Vampires, Villains, and Vagrants, Oh My!

Another quality post brought to you by Steve!

Hey everybody!  If you read Brenda's post on preparing for a book launch earlier this month, then you may remember that #10 is reaching out to blogger and author friends.  I have a little bit of an advantage over the a-ver-age bear in that I'm on a group blog that I get to hijack once a month.  So you can probably guess what's coming...

The HUNTER OF THE DEAD blitz!

If you haven't heard elsewhere yet, my fifth novel, HUNTER OF THE DEAD was released (or "dropped" in the vulgar parlance) last Monday.  I'm very proud and excited about this one.  Over a decade in the making, HUNTER OF THE DEAD started life as a screenplay and evolved through about seven drafts before finally becoming the final product you can see, hold, and, yes, even purchase today!

HUNTER OF THE DEAD is already busting up the genre charts.  Honestly, it's been my best received book to date, and it's already managed to score #2 on Amazon's Hot New Releases in Horror Comedy.  It's also lingered on the actual Horror Comedy charts, reaching #31 in the US and #39 in the UK.  I've truly been blessed to have fans like you, and I hope there's still gas in the engine so we can keep this one going for a little while.

HUNTER OF THE DEAD also marks my long-awaited return to long-form horror.  Strange as it seems coming from someone who talks about horror so much, I haven't released a proper horror novel in almost three years.  BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS, although dark, was very much dystopian sci-fi, and EVERY KINGDOM DIVIDED was a straight sci-fi/political pastiche with hardly any scary elements.  But not to worry!  HUNTER OF THE DEAD makes up for my absence from the scene, and in spades.  Early reviews are even calling it my goriest book ever, which I didn't initially think it was, but I certainly can see how the argument could be made.  I guess you'll have to decide for yourself!  And when you do, let me know.

As you can (hopefully) guess from that gorgeous cover (courtesy of the extremely talented Zach McCain) HUNTER OF THE DEAD is a vampire novel.  Wait, wait, wait.  Don't go running off just yet.  It's not about sparkly vampires, or angsty vampires, or even sexy latex-sheathed vampires.  It's about some good, old-fashioned villainous vampires who like to feed people into paper shredders, sacrifice children to eldritch gods, and serve up human birthday cakes.

One thing I've found over the years, partially what drove me to write this novel, is that vampires suffered a pretty extreme change when they found their way to Hollywood.  Don't get me wrong: I love "Interview With the Vampire," "Buffy," the "Blade" series, and all that good stuff, but they're just not really vampire vampires.  They're not the folkloric menace that would've haunted the outskirts of an Eastern European town.  Often they're not even antagonists, just tortured heroes who can't even recognize their own goodness in spit of their nature.

Not these vampires, though.  These vampires are straight-up cold-blooded murder machines, often mistaken for humans, but never confused for them when they let their true natures show.  Some of them are wealthy aristocrats, sure, but they're also gangsters and vagrants and bounty hunters on the streets.  None of them are misunderstood, or brooding.  They're the villains.

And every good villain needs a good hero, don't they?  Which is why my book also focuses on a scruffy pair of vampire hunters, or as they're properly called, Inquisitors.  Nico Salazar basically stumbles into the game, accidentally witnessing his middle-aged co-worker at a gas station convenience store, Carter Price, duking it out with an ancient vampiric monstrosity.  Carter takes his young boss under his wing and teaches him the ways of the Inquisition, but they couldn't have chosen a worse time to start because a vampire civil war is in the offing.

So, I hope you'll check it out.  If you have any questions or thoughts, make sure to leave them in the comments below.  Oh, and I know I say this all the time, but it bears repeating: indie authors really live and die by word-of-mouth.  If you'd be so kind as to share or tweet my book release, or even just tell some friends about it in meatspace, it could really make a big difference to my career.  Thanks, everybody!