Ancient Eyes

Every author has some up and down periods in their life. I had a very bad period a few years back – my personal life was a mess, and I’d spent too many years writing licensed tie-in novels without keeping up on my own work. I had some success behind me – I’d sold Deep Blue to Five Star, and that helped. I had a novel I’d started, based on a short story I had on my hard drive, loosely inspired by the movie Next of Kin – but it was sitting partially finished. At that time I had a bout five partially finished manuscripts, and no direction. I’d been working with an agent who kept having me write outlines and partials and who liked nothing I sent…it was very discouraging, so I broke off that relationship.

In the interim, I did something odd. I put the rights to publish a limited edition of my (at the time unfinished) novel ANCIENT EYES on eBay. I was pleased when Cemetery Dance put in the first bid, but then surprised. Larry Roberts at Bloodletting Books won the bid. We made the arrangements, and I was very happy.

About that same time I signed with my current agent, Robert Fleck. I started to finish and write all the projects the previous agent hadn’t really wanted to represent, and I wrote a LOT that year.

This past summer, at long last, the novel was published. It came out in September, and the limited edition run of 300 copies was sold out before the publisher could even get it up for sale on his website. The lettered edition – which is a thing of absolute beauty – is still to come.

The cover artist on this book (and also the interior illustrator) is Don Paresi. Don and I go way back to my days in the US Navy. We’ve worked together several times now, and hope to do so more in the future. His wrap-around cover for Ancient Eyes is among my favorites of all of his work that I’ve seen…

This novel is the story of a young man named Abraham and how the mountain he left behind as a young man calls him back to finish an ancient battle his father left incomplete. Dark forces are on the move. There are two churches on the mountain – one was his father’s — the other is being rebuilt. Abraham has very little time to rally his forces and move to save his people, the mountain, and the woman he loves.

A side story is the way this novel takes place on a mountain peak one over from Friendly, California, the location of the finale of my novel DEEP BLUE. My hope is that the characters from the two books will meet up and move on to a third novel – THE BONE WITCH – which will lead them all back to the town I created for my novella “Roll Them Bones,” and draw the three books together into a trilogy tentatively titled THE CHORD AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW.

I guess time, work, and inspiration will tell.

DNW