Footfalls: light, precise.
A clink, a rattle; sound of the lock on the pie safe falling, and then the cabinet doors swung open, the dim lamplight washed over her, and she saw a man, crouched there in front of her.
Her first instinct was to scream. Miss Tabitha invited men over sometimes, men who…
But this man didn’t look like any of them. No, he looked far different.
His eyes caught her first, and held her attention, a warm honey color, green-brown like river water. His hair, silk-soft and wheaten, fell to his shoulders, artful across his brow, behind his ears. He had a face of sharp angles: cheeks, jaw, chin.
“Hello, little one,” he said, and his voice was velvet, was silk, was sinuous and slippery and good. He tipped his head to the side, which sent his hair sliding over his shoulder with a soft rustle. “What are you doing in here?”
Strangers always meant danger in this city, and fine tremors had hold of her. But Rose swallowed, and managed to say, “Miss Tabitha…”
“Ah. She won’t be locking anyone else in a cabinet, I don’t think.”
Rose shifted as much as she dared, skin prickling with goosebumps, and peeked over his shoulder. He even shifted, obliging her, and she saw Miss Tabitha at her kitchen table: slumped forward, eyes open, unseeing. Red on the table, all down her front; a puddle in her lap, dripping down onto the floor. Blood. Rose could smell it.
“Tabby and I go way back,” the man said. “I can’t say we were ever friends.” He held out a hand, palm-up, in offering. It was speckled with blood. When Rose looked closer, she saw that he wore a stippling of red on his face, across the bridge of his nose. “Would you like to get out of here, darling?”
Rose swallowed. Considered. Placed her hand in his. “I’m Rose.”
“Simon Becket,” he said, and drew her forward, and up, out of the cabinet. When her knees threatened to give out, he steadied her with a hand at each of her elbows.
He was very tall, she noticed. Very lean. He smelled like dusty old books.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“Yes.” And she did.
In June of 2020, heavily inspired by a Hannibal rewatch, I released the first in a now-complete dystopian/supernatural/erotica/horror trilogy that's a blend of The War of Heaven and King Arthur legend. I think it's the weirdest thing I've ever written, but it was delightfully fun to work on at the time.
Despite having plenty of books to keep me busy, notably Dartmoor and Sons of Rome, I wanted to do something different. Hell Theory felt like a chance to shake off the rules of my previously established series and be creatively indulgent and off-the-wall for a little bit.
Book one, King Among the Dead, opens with Rose Greer, meek and abused orphan, who's been locked in a pie safe by her foster mother. She hears a scuffle, and strange footfalls, and the pie safe opens to reveal her savior: Simon Becket.
What follows is a post-modern, post-apocalyptic retelling of the Arthur/Guinevere/ Lancelot love triangle, told through the lens of death, resurrection, little known Welsh saints, and a military installation that fights demons and angels both. There's some big who's-who reveals that I won't spoil here for anyone who hasn't read it yet, but it's equal parts action/horror thriller, mystery, and erotic romance, with an eventual OT3, rather than a hard choice when it comes to the love triangle.
Each book is titled after a line in the Lord Tennyson poem "Idylls of the King," and the Arthur metaphors resonate throughout the trilogy. There's also a novella that falls between books two and three, highlighting the romance of two side characters, Gallo and Tristan. It's certainly different from my other offerings, but should be a definite win for readers who like dark stories, like the aforementioned Hannibal, also films like Legion and Constantine.
The trilogy - and its novella - are complete! So they can be binged all at once. One of my goals this year is to make it available in paperback, and I'm thinking of compiling it all into one large volume, as opposed to three small ones. For now, you can find it in digital format here:
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