Maria had a dream … in my head

I never thought I’d write a supernatural horror/thriller … until Maria had a dream … in my head.

Not only is Maria (of the angels) now available on Apple Books (in addition to Amazon), but I just launched my official website for my novels and paintings! And the AudioBook version will come, hopefully, in another two weeks!

I just launched my official website for my novels and paintings!

Now that folks are reading Maria, they may wonder why I chose to write a supernatural thriller/horror/suspense story.

I didn’t think I’d ever write one of those. Oh, I’ve enjoyed my share of Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and Neil Gaiman — I just never saw myself as being able to wield the tension required by horror/supernatural narratives … until Maria had a dream … in my head.

Thirty-two years ago, I had an extremely vivid nightmare that carried with it the lucidity and immediacy that such dreams can conjure. But unlike most nightmares we have, it didn’t fade.

It grew.

I just never saw myself as being able to wield the tension required by horror/supernatural narratives … until Maria had a dream … in my head.

For those of you wondering about the content of the dream, just check out Chapter 2 of Maria (of the angels). It’s verbatim what I woke up from in a sweat, nearly shouting, and scaring the living eff out of my newlywed Pam!

Honestly, I didn’t want to see where that nightmare led … but I did want to know why Maria was dreaming this dream — where it would send her. Maria quickly took complete form in my imagination. (Stories, at least for me, don’t hit the ground running until their characters take the reigns.)

You’d think Maria wouldn’t be able to do that, right? She’s deaf and an orphan and her dreaming is noticed by the perpetrators of the horrors she sees in her dreams.

But Maria took over like she was birthed, fully formed, and said to me “I’ll take it from here.”

But Maria took over—birthed, fully formed, and said to me “I’ll take it from here.”

In the intervening three decades, Pam and I raised three kids to adulthood, changed careers, each, three times over, became grandparents. How the hell I wrote a book in all that time of activity is another story … but it was just like Maria: it wouldn’t let up.

That’s what the antagonist, Malachi, finds out in the end.

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