The Ache

Novel. Status: Draft complete; structural edits underway.

People only call the Ache a disease for lack of a better word. Disease can't explain a fraction of what the Ache has done: the sourceless curses, the meteors of molten slag, the families vanished overnight.

So when Claude Afshar attends a party whose host swears she can cure the Ache, he's there for the food. Hopefully he can swing a place to sleep, too. He needs both desperately. He's not interested in yet another cure-all from yet another charlatan.

He never expects to walk away with a job. More money than he's ever seen, paid to indulge one medium’s quest cure the uncurable.

Eager to prove he's worth his new salary, Claude begins his hunt for the source of the Ache. He soon unveils a baffling conspiracy involving demons, ritualists, physicians—and Claude's own family, who vanished years ago.

His friends say he should quit before he disappears, too.

But he can't stop now. Something about a full stomach dyes all those red flags green. Besides, if the work was so dangerous, his new employer wouldn't be doing it right along with him, would she?

Hold the Gate

Novella. Status: Querying.

Gatekeeper was not born to be human. She and her mothers spend their time far away from the so-called "real world," where they can focus on things that matter. Like ascension to godhood.

Of all the ways Ascension can go wrong, Gatekeeper never expects to find it too easy.

Overwhelmed by her apotheosis, Gatekeeper struggles to stay rooted in the physical world. The godly plane feels so right by comparison. She would love to let it lock her away from Earth forever.

Before she can do that, she needs to figure out how to raise her mothers up beside her. Which means tolerating the "real world" for more than a few seconds at a time. The mundane has to stop feeling so strange and unpalatable.

So now this freshly-minted god must learn to be human. Before her mothers' ascensions comes human food, and making friends, and a part-time job at the local diner.

And, as her position between two worlds refuses to stabilize, one unthinkable question:

Would it be worse to Ascend without her family, or to stay in the real world forever? To be alone in the only place that has ever felt right, or to remain with her mothers in a world that alienates her more with each passing day?

Isle of John

Novella. Status: Drafting paused; exploring possibility of interactive fiction.

Essel doesn't think they should be sending an accountant to investigate this "hive mind" situation. That thing took over a whole island. He's woefully unqualified to deal with it.

But here he is. And there's John: a small nation's worth of people, all rolled into one malignant something.

Essel has been told he's immune to John's influence. When this boat reaches that shore, he'll find out if that's true.

Even if it is, his problems won't end. He'll still be trapped, alone, with either one or one million other people. No one knows if John's victims still exist somewhere inside their host bodies. If they can be rescued. It's Essel's job to find out.

Somehow. And quickly. Before the nervous world leaders who sent him here declare the island's residents lost and enact their deadly contingency plan.