Clockwork Wizard: THE WORM TURNS

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

THE WORM TURNS

     Book 2 of the "Poe Files Mysteries," A Midnight Dreary, came out in 2012. Having published novels written in each of the previous 3 years (2009-2011), it had become painfully obvious by early 2013 that I just did not know how to reach an audience on my own. Amazon launched some marvelous promotional tools for indie writers in 2011, and I was able to sell several thousand of my first novels, The War God's Men and The Blood Gate. For a few minutes at least, The Blood Gate was the #1 best-selling fantasy novel on Amazon, outselling even The Game of Thrones (I shit you not).
     I think a lot of writers had the "queen for a day" experience back then, but by the time My Clockwork Muse was released in October of 2011, Amazon had pretty much pulled the rug from under us indies. Amazon giveth, and Amazon taketh away. Anyway, "The Poe Files," despite being my best books, never enjoyed the limelight the way my previous work had. By 2013, I realized that any further work -- and, for me, it is very hard work -- was pretty much wasted effort. In February 2013, I stopped work on the third installment of Poe, tentatively entitled The Conqueror Worm, not so much because I did not want to write it. It's just that I simply could not get myself to devote so much effort for so little payoff.
   I was happy with what I had done, though, and I always thought it was a shame to waste it.
     So I've gone ahead and published the Prologue here on my blog. If you're interested click on the button above.
    I've always been a big fan of Gothic horror and I think this Prologue to THE CONQUEROR WORM is a pretty classic example of Gothic horror.
     So take a look. Give me some feedback, if you like.
   I have to warn you, though. It's VERY SCARY! HOW-WOOOOOOO!!

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MY CLOCKWORK MUSE

New York City, 1847: A madman is on the loose. Someone is committing murders in the manner of Edgar Allan Poe's tales of terror. The police are stymied. When a corpse is found interred in a masonry wall in a subterranean chamber, they call on Poe himself to help solve the crime.

Edgar Allan Poe's fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, has made the author famous as the master of deductive reasoning. But when "the father of the detective story" applies his powers of discovery to the "Poe Murders", he finds that the clues lead in only one direction: to Poe himself.

Poe soon becomes the prime suspect, and he begins to doubt his own sanity as the evidence piles up against him. What of his somnambulistic trances that often find him at the graveside of his late wife Virginia? Or the bizarre raven that visits him in his Fordham cottage? The strange mark on his neck? The odd behavior of his one-eyed cat, Pluto? And what of his doctor, Coppelius — he of the bulging pale blue eye — and his beautiful, other-worldly daughter, Olimpia? Nothing is as it seems.

As the police tighten their noose around Poe's neck, he races against time to solve the crimes and clear his name. But he soon finds himself confronting horrors that not even his macabre fiction could have envisioned — and a conspiracy that threatens the very fabric of reality itself.

Prepare yourself for a wild ride. This is not your father's Edgar Allan Poe. This Poe's packin' heat...

A MIDNIGHT DREARY

April 14, 1865: Edgar Allan Poe and Olimpia have pursued Dr. Coppelius into the future. But it is a future unlike any they could have imagined.

The mad doctor's trail has led them to Washington D.C. On their first night in town, innocently taking in a play at Ford's Theatre, the pair witness a scene that will forever change the course of history: the assassination of a president.

But not just any president—a clockwork president. Coppelius's handiwork has been uncovered, a Clockwork Conspiracy exposed -- and the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, has become the hero of the day.

It is a tumultuous time for the country. Slavery has been abolished, but rancor seethes in the old south. Multiple attempts have been made on the president's life and a mysterious disease—known as The Red Death—is sweeping the city. Called upon by Abraham Lincoln himself, Edgar Allan Poe will assist a grudging Detective Allan Pinkerton in protecting the president. Together, they must uncover the source of the unrest and its links, if any, to the dreaded Red Death and the fugitive Dr. Coppelius.

The team quickly learns that Booth is, perhaps, not all the hero that he seems. Poe and Olimpia soon find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy that leads them to the infamous mesmerist, Professor Nicolai Constantine, whose occult powers have captivated the city, including the occupants of the White House itself—and to a certain strange clock tower whose clangorous bells, bells, bells toll only at midnight.

A Midnight Dreary is the second book in the Poe Files Mysteries begun in My Clockwork Muse.

THE WAR GOD'S MEN

264 B.C. For Rome, the road to empire begins at sea. But it is Carthage who rules the waves, and her generals in Sicily have already warned that Romans will not be allowed "to even wash their hands" in the water.

With no fleet of its own, Rome is nothing more than a regional upstart with delusions of grandeur. But with the domination of the Mediterranean world on her mind, Rome will do more than wash her hands. For when Rome and Carthage decide for war, all the ancient world will be washed in blood.

Dramatizing Rome's rise from obscurity to world power, The War God's Men follows the fortunes of common soldiers, generals and politicians alike. From the carnage of the battlefields of Sicily to the blood-soaked decks of great warships at sea to the gleaming halls of power in both Carthage and Rome, The War God's Men is an epic tale of an ancient world engulfed in flames.

Military Fantasy Set in an Ancient World

Behind a wall in a hidden chamber lies a dark secret: The Blood Gate. Legend hints at its awesome power—and its dreadful costs. Since ancient times, the mysterious portal has been kept sealed and hidden. Only the great Xarhux himself had ever dared to enter...

He emerged with the strength of a god.... And the mind of a madman.

Now, a young descendant of the Conqueror, the exiled Prince Hurrus, must discover the Blood Gate's terrible secret if he is ever to reclaim the throne of his father.

His people fight and die for his return. Bands of rebels wage a hopeless war against vast supernatural forces. Outmatched and increasingly desperate, a single dream keeps them alive—the dream of the return of their king. The dream of Hurrus.

But he must first face what few have survived—hired blades of the famed Prathian Guard...

Unforgettable characters, non-stop action, romance, and intrigue…