I'm pleased to have author J.P. Sloan return as my guest. He's sharing the playlist he used when writing his new urban fantasy release, The Curse Servant. Be sure to check out his new book and also the great contest at the end of this post.
A Dorian Lake Playlist, of sorts…
Greetings readers, writers, and whichever NSA intern was
assigned to monitor my online communications (sorry about that bit with the
socks-and-sandals fetish site). My name is J.P. Sloan, author of the Dark Choir
series of Urban Fantasy books.
Urban Fantasy strikes a strong mood in the minds of readers.
It's a genre replete with familiar settings and unfamiliar monsters. It's
gritty, dark, moody at times, vicious at times. In a nutshell, it's my bag
baby!
Tons of authors cobble together playlists for their main
characters, entire novels, etc. I run into a smidgen of difficulty attempting
to lace together a playlist the average public would find interesting or
relatable. It seems my breadth of music appreciation is a narrow as a gnat's
knuckle. Still, I use music to write by, as it helps to set the mood and to
block out extraneous attention-sapping noises elsewhere in the house.
First off… my writing music. I tend to fire up Pandora and my
station based on dark ambient pioneer Brian Williams under his recording name
of Lustmord. It's a perfect blend of nail-scrapingly off-putting atonality
blanketed with a heavy slathering of doom.
Speaking of atonal instrumentals… one track I consider to be
basically an ongoing score for Dorian Lake and his occult dealings comes from
Rob Zombie's Educated Horses albums. I have the track "100 Ways" on
repeat in my head as I tap through most of Dorian's more procedural scenes.
Now for a proper playlist, borrowing largely from the
handful of bands I actually listen to.
Loser - 3 Doors Down
Our Solemn Hour - Within Temptation
Vollmond - In Extremo
Slow, Love, Slow - Nightwish
Elegy - Leaves' Eyes
Death of it All - Rob Zombie
Ash - Lustmord
Never Leave - Hecq
Some fairly obscure stuff there, I'll admit. Perhaps it
offers a bit of insight into my personal taste in music, which tends toward
European orchestral metal and dark ambient.
Well, there you have it! If the tone of a slow, inexorable
press of doom appeals to you, jog on off to snatch up The Curse Merchant and
its sequel, The Curse Servant, and fire up your Spotify with a few of these
tracks. Cheers!
***
The
Curse Servant
The
Dark Choir
Book
2
J.P.
Sloan
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press
Date of Publication: February 26, 2015
ISBN (eBook): 9781620078228
ISBN (Paperback): 9781620078235
ISBN (Hardcover): 9781620078242
ISBN (Smashwords): 9781620078259
ASIN: B00QEQN1XC
Number of pages: 346
Word Count: 99,400
Book Description:
The
one person standing between Hell… and an innocent girl… is a man without a
soul.
A regular life isn’t in the cards
for Dorian Lake, but with his charm-crafting business invigorated, and the
prospect of a serious relationship within his grasp, life is closer to normal
than Dorian could ever expect. In the heat of the Baltimore mayoral campaign,
Dorian has managed to balance his arrangements with Deputy Mayor Julian Bright
with his search to find his lost soul. Dorian soon learns of a Netherworker,
the head of a dangerous West Coast cabal, who might be able to find and return
his soul. The price? Just one curse.
Sounds easy… but nothing ever is
for Dorian. A dark presence arrives in the city, hell-bent on finding Dorian’s
soul first. Innocents are caught in the crossfire, and Dorian finds it harder
to keep his commitments to Bright. When the fight gets personal, and the entity
hits too close to home, Dorian must rely on those he trusts the least to save
the ones he loves. As he tests the limits of his hermetic skills to defeat this
new enemy, will Dorian lose his one chance to avoid damnation?
Available at Amazon
Excerpt:
I knew this
wasn't going to be the typical meeting with Julian Bright when, instead of the
usual political organ-grinders at the campaign headquarters, I found a soccer
mom duct taped to a chair, foaming at the mouth. Her grunting and growling
echoed off the bare sheetrock walls of Julian's office, vacant except for the
three of us.
I peeked through
the blinds covering the locked storefront to make sure none of volunteers were
back from the morning rounds. Satisfied we were alone, I turned to Julian.
He waved his arm
at the woman in a lazy circle. "So, this is why I called."
"Who is
she?"
"Her name
is Amy Mancuso. You know her?"
I shook my head.
"She's a
volunteer. Her team was working Cold Spring by Loyola when she started swearing
and spitting at the residents. By the time her team captain called me, she'd
kicked someone's dog. Terrier, I think. Or one of those purse dogs."
I winced.
"Remind me not to hand out yard signs for you. Jesus."
"It's not
like we do background checks on volunteers. I figured she probably missed some
meds or something."
"But you
called me instead of the paramedics."
"Right."
"Why?"
I asked as I took a step toward her.
Amy's grunting
halted as she straightened in her chair. Her head swiveled slowly in my
direction, and her eyes sent the creeping chills up my neck.
With a
nerve-rattling tone she growled, "Is that Dorian Lake I smell?"
I'd never
enjoyed the sound of my own name less.
Julian turned a
shoulder to me and whispered, "That's why."
"Gotcha."
I slowly
approached Amy, pulling my pendulum from my jacket pocket in a slow,
non-threatening motion. Last thing I needed at that moment was to send a crazy
person into a panic. I assumed she was crazy. My pendulum would determine
whether she was unnaturally energized or the usual cat-shaving flavor of
lunatic.
Her eyes were
dilated; her mouth twisted into the most unsettling smile one could imagine on
the face of an otherwise average woman.
"Have we
met?"
"Poor
little Dorian lost his soul."
Okay, this was
probably a legitimate problem.
I dangled the
pendulum in front of Amy. The little nugget of copper spun from the end of its
chain in a perfectly Newtonian fashion. Nothing pulled it contrary to the laws
of Nature. I couldn't even feel a tug on the chain.
She continued,
"Lost his soul, he lost his soul. Dropped it down a rabbit hole."
"I suppose
you think you're being clever?"
"Is he
doomed or is he dead? Will he damn your soul instead?"
This
conversation had lost all of its charm.
"Who am I
talking to?"
She sucked in a
huge gulp of air and craned her neck at a painful angle toward the ceiling. A
sick squealing noise leaked from her lips as her arms trembled. When she
finally released her breath and sank back down into her chair, she simply
chuckled.
"We're
going to find it, you know. And when we do, we're going to eat it."
I leaned in as
close as I dared and whispered, "If you think I'm afraid of you, then you
need to know something. I'm not impressed."
"It won't
be long now."
"Did
someone send you, or is this just a courtesy call?"
She smirked.
"We're going to enjoy this."
I was knitting
together a clever response when a loud rip of tape crackled through the room.
Her hand slammed up underneath my jaw, fingers clamping around my throat. My
head filled with blood, and I tried to cough through the gag reflex. The harder
I beat on her hand to let go, the wider that creepy smile got.
About
the Author:
J.P. Sloan is a speculative
fiction author ... primarily of urban fantasy, horror and several shades
between. His writing explores the strangeness in that which is familiar, at
times stretching the limits of the human experience, or only hinting at the
monsters lurking under your bed.
A Louisiana native, Sloan
relocated to the vineyards and cow pastures of Central Maryland after Hurricane
Katrina, where he lives with his wife and son. During the day he commutes to
the city of Baltimore, a setting which inspires much of his writing.
In his spare time, Sloan enjoys
wine-making and homebrewing, and is a certified beer judge.
Web page: www.jp-sloan.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JPSloanAuthor
Twitter: @J_P_Sloan
Tumblr: http://jpsloan.tumblr.com/
Tour giveaway
5 Digital copies of The Curse Merchant, Book 1 of the Dark Choir series
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