Author: Jeff Gunhus
Publisher: Seven Guns Press
Pages: 400
Genre: Supernatural Thriller/Horror
Format: Kindle
Purchase at AMAZON
Ten years after her abduction and near-sacrifice to the Source, Sarah Tremont struggles to be a normal teenager. As much as she’s tried to suppress the power inside of her, it’s grown dangerously strong and has drawn the attention of those who want to possess her power for themselves.The nightmare that she thought was long over starts again as powerful forces descend upon Prescott City to seek her out. With her parents and Joseph Lonetree’s help, Sarah must stand up to an evil much more powerful than the one she faced in the caves a decade earlier. But in the end, she discovers the greatest danger might come from the power living inside of her.
Jeff Gunhus is the author of both adult thrillers and the Middle Grade/YA series, The Templar Chronicles. The first book, Jack Templar Monster Hunter, was written in an effort to get his reluctant reader eleven-year old son excited about reading. It worked and a new series was born. His book Reaching Your Reluctant Reader has helped hundreds of parents create avid readers. As a father of five, he and his wife lead an active lifestyle simply trying to keep up with their kids. In rare moments of quiet, he can be found in the back of the City Dock Cafe in Annapolis working on his next novel.
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About the Book:
Ten years after her abduction and near-sacrifice to the Source, Sarah Tremont struggles to be a normal teenager. As much as she’s tried to suppress the power inside of her, it’s grown dangerously strong and has drawn the attention of those who want to possess her power for themselves.
The nightmare that she thought was long over starts again as powerful forces descend upon Prescott City to seek her out. With her parents and Joseph Lonetree’s help, Sarah must stand up to an evil much more powerful than the one she faced in the caves a decade earlier. But in the end, she discovers the greatest danger might come from the power living inside of her.
For More Information
The woman didn’t look evil, but there was no better word to describe her. Charlie Winters would wonder later how he could have missed sensing her earlier than he did. It was equivalent to normal people walking halfway through a field only to look down and find themselves thigh-deep in a pile of rotting animal carcasses, the stench hitting them like a wave. After retching their stomach contents, they would question both their senses and their sanity. How could they have missed such a smell? How could they have not felt their feet sinking into the liquefied soft tissue?
Charlie’s senses were better than a normal person’s. Way better.
It had started when he was only a baby, a fact he knew because he still remembered every second of this life since the moment of his birth. It was a long time before he understood that such a memory was not a normal thing. Other people, normal humans, could not remember the first feeding at their mother’s breast. The hot pain of circumcision. The first glimpse of sunlight as they left the hospital. So many firsts, memories as clear to Charlie as what he’d had for breakfast that day.
Inside those memories, the echoes and shadows of his other unusual senses lingered. The ability to sense emotion. To pick up on intention. Sometimes these abilities strengthened what he observed in the physical world. His grandparents’ cooing excitement over him matched an internal warmth that felt the same as sunshine. His father’s thoughtful stares mirrored Charlie’s sense that his dad would do anything to protect him, to provide for him. Even if there was an undercurrent of trepidation that vibrated like a single out-of-tune string on a guitar, the other intentions drowned it out and gave Charlie a sense of comfort. This was very different from his mother, whose kind smiles and soft features once masked a nearly constant desire to kill him.
Her thoughts alternated between putting a pillow over his head or dropping him down the basement stairs. In darker moments, when his father was gone overnight for a business trip, she would consider carving up her child with a knife. Even going as far as pulling a cleaver from the block and slowly running her sweaty palm down the length of the blade. She never did this in front of him, but that was part of his gift. He could see through her eyes. Feel her emotions. Know her dark intentions. And understand that the threat of violence was very, very real.
But as much as she fantasized about it, his mother didn’t kill him. In fact, she never so much as laid a finger on him in anger. Slowly, over time, the dark thoughts faded, and the light inside his mother came to match her soft eyes and the beautiful mouth that sang to him and called him sunshine. A normal person might never have been able to forget the darkness and might never have trusted the woman who once considered taking a ball-peen hammer to his forehead, but he wasn’t normal people. He was special. And it was that specialness that showed him the truth in her absolute love for him once the veils of shadows had fallen away from her like someone passing through heavy curtains.
Much later, Charlie read about a condition called post-partum depression and understood where the dark had come from. It hadn’t been his fault. Or hers. It was the depression that spawned the evil thoughts. And he liked to think it was her love for him that pushed them back enough to keep him safe.
Even after she recovered, he could sense when she felt pangs of guilt about those days. They were like electric bolts jolting through her. When those moments happened, and they could happen at any time, he would come up and hug her, kiss her on the cheek and tell her how much he loved her. At first, she cried harder when he did it, and he sensed her guilt grow even stronger. Later, she puzzled over how he timed the affection to her thoughts. Over time, the puzzling turned to suspicion, even fear that somehow he knew. After that, like with all of his special gifts, he learned it was best to hide.
But he hadn’t hidden his powers well enough.
If he had, then the woman who called herself Mama D would never have come looking for him.
1. What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
This is a sequel so the main inspiration was the success of book #1. It appears on Amazon bestseller lists next to Stephen King and Dean Koontz, two of my favorite authors in this genre. Book #1 explored a father's love for his family and the lengths to which he would go to protect them. This resonates with me as I'm the father of five. Book #2 takes place ten years later and explores the other side of that equation, what a child is willing to do as she matures to protect her family.
2. Who is your favorite character in the book?
I like them all, but Joseph Lonetree, the ex-Navy SEAL who played a large role in book 1, is my favorite. He might get a spin-off book of his own in the future.
3. Which came first, the title or the novel?
4. What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?
The opening scene I think sets the tone just right for the book. It puts people on notice that this isn't going to be a walk in the park. Things calm down a bit after the opening (for a while anyway) but people will know what kind of book they are getting into based on the opening scene.
5. Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?
Look for truth in how people react to extraordinary situations. In movies, characters see an alien or see a loved one die and a minute later they're having a coffee and plotting their next move against the bad guy. A novel can (and should) carve out more space to explore the feelings characters have.
6. What do you like most about the cover of the book?
My very talented brother Eric Gunhus designs my covers. I love how this matches the tone of book #1 so that it's clearly a set. The skull being held in front of Sarah's face relates in a nice way to the story.
7. What new release book are you looking most forward to in 2015?
The third book of the Kingkiller Trilogy by Patrick Rothfuss...and the rerelease of my thriller, Killer Within, by publisher Thomas & Mercer.
8. What was your favorite book in 2014?
The favorite book I read in 2014 was WOOL by Hugh Howey.
9. What’s up next for you?
There are three projects competing for my attention, The 5th Jack Templar book, a sequel to Killer Within and a new middle grade series called The Wicked Ones. Once I find a three-sided coin, I'll flip it and decide.
10. Is there anything that you would like to add?
Thanks for having me here. Please support the Toys For Tots Literacy Program. http://www.
Media Contact:
Dorothy Thompson
Pump Up Your Book
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Chincoteague Island, Virginia 23336
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