Cover art for the anthology “Fantastic Schools Familiars”
The fantasy anthology Fantastic Schools Familiars is now available from Amazon in Kindle format (the paperback version will come out in a week or so).
It features my short story “Dead Cat Fever:”
© James Pyles
I’ve been systematically going through The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher and late last night, I finished Ghost Story (2011) the thirteenth in the series.
Oh man.
Spoiler Alert!
Stop here if you haven’t read the novel and want to be surprised (and there are a lot of surprises to be had). You have been warned.
This story begins six months after the end of the preceding novel Changes. In that book, everything Harry ever possessed was taken away from him including a daughter he didn’t know he had.
In order to save her from the Red Court vampires, Harry literally sells his soul and ultimately has to murder the love of his life and his daughter’s mother to save his child and really, the whole world.
PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson
Another séance, another summoning, another mystery solved, or whatever. Robert lost count of all the spectral visitations he had performed in order to pay for his modest home in the suburbs (ridiculously overpriced).
The clients and spirits had all left half an hour ago, the candles were burnt out, and he sat back on the patio sipping a brandy. He could already feel tomorrow’s hangover.
Robert had hardly closed his eyes when a new voice disturbed him.
“The gateway to the beyond is closed,” he complained.
“Not for the Angel of Death.” Her words were ice. “This is your time.”
Promotional image for my short story “The Book of Names” which will appear in the anthology “Shoot the Devil 3.”
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
I have stories published in the anthologies Shoot the Devil and Shoot the Devil 2: Dark Matter.
Coming soon (I’m not sure exactly when, but ideally right around Thanksgiving which is tomorrow), my short story “The Book of Names” will appear in volume three: “Martyr’s Militia.”
Here’s a sample:
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
You may recall that I have a short story in the anthology Shoot the Devil called “Wolf in the Wind”, which by the way, seems to be doing pretty well. It’s got 91% four and five star ratings on Amazon.
There is a sequel coming out soon which I can’t really talk about yet, but it’s the same basic theme set against a completely different background. My story was a lot of fun to write.
However where a number of other stories in the first book were more strictly in the realm of spirituality and the supernatural, mine also included elements of steampunk, if you imagine that, and set in the 1880s in Idaho City, Idaho (which is a real place that exists today).
I’m writing this because ahead of the sequel’s publication, the publisher and we ten authors, are asking for more reviews of the first book.
Cover art for the anthology “Shoot the Devil.”
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
It wasn’t supposed to come out until October 1st, but the anthology was just “too extreme for pre-order.” Available on Amazon right now in both digital and paperback the Crucifixion Press anthology Shoot the Devil: Ten Tales of Humans Defeating the Demonic. The Amazon blurb says:
Cover art for the anthology “Shoot the Devil.”
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
My steampunk, occult, horror, western short story “Wolf in the Wind” will appear in the Crucifixion Press anthology “Shoot the Devil” on or about October 1, 2022.
Too often, the modern world wants us to avoid confrontation, to pretend that evil doesn’t exist, that the bad guy is always misunderstood, “the hero of his own story”. Even when people can be bothered to admit that evil exists, they just encourage us to be ‘nice’. To be ‘understanding’ and ‘compassionate’. Anything but actually facing the evil and driving it out with extreme prejudice.
-From the Foreword by Eric Postma
Promotional image from Crucifixion Press
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.
My short story “Wolf in the Wind” was accepted some months ago for a new anthology, but it won’t see the light of day (so to speak) until October. Until then, here’s a small taste.
Cover art for Denton Salle’s novel “Black Earth Rises”
Black Earth Rises is the third book in a series by Denton Salle, but it stands very well on its own since I haven’t read the first two novels.
Denton asked me to review his book and was aware of recent difficulties I’ve had reviewing books by people I know. He assured me that he’d understand me being forthright and fair about my review, and I have been.
For being a supernatural urban legend thriller, the story is pretty standard, up to a point. Two college buddies from very different backgrounds, the women in their lives, coming up against frat jerks, all seems normal.
Then the frat jerks turn out to be werewolves and there is a sinister school being operated by an evil sorceress in the bowels of a Texas university near Dallas. But this school also has an old graveyard haunted with the unexpected, both evil and good.
A good Catholic boy named Jim gets pulled by his frat friend Mike into an Orthodox religious group (most of which are Mike’s family) of an ancient order sworn to protect our existence from occult dangers. They live an uneasy peace with the “Otherworld” by a compact signed untold centuries ago…but not all of the Otherworld creatures are obedient, or perhaps they just didn’t sign on the dotted line.
Boise train depot circa 1920. Found at napcommissions.org
The wind was a howling wolf. Emma Elizabeth Durbin knifed her hatpin like a sabre through both her short-brimmed, kid skin hat, and mounds of luxuriant auburn hair as she exited the train’s passenger car. Scuffed shoe leather met fresh boardwalk. Her long dress and matching short jacket were oppressively warm. It was only 10:15 in the morning, and hot for June in Boise.
Checking the weight of her satchel by jiggling it in her right hand, she longed for a comfortable bath and a filling meal. Neither of them were in her near future as she clip clopped forward, desperately avoiding semi-intimate collisions with fellow passengers and locals on the platform, as she navigated through the terminal hordes.
The rest of her belongings would be delivered to her hotel, but she had someplace else to be. Assuming the information on the telegram nestled in her dark jacket pocket was accurate, and he was on time like he said he’d be, she’d be sitting across a table from the Sheriff of Idaho City in half an hour.
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