First Paragraph: "The Rest Is Illusion"

A coming of age story with a supernatural bent, set on the campus of Verona College. The story centers on five students whose lives are further complicated by an unseen force that surrounds the college, changing them forever.

First Paragraph: "Kid Christmas Rides Again"

These are the epic adventures of Kid Christmas! The unthinkable has happened: the Jolly Old Elf himself keeled over, and the Committee to Oversee the Christening of Kringle (COCK) had to find a replacement. Enter the Kid: a lot more fit, a little less clumsy, and quite a sight in that tight red uniform. His mission to deliver Christmas around the world is threatened as he fights the evil Snow Globes, but all is not lost as he escapes traps, finds love (and more love, and more love) with Johnny Longjohns, and stops at a disco on his quest to reclaim his magic sled, the Claus 3000. Hold on tight: this humorous romp may have you spitting your eggnog!

Available at Amazon and Dreamspinner Press

First Paragraph: "Ghoul's Gym"

Board up the windows, push an old dresser against the door and load your shotgun. A zombie apocalypse is about to hit Wilde City, and if you want the best survival tips, six of Wilde City’s boys are here to help.

You’ll never want to exercise again as Eric Arvin and TJ Klune turn a gym full of hunks into a smorgasbord of terror in GHOUL’S GYM.

Gather your friends and fight for the man you love, as Ethan Stone and Daniel A Kaine turn Vegas into a zombie nightmare in SURVIVING SIN CITY.

And bring a date to dinner to celebrate Grumpy Grampy’s 90th birthday and introduce your family to your new zombie boyfriend in Geoffrey Knight and Ethan Day’s GUESS WHO’S COMING AT DINNER.

You’ll scream with terror and howl with laughter as Wilde City’s boys bring you our first undead anthology ZOMBIE BOYZ.

Available at Amazon and Wilde City Press

First Paragraph(s): "The Demon of Jericho"

Of humanity there are darker tales. Stories that take some squinting to see through. Unconventional stories. Tales that threaten to break the heart by cruel twists of fate, the dogs of war, or demons that are all too real; whether they be of unrequited love or a karmic slap in the face. Happy endings take a time in coming, and some never arrive. But through all the darkness there is light, a glimmer of hope and wonder…if one has the will to see it.

Available at Amazon

First Paragraph: "Tater n Purgatory"

A collection of short stories from one of today's most talented and challenging new writers. Eric Arvin covers everything from college love to mystical river sprites, from deep tragedy to bawdy sex comedy, in this collection that takes the everyday and finds the adventure within. It's a read sure to keep you guessing.

Available at Amazon or Dreamspinner Press

First Paragraph: "Subsurdity"

Jasper Lane is a well-off neighborhood, not much different in appearance than most, with a tree-lined drive, manicured lawns, and crystal clear ponds. But underneath the pleasantry, a completely different world lurks. 

Cassie Bloom, the grand dame of Jasper Lane, has a missing son and husband and throws gay porn parties that are the social events of the year. Her best friend, a transsexual named Vera, owns a nightclub. Melinda Gold is the resident religious fanatic whose views clash with that of her son Patrick. Sandy and Steve Jones are the stereotypical all-American couple (except Steve acts in gay-for-pay porn unbeknownst to his pregnant wife). 

Rick Cooper just moved in, and despite his qualms about another relationship (having literally lost an eye in the previous one), he falls for ex-soldier, James. And David and Cliff are the most “normal” couple on the block... never mind that David helped Cassie with some past nefarious deed and that Cliff is the biggest gay porn star in the biz. Throw a dog named Gayhound and a dead body into the mix, and Jasper Lane may just be the gayest neighborhood in town!

Available at Amazon & Dreamspinner

First Paragraph(s): "Galley Proof"

Fiction writer Logan Brandish is perfectly happy in his peaceful small-town routine with his best friend, his cat, and his boyfriend-until he meets the editor of his next book, the handsome Brock Kimble, and the lazy quiet of everyday living goes flying out the window. Faced with real passion for the first time, Logan becomes restless and agitated, and soon his life and his new manuscript-a work in progress he'd always thought would be completed-are in a shambles. But as Logan is learning, you can't always get what you want... at least not right away. To take his mind off the mess, he takes a trip, but even the beautiful Italian, um, scenery can't keep his thoughts from his erstwhile editor for long. Logan just might have to admit there are some things you can't run from.

Available at Amazon & Dreamspinner

First Paragraph(s): "Honeysuckle Sycamore"

BLURB:

I don't think I've ever written a blurb for this piece, being that it's a novella in my anthology Slight Details & Random Events.The story takes place in the very same valley as The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles & Men and Azrael & The Light Bringer, and focuses on the Passions, spirits of the valley and the forest.

EXCERPT:

In certain places of the world Passions manifest themselves into physical form. These are the whispering places, the in-betweens. They are neither here nor there, neither truly seen nor unseen. The River Valley, as it was simply known, was one of these places. The folk who lived there knew of the valley's power and, for the most part, lived in harmony with it. For the Passions when given form were in the least playful diversions and at most mischievous jokers, using a pumpkin patch for a night’s sleep or stealing the clothes from a scarecrow.

            Once every so often, however, there came a Passion into existence that was so dire, so hateful and belligerent, that it would cause much pain and upheaval. To this point, many of the river folk would leave the valley to its battle. This is the story of one such battle. This is how a fairytale grows up.

            There was a young Passion of immeasurable beauty named Honeysuckle Sycamore. He was named this because he had been manifested under a honeysuckle-adorned sycamore tree while two young lovers consummated their adoration for one another beneath it. Born of their love, he was christened by the dew of the early morning. He stretched, yawned, and hopped to his feet as naked as a newborn. From his head hung a garland of honeysuckles and from his glittering skin came the scent of the sweet flower.

Available at Dreamspinner Press or Amazon, or any other place that's super terrific.

First Paragraph(s): She's Come Undone (short story...NOT the Wally Lamb book)

BLURB:

Julie is a woman on the edge. The strain of raising a handicapped child and the pressures a small town rumor mill creates have taken their toll.

All her life she has been ridiculed or, even worse, ignored.

But that stops today.

EXCERPT:

Julie Morton had been wounded on the battlefield. Her reputation was gone. Shot out from beneath her. Most in the hill town of East Madison thought she was “absolute crazies.” She was certain that’s how the kids spoke these days. “Bonkers” and “crazies” and “nutzoid.”

That wasn’t always so, though. She wasn’t always fruit looped. She was once a teacher at the high school. Seventh and eighth grade English. (The junior high was connected to the high school by a large gymnasium that kind of bubbled up between them like a red brick tumor.) She had taught English for a good ten years before she was kicked to the curb. And before that, she had grown up here. She never thought to leave. Well, maybe once or twice, but that was hardly grounds for wanderlust.

It wasn’t until recently that she started to crack from the pressure of the rumors and the daily torments from the townsfolk. Her hair was turning white for it, and that did nothing to alleviate the jokes. And too, there was the difficulty of raising a handicapped – sorry…a differently-abled daughter, all by herself. Well, kind of by herself. Principal Noyle was always there monetarily, he being Betty Morton’s dad.

Aimee Jean, Betty Morton’s only friend, rode her bike to the Mortons every day that summer. The summer of the Fall. She had kept in touch with Betty through Julie while she was away at college. Because of her paralysis, Betty didn’t say a thing, but she could make herself understood just fine. There was a mean streak in that girl that smelled like rubber on asphalt. Betty became bitter early on in life. In fact, that was her nickname in school: Bitter Betty. She had been a very pretty young girl. It’s amazing what one wrong move on a monkey bar can do to you.

Available at UNTREED READS and AMAZON .

First Paragraph(s): Azrael & The Light Bringer

BLURB: 

Welcome to the Valley, a liminal landscape that lies somewhere in the fringes of the world; a place with such secret magic that only the very observant can see it. Into this world comes the Lone family. To them, the magic of the Valley is not at first apparent, at least not to all. But the youngest son Lucifer is the most open to the river’s pulse. He converses with the trees and an angel named Azrael, all the while being taught by the midwife Mother True to hone his talents. Meanwhile, Lucifer’s older brother Uriel rejects the valley altogether and, with the help of his lover—a raft boy named Roman—flees the place only to be caught up in the corrupt big city world of a madame named Ute Dragal.

And so begins a tale of wonder and danger, filled with a cast of characters ranging from the strong to the stoic to the sinister, in a place where a dark power awaits them all. Venture again to the Valley in this prequel to Eric Arvin’s acclaimed epic The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles and Men.


EXCERPT: 

Lucifer woke to the daylight in a depression of soft earth, sided at every angle by swollen, moss-grown roots from the surrounding trees. The roots tangled in a ballet of need, of sustenance and assurance. They made a natural bed for the young boy and, he thought, quite a comfortable one.

Lucifer lay still for a while, listening to the birds in the limbs, feeling a presence of soul, feeling at once loved and comforted by the breezes and guarded over and shaded by the mighty arbors themselves. He didn’t remember falling asleep in the bed of roots, but then, one never remembers the precise moment that sleep sets in and the soul begins to wander. He recognized where he was, though. He knew the place well. It was the dense woods by the river, the orchard as some mistakenly called it, ever the watchful opponent to Lone Place. It was too copious a forest, and the trees too tall and round to be any kind of useful or profitable orchard. There might have been fruit trees there at one time, but no more. These were stalwart trees, only a few having any kind of affectation or ornamental guise such as flowers, and most of those were on the outer orchard fringes that opposed the big house. The trees of the orchard stretched downriver, though none could say how far. Certainly Lucifer had never been able to exact their acreage and he had played in them, walked in them, whispered with them, for all his young, curious life.

The little boy rose to his feet and stretched with a contented morning’s welcome sigh. He looked around him with boyish uncertainty. He had been walking the orchard forever, it seemed, yet he didn’t look to be making any progress in any particular direction. He tried to remember why he was in the orchard at all.

“I’m not much of a runaway, huh?” he questioned the trees around him. “I cain’t even find the way out of my own front yard.”

AVAILABLE AT WILDE CITY PRESS OR AMAZON 

First Paragraph(s): The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles & Men

 Who can truly say what the river valley looked like? Its appearance changed depending on one’s perspective, for every soul sees the world differently. A patch of tree moss so apparent to one person might go completely unnoticed by another. The agreed-upons lay few and far between. The essential topography of the valley could be seen from a few specific locations: high on the barren rock of Beggar’s Hill, or from the heights of the Lone Tower, at the foot of which rested an ancient orchard. These and a few other strategic plateaus looked out over the vast waterway to the first rising hills of the Otherside—that land across the great river where very few ventured—where the land fell ever-steeped in a thick, heavy fog.

Alongside the river, sometimes too close to its edge, homes of the valley folk clustered beneath the calm twin siblings of blue water and sky. Past these houses, when the hills did not rise immediately from the beach as they were prone to do, the hinterland spread in long acres of field and fancy—fancy having more than a little power in the valley—stretching out like yawning earth. A couple of lapzine fields had been left to struggle, having survived a swelling of the river; few people remained to tend their blue-tinged flowers or harvest their gel-like resin for lamplight.

Beyond the initial hills and inclines rose greater cliffs, at points almost completely hiding the river valley from the view or acknowledgement of the outside world, such was their height. And finally, before anything “modern” could be reckoned, there spread the Farlands. Still considered of the valley proper by most aside from the college, those of the outside world ignored them as wilderness. Things were changing, though. A new organism called ‘Industry’ was starting to take notice of certain regions of the Farlands. And Industry began to wander about this seemingly unused land, wondering how it might be used for its own industrious progress. This new attention made a few of the valley’s unseen inhabitants very uneasy.

AVAILABLE AT WILDE CITY PRESS, AMAZON, OR ANY OTHER FINE ONLINE RETAILER.