Terror Bay by Lisa Towles Book Blitz! #LisaTowlesWriter @authorlisatowles @SilverDaggerBookTours

 

A woman. A ghostly summons.

In a coma, no one can hear you scream.

Terror Bay

by Lisa Towles

Genre: Psychological Thriller 

A Literary Titan Gold Medal Winner &

A NYC Big Book Award “Distinguished Favorite” Thriller!

A woman. A ghostly summons.
In a coma, no one can hear you scream.

Detective Kurt Farin, shot in the line of duty, is haunted by a woman he sees in a coma. Come, she says. I'll show you things. Like the missing piece of your soul.

Kurt's unshakable quest to find her leads him to northern Canada, where he discovers a shipwreck and a shocking family secret that can't possibly be true. As he digs deeper, he realizes his fate is inextricably tied to the enigmatic woman...and a long-lost treasure that's been submerged for centuries.His shooter, his nemesis, knows what he found and is coming to finish the job he started. Alone and exposed, Kurt's the only one who can bring down this notorious killer and expose an international scandal. But is the cost of justice - to him and everyone he loves, too high?

Terror Bay is filled with intrigue and action, with surprises at every turn. Fans of John Sandford and Christine Kling will love Lisa Towles' new psychological thriller. With a heart-pounding plot, complex characters, and a shocking twist, "Terror Bay" is a must-read for fans of psychological thrillers and crime fiction.

“Terror Bay, by Lisa Towles, beckons readers into a world saturated with suspense, propelling them through a captivating odyssey of action, intrigue, and enigma” - Literary Titan

“A nail-biting mystery, a pure joy to read” - The Book Commentary 

**Releases November 29th!**

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Lisa Towles is an award-winning, Amazon bestselling crime novelist and a passionate speaker on the topics of fiction writing, creativity, and Strategic Self Care. Lisa has ten crime novels in print with a new title, Terror Bay, forthcoming in November of 2023. The first two books of her E&A Investigations Series (Hot House and Salt Island) were both #1 Amazon Kindle Bestsellers with book three (Switch) due for release in Summer 2024. Lisa also writes standalone thrillers, such as her 2022 political thriller, The Ridders, which won an American Fiction Award. Lisa is an active member and frequent panelist/speaker of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. She has an MBA in IT Management and works full-time in the tech industry.

Read more about Lisa’s book on her publisher’s website.

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#PsychologicalThriller #Thriller #Suspense #Mystery #Adventure #TerrorBay #NewRelease

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The General and Julia by Jon Clinch Book Spotlight and Interview!

THE GENERAL AND JULIA by Jon Clinch

Atria Books | On sale: November 14, 2023| 272 pages

ISBN-13: 97816680094802, $26.99 | eBook $12.99

 Ulysses S. Grant reflects on the crucial moments of his life as a husband, a father, a general, and a president while writing his memoirs and reckoning with his complicated legacy in this epic and intimate work of “superb historical fiction” (Booklist, starred review).

Barely able to walk and rendered mute by the cancer metastasizing in his throat, Ulysses S. Grant is scratching out words, hour after hour, day after day. Desperate to complete his memoirs before his death so his family might have some financial security and he some redemption, Grant journeys back in time.

He had once been the savior of the Union, the general to whom Lee surrendered at Appomattox, a twice-elected president who fought for the civil rights of Black Americans and against the rising Ku Klux Klan, a plain farmer-turned-business magnate who lost everything to a Wall Street swindler, a devoted husband to his wife Julia, and a loving father to four children. In this gorgeously rendered and moving novel, Grant rises from the page in all of his contradictions and foibles, his failures and triumphs.

Moving from blood-stained battlefields to Gilded Age New York, the novel explores how Grant’s own views on race and Reconstruction changed over time. “A graceful, moving narrative” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) from historical fiction master Jon Clinch, this evocatively crafted novel breathes fresh life into an American icon.

 An interview with Jon at Grant cottage discussing why he felt so compelled to write the novel.

Sweeping in scope and rich in period details,  THE GENERAL AND JULIA follows Ulysses S. Grant as he looks back on crucial moments of his life as a farmer, a general, an international celebrity, a business failure, and a president — as well as his relationships with his cherished wife and children.

Featuring a memorable cameo appearance from Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), who was Grant’s close friend and played a pivotal role in getting him to write and publish his memoirs,  THE GENERAL AND JULIA offers a nuanced portrait of Ulysses S. Grant and a timely exploration of why the Civil War failed to reunite and heal a nation that remains deeply divided - this is literary historical fiction storytelling at its finest.

Chapter 1: 1843: The Canary CHAPTER 1 1843 The Canary
How large a box shall be required?

The canary is the smallest of creatures, three inches long if that. To take its precise measure would be indelicate regardless of his good intentions. So he bends to it upon its bed of linen, and he touches its cool, dry, brilliant feathers with his finger, and he subtly gauges its length against the count of his knuckles. That will be measurement enough.

What is its color? The very shade of a lemon.

How much does it weigh? Little more than its own last breath.

Birdie’s sudden passing breaks her heart. At sunup he was his usual cheery self, welcoming the morning to her bedroom with his repertoire of peeps and chirps and burbles. His song, his color—indeed, his very pulsing presence—were all so lovely and so familiar as to be utterly beneath notice. Now their absence pains her. His cage hangs empty, its black shadow a ragged latticework stain upon the blue wall.

Her father looks up from his soup plate, notes the little cloud of linen on the sideboard, and fixes it with a furious eye. “Jule,” he barks in the direction of the kitchen, “come here and dispose of that wretched bird.”

But before the slave girl can pass through the kitchen door, his daughter stops her, touching a hand to her upturned arm. In this position the colors of their skin are nearly indistinguishable.

“Did you hear me, Jule?” says the father, old Frederick Dent. “Are you bringing my tray? Will you dispose of that bird at last? I swear, it’s put me off my appetite.”

“Yes, sir,” says Jule, with a desperate glance at the hand that blocks her without exerting even the slightest pressure. The intent alone is enough.

“Jule has her hands full,” says his daughter. “I’ll see to Birdie myself.”

“I require no excuses for that girl’s shortcomings. Especially from you.” The old planter—known in these precincts as “the colonel,” although he has never served in any army known to God or man—coughs around the stem of his pipe. “Birdie,” he mutters into his mustache, giving his head a little shake, as if the poor lump of feathers and flesh does not even deserve a name. It won’t make a meal, so it had best be disposed of before it draws vermin.

He shakes his head again. Birdie. Ridiculous.

The colonel is no native to these parts. He comes from Maryland, where as a young man he found employment in the fur trade and forged a deep and unexamined sympathy with the Southern cause. White Haven is the name he gave this rich tract of Missouri farmland, and a white haven it is. Its acres yield up wheat by the bushel and corn by the wag along with every fruit known to grow upon twig or vine or bush. Its population of chickens and sheep and milk cows is constantly in flux and thus without accurate number. The Gravois Creek runs sparkling through its heart, teeming with fish. To maintain this Eden requires the ceaseless toil of thirty-six black slaves, to say nothing of the colonel’s occasional contributions in the way of general oversight.

The daughter and the slave girl are nearly the same age, and by coincidence they are both named Julia. The black girl goes by “Jule,” the last two syllables of her Christian name having been lopped off in the service of clarity. She makes now for the head of the table where the colonel waits, his lower lip jutting and his round belly keeping him a few inches farther from his plate than is entirely convenient. He puts down his pipe and harrumphs in her direction as she draws near, and then he harrumphs once more toward Julia as she approaches the sideboard. Jule takes up the colonel’s empty soup plate and replaces it with his entrée—fried chicken, biscuits with gravy, quivering slices of some kind of aspic—while Julia takes up the linen bed holding Birdie and squares it bravely at the level of her heart.

“So when did the creature expire?”

“Shortly after dawn. Suddenly.”

“We should expect no miracles from it, I suppose.”

“Father?”

“No resurrection, I mean. After three days of mourning.”

“Father, I shall miss him and I shall miss his song.”

“The trees are full of birds,” says the colonel, taking up a drumstick. He dismisses her with a wave of its greasy stob. “Now away with that one, before you spoil my digestion entirely.”

Julia wonders if the young lieutenant will visit today. She knows that she has no right to make even so light a claim upon him, no right in all the world, but she wonders all the same. Her mind does the knowing and her heart does the wondering and there is no clear way to reconcile the two.

She steps out onto the porch and takes a seat on the swing. Its chain creaks under her weight but then it always creaks, even in the littlest breeze. The sound of it is a constant around here, like work. She places the bird beside her and idly caresses his little round head with one finger. In life, Birdie had no patience for such treatment. That she can accomplish it now is a broken dream come true, and it draws a tear to her eye.

She dabs away the tear with the back of her hand, wondering again or perhaps still if the young lieutenant might be planning to visit today. He could be on his way even now. Anything is possible. He first came to White Haven at the invitation of her older brother, Fred, his roommate at West Point. Fred thought the world of the lieutenant and said so by way of introduction, and Julia has thus far found no reason to differ. In recent months the lieutenant’s appearances have become increasingly frequent—two or even three times a week, whether her brother is on the premises or not, he will ride the five miles from Jefferson Barracks so as to pass a pleasant hour or two—and although he always pays his respects to the colonel, she is becoming quite certain that visiting with him is not his only aim. Far from it. The truth is, he enters her father’s presence with the sturdy gloom of a man going into battle, and he takes his leave like a prisoner set free.

She dares not think that he might be coming on her account. She dares not think it, and yet think it she does. She thinks it and she desires it and she wishes it with all her bereft and birdless heart, squeezing her eyes shut and gritting her teeth and sending that message out into the ether as if the lieutenant might possess some mystical receptor that would let him detect it and interpret it and, based upon its urgency, stir himself to the heroic action of her rescue.

It takes him until the middle of the afternoon. She is upstairs, looking out her bedroom window, the bird wrapped in its white linen and lying on the sill. He arrives without ceremony astride an anonymous army horse that seems to know her way and to be in no special hurry, judging by how she idles along the farm lane, nosing at the bits of grass that sprout up around the fence posts. She turns in at the gate and makes for the wooden trough alongside the barn, and her rider permits her. He sits the horse while she drinks her fill and then he dismounts and ties her up loosely and proceeds to the house. Everyone knows him and he greets them all one after another, hired man and slave alike. He glances at one point toward her window but she cannot tell if he sees her or only the reflected world. The look upon his face in that instant—in half shadow beneath the brim of his hat—is impossible to read.

“Lieutenant Grant,” cries Jule from the foyer at his knock, and upstairs Julia hears the words with the very soles of her feet.

His old roommate’s little sister. If there could be a plainer and less romantic connection than this, she cannot imagine it. She sits on the end of the bed and looks out the window, chewing her lip and bemoaning her fate. His old roommate’s little sister. It is a poor place to start. Yet he has come once again, has he not? He can be no more than twenty or thirty feet away at this very instant, dutifully and deferentially making small talk in the sweltering oven of her father’s dim, hot, airless office. She ought to rejoice in his nearness and in the promise of his calling on her once the colonel is finished with him. She ought to rejoice in this as she rejoices in so many aspects of the charmed life she leads. She is a most fortunate girl, after all—in good health, adored by her family, and secure in the sheltered and bountiful world of White Haven. She should appreciate the gifts she has been given, and not go seeking trouble. She settles her mind on this idea and she lets her gaze drift—from the fields to the barnyard and from the barnyard to the walk and from the walk to her own windowsill, whereon lies the bird. Yes. It is Birdie’s death that has her in this wounded mood. That’s all there is to it.

She slips from the bed and puts her ear to the floorboards and can nearly make out the words that filter up from below as her father regales the lieutenant with one of his disquisitions. An occasional grunt of agreement from his young visitor serves as a kind of punctuation, but otherwise it is a solo performance. If she has learned anything in her eighteen years, it’s that once her father gets started, there is rarely need or opportunity for anyone else to put in a word. The colonel possesses refined and unshakable opinions on most everything created by God during His six days of labor, as well as a list of things He ought to have undertaken on that first misspent Sabbath.

At least, she thinks, He managed to create Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant.

Time passes and the shadows in the barnyard begin to lengthen and the conversation from the room below, if conversation it may be called, slows and stalls and sputters to a halt. She knows from previous visits that the lieutenant shall be released at any moment, and since there are few other family members around for him to call upon today, she must head downstairs directly if their paths are to cross before he takes his leave. She very nearly brings the bird to show him but thinks better of it at the last moment, for as much as she desires the lieutenant to comfort her, she desires even more for her father to believe that she has obeyed him and disposed of the body. So she takes the empty cage down from its hook and carries that instead. She times her steps that she might meet the lieutenant in the front hall or the little sitting room or perhaps the dim parlor beyond it as he exits her father’s office. Surely enough, her strategy works.

“Julia!” he calls from the shadows. “Are you taking your friend out for some fresh air?”

She stops, lifts the cage that he may see it more clearly from where he stands, and gives him a look composed of knitted eyebrows and woe.

“My goodness,” says the lieutenant. “He’s flown the coop!”

“Worse,” says Julia.

“Worse?”

“He’s passed.”

“No.” He rushes to her side.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Just this morning.”

He takes the cage from her, and although it weighs nothing it is as if he is lifting a considerable burden.

“Lieutenant Grant…”

“Ulysses. Please.”

“Ulysses.”

He gives the empty cage an appraising look. “What has become of the body?”

“Upstairs.” She sniffs a little. “In my room.”

He studies her face. Her eyes are clear and her cheeks are pale and there is no particular sign that she has been crying, yet the overall impression that she gives is one of weariness and grief. He gives her a kindly smile and indicates the way upstairs with a tilt of his head. “Perhaps you could fetch him. We ought to be attending to the obsequies.”

She leaves him holding the cage and dashes up the stairs, her expression just a shade or two brighter than she would desire it to be in a world any less perfect than this.

He asks her to wait a bit while he takes the cage to the barn and sees about one thing or another. In the yard he finds the black stable boy and inquires as to the availability of a saw and a hammer and some little nails. Also a scrap or two of lumber. The boy advises him that although the man who does carpentry has gone to town and left his toolshed locked up, he knows where the key is hidden. His manner suggests that he knows the plantation’s every last secret, not just this one, and Grant suspects that he might. Children, regardless of their color, always know secrets.

The boy leads him around behind the toolshed but has second thoughts at the last moment. Is Grant to be trusted? There could be grave consequences otherwise. The lieutenant assures him that he will leave everything—including their secret—intact and in good order. The boy, satisfied or at least placated, scrambles around to the back of the shed and prizes away a loose board to reveal the key.

There is lumber inside the shed, white pine by the look of it, sawn thin and cut for clapboards. Its grain is straight and its lengths are without bending or warpage. He shall need only a bit. He measures out his work and scribes a few lines and saws the pieces off clean, and then he fits them together by hand as a trial. He frowns in satisfaction and makes adjustments here and there with a plane, a file, a sanding block. It takes no time at all. He goes on to prepare a flat lid for the box with a shallow rim around its edge, fitting closely but not too close. A less thoughtful individual might have resolved simply to nail the top on once the bird had been gotten inside, but that would never do.

A little jar of yellow paint on a high dim shelf catches his eye, its spilled traces glowing like the yolk of an egg. The contents prove nearly dried-up, but a splash of turpentine remedies that. He finds a scrap of wood to stir it and it yields up a thin mixture that gives the wood a faint yellow sheen more than paints it. But it dries rapidly, which is in its favor. He leaves the box and the lid to finish drying on a crate just inside the barn door and he sends the boy to fetch him back a spade, along with a Holy Bible if he can find one.

He seems to recall that the book of Matthew has something to say about birds, but when he finds the text it proves to be anything but complimentary as to their value. He chooses a psalm instead. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” He has heard that one read at a funeral or two, and he will live to hear it read at many more.

The boy assumes that he is to be charged with digging the grave, but Grant releases him to go about his business. He and Julia choose a sunny spot in the flower garden, just at the foot of a trellis that supports an ancient climbing rose, and he digs the hole. In the shade of the porch they arrange the body in its little yellow coffin and close the lid.

“Tell me, Ulysses,” she says as she stands before the climbing rose, the box in her hands. “Are you merely humoring me?”

“Never.”

“I mean, Father says…”

He touches her wrist. “ What does your heart say?”

“Oh, Ulysses.”

“This is not for your father, Julia. It’s not even for Birdie, or not entirely. It’s for you.” He kneels and takes the box and sets it into the grave and covers it. The mound is hardly larger than his hand. The bird is gone and yet it shall be here forever. A yellow bird in a yellow box beneath a red, red rose.

He straightens up and rubs the dirt from his hands with a kerchief, and then he finds the psalm and reads it aloud. He does not linger over any of it, and when he is finished he closes the Bible like any utilitarian thing that has served its purpose. Like the spade, like the box, like his muddied handkerchief. He glances up when he is done and through the front window he makes out the silhouette of the colonel himself, paused and watching. He waits an instant in a kind of silent defiance before he looks away for good.

Jon Clinch is the author of the acclaimed novels Finn, Kings of the Earth, The Thief of Auschwitz, Belzoni Dreams of Egypt , and Marley . A native of upstate New York, he lives with his wife in the Green Mountains of Vermont.
Jon has also lectured and taught widely, in settings as varied as the National Council of Teachers of English, Duke University, the Mark Twain House and Museum, and the Pennsylvania State University. In 2008 he organized a benefit reading for the financially ailing Twain House, enlisting such authors as Tom Perrotta, Elizabeth Letts, and Arthur Phillips for an event that saved the house from imminent bankruptcy. It’s probably the most important work he’s ever done.

Bitten by the Bond Series: Surviving Vihaan, Book 2.5 New Release Blitz! @ninestarpress @elainewhite.author

 

Title:  Bitten by the Bond

Series: Surviving Vihaan, Book 2.5

Author: Elaine White

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 11/14/2023

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 21900

Genre: Paranormal, bonded mates, friends to lovers, hurt-comfort, MM Romance, rescue mission, road trip, slow burn/UST, wolf shifters

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Travelling to Dnara to find the exiled Vihaans sounded like a great idea. Except…Dnara is nothing like home. Homesick, bored, and confused by the way Jude’s eyes keep drifting over him, being in Dnara brings only chaos and uncertainty into Gale’s life.

With Jude doing everything but climbing into his lap to make his attraction clear, yet putting on the brakes at the strangest times, it’s up to Gale to make the first move and claim his mate. Men might never have been on his radar before, but Gale isn’t about to ignore the true mate bond he thought he would never find.

Jude can fight all he wants, but no one denies the bond. Not when his words bark ‘back off’ and his eyes scream ‘claim me’. Besides, Gale never was any good at doing what he was told.

Warning: Launguage

Bitten by the Bond

Elaine White © 2023

All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

mid-October

“What fcuked up weather is this?” Gale frowned, extending a hand past the shelter of the front door. The raindrops hit like tiny ice needles.

Drew handed him an umbrella. “Rain.”

It didn’t look like any rain Gale had ever experienced. This was his first trip to Dnara and he didn’t like what he’d seen so far or how it made him feel.

Rolling his eyes, Drew opened the umbrella and walked out in a three-layered top, tight jeans, and ankle boots to stand under the contraption.

Gale adjusted the weird coat that crinkled with every movement. “I’ll wear the damned coat but I’m not using an umbrella.” He stepped outside to the side of the front door onto the path extending in a slope on the left.

Jude didn’t look any happier as he emerged in his jacket and pulled up the hood. Behind, Isaac hugged his stomach and slipped under Drew’s umbrella.

Janet walked out in little more than a tank top and tight jeans. “This isn’t rain,” she complained with a sniff. “It’s a good piss.”

Jude snorted, following Drew along the path from the fraternity house, wide enough for two to walk side by side, the surrounding ground a mushy swamp where the grass gave way to mud.

Gale hated the poor way Dnarans cared for the earth, the weather, and the multitude of devices they couldn’t live without, like the mobile gadgets that controlled every detail of their lives. Give him an armchair by the fire, a warm bed and solitude during the rain seasons, freedom to walk outside on the first day of sunlight to a refreshed land, and good company over a home-brewed beer.

When Keon had asked for volunteers to travel to Dnara and recover those Vihaans exiled from their packs, Gale thought it would be easy. He didn’t expect it to take weeks.

Eliseo had done his best to prepare them, letting the fraternity brothers handle the electronic tasks, leaving them to do the leg work. But Gale missed home, the simplicity and ease of the pack, of knowing every member, their history, and their story, as well as he knew his own. Here, everyone was a stranger. The fraternity brothers acted, behaved, and functioned as a pack, but they weren’t m’weko.

They wern’t home.

Gale nudged Jude and raised an eyebrow at his new roommate. “You got a smoke?”

Patting the jacket pockets, Jude pulled out a packet and handed over two long rolls of Vihaan fottai, a special herbal mixture.

“Fcuk!” Gale grabbed him by the neck to kiss his temple. “You’re my new favourite person.”

Jude shook his head in exasperation and tucked the packet into his jacket, making sure to zip the pocket. Extracting a lighter from his jeans, he lit Gale’s smoke then took the other and inhaled deeply.

He closed his eyes at the mix of herbs, the sense of home. The smell was unequivocally Vihaan. The pine of the trees from E’Boolou’s largest forest, the shaved wood of working with timber, the juniper of his favourite beer, a salty aroma from cooked rosson over a spit. Home.

He sighed in approval. “I owe you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Jude cautioned, eyes glazed with the same reminiscence.

Gale didn’t argue. For this, no price was too high. There was nothing like having a piece of home when he was far from it. He’d take what he could get in case he was unlucky enough not to make it back. At least he still had Jude, his roommate, the guy he’d spent countless missions with. The man he’d spent weeks alone with, in a tiny boundary hut, taking their turn to protect the pack borders. The kinship and family bond bred by serving together, in isolation, didn’t compare to what he felt now.

There was nothing brotherly about what shot through his head every time he felt Jude’s eyes on him. Gale had never known a connection like this.

Janet and Marlan were home too but in a different way. A way that didn’t leave his nerves buzzing and heart thumping.

Whatever Dnara had done started something he had no idea how to finish.

“Here we are,” Drew called, distracting his attention from the fottai between his lips.

“What is this?” Janet asked, disgust dripping from every word.

Their guide frowned at the window that showcased a mass of humans standing at various counters. “A bar,” Drew replied in confusion. “You know, a place to drink? With friends.” He glanced between them for a sign of recognition.

Eyeing the building, Gale took another puff. “Why do you need a building to meet friends for a drink?” He didn’t understand Dnara. The rules, the insistence of creating special events or places or inventions when nature already provided what they needed. If they didn’t want to get wet, they should stay out of the rain. If they wanted to meet for a beer, what was wrong with their homes or the forest?

Laughing, Drew opened the door and stood within its shelter to lower the umbrella. “I’ll explain later. The guy is, according to his Facebook page, a bartender. He lives in the city, so this is the best time and place to find him,” he reasoned though half those words didn’t make sense to Gale.

He’d learned what those white signs with red lines meant though. It’s place on the bar door made Gale plant his feet. “No.” He smiled when Drew frowned and took another drag. “I’m not stomping out a fottai because there’s a sign on a fcuking door. You can’t get fottai outside of Vihaan.” He held out the smoke for Drew to see.

Drew spoke under his breath. “God help me.” When he looked Gale in the eye, he nodded. “Fine. You stay with Jude to enjoy your smoke. Janet and Isaac will come with me to help this non-Vihaan recognise a native Vihaan.” He held the door open for the others. “I wish I could say I had a better way to spend my time, but this is for Keon,” he mumbled as he stepped inside.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Elaine White is the author of multi-genre MM romance, celebrating ‘love is love’ and offering diversity in both genre and character within her stories.

Growing up in a small town and fighting cancer in her early teens taught her that life is short and dreams should be pursued. She lives vicariously through her independent, and often hellion characters, exploring all possibilities within the romantic universe.

The Winner of two Watty Awards – Collector’s Dream (An Unpredictable Life) and Hidden Gem (Faithfully) – and an Honourable Mention in 2016’s Rainbow Awards (A Royal Craving) Elaine is a self-professed geek, reading addict, and a romantic at heart.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

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Dark Dweller by Gareth Worthington November 13-24, 2023 Virtual Book Tour!

Captain Kara Psomas was pronounced dead when her research vessel slammed into Jupiter.

More than a century later, the crew of the Paralus, a helium mining freighter, find a pristine escape pod with a healthy young girl nestled inside. A girl who claims to be Kara—and she brings a message of doom.

She says she has been waiting in the dark for that exact moment. To be found by that particular crew. Because an ancient cosmic being has tasked her with a sacred responsibility. She claims she must alter the Fulcrum, a lever in time—no matter the cost to the people aboard—or condemn the rest of civilization to a very painful and drawn-out demise.

She sounds convincing. She appears brave. She might well be insane.

Praise for Dark Dweller:

"... intense, exciting, and nerve-wracking ... taut, tense, and ultimately explosive. A fantastic read not just for science fiction aficionados but for all lovers of adventure."
~ Readers' Favorite

"Dark Dweller is that rare beast of hard sci-fi that can pull off high-end concepts, but also entertain the reader with tension and strong set pieces."
~ SFBook Review

"A story steeped in intrigue, vivid descriptions, and action-packed dialogue."
~ Midwest Book Review

"Epic, bleak, provocative."
~ Indiereader Review

"Knuckle-hard science fiction."
~ Bestsellers World

Dark Dweller Trailer:

Book Details:

Genre: Hard sci Fi mixed with esoteric elements
Published by: Dropship Publishing
Publication Date: February 2023
Number of Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781954386051 (ISBN10: 1954386052)
Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads 

 Read an excerpt: Warning:Language 

PROLOGUE

Dr. Sarah Dallas

"Are you the fcuking pilot, Hair?” Boz screams at me, piggy eyes aflame in her round face.

I hate that moniker: Hair. Not important right now. The fact we’re going to die is. “No, I’m not, but—”

“Then stay in your lane and shut your hole.”

Breathe, Sarah. Don’t punch her. You’re the ship’s counselor. Be professional. Do not punch her. The mantra rings over and over in my skull, but Boz tests every ounce of my training. There are four of us on this twelve-year round trip. Assaulting the pilot isn’t the best idea.

I release a very measured breath and fix my attention on the largest planet in our solar system looming large in the viewfinder of our liner—the Paralus. Jupiter is enormous, its surface banded with reddish-brown and off-white clouds, rushing and crashing into one other. Its one angry red eye stares at us, at me.

My supposed intellect short-circuits as I try to quantify and categorize. In the face of something truly awe-inspiring my tiny human biological computer is unable, or refuses, to comprehend the sheer magnitude of this world. Yet my limbic system must have some ancient recollection of dealing with overwhelming reverence, forcing a rush of adrenaline through my bloodstream and into my trembling muscles.

Just look at it.

The Paralus shudders as we hurtle into the upper atmosphere. Jupiter has a will of its own, intent on sucking us into its gassy interior. Ironic, given we’re here to grab its vapors. Helium-3 to be specific, to act as cryogenic coolant for our nuclear fusion reactors at home and space stations set out along the Interplanetary Transport Network. Jupiter has helium in spades, while Earth has precious little, and so now we risk our lives on ridiculously dangerous missions to mine the ether. In the age of interplanetary travel and colonization, profit trumps human life—as always.

Metal squeals and the hull creaks. The luminous tabs and keys beneath crystal glass control panels stutter and flicker. Even the slick white walls and soothing curves of the Bridge’s interior can’t muffle the complaints of the frail, human-made underpinnings.

A tear slips from the corner of my eye and my knuckles are white as I grip the armrests.

“Are you crying?” Boz yells, peeling her stare from the enormous viewfinder to gawk in disgust at me for daring to have any emotion other than anger.

“We’re coming in too hot,” I press, flitting a concerned frown from Boz to the planet and back again in hopes she takes the hint to watch where the hell she’s going. “Can’t the AI take over?”

“Which part of shut up isn’t penetrating all that hair?” Boz clicks her tongue, then tweaks on the thruster yokes. Sweat beads on her forehead. “I got this, Dallas. Now back off.”

I wriggle back in my seat and adjust the harness again. Everyone hates a backseat driver, but if she gets this wrong Jupiter will seize the Paralus and we’ll never have enough thrust to escape. We’ll either be torn to shreds or crushed like a tin can. Either one a shitty way to go.

Our freighter shakes like a rag doll in the mouth of a puppy, the nuts and bolts of this dilapidated piece of junk threatening to come loose. The Paralus is fragile as all hell and entirely breakable—the sort of construction a five-year-old makes out of drinking straws and modeling clay. A mile-long needle with a nuclear fusion engine at the aft end, a Scoop and transport shuttle docking bay, the AI mainframe in the center, and two spinning rings: one for cargo, and one for medbay, exercise room and living quarters. Ops, also called the Bridge, sits right in the nose.

Perfect for a front-row seat to our doom.

“Still too much speed,” Boz says. “Increasing retro-thruster burn.”

Will that do anything? The main retro-thrusters have been firing while we’re asleep for months now, slowing us to enter orbit correctly, which sounds great on paper but—given the heap of shit we’re in—means diddly squat.

“Boz, keep her steady,” Commander Chau calls from his chair.

“I’m trying, sir,” she yells back.

“Tris?” Chau says loud enough to be heard over the din of warping metal punctuated at regular intervals by the warning alarm.

“The trajectory is off, something’ changed,” Tris Beckert, our co-pilot and chief engineer, replies in his Texan drawl. “Jupiter’s not where we predicted. It’s not a big ol’ shift, but enough.”

I swear my ass just clenched hard enough to make a button on the seat. A ton of unmanned craft have slammed into their destination planet or just whizzed on by into space forever. I’m no astrophysicist, but was once told reaching a target in space like standing on Everest and firing a bullet at a pea-sized target on the other side of the Earth.

“We’re comin’ in a little steep,” Tris says, tapping away at his readout. “AI is helpin’ Boz compensate—”

The alarm blares again.

“Warning, orbital entry path suboptimal,” says a synthetic, sonorous voice from overhead.

Only an AI could so calmly announce our deaths.

“Yes, I fucking know, Dona,” Boz spits back. “Reverse thrusters won’t do it. Gotta skip over the atmosphere. Just need to burn more delta-v.”

The Paralus lurches under a burst from the engines. The horizon of Jupiter fills the viewfinder, its swirling fumes mixing like milk and coffee in a fresh latte. A fresh latte? Shut up, Sarah.

On the horizon, flashes of white light, tinged with green edges, emanate from just below Jupiter’s cloud line.

Tris shoots a worried look at Boz.

“Asteroids exploding on impact?” she yells without breaking her concentration.

“I don’t think so,” Tris shouts back.

“You better fucking hope not or we’re about to get cratered,” Boz says.

Cratered. Great. Pebble-dashed with chunks of space rock. The spindly nature of the Paralus helps it to not be a gigantic target, but it only takes one puncture and we’re all screwed.

Why am I here, again?

“Hold on to your pantyhose,” Boz says, perspiration running down her temples.

The Paralus is battered, a pathetic kite in impossibly strong winds, as we plunge farther into the outer atmosphere of Jupiter. The viewfinder is near black—sunlight can no longer penetrate the violent vapors assaulting us. Multiple feeds from external cameras cycle on and off, but offer no help.

Boz roars long and loud, heaving on the yokes while Tris taps away at his console, calculating and recalculating—pinging his very human assumptions off the computations of the AI. Chau sits, smooth jaw set and stoic, his narrowed sights fixed on some imaginary endpoint to this nightmare of an orbital entry. He looks oddly calm.

I squeeze my eyes shut and mumble a prayer, though to whom I don’t know. God, Yahweh, Allah. Anyone who’ll listen. In moments of extreme stress, time seems to slow, the human mind suddenly able to function on some higher level, absorbing all the information it can in hopes of averting disaster. Behind my eyelids, in a weird half-dream, half-out-of-body experience, I see myself clinging to the harness. Observing the cowardly pose fills my astral-projected self with shame, which only grows with the knowledge I’m not praying for loved ones at home who might miss me when I’m gone, but to make it out alive so I can go on ignoring them for a little longer.

Except for Dad, always have time for Dad.

The shuddering stops.

I open my eyes. The last wisps of Jupiter’s atmosphere slip past revealing vast, open space. Here, unadulterated with the light of human cities, the universe is alive. The light from the smallest of stars reaches out to me from across the expanse. The feeling of relief at still being alive is replaced with nausea. The same feeling one gets when peering into a pitch-black well, wondering how far down it goes. We came so close to death, but what difference would it make? The universe doesn’t care. Look at how big it is.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Boz says, slumping back in her chair.

“Hey now,” Tris pipes up.

“Sorry, Tris.”

She’s not sorry. Tris doesn’t like too much swearing, but Boz does it anyway. Several times a day. So do I, just in my head. Isn’t that what we all do? Hide a little piece of who we are to placate others. To survive society. But again, it’s hard to care when you’re out here knowing the cosmos really doesn’t give a rat’s ass what we do. The desire to let loose a string of expletives nearly overwhelms me. Nearly.

“I want to know what happened,” Chau says, his expression cold like granite. “How could our trajectory be that off?”

“It wasn’t,” Tris replies, shaking his head. “I told you, Jupiter moved.”

Chau narrows his eyes. “Not possible.”

“Engineer Tris is correct,” the AI says, its tone unchanging. “Jupiter’s orbital path appears to have altered.”

“How the hell is that possible?” Boz asks.

“Ya’ll got me,” Tris replies, tapping at his screen. “Some kinda gravitational irregularity?”

“Affecting Jupiter?” Chau says, one eyebrow raised. “Jupiter moves celestial bodies, not the other way around.”

Tris shrugs. “I’ll look into it.”

“Fine, but after the grab,” Chau says.

“I need to get us back into a proper orbit,” Boz says, already tapping away at her console. “That’s gonna take a while. We had to burn long and hard to skip over the atmosphere. It’s gonna be like turning a galactic Buick.”

“Do it,” Chau says.

“Um.” As the word leaves my lips I wish it hadn’t.

All eyes fix on me.

Shit. Well done, Sarah. Best follow through now. “Is that an aerostat in our flight path?”

“What are you talking about, Doctor,” Boz says.

I point out of the main window.

The crew follows the imaginary path from my fingertip out into space and to the spheroid metallic object. “If that’s an aerostat, it’ll do a lot of damage if we hit it.” Though they’re flexible, colliding with one of these weather stations dropped into the atmosphere to monitor the constant violent storms would fuck us up.

“That ain’t an aerostat, that’s a ship,” Tris says, squinting. “Too far out of the atmosphere. Wrong shape.”

“Are we going to hit … whatever that is?” Chau asks.

Boz shakes her head. “We’re headed out. Seems it’s geo-synched, in orbit.”

“You’re eyeballing it?” I ask.

Boz glares at me. “How about you let me do my job, Dallas?”

Chau holds up his hand. “Enough. What do we do about it?”

Tris clears his throat. “ITN protocol says we have to prioritize the grab, but … this is a little unorthodox. There’s no precedent for an alien ship.” He shoots a nervous glance at Chau.

Chau sniffs hard. “There’s no evidence to suggest it’s an alien ship. How close will we come to it?”

Tris’s fingers flit across his console at lightning speed. Then, with a dramatic swipe, he sends the flight path file from his panel to Boz who looks it over.

“Within a hundred feet,” Boz says. “Just like I said.”

Yes, Boz, I get it— you’re a genius and I’m an idiot. Seriously, Sarah, hold it together. “Do we need to adjust?”

“If we try that, we’ll push ourselves further out,” Tris says, “and it’ll take longer to re-enter synchronized orbit.”

“At a hundred feet we can get a pretty good look at it, though, right?” I say.

Tris nods. “I’d get a window seat now, because we’re about to zip by.”

We, of course, aren’t going to unbuckle and float over to the large window, so we all just fall into a confused silence and fix our attention to the small vessel that is fast approaching—or rather the one that we are fast approaching.

Could this really be alien? Are we the first humans to encounter other intelligent life? Finding microbes on Mars some fifty years ago was a little anticlimactic, especially at a time when humankind had finally started to pay consideration to our own dying world. Too little too late. But a spaceship? Maybe this crappy trip was worth it after all.

The alien vessel is now large enough in the viewfinder to study it a little better. Too damn close if you ask me, but hey, I’m just the shrink right?

Boz glances over her shoulder at Chau. The two of them don’t cross words, but exchange an unspoken question.

They’re right to be confused. What the hell is going on?

The ship, or pod, is roughly egg-shaped, and in the outer lights of the Paralus seems to be grey in color. No windows. Small rear thrusters. And an ITN insignia.

“Holy shit,” Boz says. “It’s an escape pod.”

“Did the last liner report a pod ejection?” Chau asks.

“Not to my knowledge,” Boz says. “Tris?”

The Texan shakes his head. “I got no record of that.”

“Those markings, they’re old,” I pipe up. “See the logo? Saturn is included now, since the expansion. This is pre-rebrand, done more than twenty years ago. Actually, that looks even older. Museum old.” That tidbit of information only serves to remind them who I am, how I’m here, and that they really don’t like me or my family. Shit.

“Chief,” Tris says. “We gotta see what’s over there. I can take a Scoop.”

Chau looks to Boz.

She just shrugs. “I have to swing her around Jupiter to get us into orbit. I can use the gravity to catapult us ’round and come up on the pod again. Give us time to gear up.”

Chau tents his fingertips. “How will that affect the grab?”

“Well, it’ll delay it,” Tris says, rubbing at his square jaw. “But Jupiter isn’t going anywhere.”

“Didn’t you just say it moved?” My lips try to hang on to the last word as if I can suck back the regrettably snarky remark.

Tris pinches his lips together and gives a subtle shake of his head.

You’re right Tris; shut up, Sarah.

“Oh man, we best still be haulin’ when we return,” Boz says, and shoots me a look as if this whole thing is somehow my fault. “Only get paid if we have a load.”

Hauling back Helium is all anyone gives a shit about, because it means getting paid. Helium is this century’s gold rush. This is hilarious, given I’ve listened to enough company speeches to know that helium is the second most abundant element in the universe. The problem is, while God was handing out the element, He—or She or It—seemed to skip Earth. Our planet’s crust is probably not even in the parts per billion range. In the Earth’s atmosphere, it’s only 5.2 parts per million per volume. So, Jupiter is our reservoir, our lifeline. Still, the ITN has protocols for situations like this. The pod could pose a threat to continued mining. Though no idea what kind of threat, not my wheelhouse. “I think the ITN are gonna call this one,” I add. “Something like this will trump a helium grab. The AI has probably locked all systems anyway. We won’t get to do the job yet.”

Boz tuts again.

“You are correct, Dr. Dallas,” the AI says. “Current mission suspended until investigation completed.”

Chau tents his fingertips. “The faster we clear that pod, the faster we get back on mission.”

Everyone unbuckles and swims out of the only door in or out of the Bridge. Boz gives me a long, hard, disapproving stare, but Tris flashes a grin. Chau doesn’t even bother to acknowledge me. For him, a shrink has two jobs on these freighters: make sure the crew don’t lose their minds in deep space, and stay the hell out of the way.

So far, no-one’s lost their marbles, yet.

***

Excerpt from Dark Dweller by Gareth Worthington. Copyright 2023 by Gareth Worthington. Reproduced with permission from Gareth Worthington. All rights reserved.

Gareth Worthington holds a degree in marine biology, a PhD in Endocrinology, an executive MBA, is Board Certified in Medical Affairs, and currently works for the Pharmaceutical industry educating the World's doctors on new cancer therapies.

Gareth is an authority in ancient history, has hand-tagged sharks in California, and trained in various martial arts, including Jeet Kune Do and Muay Thai at the EVOLVE MMA gym in Singapore and 2FIGHT Switzerland.

He is an award-winning author and member of the International Thriller Writers Association, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the British Science Fiction Association.

Born in England, Gareth has lived around the world from Asia, to Europe to the USA. Wherever he goes, he endeavors to continue his philanthropic work with various charities.

Gareth is represented by Renee Fountain and Italia Gandolfo at Gandolfo Helin Fountain Literary, New York.

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