Book 1:
Genre: Horror, Supernatural Suspense
Publisher: Melange Books
Date of Release: October 31, 2015
Pages: 213 pages
Links: Publisher, Good Reads, Amazon Print, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords
The title, Midnight’s Edge, comes from the time of night where the veil between the living and the dead disappears and, for a brief moment in time, the dead can return to the mortal world and live again. It is a story of a vile, evil man named Jeremy Wickcliff, whose wife, Lucy, arranged his death years ago to save the town from his wrath of destruction. In present time, he has been plotting from the spirit realm, a place of purgatory, to return to the mortal realm to seek revenge on those who wronged him and reclaim the life ripped away from him.
“Why me? Why did you target me?”
He ignored my question as he so often had. “Open the door and go inside.”
I grasped the knob of the attic door. Unable to stop myself, I opened it. The air was dusty, thick. I could hardly breathe.
He was right. Once beautiful and full of life, I was now meager and weak. I had lost all control of my body and mind, and it was all thanks to him. He’d made my life miserable. He’d convinced me that I was a burden to all that I loved and that my life was meaningless to the point where I started to believe him.
I put my head down recalling the events of the last five years. I thought about everything I had lost because of Jeremy. My husband, my sanity, my life. Even though I tried not to show it, I couldn’t control the flood of tears that blinded me. Jeremy knew that my losses had become too much to bear, and he knew he’d beaten me.
“You got what you wanted,” I said, scanning the room. “I’m broken. Are you happy now? Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
“Destroying your life was just for fun,” Jeremy said. “Watching you squirm, cry, and beg were just things I used to amuse myself until Midnight’s Edge was upon us, and I was finally able to return to life. That time is upon us, my dear, and soon you’ll understand my true motivation. You should be honored, you’re an essential part of my plan.”
“How? Tell me. Enough with the games. What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m going to help you. I told you I could make your pain stop. The pain of a lonely, empty, meaningless existence.”
I felt the warm tears on my cheeks, and my breath grew heavier. “It’s that way because of you and only you. If you can make it stop, then do it.”
“First there’s something you must do for me.”
I felt as if he were suffocating me; as if he were holding a pillow against my face as I slept.
“I’m not going to do a thing for a sick bastard like you. Not anymore. The influence you had over me is broken. Do you hear me?”
He cackled. “I don’t believe that, and neither do you. I wouldn’t waste my last few precious breaths with a lie if I were you.”
I put my hand on my chest. “Last breaths? What do you mean?”
“I’m going to live again. You’re not.”
“You plan to kill me?”
“Not exactly. Think back to what I said to you earlier. Think back to what you said to your daddy dearest when you were in hysterics on the phone with him a while ago. You can remember.”
I tried desperately to block out his voice. “No. I won’t listen to this anymore.”
“You don’t have a choice. You never did. I’ll never stop tormenting you until I get what I want. You have to know that by now. Try to resist me if you want, but I promise you I won’t give you a moment’s peace. Now let’s get started. Look at what you’re holding in your hands.”
I glanced down at my hands realizing that I had been clutching a rope. His goal was finally clear to me. Jeremy hadn’t planned to kill me. He wanted me to kill myself. “I’m not going to die because of you. You may have taken everything else from me, but I won’t give you the satisfaction. I won’t take my life. I’ll never do it you sick son of a bitch. It doesn’t matter what you do to me.”
“You have two choices. You either do what I tell you to, or I’ll drive you even more insane. You won’t even know your name after I’m through with you. What kind of life is that?”
I realized that he was right. I’d known Jeremy was ruthless, but it was clear that his cruelty had no limits. I tried to be strong, to face him head on, but in the face of my death, I’d become just as scared as a little girl.
“I don’t want to die, Jeremy,” I said, wiping the tears from my face. “Please.”
He ignored me and continued to give commands. “Throw the rope over the beam above you.”
“No!”
“You can pretend that you aren’t afraid, but I know you’re weak. You don’t have the will to resist me. If you did, I wouldn’t be inside your head now. Stop prolonging the inevitable and just do it, damn you.”
I clutched onto the rope tighter. “I have a family, a son. I’m not going to leave them.”
“They’re better off without a pathetic loser like you. You can’t even be a mother to your son, always pawning him off on your parents and the help.”
“That’s not true.”
“He’s not here with you now, is he?”
Freddy Wickcliff was my five-year-old son. I’d asked my parents if he could stay with them for a little while. I couldn’t tell them why. I couldn’t tell them that I couldn’t care for my son because a psychopath that was inside my head was driving me slowly insane. I hadn’t wanted Freddy to see me this way. I thanked God he hadn’t.
“That’s your fault, not mine,” I said. “It’s your fault that I’m like this. That I don’t have a normal life anymore.”
“Is that so? You can’t even take responsibility for your problems. You’re a sad, pathetic waste. Everyone’s sick of always having to tiptoe around you, always covering for you.”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks. “Shut up!”
“You’d be doing everyone a favor if you put an end to this. If you truly loved them, you’d take the burden off.”
“You can’t control me anymore. I won’t let you.”
“Oh really? Look at what you’ve done.”
I looked around me. Without even realizing it, I’d fashioned a noose from the rope and threw it on the beam above where I stood. I’d also moved a chair underneath and stood on it.
“See?” he said. “You know I’m right. For your sake and for the sake of those you supposedly love, end this now.”
I stood there, finally defeated. Long soaked strands of my dark hair drenched with sweat and tears dangled in my face. I had thought that if my life were over, I’d never have to listen to him again. Maybe he was right; maybe my family was better off without me. Maybe I could find peace if I were dead, and so could they, no longer having to deal with my problems.
With no more will to fight, I slipped my head into the noose and took a deep breath.
“Good girl,” were the final words I heard as I stepped off the chair.
Book 2:
Genre: Horror, Supernatural Suspense
Publisher: Melange Books
Date of Release: March 1, 2016
Pages: 232 pages
Links: Publisher, Good Reads, Amazon Print, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords
Successful in his plan to return to the mortal realm, Jeremy Wickcliff believes he’s found his son, whose body will allow him to continue to live, and he has brought back his sister, Rachel, as part of his resurgence plan for the Wickcliff family. However, the son that he thinks is his isn’t, and Rachel isn’t exactly his ally. Trapped in the Wickcliff mausoleum in the spirit realm, the Wickcliff ancestors have their own plan to return to life in the mortal realm, with or without Jeremy’s help.
As the witches begin to piece together Jeremy’s plan after a visit from his wife, Lucy, in spirit form, they realize that they must band together in an attempt to stop him from bringing his family back and to banish him back to the ghost realm. With a battle between good and evil takes place on the grounds of the Wickcliff cemetery, the outcome will change the lives of the residents of Sleepy Meadows forever.
Kasey hadn’t realized the extent of the danger his mother was in as he went up to her kitchen door and entered the house without knocking. She’d told him to come over in a hurry, and while Kasey was only five years older than me, the worry I saw as I studied his face made him appear much older than he was.
“Mom, I got here as quickly as I could. You sounded so strange on the phone. I could tell by the tone in your voice that something’s wrong. What is it?”
Gracey stood up slowly and pointed to Hilda. “Kasey, this is an old friend of mine, Hilda. You remember her.”
Kasey gave Hilda a nod, acknowledging that he did remember her. Hilda was one of Gracey’s dearest friends, but he hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. No one had until recently after she’d taken an extended absence from Sleepy Meadows. Much like his mother, he’d noticed that she hadn’t aged well. Her gray eyes still showed the kindness he’d always remembered she had, but now the shade of her hair, pulled back in a bun, matched. Her skin had withered, and while he hadn’t known what happened in her life while she was away, it was obvious that her experiences had weathered her. She appeared weaker and more frail than he remembered.
“Yes, I do,” Kasey said, smiling. “Mom talks about you all of the time. It’s nice to see you again.”
“I haven’t seen you since you were a teen,” Hilda said, her voice lower and not as feminine as Gracey’s. “I didn’t expect you to remember me at all. Your mother didn’t tell me what a handsome young man you’ve become.”
He blushed. “Thank you.”
“Please sit down,” Gracey said. “I need to talk to you.” He sat. “Would you like something to drink?”
“What I’d like is for you to stop stalling. I know that something’s bothering you, I always know. Just tell me what it is.”
Gracey smiled. “We do have a special connection, don’t we, son?” She lost her smile and winced.
“Are you alright?” Hilda asked.
“My leg’s bothering me,” she said, sitting down. “I’ll be fine.”
Kasey began to stand up. “Where’s your pain medication, Mom?”
Gracey put her hand on his arm, and he sat down again. “Don’t worry about that now. It makes me groggy. I need to talk to you clearly about this. All those years I spent taking care of you as a boy, I never expected that the roles would be reversed. You take such good care of me.”
He patted her on the knee softly. “I figure I owe ya one…or two…or fifty. When Ethan left, and I started drinking more, you were the one that was there for me.”
She rubbed his hand that was still on her knee. “I know what a burden I’ve become.”
He shook his head. “No, you haven’t. I do what I do because I love you.”
“And I love you, son. That’s why I need to tell you the truth now, for your sake.”
He removed his hand. “The truth about what?”
“About your biological parents, and how I became your mother.”
His eyes widened. “I’ve asked about them before, and you never gave me a straight answer. Why do you want to talk about them now?”
She sighed. “I’ve kept the truth from you because it’s what your mother asked me to do. When you were born, she made me promise to take you and keep you safe. However, you’re a man now, Kasey, and you can protect yourself. To do that, you need to know where you come from.”
He turned to Hilda. “Did you know my biological mother too?”
She nodded. “Let your mother finish, Kasey.”
He looked back at Gracey. “What were you keeping me safe from?”
She took his hand. “Not from what. From whom. Your mother was afraid of her husband.”
“Who was she? Why was she so afraid of my father?”
“Your mother’s name was Lucy Sheldon. She married a Wickcliff. He was ruthless.”
“I know the story of Lucy Wickcliff.” He took his hand back, exhaled sharply, and looked away from the women for a moment. He ran his hands through his dark hair, remembering the story he’d heard as a child about how she’d died. “She was married to Jeremy,” he said, meeting eyes with them again. The next thought he had sickened him. “Are you telling me that he’s my father?”
Book 3:
Genre: Horror, Supernatural Suspense
Publisher: Melange Books
Date of Release: November 15, 2016
Pages: 228 pages
Links: Publisher, Good Reads, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords
In the third book of the Midnight’s Edge series, Kasey Menze has found himself misplaced from his life in the mortal realm. His body has been possessed by the vile spirit of Jeremy Wickcliff; His life has been stolen. He awakes in the spirit realm, a place of purgatory for those who have died, and encounters the spirit of Shelly Wickcliff, whose suicide was the result of Jeremy’s machinations to use her body as a vessel to return his sister Rachel from the grave. Together, with the help of Damon Shields, a mortal man with the shamanic ability to transcend his life force between the two realms and Shelly’s husband Rory, also a spirit, they must formulate a plan to exorcise Jeremy from the mortal realm so that Kasey may reclaim his life, and so that Jeremy can be stopped from fulfilling his prophecy that he’ll return his ancestors from the dead.
At first, Kasey Menze saw nothing but darkness. Slowly his eyes adjusted to his surroundings in the Wickcliff mausoleum. A shiver coursed through him from the dampness of the cold, stone floor on which he found himself.
He rubbed the top of his head, feeling dizzy, and confused. He tried to get up, but his legs didn’t hold him. At first, he thought he was dead, yet as his mind cleared, he quickly pushed those thoughts aside and was convinced that Jeremy hadn’t inhabited his body.
He tried to stand up again, this time, more carefully. He felt weak and wasn’t sure he could depend on his legs to support his weight. He stumbled forward a few feet and reached out in front of him, hoping to find something in the darkness to hold on to as he attempted to steady himself.
“Graham, are you there?”
His voice echoed within the room. He expected Graham to answer him, remembering that he’d been in the mausoleum with him and Jeremy before he lost consciousness.
“Careful,” a man’s voice said, coming out of the darkness. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”
The voice startled Kasey, and he scanned the room. “Who’s there?”
“Guess,” the man said, with a sarcastic laugh.
“I don’t have time for games. Just answer me. Graham, is it you?”
“I’m not Graham, but close.”
He stood in silence for a moment and then gasped. “Reed, is that you?”
“That’s right. Give the man a prize.”
Reed opened the inside shutters of a cracked window and stepped to the side. The face Kasey saw in the moonlight that shone through stunned him. Reed appeared beyond his years. At 30, Kasey was five years his senior. That wasn’t evident now. The usually slender and attractive young man breathed heavily and appeared bloated. His once shiny reddish-brown hair was dull and straw-like; dark circles appeared under his once sparkling eyes, now cloudy, dull and lifeless, like those of an old teddy bear dumped to the bottom of a child’s toy box.
He wasn’t positive because it could’ve been the moonlight’s reflection, but Reed’s skin appeared gray, as though it were decaying and falling off the bone. Kasey hadn’t realized how accurate that was. The smell of death filled the air as Reed got closer, and Kasey covered his nose.
Reed gave him a peculiar stare. “You okay, Kase?”
“I am now… I think.” He ran his hands over his forehead and through his hair. “I’d ask you the same thing, but I think I know what you’re going to say. Forgive me for saying so, but you look like hell, and you smell even worse.”
David Chappuis was born in Waterloo, Iowa, the fifth child of six, and grew up on a farm outside of Madrid, New York. He received a bachelor’s degree in English/Writing and Art/Studio from Potsdam College and later took professional development courses in Interactive Multimedia at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
He has made a living as a professional web designer, designing Radio Station websites across the U.S. He designs, develops, and hosts his own websites and blogs for his writing endeavors.
As well as web design, he co-writes fan fiction blogs for the defunct daytime serials, Another World and Dark Shadows, and runs Facebook groups for readers to actively participate in the stories. He also interviews the real-life actors from the shows as well as other talented people.
He is the co-author of “Midnight’s Edge: The Secrets of Sleepy Meadows”, a supernatural book series, that will be published by Melange Books, LLC in September 2015. He also pens his self-published mystery series called “Jenny’s Not Dead” which is currently available in all popular ebook formats.
He works from home as a full-time writer and graphic artist in southern Virginia.
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Michael Klinger – Co-Author of Midnight’s Edge, Jenny’s Not Dead
Michael Klinger was born in Niagara Falls, New York. He received an associate’s degree in human services from Niagara County Community College and a bachelor’s degree in human services management from the University of Phoenix. He has made a living as a professional benefits specialist.
He co-writes fan fiction blogs for the defunct daytime serials, Another World and Dark Shadows, and runs Facebook groups for readers to actively participate in the stories.
He is the co-author of “Midnight’s Edge: The Secrets of Sleepy Meadows”, a supernatural book series, that will be published by Melange Books, LLC in September 2015. He also pens his self-published mystery series called “Jenny’s Not Dead” which is currently available in all popular ebook formats.
He currently resides in southern Virginia.
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Are you a full-time or a part-time writer? If part time, what do you do besides write?
Stephanie Smith took her PhD from Berkeley (1990), and attended the Haystack Creative Writing Workshop in 1981, with Ursula K. LeGuin. Prior to UF, she worked as a free-lance journalist, an editor for Western Imprints, an assistant at Glamour and Mademoiselle magazines; at Representations and at David Godine Publications, and is presently a consultant for Feminist Studies. A novelist, she is the author of: The Warpaint Trilogy, Warpaint (2012), Baby Rocket (2013) and Content Burns (2014) (Thames River Press); Other Nature (TOR,1995), which was short-listed for the Tiptree Award; The-Boy-Who-Was-Thrown-Away and Snow-Eyes (Atheneum 1985/87), along with a number of short stories, which have appeared in such magazines as New Letters, Asimov’s and SF&F. She has won multiple fiction residencies at the Martha’s Vineyard Writer’s Residency at the Noepe Center for the Arts, Hedgebrook, Norcroft, Provincetown and Dorland, and she has been featured in a number of magazines and online blogs.
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