequent, and Natty's increasing terror of familiar and beloved footpaths add to the spiraling tension at home.

While Natty tries to find his place in the world, his childhood is crumbling around him, and he becomes more and more convinced that his persistent ghost is a harbinger of doom.

and

HELLEVILLE

All fifteen-year-old Noah Hipwell wants is to go through high school in peace. Yet he finds himself suspended after a bully pushes him too far, and Noah's forced to defend himself. His mother, fed up with the school's indifference to his plight, pulls him out completely and leaves Noah uncertain of his future while they look for a good and safe school for him.

All Dorothy "Dot" Hipwell wants is to go through single motherhood in peace. Yet she and her son are harassed by weekly phone calls from her evangelical family hell-bent on guilt-tripping them both back into the fold. Then Noah's grandparents ask strange questions about their old van after dropping cryptic references to a group called The Soul Warriors. Pushed to her limits, Dot takes Noah away for a much-needed getaway, only to find themselves suddenly transported to an alternate world, where a town called Helleville awaits them and all other condemned souls.

Along with warm-blooded, living human beings, the Hipwells rub shoulders with zombies, vampires, house ghosts, and occasional "green vomit piles" while picking up the pieces and sorting out what could very well be an eternity in a bizarre, fanciful, and humorous world of ghouls and banned books.

When residents suddenly disappear one by one with no trace and for no logical reason, however, doubts being "housed" in an alternate world for their sins are raised, and time suddenly becomes of the essence as Noah and the rest of Helleville's condemned race to find answers to what's quickly turning into a dangerous puzzle.

From today through the end of August, both books are 50% off in e-book format from online stores. Click the book titles to go to their respective pages and the links to where you can purchase them.  

'The Twilight Lover' is DONE

Another book done! And it was a fun one to do -- a radical departure from what I first planned for it (originally a dramatic story but is now a comedy) because I wanted something cheerful to offset the heavier tone of Compline. 

I technically have room for more chapters, but I stuck to the base length of 26 since I'd like to expand each with the rest of the word count. The current draft tops out at just over 45k words, and the remaining 4k+ will be used for expanded passages and dialogue (of which the draft has several). 

And to celebrate, here's a video of a song that pretty accurately captures the book's plot and mood.

Man, this song was pretty big back in my day, and while I didn't really think much about it then, I appreciate the sentiment now with the book that's just finished. 

So we're on track for a Nov. 1 release, and I'll have all of August to work on revisions and edits. September will be the final sweep, and then I'll get going on Doppelgänger.  

'Gold in the Clouds' and the Sidekick

This book echoes Rose and Spindle in that I wanted to write a fairy tale retelling from the PoV of a side character, not the hero (or heroine in Rose and Spindle). And given how wild fairy tales can be, approaching the story through humor was a promising idea, and it worked. 

"Jack and the Beanstalk" ironically isn't one of my favorite fairy tales, but I really liked the idea of Jack having a best friend who's just as much of a natural slacker as he (they are teenagers, after all, and naturally would love to just hang out and have fun). And they go on a variety of adventures together until the fateful day Jack sells his cow for a handful of magic beans.

I loved writing Blythe and his family. I enjoyed making him a good kid who's just being himself but who also knows when to say when but still gets dragged into trouble. That he's also absolutely terrified of heights was probably the most fun detail about him.

image from Pinterest

But there's Jack as well even though he's relegated to the role of a secondary character. He, too, is really a good kid but with a wholly different background from Blythe, and while both boys are dirt poor, one enjoys a close family bond while the other is fatherless and sibling-less and so is always adrift. 

By and large, this book is a story about friendship and especially Blythe's adventures in learning the value of relationships, of honest work despite the odds being constantly stacked against people like him, and the dangers of taking short cuts (at least for him, not Jack). 

For a while, I was planning to write a series of other fairy tale retellings that focus on characters other than the primary prince / princess / peasant, etc. whom we know in all those classic stories. However, I eventually lost interest in pursuing that idea, though now I really don't mind dusting that off and playing around with possibilities for my current Grostesqueries collection.

Gold in the Clouds is one of the books currently on sale for 50% through the end of July. You can go here for the book page on Books2Read, and there you can find all the online stores where you can purchase a copy.  

'Desmond and Garrick' and Wild, Fun Pastiche-y Rides

My baby! So while I'm proud of every book I've written and published, some are closer to my heart than others, and Desmond and Garrick is one of those. The long and short of it is that this was the book that was as challenging as it was fun since I set out to write my one and only Regency romance that was also a pastiche, and I was able to sustain the dry kind of humor I've always loved from my favorite British sitcoms. 

See: Blackadder for my primary media inspiration.  

As for specific elements in the book, I played with tropes so popular in YA fiction in those days (not sure if they're just as popular now, though) and gave them all my own spin. 

What tickled me the most after my then-publisher released the book was some readers' initial reactions of concern about the possible romantic relationship between the titular characters (the age gap between them is pretty large with Desmond being only sixteen), but such wasn't the case at all. My purpose for choosing the title really was all about friendship developing between two people -- or one human and one vampire -- who at first don't see eye-to-eye but eventually find a middle ground and learn mutual respect. 

Desmond does fall in love, but it's not what you think just by looking at the title. The romance, moreover, is secondary to the main conflict since I really set out to focus on friendship over that. Ironically, this piece was my primary musical inspiration, which only added to the fun:

A bonus detail: all of the really terrible poems in the book are real, i.e., I wrote them all when I was an emo teen. Yes, I did. I ran across them in the course of working on the book and realized, yes, I can actually shame myself and put those ghastly verses out there for everyone to see. 

So, yeah. You're welcome.

Desmond and Garrick is currently 50% off in e-book format through the end of this month. Go here for the book page and the online stores for your copy.