Teaser for Blood Chain:

They Say Life Imitates Art, But Sometimes Death Imitates It Better

When 9-year-old Eric Holden discovers a murdered boy at a New Jersey beach, Detective Julie Martel is as moved to bring him motherly comfort as she is driven to find the culprit. Having survived their family being torn in half by death, Julie and her son Patrick know full well how grief can tear a heart apart. More than anything, Julie wants to bring healing to Eric and promises to bring this killer down.

Then Eric and his family are discovered murdered the very next day. Reeling from failing Eric, Julie uncovers the killer’s depraved pattern: whoever finds his murders will be his next victims, along with their entire family. His victims’ dead bodies are the sculptures in his brutal artistic fantasies, amplifying his torture.

A crusade for justice morphs into a struggle to keep her loved ones alive, as each kill cuts closer to her own shattered family, testing her faith with the most heartless of evils. When the endgame sets in, both Julie and Patrick’s lives are in his clutches and the only way out may be through the embrace of death.

Teaser for Death Scene:

Some Roles Stay With You Until Your Last Breath

Private Investigator Wayne Tempest thought he’d left the badge in his past, but a new twist in his case pulls him back to everything he ran away from. Gone with no trace but photographs left at the abduction site, a growing body of victims has never been seen again. Until now. After Wayne witnesses 11-year-old Aaron Garret and his father taken in the same way, the bodies of two past victims are discovered. Desperate and discouraged, Wayne reaches out to his former partner, the only cop he still trusts, Detective Julie Martel. Despite a tension-filled past, he knows together they can bring Aaron and the others home.

But for Aaron, home is a distant dream. Imprisoned in the lavish Prescott Estate, Aaron and his father join the “cast” of captives forced to act out the scripts of the spoiled and unbalanced Lincoln Prescott. With a bloodthirst for realistic production value, Lincoln regularly forces the cast to kill each other. On camera. With no choice but to play along, Aaron can only pray rescue comes before he and his father are written off this production.

Balancing Darkness and Faith:

So taking a look at those synopses, you probably aren’t thinking that these books are written with heavy doses of Catholic influences. Indeed, given the pervasiveness of darkness and violence in all of modern media, I couldn’t blame people for initially dismissing it as more mainstream gore fests. Yet, I do invite people to really keep an open mind and take a closer look at the underlying story behind all of this.

I am not sure what caused me to wade into such dark literary waters. I’m not conscious of some scarring childhood trauma and my diet of TV shows growing up was neither sheltered nor particularly scandalous. But despite the dark content contained within, I always make sure to infuse the light of Christ in all of it. I always joked that my books would be too grim for the religious crowd and too preachy for mainstream audiences. While somewhat more muted, reaction to my debut novel didn’t exactly refute that idea either. It’s definitely an odd mix; I give you that. But I do think it makes for quite an honest look at both the reality of evil and the intimacy of humanity.

If we take a look at the lives of any of the saints, there are typically a lot of dark and generally horrifying events defining them. While there’s certainly a blurry line between essential details and gratuitous violence, I don’t think I could avoid presenting the brokenness of the human condition and still have fiction that is both honest and emotionally satisfying. Yet, for all the brokenness, through Christ, humans are capable of such good, such inspiring and selfless triumphs. So I do believe my fiction has to represent that. There is no question some stomach-turningly awful things befall many of my characters. Yet, faith is a constant part of these stories. Take Julie, the main protagonist of Blood Chain. Before the story even begins, she’s already dealt with unimaginable loss and the events of these stories threaten to take even more away. Yet, she still has a solid Catholic faith driving her. Whether it is her love for others or simply her willingness to dare to hope into eternity through unimaginable pain, there’s a real portrait of being human here, I hope. The same goes for many of my characters, even the children. One of my “signatures” I think is the precocious-yet-broken child who has to balance both the horrifying things they’re experiencing and the foundational truth they know about what ultimately matters in the end. I think it’s a struggle most of us face to some degree, even if the events in these stories force a more extreme confrontation.

I’m sure my novels will not be for everyone and I can be at peace with that. Such dark waters are not for the feint of heart and there is no shame in not wanting to wade into such emotionally trying literary territory. Yet, for those willing to take that journey with these characters, I hope the emotional payoff is ultimately rewarding. Two of my favorite scenes I’ve ever written come towards the end of Blood Chain and Death Scene respectively, after the main action of each novel has passed. Both focus on a very Catholic view of healing and of coping with loss through the lens of our ultimate home. The aforementioned scene in Blood Chain was even complimented as truly inspirational and uplifting by a mainstream reader, which was very encouraging.

What I hope readers take away is that there is always reason to keep faith, hope, and love alive. Even in the midst of the most vicious of circumstances. Across life and death, friendship and familial love can still thrive. Praying for the dead is a common theme in my books and I think it is one way that allows for even deceased characters to still maintain a strong connection with the surviving characters. I believe what draws us to fiction is the desire to truly know somebody on and intimate and deeply emotional level, and good fiction has such a profound ability to reveal truths of humanity we might be otherwise hesitant to acknowledge. Ultimately, what I hope people remember most isn’t just what happened to these characters, but rather their humanity. Maybe one day a story will reveal itself to me that accomplishes this in a less drastic and more accessible fashion. But for now, while I certainly aim to produce a legitimate page-turner full of suspense and envelope-pushing twists, the most important thing to me is making characters readers will embrace, remember, and most importantly, see as examples of faith in action, and hope in the face of darkness.