In the coming weeks, I'll be posting selected interviews from my podcast here on the blog. Enjoy.
Here's a chat with fantasy author Jeff Bacon about his series, The Darkside of Good.
Join the Shadowy World of Fantasy and Horror Author A. F. Stewart
Showing posts with label supernatural fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label supernatural fantasy. Show all posts
Monday, 9 August 2021
Tuesday, 20 October 2020
Interview With Author Alex Apostol
Another interview today, this time with supernatural author Alex Apostol, who chats about her dark fiction (just in time for Halloween). Enjoy.
Interview With Alex Apostol
My name is Alexandra Sandbach but I write under my maiden name, Alex Apostol. I have been self-publishing Fantasy, Supernatural Thrillers, and Horror fiction for the last eight years. I currently have ten books in print and am always working on something new. I have a BA in English Literature and a MA in Business Admin and Marketing, which has really opened my eyes to the world of social networking and marketing. I also design guided journals for authors, horse enthusiasts, women, and self-discovery, which has been an interesting journey. Right now I live in Northwest Indiana with my husband, daughter, and our black cat Bob, but I spent the last ten years traveling all over the country including Hawaii, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and California.
Why did you decide to write in the Fantasy/Supernatural/Horror genres?
I have always been an avid reader of those types of books. I grew up with the Harry Potter series (I was actually 11 when the first book came out!) and have gravitated toward those types of fantasy books, for adults and children. As I got older I started to read more Supernatural Thrillers and Horror books. I love books that feel like real life but add a bit of magic to it and bring mythology and folklore to life.
You write in several genres. Do you have a favourite? And if so, why?
It's hard to pick which one is my favorite. The majority of my books are either fantasy or zombie horror and I love both for their own reasons. Zombie horror is the most popular of my books right now and I enjoy putting everyday people in extraordinary situations where they really have to tap into their unused potential to survive. It makes me think what I would do if a horde of zombies ever came knocking at my door and would I have what it takes to make it through the day. But Fantasy fiction is where my heart is. I grew up on it and I love that it blends real life with a touch of whimsy and the supernatural.
Could you tell us a bit about your latest book?
My latest release is called "Wayfare Angel" and it is the fourth book in my Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman series. It follows a young woman, Kamlyn Paige, as she suffers a substantial loss which opens her up to the supernatural world. She joins a secret society called The Chamber of Darkness and it's there she learns to fight the creatures of the darkness that threaten the human race. Her biggest motivation is seeking revenge on the mysterious being that murdered her son in the night. As she travels the country looking for vengeance, she realizes there are things about her that are extraordinary and not-so-human as well. Coming to terms with who she is and what she's capable of, she vows to use her powers for good and to protect humans from suffering as she has. In the fourth book, she is traveling between worlds to gather supporters for the coming supernatural war. Her first stop is the land of witches where she hopes to form a fortuitous alliance. The series is great for those who love mythology and folklore. Kamlyn faces many creatures, from werewolves to witches to demons, and even a few you've probably never heard of. Readers have said that it's reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural on the CW, which is high praise because I love both shows.
My latest release is called "Wayfare Angel" and it is the fourth book in my Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman series. It follows a young woman, Kamlyn Paige, as she suffers a substantial loss which opens her up to the supernatural world. She joins a secret society called The Chamber of Darkness and it's there she learns to fight the creatures of the darkness that threaten the human race. Her biggest motivation is seeking revenge on the mysterious being that murdered her son in the night. As she travels the country looking for vengeance, she realizes there are things about her that are extraordinary and not-so-human as well. Coming to terms with who she is and what she's capable of, she vows to use her powers for good and to protect humans from suffering as she has. In the fourth book, she is traveling between worlds to gather supporters for the coming supernatural war. Her first stop is the land of witches where she hopes to form a fortuitous alliance. The series is great for those who love mythology and folklore. Kamlyn faces many creatures, from werewolves to witches to demons, and even a few you've probably never heard of. Readers have said that it's reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural on the CW, which is high praise because I love both shows.
What is your greatest challenge as a writer?
For me, marketing is still my biggest challenge. I can knock out a story pretty quickly because there are always a few queued up in my head at a time. I can go through and do a thorough edit and rewrite. I have even started designing my own covers recently. But marketing has always remained my biggest struggle. I am on all the social media sites I feel are prevalent for writers and I keep up with my posts. I don't blast my followers with the advertisement of my books but like to include posts about my research in mythology and history, what's going on in my life, my writing process, and more. I have gained followers organically, but getting people to follow through by clicking the links to my website or buying the book is a challenge. It has to go beyond hitting the like button, which is not a science.
You can find me on social media at:
And you can learn more about my books from my website: writeralexapostol.com
Do you have a favourite character? If so, why?
Kamlyn Paige of my Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman is my favorite character by far. She is the very first character I ever developed. She is so incredibly human with her stumbling over her words and mistakes she makes in life, but then she is also extraordinary because of her interesting and unique lineage. She's a very strong female protagonist and I feel she can be a great inspiration to readers. I know she is to me.
What did you enjoy most about writing your book?
For Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman, my favorite part of writing the book was the folklore research in finding the many beasts and creatures that haunt nightmares around the world and then bringing them to life. The supernatural has always been an interest of mine, not that I believe in werewolves and vampires but I think it's interesting how those legends were formed so long ago. For my Dead Soil zombie series, which is my bestselling series to date, I enjoyed creating very real and human characters who were not experts in martial arts or shooting or survival and putting them in a world where they had to learn those skills quickly in order to survive. I also love going into detail of a disgusting zombie's features. They are all unique in their grossness which makes for a good Halloween read.
When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?
I have been writing stories here and there since I was twelve years old. Creative writing was always an interest of mine and enjoyed studying it during my BA in English Literature. All my life I've been an avid reader, devouring whatever I could get my hands on, but it wasn't until I finished college that I started to really consider being an author as a career path. I self-published my first book in the Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman series in 2012 and have never looked back.
What’s your next project? Any upcoming book secrets you care to reveal?
I am stepping outside my comfort zone with my next book, which I have just recently started writing. It is a fairy tale/historical fiction mashup that I am super excited about. It is loosely based on the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast, with the main character resembling Belle. The historical twist is that her story takes place during the horrific years of the French Revolution. It will tackle social injustices such as slavery and equality for women which were both hot issues even then. There will be many historical figures like Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de LaFayette and his wife, King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette of course, Thomas Paine, Robespierre, and more. The beast makes his appearances as well, though there is something mysterious and unique about him that has yet to be seen in a Beauty and the Beast retelling. This one I am going to seek traditional publishing for, so it might be a while before it can be found on the shelves.
About the Author
Alex Apostol is an independently published Amazon bestselling author of mythology and folklore for her Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman series. She was born and raised in Northwest Indiana where she currently resides with her husband, daughter, and black cat, Bob, but she spent her 20's traveling the country. She has lived in Hawaii, Virginia, California, Texas, Illinois, and Florida. She has a BA in English Literature and a MA in Business Admin and Marketing and is a veteran of the United States Navy. When she's not writing her next novel, she likes to spend time with her family hiking, reading, and watching movies.
You can follow Alex Apostol on Instagram @writer_alex_apostol
Twitter @AlexApostol87
or visit her website at writeralexapostol.com
Sunday, 24 May 2020
Book Spotlight: Dark Divinations
Today I have for you a real treat with a spotlight for the new supernatural anthology, Dark Divinations recently released by HorrorAddicts.net Press. Enjoy.
It’s the height of Queen Victoria’s rule. Fog swirls in the gas-lit streets, while in the parlor, hands are linked. Pale and expectant faces gaze upon a woman, her eyes closed and shoulders slumped. The medium speaks, her tone hollow and inhuman. The séance has begun.
Dark Divinations (edited by Naching T. Kassa)
It’s the height of Queen Victoria’s rule. Fog swirls in the gas-lit streets, while in the parlor, hands are linked. Pale and expectant faces gaze upon a woman, her eyes closed and shoulders slumped. The medium speaks, her tone hollow and inhuman. The séance has begun.
Can the reading of tea leaves influence the future? Can dreams keep a soldier from death in the Crimea? Can a pocket watch foretell a deadly family curse? From entrail reading and fortune-telling machines to prophetic spiders and voodoo spells, sometimes the future is better left unknown.
Choose your fate.
Choose your Dark Divination.
**********
An excerpt from Dark Divinations
The Moat House Cob
Alan Fisher
Tower of London, 1887
I had earned the position of Her Majesty’s Keeper of Wise Animals after a priest witnessed my unfortunate encounter with a foul-mouthed and heretical black goose along the Thames. He reported me to the Lawless Assizes which gave me a simple choice: burn at the stake for witchcraft or turn my talents to the service of the Queen. I, not unwisely, chose the latter. My crimes against the proper way of things would be held in abeyance until I died a natural death or the Assizes decided to end me in flames. The goose—not given such a chance—was burned, squawking out dire curses on all and sundry.
The wise animals were kept in a smallish room at the top of a corner battlement at the Tower of London, except for the Prophetory Raven, who had the run of the entire Tower, like the rest of his wing-clipped fellows. It was escorted to the room each morning by the Yeoman Warder Ravenmaster, where it would spend the day uselessly pecking grubs off a map of the Empire so I could note which grub it went after first. For the past five years, it had favored the flavor of the grubs inhabiting the vastness of the open Pacific, where little of note had happened, or would happen.
Useless, the Prophetory Raven. Useless, the Revelation Mice of Cambridge. Useless, the mad parrot that had once been owned by John Dee and only squawked Enochian riddles, a language I had sadly not been taught at Balliol. Useless, Her Majesty’s Keeper of Wise Animals, but still I walked up the dank stairs every day. Every day I recorded anything the wise animals might reveal and every day I fed them and slopped their shite out into the courtyard and every evening I fled back to my room at the base of the tower.
All in all, still better than being burned alive.
The wise animals were so considered because they had foretold the future, at least once. In most cases, only once. But they were collected, some of them having lived long beyond their years. Dee’s Parrot was in its third century, if indeed it was the same bird that had warned Queen Elizabeth of the coming Armada. The Prophetory Raven was at least two decades beyond the ordinary life of its fellows and was famed in a very small circle for screaming ceaselessly on two seperate days that madmen tried to shoot our Queen Victoria. It was otherwise silent. The six Revelation Mice, who got into ink whilst scurrying about the University Library of Cambridge and left in their tiny footprints an obituary for Prince Albert two weeks before his death, had never written anything again. I should know. I had to apply ink to the feet of the little bastards every evening before setting them loose on a large sheet of white paper. Every morning, I threw out the ink-smeared paper that had no more wisdom on it than the droppings they left.
But then there was the spider. The Moat House Cob was big as my splayed out hand and dark as pitch, except for orange lines crossing its back. Or abdomen, as a spider-fancier once told me it was called. Seemed as if every day the lines were different. It had been found with a witch around 1750. According to the tale, it crawled from her clothes as the flames took her and nearly escaped. An alert executioner trapped it in a goblet. Left in a box for examination, it wove the name of its captor’s son into its web overnight. That day, the boy died of a spider’s bite. The story got to the Lawless Assizes quickly enough and the Moat House Cob was one of the first wise animals brought to the Tower, preceded only by Dee’s Parrot and a stoat that could predict storms at sea but passed away in 1709.
The Moat House Cob was not useless. It was placed in a wide flat glass box, with a map of the world pasted against the back of it. It was my charge—as much as humoring the parrot and inking the feet of the mice—to record where it wove a web. It always wove one, every night, somewhere on the map. I took note of the location in the Ledger of Wise Animals, a series of tomes which went back to Dee’s Parrot first asking for a biscuit in Enochian. The majority of the time, the web’s location meant nothing. After making my notes, I would open the top of the cage—after I made sure the Cob was near the bottom and far from me, which it always was—and wipe away the web.
To read more of this story, and the other great tales, go to Amazon.com or order the special edition, signed copy with hand-painted tarot cards at HorrorAddicts.net
I had earned the position of Her Majesty’s Keeper of Wise Animals after a priest witnessed my unfortunate encounter with a foul-mouthed and heretical black goose along the Thames. He reported me to the Lawless Assizes which gave me a simple choice: burn at the stake for witchcraft or turn my talents to the service of the Queen. I, not unwisely, chose the latter. My crimes against the proper way of things would be held in abeyance until I died a natural death or the Assizes decided to end me in flames. The goose—not given such a chance—was burned, squawking out dire curses on all and sundry.
The wise animals were kept in a smallish room at the top of a corner battlement at the Tower of London, except for the Prophetory Raven, who had the run of the entire Tower, like the rest of his wing-clipped fellows. It was escorted to the room each morning by the Yeoman Warder Ravenmaster, where it would spend the day uselessly pecking grubs off a map of the Empire so I could note which grub it went after first. For the past five years, it had favored the flavor of the grubs inhabiting the vastness of the open Pacific, where little of note had happened, or would happen.
Useless, the Prophetory Raven. Useless, the Revelation Mice of Cambridge. Useless, the mad parrot that had once been owned by John Dee and only squawked Enochian riddles, a language I had sadly not been taught at Balliol. Useless, Her Majesty’s Keeper of Wise Animals, but still I walked up the dank stairs every day. Every day I recorded anything the wise animals might reveal and every day I fed them and slopped their shite out into the courtyard and every evening I fled back to my room at the base of the tower.
All in all, still better than being burned alive.
The wise animals were so considered because they had foretold the future, at least once. In most cases, only once. But they were collected, some of them having lived long beyond their years. Dee’s Parrot was in its third century, if indeed it was the same bird that had warned Queen Elizabeth of the coming Armada. The Prophetory Raven was at least two decades beyond the ordinary life of its fellows and was famed in a very small circle for screaming ceaselessly on two seperate days that madmen tried to shoot our Queen Victoria. It was otherwise silent. The six Revelation Mice, who got into ink whilst scurrying about the University Library of Cambridge and left in their tiny footprints an obituary for Prince Albert two weeks before his death, had never written anything again. I should know. I had to apply ink to the feet of the little bastards every evening before setting them loose on a large sheet of white paper. Every morning, I threw out the ink-smeared paper that had no more wisdom on it than the droppings they left.
But then there was the spider. The Moat House Cob was big as my splayed out hand and dark as pitch, except for orange lines crossing its back. Or abdomen, as a spider-fancier once told me it was called. Seemed as if every day the lines were different. It had been found with a witch around 1750. According to the tale, it crawled from her clothes as the flames took her and nearly escaped. An alert executioner trapped it in a goblet. Left in a box for examination, it wove the name of its captor’s son into its web overnight. That day, the boy died of a spider’s bite. The story got to the Lawless Assizes quickly enough and the Moat House Cob was one of the first wise animals brought to the Tower, preceded only by Dee’s Parrot and a stoat that could predict storms at sea but passed away in 1709.
The Moat House Cob was not useless. It was placed in a wide flat glass box, with a map of the world pasted against the back of it. It was my charge—as much as humoring the parrot and inking the feet of the mice—to record where it wove a web. It always wove one, every night, somewhere on the map. I took note of the location in the Ledger of Wise Animals, a series of tomes which went back to Dee’s Parrot first asking for a biscuit in Enochian. The majority of the time, the web’s location meant nothing. After making my notes, I would open the top of the cage—after I made sure the Cob was near the bottom and far from me, which it always was—and wipe away the web.
To read more of this story, and the other great tales, go to Amazon.com or order the special edition, signed copy with hand-painted tarot cards at HorrorAddicts.net
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