Excerpts
Excerpt: Word War I Novel
The World War I fantasy novel is progressing nicely now. I’m still working on a proper title for it, but it’ll be something to do with Green/Steel nations, a World at War, etc. Maybe sub-title each book. “The Steel and the Green (Book I): The Fallen Veil”. Something like that. It’ll come in time I’m sure and isn’t necessary right now. The Germans are ready to cross the border into France, but have been held up by a raging forest fire that sweeps across the forest that grew under the former Veil, that magical mist that once separated the Green nations from the Steel nations. Now that the Veil is gone, Germany plans to invade to...
Read MoreExcerpt from “Summer”
Chapter I from my fantasy novel, SUMMER, which is complete at 108,000 words. Part I – June God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away. ~Thomas Wentworth Higginson 1 – Ernesto promised his Memorial Day Moose Bash and Squirrel Buffet would be a magical kick off to summer, so I drove two hours from Baltimore to have a good time. Ernesto didn’t disappoint, either. He placed a huge stuffed moose near the front gate and hung a squirrel piñata from the elm tree in his back yard. Something felt odd and disjointed about the combination, though. Orange with apple, coal with snow, Memorial...
Read MoreMirabel Sinclair – Excerpt from Chapter 1
An excerpt from chapter one of the completed novel, Shadow of a Doubt, a standalone novel with series potential. Chapter One I would have enjoyed some sleep after pulling an all-night stake out, complete with bad egg salad for dinner and a chipped fingernail. I ended up with a roll of film—to be processed later—containing evidence that would be considered pornographic in twenty states, not to mention the final nail in the coffin of a client’s failed marriage. But I’d never learned how to ignore a ringing phone, even when it barked at me at two thirty in the morning. It didn’t help that I had to run downstairs to answer it. “Hello,” I said, half awake. I...
Read MoreWorld at War – Prologue
The re-write of my new WWI alternate reality novel is progressing. I’ve gotten three new books now for research and am drawing as much as possible from real world history to build the dual fantasy/technology world of 1915 in the book. Here is the first draft of the prologue for those who might be interested, drawing directly from the original event that flashed the world into the Great War, the assassination of Arch-duke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie. Prologue The crowds were boisterous and loud, surging around Gavrilo as he fingered the pistol in his pocket, thrusting his elbows out to his sides like the wings of a bird to keep from being jostled. His...
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