Come Selahway With Me…

Like many young men at the end of the 1800s Bill has signed on to work in a logging camp to earn a fast paycheck to start his life. Unfortunately his role model is Big John, the camp’s golden boy known for blowing his pay as fast as he makes it. On a cold Saturday night they enter Red’s Saloon to forget the work that takes the sweat and the lives of so many. Red may have plans for their whiskey money, but something else lurks in the shadows, something that badly wants a drink that has nothing to do with alcohol.

I’m so excited for this. There’s still work to do, but I’m really proud to have this be my first release because it encompasses some of my favorite things, mainly history and vampires.

When I was a kidlet I was all too aware that my family wasn’t like others. Other families went exclusively to water parks, amusement parks, and other fun stuff all summer. I got taken to Gettysburg, the Grand Canyon, Williamsburg, various living villages, archaeological sites, any museum within a twelve-mile radius to wherever we were staying, burial mounds, etc. At the time I was not appreciative. I came to like those experiences a little more when I was older and it made studying for history tests a lot easier (except for the fact that we visited every major Revolutionary War site the same summer we visited every major Civil War site. To this day I have trouble keeping everything straight.) I quickly learned, though, to find the story wherever we went. There were always little asides that made learning about the founding fathers interesting, or Native American myths that were way better than most of the stuff I found in books.

Of course, I also found ways to amuse myself through these long walks down trails and large buildings (keep in mind I was anywhere from six or seven to twelve at the time). Inevitably I would take what I was supposed to be learning and warp the hell out of it. When we toured the colonial spots in Philadelphia, I imagined what it would be like to have the ghost of Benjamin Franklin tagging along. The couple of times we went to the Grand Canyon I was inventing so many stories about how that place was formed, I was kind of disappointed to have it ruined by fact. (Though facts are important. Go forth and learn stuff, then make it work for you.)  My personal favorite was the site of a dinosaur dig in Utah when I was four (the museum has since closed to the public, I believe, which saddens me immensely). The thing was that I had seen the place featured on Reading Rainbow, and of course Levar Burton got to actually go up on the wall of the dig and see how stuff was done. This didn’t quite compute to my four-year-old brain and I may have tried to make a break for the wall so I could see things up close and personal on my own…

Before you pity my parents, let me just say that my mother has always had the eyes of a hawk and she’s really, really fast. I didn’t get far. After that I was limited to animatronic  dinos, which still fired my love of monsters.

Strange to say, we never really went anywhere that talked about lumberjacks. Miners, yes, but lumberjacks, not that I recall. I did however start reading up on them here and there a few years ago and was fascinated with the lifestyle. And of course I’ve always loved the Little House series and that sort of turn of the century American life.  And as everything conglomerated in my brain, I began to realize I could do something with this. It was a dangerous lifestyle with a lot of opportunities for disaster, so what would happen if guards were let down and there was something…else? I love the creature in the woods, that horrible thing of stories that everyone knows is there even if they’ve never seen it.

And of course, who doesn’t like vampires? No, I’m not talking about glammed up boys that have teeth so they can get a date. I’m talking about creatures that can kill you, that used to be just like you and may or may not still be enough like you to make you comfortable, or use it to their advantage.

Needless to say, this is not the story to read for historical integrity or undead romance. If you’re looking for a warped morality tale set in a very hard way of life, then I hope you check it out as soon as it’s available.