QSFer JD Glass has a new paranormal book out:
Unless you’ve got werewolves in your family or something, Samantha Cray’s family secrets beat out yours—hands down.
When the aftermath of a tragedy causes Samantha Cray to stay for a while in Europe, she gets more than she bargained for. Some people go to Europe to study their genealogical history, but Samantha’s visit to Europe reveals her genealogical destiny as The Wielder. She is invited to join The Circle, a group that works in the shadows to fight back against a mysterious force they call The Dark.
When Samantha’s longtime best friend, Fran, visits her in London to join the fight against The Dark, the training the two women undergo brings them closer together than ever before, and Samantha is surprised to find her feelings for Fran turning romantic.
But The Dark is always looking for the next place to strike. Can Samantha and Fran defeat this force and keep burgeoning their romance alive, or will The Dark take its blood sacrifice yet again?
Excerpt
“How many times do I have to tell you fuckin’ stupid kids? She’s dead—don’t ever fuckin’ call my house again!”
The slamming silence from the other phone across the Atlantic still rang in my ears as I put my end down.
Dead.
How could she be dead? How was that even possible?
My head swam as I stumbled on unfeeling feet across the hallway from the study to my room, the house in Whitkirk, Leeds, my father had summered in as a boy.
No one was home; Uncle Cort had gone out, saying he’d be back soon and then we’d go into town later for dinner.
I felt my fingers stutter across my toiletries as I let routine collect them and carry me to the bathroom.
Water, cool and needle sharp, played down my head. It felt as if it hit me through layers of cotton, unreal and distant, as my thoughts began to swirl.
Dead.
I knew too many of those, I thought as I rinsed my hair. Like my mother, whom I barely remembered, except for on those occasions where I thought I caught her scent or in a half sleep heard a whisper.
I lathered my legs and grabbed the razor I always used, the one that had belonged to my father, the one with the removable and replaceable blade. The one thing that I had to remind me of him every day since he’d been killed “in the line of duty,” as the official words had read, not quite a year and a half ago.
My hands moved in normal ways until the skin they worked was clear and bare under white foam, the movement as practiced as it was mechanical.
Dead.
Fran had told me, had warned me not to call, had repeated what she had known, and I—I had called her a liar, had insulted my other best friend.
How did it happen? Why did it happen? Maybe I should have called sooner, or maybe cut this trip short, or delayed my—
Oh, that hurt, the first thing it seemed like I could actually feel, I realized as I watched the red dot grow to drop, then trail down my calf before I rinsed it away.
It was probably time to change the blade, and I reached behind me for the box that held the double-sided replacements.
Huh. Blade, I thought as I twisted the stem and popped the old one out. That was what they’d called me, her and Fran, back on swim team; that was the reason I wore this, I thought as I fingered the charm that hung from my neck: a miniature claymore, a gift from her, but she was dead.
Just like everyone else I loved.
I was careful as I grabbed the replacement, the double-sided razor carefully gripped between my thumb and index finger. I felt my head grow heavy and tight, a tightness that wrapped itself around my shoulders, my chest, made it hard to breathe.
Love.
What did I know of love anyway? I didn’t know where that thought came from, could barely feel the meaning and the weight of the words other than the pounding heaviness that pushed against my skin.
It leaves.
The answer was a whisper as cool as the water that still sprayed against my legs, occasionally stinging where the razor had caught.
All that loves, leaves.
Death, though…
Death I knew, I realized as I rubbed the flat thin metal piece between my fingertips. Death had worn the face of my father when he told me my mother had gone while I slept the sleep of a very young child; death
I knew as a visitor, an unwelcome friend, unwelcome for the hour, for the news, a friend at the door at two a.m., a friend who told me that my life was gone and I was again bereft.
And now I’d met Death again, knew it as a voice on the phone, a sullen, angry voice from over a thousand miles away to hiss in my ear and tell me the last of the light had finally died.
The shower curtain shifted, and I jumped, clumsily, stupidly, and I watched with my head full and tight, my skin stretched and numb as the blade I’d been so careful with sliced over and across. It was slow, so slow, the pink line turning red to mark its path across my wrist as I dropped my father’s razor into the tub.
It took forever to fall, and the sound was as distant as the water on my skin.
How thin that line was, I observed; how precise.
Was the line between Life and Death equally thin?
Buy Links
Ylva Publishing: Click Here
Amazon: Click Here
Author Bio
Artist-musician JD Glass is the author of American Library Association (Stonewall) and Lambda Literary Award (Literature) finalist Punk Like Me, Punk And Zen, Lambda Literary Award and Ben Franklin Award finalist Red Light, GCLS finalist American Goth, and the critically acclaimed X; selection editor (and contributor) of GCLS Award winning anthologyOutsiders, listed on the Advocate’s Top 100 for CORE, Vol.1 Iss.1., the well-received First Blood, GCLS finalist Nocturnes, and the fan-awaited Glass Lions. Called by some the voice of a generation and the erotic philosopher by others, JD works in often familiar-seeming worlds, with people we know, people like ourselves, people we’d like to meet, and provides powerful stories that allow the reader to rejoice and wonder, stumble and fall, then rejoice victoriously again at the amazing experience of being human.