“Hallelujah.”
Can you hear it?
Whispering in the dark.
Secrets only the dark knows.
Joseph Moore, choir director for the First Baptist Church of Lenora, Nebraska, has secrets of his own. Terrible, lonely secrets. One that involves natural human desire. One that calls forth powers he cannot begin to understand. Both with the potential to destroy him and those he loves.
Now the world is changing. The darkness, the shadows, the ghosts, are closing in—and Joseph and his lover, Kevin, are being stalked by a merciless demon, hell-bent on possession.
Can you hear it now?
Warnings: violence. This is not a romance.
There in the dark.
It’s whispering your name.
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Interview by F.E. Feeley
When did you know you wanted to write, and when did you discover that you were good at it?
I knew I was good at writing most of my life. Honestly, it’s what carried me through high school and college (flips the bird at Math). When I discovered that I wanted to do it professionally was when all the ‘grown up’ stuff adults do just wasn’t working out for me. I hated just about anything I had to do when it came to the 9 to 5 stuff. I knew there was something more out there and I wanted to be a part of it.
If you could sit down with one other writer, living or dead, who would you choose, and what would you ask them?
I would just love to hang out with Stephen King and talk about books, writing, and inspirations. He’s my hero and someone that I read a lot of when I was a kid. My sixth grade library teacher gave me my first copy of a Stephen King book and it was Wastelands – Part three of the Dark Tower Series and that was my first real introduction to Fantasy and Horror at the same time. I’ve been a fan ever since.
How would you describe your writing style/genre?
Chaos. My writing style, that is. Chaos. I’m a pantser. I’m an emotional disaster. A walking thunderstorm. And my genre is queer fiction. Telling the stories I want to tell from my point of view.
What was your first published work? Tell me a little about it.
My first published work was The Haunting of Timber Manor and that was back in 2013. It was my very first book I’d ever written and it started on “A dark and stormy night.” It became part 1 of my Memoirs of the Human Wraiths Series that Hallelujah was spun off from.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in the name of research?
Slept with a man. HAHAHAHAHA
What is your writing Kryptonite?
Self doubt gets me. Or, rather, my self doubt get’s in my way of just doing the work. Distractions. Family stuff. Life. All of the things that happen during the day that I can do besides working on what I should be workin on. This interview, I’ve locked myself in my bedroom and told no one to bother me and while I type this I am staring at my workout equipment wondering if I should just set this aside for a minute (or sixty) and come back to it later.
What do you do when you get writer’s block? Weep. Wail? Gnash my teeth?
Yes. I play video games. I stare at the ceiling. I clean. Cook. Adult. I adult when I am blocked. I hate adulting so it’s easy for me to chip away quickly at the block.
Do you use a pseudonym? If so, why? If not, why not?
Nope. I am me. Full time.
If you could tell your younger writing self-anything, what would it be?
Work. Focus on the work. Shut up about all the distracting bullshit that rages ‘out there’. Who cares? Just. Do. The. Work.
Do you ever base your characters on real people? If so, what are the pitfalls you’ve run into doing so?
Yup. They don’t talk to me anymore? So what? If they don’t like the way I portray them they should have been nicer to me. It’s my history. I own it.
How long do you write each day?
Could be hours, could be not at all. Some days it could just be a few minutes but when I am in it, I am in it. It’s like being ‘in the zone’ as cheesy as that sounds.
Do you reward yourself for writing, or punish yourself for failing to do so? How?
I do. When a book comes out I buy myself something namely a copy of it LOL. This year I essentially wrote three books. One with Jamie Fessenden, one with Kim Fielding, and a three part story called The Colors of Love. I told myself that I would not write again until the next year. I have a word document as evidence that I lied about that as there are four original chapters of something brand new.
Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?
I do. When the Haunting of Timber Manor came out I read it. Years later I went back and re-edited it to smooth it out and make it read better than it did but I always read my own work at least once.
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
Six months? It depends on how interested I am in the work itself. The Colors of Love and Halleljuah were written almost at the same time. So, I did two in six months.
What do you do if you get a brilliant idea at a bad time?
I swear I wont forget about it and end up forgetting about it.
Kim and F.E. are giving away a $20 Amazon gift card with this cover reveal and tour. For a chance to win, enter via Rafflecopter:
“NO!”
Joseph fought against the hands on his shoulders. The room was sweltering, and all his strength had sapped away.
“NO!”
“Joseph, open your eyes! Open your eyes, dammit!”
He was being shaken, and despite his unwillingness, his eyes opened. Kevin’s face stared down at him.
“Fuck you. Let me go!”
Joseph pulled away and fell backward onto the altar steps. His attempt to break the fall caused his wrist to smart painfully, and he whimpered. His whole body shook; he felt sick to his stomach.
Kevin raised his hands in surrender. “What the hell, man? Who did this to you?”
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’? You’re beat to shit. Did someone jump you?”
Joseph looked down and saw his scratched-up legs and swollen ankle. He scanned the sanctuary, half expecting the shadowed figure to be lurking somewhere nearby. But that wasn’t the case. All the lights were on, brilliantly illuminating every corner. There was no sign of the spirit who normally haunted the place.
“Who are you looking for?”
Joseph faced Kevin once again. “What? No one. What are you doing here?”
Although Kevin had been bare-chested at their last meeting, he was wearing a shirt now. Well, part of a shirt. It was an old Budweiser tee with the sleeves cut out and the sides wide open. When he moved, it revealed glimpses of his chest and flat stomach. Joseph felt his face flush as he averted his gaze.
“I was driving by and saw all the lights on and the door open. Figured the joint was getting robbed or somethin’. Then I found you wailing on the floor in…. Damn, dude. Look at your wrist.”
Joseph saw it was swollen. The memory of where he’d been flashed in his mind once more. The red-eyed gaze was burned into his memory.
But that had all been a dream, hadn’t it?
Please, Lord, let it have been a dream.
“Who did this to you?” Kevin repeated with a furrowed brow.
“Nobody. Look, I came back here because I thought I left something, and I fell. I must have banged my head or something.”
“You fell. Where? Into a war zone?”
Joseph snorted a laugh and looked up at him ruefully. “I don’t know what happened.” He hoped Kevin would leave it alone.
Outside, thunder crashed loudly enough to make them jump, and through the front door of the church, they could see the rain falling in torrents.
“Shit, my car windows!” Kevin took off running.
Joseph watched him go, Kevin’s ass bouncing as his long legs carried him out of the door. “Dammit,” Joseph muttered as he clenched his eyes closed.
He tried to get up, but as soon as he put weight on his ankle, it gave and forced him to sit back down.
What am I going to do?
Just then he saw the ghost once more. She was floating on the upstairs balcony, looking down at him. Her mouth was moving, and if Joseph sat really still, he swore he could hear her words, carried on the wind that howled through the open church door.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee
He felt sadness wash over him. She wasn’t terrible to look at; in life she must have been quite beautiful. But he didn’t know how to help her.
“You must help them, cher.” Celine had said.
Kevin dashed in through the door. His jeans were soaked and his wannabe T-shirt stuck to his muscular build. “Well, we got two options.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“We could wait out the storm before I take you home, or I can haul your crippled ass right now into said storm and take you home.”
Joseph reached out his good hand to Kevin, who grasped it and pulled. Joseph lurched to his feet and, in trying to keep the weight off his swollen ankle, ended up clinging to Kevin. They were almost nose to nose, staring into each other’s eyes as they held fast.
Blood pounded in his Joseph’s head. “I gotta get home.”
Kevin’s long eyelashes fluttered once, twice, three times before registering what he’d said. Yet his hands didn’t move. The two of them looked as if they were on a dance floor waiting for a waltz to start.
“Yeah, let’s get you home. Here, lean on me.”
“I appreciate it.”
They moved slowly across the floor of the church.
“You gonna tell me who did this?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Crazy shit, man.”
Joseph nodded. “Yup. It’s been a hell of a night.”
They closed the door behind them, got into the car, and drove cautiously into the downpour with the windshield wipers slapping.
Five minutes later, the lights they’d forgotten to turn off went dark.
Kim Fielding
Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.
After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls California home. She lives there with her family and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.
Author Website: http://kfieldingwrites.com
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/KFieldingWrites/
Author Twitter: @KFieldingWrites
Author Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kfieldingwrites/
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4105707.Kim_Fielding
Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/kim-fielding/
Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kim-Fielding/
F.E. Feeley Jr.
First and foremost, I am a husband to my wonderful husband, John. I am a father of our five-year-old German Shephard, Kaiser. I am an avid reader of Mysteries, Horror, and Suspense, and biographies. I am a gamer. My favorite ones are Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Star Trek Online, Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed, Fallout, and Civilization Five. I love to cook and I love trying new recipes (hint hint). I am an avid music junkie from POPular music to Opera, to Showtunes, Gospel, Rock, Rap, and Hip Hop. I am also a Poet – a lot of which is offered on this web page for free. And I do some gay fiction writing from time to time.
I love connecting with people. As an ex- fundi, I grew up in a world where there was this invisible boundary set down between me and the world around me. I felt more like an observer than an actual participant in that world. Since I’ve left fundamentalism – it has been my constant endeavor to be a part of the world. To be a part of humanity. And when I write my poetry or my books, I draw from the experiences of being raised in that environment as well as the experiences of tasting the bouquet of humanity I’d been denied all those years ago.
Author Website: https://fefeeleyjr.com
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/groups/170296487228770/
Author Twitter: @fefeeleyjr
Author Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/f.e.feeleyjr/
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6806438.F_E_Feeley_Jr_
Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/f-e-feeley-jr/
Author Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/F-E-Feeley-Jr/
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