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!


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