Monday, July 19, 2021

Now Available--NIGHT WORLD, Hitmen Vol. 2!

 I told you the book release was just around the corner. ;)

Today, Genre Experience proudly presents my latest novel NIGHT WORLD, Volume 2 of my HITMEN saga. The book is available for purchase on Amazon in print and digital. As with the previous volume, this book is a "braided novel"--four novellas that interconnect (in this case, VERY heavily) to create a larger story. NIGHT WORLD is a celebration of monsters, fantasy, childhood, spooks, thrills, and all things Halloween. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Every Halloween, the shadow of another world falls over the town of Willowbrook, and the monsters come out to roam. The blue-skulled giant who slew Boss Adrian Marcon’s criminal empire was not the first such creature to walk the quiet streets of this burg, nor the last. As more threats emerge from a mysterious realm, new heroes must stand against a rising cosmic evil that endangers the very fabric of existence.

In four tales of thrilling encounters with otherworldly invaders, Zoe, a teenage mother, must grapple with the shocking truth about her infant son; Jason and Jack Mills, twins raised to hunt the creatures of the night, search for balance between their tumultuous upbringing and passing their legacy on to a new generation; and Rosetta, a mystical exile in Willowbrook, finds herself faced with a decision that will forever alter not only her life, but the lives of everyone, in every world. A war of worlds has begun between the dominion of Man and the armies of the Night World.

Writing this book came as a surprise to me. If you need a refresher course, the original HITMEN novel began as a series of a no budget "home movies" that me and my childhood friends put together. They were only ever done for fun--just an excuse to chase each other with guns and dress up like monsters and tell stories that entertained us. But, man, was it a blast (read more about it here, if you're so interested). At any rate, around 2014, I had completed my epic The Coming Evil Trilogy, and I was looking for more stories to tell. I remembered those old home movies and decided--also for fun--to novelize them, greatly expanding them (think of it like a Director's Cut), to unleash on an unsuspecting public. Writing that book was a great excuse to look back on those years and was my way of saying good-bye to making home movies.

Only...I wasn't done, apparently. Or maybe those home movies weren't done with me.

After my girls were born, I dusted off the old camcorder and started making NEW home movies, letting them in on the fun. Together, as a family, we crafted stories of fairies and imaginary kingdoms and a world where monsters roam freely. As my "professional" writing took a backseat, we started making more and more home movies. Sometimes two or three a year. Elaborate productions that increased in cast, scope--but not necessarily budget, haha. They are still every bit "movies for fun", though, and will never be seen by a public audience, ha. However, as the home movies--and the mythology we were creating within them--grew and grew in my mind, concepts from these movies began to bleed over into my novels. So much so that I have novels-in-progress right now (including my next sequence of Coming Evil stories) that are almost wholly dependent upon some of the elements that we've introduced in these home movies. These are stories we've been telling each other for ten years or so, and I thought it was finally time to give them the novelization treatment. I am immensely proud of those stories, as they represent all those Saturdays that we went out, as a family, playing make believe and "fighting monsters" together. I hope that you will check it out and join in the Mitchell family tradition! 

As I write this, I'm finishing up post-production on ANOTHER home movie (I think we're approaching thirty installments now?), so there is still plenty of road left to travel if I choose to continue these novelizations. I think I will, as it is just so much fun giving a "big budget" update to our amateur films. Beyond that, though, this book marks another important occasion in my larger mythology. While the first story in NIGHT WORLD is, in fact, a prequel to HITMEN: Four Tales of Magick, Monsters, and Murder (starring Vinnie Caponi: Urban Mythologist), the follow-up sections take place later on the timeline, giving Readers their first peek of the world post-The Coming Evil! Aside from that, there are also tons of tie-ins to my loosely connected "In-Between Trilogy" of the Rift Jump dulogy, Infernal City, and of course the original HITMEN. The world that started in The Coming Evil continues to grow and grow, and NIGHT WORLD is certainly a quantum leap forward, laying the groundwork for all my upcoming novels for the foreseeable future.

Get your copy today!

Check out this incredible artwork done for the book by Bob Freeman!


Thursday, July 15, 2021

New Book Announcement & Cover Reveal!

In keeping with my (apparent) one post a year theme, here's yours for 2021! Haha, seriously, I don't get around these parts much anymore, but for those one or two of you who are still following--I've got a new book coming out!

As related in a previous post, my "writing career" has taken a serious backseat to "fun writing". I burnt off my entire twenties and most of my thirties "chasing the dream", as it were, of becoming a "professional writer". And, while I DID achieve that dream, it never satisfied. I chased after that for so long, I really forgot to live my life, and, as my oldest daughter is now a full-fledged teenager, I see that time with them is short. So, on the professional side of things, my writing has slowed down.

But that doesn't mean that it's stopped.

Since the 2017 (!) release of my last novel Infernal City, I have turned my attention to writing machinima based on the old video game Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic AND I've taken a turn at doing some no budget Star Trek fan films. I co-wrote and released Halloween House with my friend and often-collaborator Bob Freeman, but mostly I've been churning out a bevy of "home movies" that I make with my kids and my friends. These are not meant to be show to a public audience (as they are VERY amateur and not kind to copyright laws, haha) but they are stories I am proud of nonetheless. If you're a frequent reader of my work, then you know that I adapted four of these movies--the original main canon installments--and released them as my novel HITMEN: Four Tales of Magick, Monsters, and Murder

Well, I've done it again. Allow me to introduce to you my NEXT novel, a new adaptation of four more of the home movies we've created: NIGHT WORLD!


With fantastic art, once again, by Bob Freeman, this book is a love letter to the stories/movies I've been crafting with my daughters for, quite literally, their entire lives. I'll go into it more upon the book's release, which should be in a week or so, but in the meantime, please enjoy the cover! Keep your eyes peeled and your ears to the ground for the release--this is one wild ride!