"A Hole in the Sea" Cover Reveal

It is with great pleasure that I present to you the cover of my second book, the sequel to A Hole in the Ice and book two of The Weather Caster Saga. The team at Little Bird Publishing House have created a gorgeous cover that really captures the essence of the book and I hope you like it as much as I do.

The story takes up where A Hole in the Ice left us, on the arctic ice. The danger of the mermaids is not over. Parsifal and Balder are lured into the hole in the ice and into the Sea…that mythical body of water where ships go when they’re lost at sea, where sea monsters surge up from the deep to destroy, where the mermaids live, and where Lady Vasille hopes to conquer. But she’ll need The Compass. Parsifal and Balder meet Dioktes, a secretive old man who desires power for himself, and Fou, a bedraggled woman who has lost her mind somewhere in the Port. The Port, let’s not forget that, the floating city constructed of old flotsam and wreckage, prowled by small gangsters by day and hideous monsters by night.

Parsifal must fight—to keep The Compass safe—to save Balder—to survive. Who’s on his side?

I’ve done a couple of oil paintings of things in the book. Here I have Davy Jones, the sea monster. He used to be a Weather Caster, like Vassilissa, but he was transformed as a punishment for rebellion. He used to be called Dèvid.

And here is Dioktes’ vessel, the small boat/ship that somewhat resembles the Mediterranean xebecs. She is called the Scylla.

And now for the fun stuff!

I’m giving away two signed paperbacks of A Hole in the Ice, two ebooks of A Hole in the Ice, and two of my custom A Hole in the Sea charms that feature my four-clawed crab drawing.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And you can preorder A Hole in the Sea on amazon

And reviewers...if you want an advance review copy of one or both of these books, just ask in the comments below ;)

The Weather Casters

W.C.---The Weather Casters, supernatural beings from my novel "A Hole in the Ice," who control the weather, weaving it and casting it out over the world. They will appear more prominently in book two of the Weather Casters series, "A Hole in the Sea," which is planned to come out sometime this fall.
Here's a little logo I painted for them:

I think it would be cool as a frontispiece or something, but it's really not perfect enough. I might touch it up on the computer and see what it looks like then. I'm pretty clumsy, as you can see by te smudges on the lower left edge.
There are more creatures in book two, as well...stay tuned for more art, just as soon as I can figure out how to depict them.

A Sneak Peek At My Desk

   The Weather Casters, Book Two: A Hole in the Sea, sequel to A Hole in the Ice. We pick up where we left off, on the lonely ice-shelves of the arctic seas, where the melting ice traps Parsifal, Balder, and company. It isn’t long before the allure of the mermaids pulls them into the other-worldly Sea, another dimension of adventure, if you will…where they meet new characters and more deadly creatures.

   Dioktes is an old sailor who endlessly wanders the uncharted waves of the Sea. He rescues Parsifal and Balder but can they really trust him? Fou is a poor woman who lost her mind in the nightmares of the tossing waves, but she knows every path through the island of flotsam that makes up the pseudo-civilization known as the Port.

   Vassilissa enslaves a pirate captain and enlists the fallen Weather Casters, Davy and Wilma Jones, both of whom have been transformed into hideous monsters, to help her take over the Sea and destroy the Weather Casters.

   Trying to protect The Compass from all those who would misuse It, Parsifal starts to wonder if it means too much to him, perhaps more than his loyal friend Balder. He finds himself at a loss for what to do and where to turn. He must rely on himself, but can he trust himself?

   Coming Soon.

   The tentative date is sometime in October 2015

   As for the zombie fighting:

   I’m 20,000+ words into the first draft of a zombie comedy—a ZomCom—if you will. With a little romance.

   It’s about two cousins, Lyra, bent on world domination, and Alice, who would rather not be involved with anything, particularly marriage to an odious Earl of advanced age. There’s a spy and a necromantic artist as well. And a vegetative Duke. And zombies, of course.

    I had this idea about a girl and her father who has the ability to influence other people’s minds. The necromantic artist featured as well. It was kind of a steampunk Regency.

   I had also written a fragment about a Regency girl who stumbles across a young man and some secret passages in her house, neither of which were supposed to be there, but I didn’t know where to go with it. Then I got addicted to Plants vs. Zombies and I drew a little cartoon inspired by the cute zombies from that game.

   Except that he likes java, not brains. Anyway, Little Bird saw this cartoon and said something about hoping it meant I had an Edwardian zombie story cooking up. I thought, hey! And before long I had those two ideas cobbled together with zombies thrown in the mix to…um, stitch it together.

   Not sure how long this book will take to finish. I’m almost a third through the rough draft, but it’ll take a while to revise, I think. I hope this humor thing works out. The droll tone is hard to maintain sometimes, and I have to be careful not to overdo it. The fun thing is, it’s meant to be cliché. The zombies have a very limited vocabulary: uh, urr, mm, and braaaaains! are their main words.

Anyway, I’m excited about both projects, and I’ll probably have more. I’m considering writing a story about Sir Oaktree and his adventures in Africa, as well.

   And one of these days I'm going to try oil paints.

   So stay tuned! Thanks for dropping by and don't forget to check out the Little Bird Bookstore for all kinds of amazing reads!