Latest Book Release, "A Gray Life"

Today, my novel A Gray Life was published, available from Nuff Said Publishing (a small indie press I'm launching). 

If you're into post-apocalyptic stories with more than a few elements of horror, A Gray Life is for you.

Click here to buy your own e-copy, soon to be available in hard-copy everywhere. 

Or, if you're cheap like me, wait until May 26th and May 27th, and get the e-book for free from Amazon.com

Here's what Black Rose Reviewer has to say about A Gray Life:

"This story is brilliant. It should have more readers than its got. This is for someone who wants a Sci-Fi Scare. This will make you cringe, the way it was worded I’m an impressed with the descriptiveness, it sometimes can get graphic and gross you out, but that’s why it’s great."

Book Description: 

Society has crumbled. Loved ones are lost daily. Can an empath and two children survive a violent world filled with crime, vigilantes, and strange things found in the dark? 

To pass the time, a twelve-year-old boy chronicles his experiences as a captive in a deranged man's basement, all the time wondering about the fate of his friend, Ashley Heard. 

Ashley Heard witnesses her father's murder at the hands of home invaders and is forced to flee a decaying city overrun by mutants. Ashley befriends the empath Juniper Jones, a woman that helps her escape the city. 

Despite their hellish surroundings, three people manage to touch each other's lives briefly, but for the better.

Giveaway for "Cursed" Ending Soon

Curious about Cursed but not sure about purchasing it? Enter the giveaway on Goodreads to receive your free copy! The contest ends on April 13th. Click here to enter. 
For you Tumblr users out there, enter here for a second chance to win.

World Castle Publishing announced the immediate release of Cursed by Red Harvey. This is Red Harvey’s debut novel. Cursed is a paranormal romance about an anthropology student with the power of prescience. Imogen Ameore has learned the hard way knowing the future doesn’t mean she can change it. Another curse of her gift is her vulnerability to spirits that desire reincarnation. After her sister’s death, Imogen returns to her hometown of Graydon, Florida. Despite the fact that she always “sees” when a relationship will end and why, she re-kindles a romance with the secretive but charming Rafe Ahote. Rafe isn’t enough to distract Imogen from ancient spirits haunting her, seeking re-entry into the human world. Imogen’s pregnancy and marriage to Rafe force her to find answers. With the help of Rafe’s methods and a quirky shaman, Imogen discovers a Native American Uzita legend coinciding with Hernando de Soto, and the evil doppelgangers of Adam and Eve, Lamashtu and Samael. The hauntings culminate in Imogen’s death, Rafe’s possession, and the re-birth of Samael and Lamashtu. Once she’s dead, the spirit of Imogen’s sister helps her retain a new body, new abilities, and a new mission to stop the demonic offspring from destroying mankind. Red Harvey brings this horror story together with surprises, humor, and old clichés turned on their head. Readers hunting for a paranormal read with a Buffy-esque twist are sure to enjoy Cursed.

Red Harvey lives in Georgia with her husband and young son. She is currently working on her fourth novel, a speculative science fiction project exploring gender roles. She enjoys writing, reading, studying (yes, studying), and generally nerding it up with family and friends.

Cursed by Red Harvey is now available at your favorite bookstore.

COUNTDOWN....!

It's a bit ironic that in fifteen days, my first novel will become available on February 15th! My editor approved the final proof a few weeks ago, and while that was exciting enough, I cannot wait until actual copies of Cursed reach the hands of readers.

Themes in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"

Frontpiece to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"
(1831)
By Theodor Von Holst
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Victor Frankenstein is a privileged, intelligent young man from Ingolstadt who is passionate about life and the mysteries of creation. Fueled by this passion, he creates a sentient being. The drawback of Victor’s creation is its visage; the creature is more hideous than any other living thing on Earth, and all who look upon it instinctually draw back in fear.

Loved by no one (especially not Victor), the creature flees to the woods of Germany. There, he becomes literate in both words and love. Though, when he approaches the humans whom he cares most about, they react with predictable horror upon seeing his hideous form. Abandonment and fear are the two constants in the creature’s life. Those two things shape the creature into a demon, one that wishes to visit agony upon his creator by murdering everyone Victor holds dear.

Major themes in this book include humanity’s ever-expanding reach in creating something greater than human. However, as Victor learns, once such a being is created, it cannot be undone as easily as it was put together. There are consequences to creating a creature with human parts, but lacking any other qualities of a human (emotions, sympathies, intelligence). Even when the creature acquires these other human traits, it doesn't make him human in the eyes of others (though he felt himself to be equal to humans).

Another theme in the book is man’s inability to accept that in which he does not understand. Immediately, those who behold the creature spot him as a demon, without even allowing him to speak or act. Even when the creature acts solicitously (replenishing food and firewood, saving a woman from drowning), his actions go unappreciated and are even met with brutal force. Of his personality forming the way it did, the creature says “I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with […] visions of […] goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet, even that enemy of God and man had friends […]. I am alone.” (Shelley, p. 124). In a large way, the creature's creator and the world around him are responsible in creating a humanoid monster. 

Shelley, Wollstonecraft, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, 1818. Print. 

"N."- A Short Story of O.C.D., Different Dimensions, and Stonehenge

Stephen King is the author of countless short stories. Two of his most famous short story collections are Nightmares and Dreamscapes and Just After Sunset. Recently, he released another set of short stories titled, Full Dark, No Stars. Many people that have reviewed Full Dark, No Stars have said it is a book of dark stories with dark endings. While that may be true, perhaps one of his most strange and terrifying short stories would be "N.".

"N." was featured in Just After Sunset and is longer than most of the stories in the book. The length of the story is part of the allure; it is a long enough story to build the story and characters, but the reader is relieved the story ends because of how truly disconcerting it is. "N." is a told from the perspective of different patient-case studies written down by N.'s psychiatrist. N. used to be a regular man with a boring job as an accountant. When passing by Ackerman's Field one day, he is drawn to explore the field by a force he cannot name. Once at the field, he is changed by what he finds there. He realizes Ackerman's Field is a "thin" spot in reality, where demons are trying to break through to the human world.

In order to protect the world, he feels he has to go through obsessive compulsive behavior (OCD) rituals to keep balance in the world. After completing each OCD task, N. believes he has kept the monsters at bay by maintaining the rituals that a sane world needs in order to function. It is his newly-acquired OCD symptoms that prompt N. to see a psychiatrist. Yet, by sharing his discovery of the field, N. passes the torch on to someone new after he commits suicide. Suicide, as N. believes, is the only way to end the guardianship of the field. Though the psychiatrist is not sure whether to believe N.'s fantastical story of Ackerman's Field, he was also wants to see the existence of the field for himself.

Due to the increased demonic presence in the field during summer months (after the Summer Solstice), the psychiatrist also cannot handle the immense responsibility that comes with merely knowing about Ackerman's Field. He too commits suicide. His sister finds his patient transcripts from his sessions with N., though they are labeled "BURN THIS". Curiosity drives the sister to visit the field as well, even as it is only implied that she does so through her letter to a friend, warning said friend not to go to Ackerman's Field. The last few pages of the story show that the guardianship of the field is ceremoniously passed down by a cycle of discovery, insanity, and suicide.


Ultimately, "N." perfectly sums up the feelings behind OCD behavior. Indeed, many people afflicted with OCD feel that their monotonous rituals "right the world", and that if they don't carry them out, it would put their whole world out of balance. Those who have OCD repeatedly wash their hands, check the locks, or touch a surface to assure themselves that the world is still there, and that the world is okay. N. feels the same way: "I had to keep renewing the protection [of the field] with symbolic acts," (King p.316).

Ackerman's Field is a loose representation of Stonehenge. King even has N. refer to Stonehenge in comparison with the field: "[Stonehenge could be] protecting something  [...] Locking out an insane universe that happens to lie right next to ours," (King p.317). N. knows that without the formation of the stones at both Stonehenge and the field, the other universe would be allowed to come into the human world. The problem with the stones is that there has to be a specific number of them to keep the protection going strong, eight total (a good and even number, as far as OCD N. is concerned). When human eyes look at the field, there are only seven stones, and that's bad. Only a camera or anything else with a lens can restore the eighth stone. Even then, the stone is only replaced temporarily. The guardian of the field has to keep coming back to the field to restore the stone, because the eighth stone sometimes winks out of existence by pure will of the demons that are trying to get through.

"N." is comparable to stories like "The Ring" or "The Grudge", as they are all similar stories depicting an entity that infects, kills, and spreads. However, "N." is a much scarier story because of the monsters N. describes seeing in the field, and because of King's trademark in being able to manipulate such a simple setting (Ackerman's Field) into a horrifying one.