The harder you try to escape, the more darkness pulls you under.
Oblivion Black
The Sculptor Book 1
by Christa Wojciechowski
Genre
Psychological Thriller, Dark Romantic Suspense
LITERARY TITAN GOLD AWARD WINNER
The harder you try to escape, the more darkness pulls you under.
Art school dropout Ona Price is forced to clean up after a
near-fatal overdose on a Manhattan sidewalk. While in recovery, she lands a job
as the assistant to Antoni Azarov, the world-famous sculptor known as The Hands
of God. Though he is difficult and brooding, his extraordinary talent reawakens
Ona's passion for art, giving her life the meaning she so desperately craved.
An undeniable attraction develops as they work together, but Antoni keeps his
physical distance at all costs. When the predatory wife of a wealthy benefactor
decides she wants the sculptor for herself, the monstrous secret that fuels
Antoni’s art threatens to destroy all.
Oblivion Black is a lush transgressive fairy tale with the Gothic appeal of a
Brontë novel. Literary fiction, romance, and thriller fans will appreciate this
intense dive into existential confusion, intoxication, eroticism, and the
volatile power of beauty.
**Only .99cents!**
Hierarchy of Needs
The Sculptor Book 2
When
self-destruction is the only way out ...
World-famous sculptor Antoni Azarov, and his muse, Ona Price are ripped apart
after a shocking act of violence sends them into their own personal hells.
Trapped in Manhattan, Ona faces her most treacherous enemy, her addiction to
heroin, while a dangerous new man claims her desire.
Antoni, an artist defamed, is hellbent on saving Ona before she destroys
herself. What he doesn’t know is if she wants to be rescued.
Meanwhile, death haunts them on every corner as a vengeful crime boss called
Warlock devours the city, poisoning its addicted population with a flesh-eating
drug.
Amid this chaos, Ona and Antoni must struggle against their darkest selves to
find a way back to each other—or else give in to the darkness forever.
The propulsive sequel to Oblivion Black,
Hierarchy of Needs is an intoxicating exploration of the paradox of love, the
chokehold of desire, and the deadly thrills of the underworld. This second book
in The Sculptor Series will leave readers fiending for more.
Darklands
The Sculptor Book 3
The intoxicating finale to The Sculptor Series ...
After cheating death in New York, Ona Price's battle scars
run deeper than her disfigured face. Antoni Azarov orchestrates a journey to
jolt them out of their artistic dead zone. From the boozy streets of New
Orleans to the sultry shores of a Caribbean archipelago, they explore forbidden
desires, testing the limits of pleasure and pain.
No matter where their experiences take them, their personal demons hunt them
down until their journey ends on a remote lagoon called the Darklands. Will
their love survive the dark secrets that threaten to tear them apart, or will
the Darklands become the ultimate test of their commitment?
Unveil the dangerous beauty of Darklands, where the human psyche unravels in a
sensuous journey that will leave you breathless.
"Darklands is a hair-raising conclusion to The Sculptor trilogy. It
reads like a David Lynch erotic fever dream that constantly veers close to the
edge of nightmare, ending with a spiritual awakening of biblical proportions. I
wept. Adapt this into a movie at once." —Joseph Sale, author of The Book
of Thrice Dead
Azarov was one of the few artists who did life-size sculptures in clay. The process was tedious and risky, but the results were unreal. It was no wonder he didn’t want to deal with all the attention, and Oz was too technically challenged to sift through the cluttered inbox. More than once I found myself looking up through the crack in the door to watch the sculptor smoothing the clay in the shadow of Nina’s two ridiculously long legs.
Azarov had a look of concentration, but there was something else, like his soul was singing a song that human ears couldn’t hear. He handled the clay so lovingly and with complete purpose. He knew what it was supposed to do and what it could be. The studio was a church kind of quiet. I was afraid to breathe. I didn’t pee or take a cigarette break. I dared not interrupt the magic taking place by exiting my room.
“We’re done for today,” I finally heard him say. I waited for what I hoped was an appropriate moment before stepping out. Nina was pulling her clothes out of a rucksack in the corner and began to get dressed. She was so comfortable in her own nakedness. That’s what life is like in a supermodel’s body, I thought.
“I must go back to the city,” Nina said. “My car is parked in the lot on the other side in Lambertville. Ona, can you give me a ride across the bridge?”
“Sure,” I said.
Then Nina said something to Mr. Azarov in Russian. A farewell, I supposed. I walked with Nina out of the cavernous studio into the bright gray light of the November afternoon. I hit the key button to unlock the door, and Nina and I got into the car. I lit up a cigarette.
“Oh, can I have one of those?” Nina begged.
“You smoke?” She looked so pristine in the light of day. I felt reluctant to give her a cigarette. She was young, probably not past twenty.
“I am not supposed to,” Nina said. “Wrinkles and all of that, but it was a long day.”
I handed her the pack and pulled the car out onto the road.
“So you will be like secretary?” Nina asked in her charming broken English.
“Yes, something like that,” I said. “How long have you worked with Mr. Azarov?”
“Oh, I have known Antoni for two or three years now,” Nina said pulling her hair back into a ponytail. “I’m accustomed to him already.”
“What is it like working for him?” I was curious if he made everyone feel like hiding in a corner.
“It’s not easy,” Nina said. “Painful, and he is demanding, but once he starts working it’s okay. Even though he is looking at me, it is as if I am in my own room and he is in his own room.”
“He seems so serious.”
“He has had difficult life, but he is not a bad man,” Nina said. “Yes, he is quiet, and very far away. He is very far away from us. You understand?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess most geniuses are like that. They don’t have patience to mix with mortals.”
“Something like that.” Nina laughed.
“He must have a lot of girlfriends,” I suggested.
Nina scoffed. “No, as strange as it is, he is not receptive to women.” She let out a long drag, her mouth tightening into a bitter sliver. “Only his statues.” She looked down and brushed some stray ashes off her sweater. “That is all he cares about.”
I got the feeling that maybe Nina knew this from experience. “They are so sensual,” I said.
She scrutinized me and cocked her head. “Yes, we all fall in love with them. With him. But trust me. Don’t bother.”
“Oh, me? No, no, no. I don’t have a crush on him or anything.”
“Right,” Nina nodded and laughed mirthlessly. “Just take may advice, secretary, okay?”
Nina puffed in silence after that and I felt naïve in this new world of super models and famous artists. I realized I had begun smoothing over my Long Island accent without even consciously thinking about it. What did people like Azarov and Nina think of me? A middle-class girl, as statuesque as a concrete garden gnome.
We drove into the parking lot on the other side of the bridge. “That one.” Nina pointed to a red sports car squatting at the end of the row. She held out her hand, recovering her breeziness. “See you tomorrow then?”
“I hope so,” I said.
“Good,” Nina said with an enormous toothy smile. She strutted to her car, her long ash-blonde ponytail whipping in the wind.
I thought of Crime and Punishment and the Extraordinary Man, one born out of millions who lifts humanity. I knew I wasn’t a superior human being, and I didn’t need to test my theory. But a man like Azarov, peevish or not, was extraordinary, the first extraordinary person I’d ever met in my life. I’d end up in art history books if I kept my job with him. His Wikipedia would mention me. Antoni Azarov, the greatest sculptor of the millennia, owed his success to the tireless service of his assistant, Ona Price.
Christa Wojciechowski is an American dark fiction writer who
has lived most her career abroad. She is the author of The Sculptor Series, The
SICK Series, and the founder of the Writers Mastermind virtual writing
community.
Christa’s novella “Popsicle” (Crystal Lake) was a semi-finalist in Screencraft’s Cinematic Short Story Competition and second rounder in the Launch Pad Prose Competition. Her short stories have appeared in various publications and anthologies, most recently “Blood Sisters” in the Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas (Hex Publishers), “Observer Dependent Universe” in the Chiral Mad 5 anthology (Written Backwards), and “The Oasis” selected for the Chromophobia anthology (Strangehouse Books).
Christa Wojciechowski is an active member of the Horror Writers Association and editor at Gamut Magazine. She loves to play Chopin (badly) and sip Hendrick’s gin. When she is not reading or writing, she can be found wandering the world, collecting new experiences.
Website * Facebook * X * Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads
#psychologicalthriller #romanticsuspense #darkromance #romancebooks #romancelovers #thrillerbooks #books #readers #reading #booklovers #BookTour #Giveaway #bookboost #bookrecommendations #BookBlogger #Bookstagram #bookish #bookclub #MustRead #Writersofinstagram #AmReading #BookPromo #AuthorPromo #writingcommunity #readerscommunity
Follow the tour HERE for special content and a $20 giveaway!
.jpg)
