Teaser chapters from DEAD OF WINTER

Readers who enjoyed my first novel SHADOWS IN THE MIST have been asking about how my second thriller is coming along. Well, it’s going great so far. Not yet finished, but each day I’m getting closer to completion. I just spent the past two and a half years researching and writing DEAD OF WINTER. It is a historical horror novel, this time set in Ontario and Quebec, Canada in 1870. It is a cross-between The Exorcist and The Evil Dead and the movie Ravenous, which I so loved.

DEAD OF WINTER takes place at a remote fur-trading fort that is isolated by a series of blizzards. There is something evil in the storm that is stalking the fort villagers and spreading a vicious disease that turns people into cannibals. The novel is based on a Native Canadian legend and an event that really happened to a fort in Quebec. I’ve interwoven plenty of historical facts surrounding a Jesuit mystery, including a direct quote from a priest’s journal in 1660 that blew my mind by what he claims he witnessed. I’ve taken true events and combined them with a supernatural mystery full of chills and thrills.

My main character is Inspector Tom Hatcher, a detective from Montreal who teams up with a French Canadian priest, Father Xavier, who happens to be a seasoned exorcist. Both men have past connections with the evil that’s behind all the killings at two remote forts set deep in the Ontario wilderness. The epic mystery is very complex with numerous characters and subplots. There are plenty of twists and turns, love triangles, and white-knuckle moments.

I’m still writing the ending and plan to finish the manuscript Fall of 2009. I thought I’d offer up some teaser chapters. God willing, this book is expected to release Winter 2010 or 2011. The cover has yet to be designed. The excerpt below is raw manuscript straight from my computer. If you would like to be notified of the book’s release, join my mailing list on the home page of my website http://www.BrianMoreland.com Until then, enjoy the teaser!

Dead of Winter by Brian Moreland (excerpt 3 chapters)

New Short Stories – Now Available Online!

Illustration by Eric Williams www.ewillustration.com

I am excited to release my first short stories online called Chasing the Dragon. Through two tales of terror and supernatural suspense, I explore the phenomena of addictions and obsession. The stories are available below to read for free. These are PDF files so it may be necessary to have Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to open them. Thank you to all those who have supported the ongoing success of my first novel, Shadows in the Mist. Enjoy these stories and feel free to pass them on to friends.

Brian Moreland

Chasing the Dragon–I’ve always thought of China as a mystical place. A land of ancient secrets. During my three visits to Hong Kong, I discovered that beyond the city’s neon signs, hi-tech shopping, and flashy skyline, lie worlds within worlds. With each narrow street I explored I felt as if I were stepping back in time. This, of course, got my imagination going. What if I got lost in Hong Kong and discovered that behind her bright lights and beauty was a dark realm waiting to seduce me? In the first short story “Chasing the Dragon,” you will meet Nick Meyers, an American searching Hong Kong’s underworld for his missing lover, a Chinese woman whose life was just as much a riddle as her disappearance. Nick’s only clues to solving an ancient mystery are a dragon tattoo and a message from a fortune cookie: Happiness lies between two worlds.

“Chasing the Dragon”

The Dealer of Insatiable Needs–I’ve always been fascinated by addictions. How they can sink their claws into you. Tempt you to repeat a habit that feels so good in the moment, while over time, the beast secretly destroys the body and mind from the inside out. In “The Dealer of Insatiable Needs” it is the not-so-distant future. A new government, in an attempt to make America addiction-free, has banned all of our vices, including alcohol, cigarettes, and porn. In Los Angeles, on the front line of the nation’s War on Drugs, undercover vice cop Alex Decker walks a very thin line between upholding the new laws and battling his own cravings to feed the beast within.

“The Dealer of Insatiable Needs”

Excerpt from SHADOWS IN THE MIST

My novel is now available through Amazon.com and all major book stores. If you’d like a sneak peek, you can read the prologue here.

                                 Excerpt for SHADOWS IN THE MIST

Welcome

 

Aloha, this is Brian Moreland, writing from Maui, Hawaii. Welcome to my new fiction blog, DARK LUCIDITY!

I’m so excited to now have a place to publish my short stories on-line. People who read my first horror novel, SHADOWS IN THE MIST, often ask when they can read something else. Well, it’s going to take at least a year, because I’m currently completing my second novel, DEAD OF WINTER, as we speak. And the publishing industry can be quite slow, taking up to eighteen months to release a book after the contract is signed. I wish I was at the point in my career where I could churn out a book a year like Dean Koontz or James Rollins, but I’m just not there yet. It took me twenty years to evolve from being a dreamer to a published author, and at age 39 (turn 40 in November), I’m doing all I can to catch up. Maybe Hollywood will option one of my stories for a movie and I can finally start writing full time. I’ll always be a big dreamer.

 

If you are interested in learning more about me and my current novel, SHADOWS IN THE MIST, visit my website www.BrianMoreland.com. There’s a lot on my site about how I researched the World War II thriller over in Germany, walked the battle fields, and uncovered true secrets about the Nazis and the Occult.

 

 

DARK LUCIDITY is a blog where I publish my collection of short stories, excerpts from my novels, and dark poetry. In essence, it is my creative outlet to explore horror and supernatural themes in shorter lengths. The blog also offers instant gratification. Writing and publishing novels can take two to three years. With this fiction blog, I can write a story and publish it that same week. This is my gift to readers who wait patiently for my next book to come out. Some of these stories are free to read and, please share them with friends. The stories are about everyday people, like you and me, who cross the boundaries of reality into lucid, parallel worlds where they encounter beings of both light and darkness.  

Also, I have a second blog ADVENTURES IN WRITING where I share my weekly adventures and escapades as a novelist who’s starting to get his feet wet in the publishing business. There I tell plenty of stories of how I went from being an unknown, self-published author to getting book deals with a New York publisher and a German publisher.

 

Again, thanks for stopping by. Or as we say here in Hawaii, Mahalo and Aloha,

 

Brian Moreland