I'm thrilled to be participating in The Unseen Book Blitz! I adore J.L. Bryan's writing (and he's a pretty awesome dude as well!) and am so excited that he's written another spooky, spine-tingling read. Below you can find out more about this book, read an informative and entertaining guest post, check out an excerpt from The Unseen, and win some wicked prizes...
The Unseen
by J.L. Bryan
10/26/13
Cassidy is a young tattoo artist living in the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta. She’s always suffered terrible nightmares, and sometimes the hideous creatures seem to follow her out of her dreams and into her waking life, though she’s the only one who can see them. Drugs and alcohol can blot them out, but never entirely chase them away.
When a demonic cult begins to take control of the people in her life, including her younger brother, Cassidy discovers that the unseen world of monsters is very real. She can no longer avoid it. To protect those she loves, she must accept her own hidden supernatural talents and face the forces of evil before the sinister cult achieves its twisted goals and casts the world into darkness.
The Unseen will have a special release price of 99 cents through Halloween!
Demon-Summoning Do’s and Don’ts
So you’ve cast a circle and you’re ready to bring an infernal spirit into your home for a visit. Or are you? Summoning demons takes care and consideration—it’s nothing to jam in between doing the dishes and catching the new episode of Walking Dead.
These simple tips will help you put together an exciting evocation, without all the messy embarrassment of getting your soul ripped from your flesh and devoured.
DO offer a blood sacrifice. Your guest has traveled across endless darkness from the lower pits of Hell and will be expecting a snack. Chicken or lizard blood will do nicely for a lesser spirit. For an archdemon, you’ll want to sacrifice a human being instead—anything less is considered rude. Virgins are still preferred, but no longer expected by more modern demons. Finally, an activity you can do with that annoying neighbor you’ve always wanted to eliminate from the earth!
DON’T call up the wrong kind of demon. Incubi and succubi will arrive with certain expectations, because these unholy hornballs only have one thing on their evil minds at all times. If you’re not ready for a swingers’ sabbat, avoid them. If you do summon them, you’re going to need a little more protection that the typical enchanted circle provides—the beasties get around. Also avoid gluttony demons, because these corpulent creatures not only look like disgusting mountains of flab with enormous mouths, they’ll also destroy your snack bar and leave an unpleasant flatulent odor that takes weeks to remove from your carpet.
DO be polite. Powerful demons resent being summoned by mere mortals, but minding your manners can go a long way towards creating a more pleasant evening. When you say, “I bind thee and summon thee, foul Mephistopheles!” and the enraged horned demon appears in a flash of fire and brimstone, don’t forget to add, “Thank you!”
DON’T expect them to bring wine or a hot dish. Again, they’ve come a long way and can’t be expected to carry host gifts up from the abyss. Also, demon food tends to be rotten and vermin-infested, so how badly did you really want that casserole, anyway?
DO remember to take pictures! Remember, the only reason to do anything extraordinary in life is so you can brag to your friends on Facebook. A picture of you and Beelzebub with his host of flesh-eating flies will totally shut up that one friend who’s always bragging about the time she met Colin Farrell on an airplane.
DON’T forget to banish! If you don’t send that demon right back to Hell when you’re done, it may move onto your couch and stay there for months. Demons don’t pay rent, they don’t do chores, and they never, ever give up control of the remote. They will, however, watch home shopping channels twenty-four hours a day and max out your credit card to ordering useless knickknacks. They won’t take subtle hints to go home, either, no matter how many you drop—you have to order them out. Exercise your right to excorsize!
Following this list is sure to make your demonic encounter a more successful one! When you summon horrific spirits from the fiery underworld into your living room, you don’t want it to ruin the rest of your weekend.
3 excerpts from Chapter 1 of The Unseen
from the beginning of chapter one...
Years later, Cassidy would remember the night of the party as her first encounter with the unseen world. It began with broken glass, blood, and a homemade Ouija board.
The day after Cassidy’s seventeenth birthday, her mother was away at work for the night, inadvertently giving Cassidy the best possible present: a Saturday night alone at the apartment. Her younger brother Kieran was staying at a friend’s house for the weekend. Cassidy’s mother had forbidden her to have any guests except for her best friend, Barb. Boys, as always, were doubly forbidden while Cassidy’s mother was working the night shift at the hotel. Her mother called her on the land line to make sure she was home—never Cassidy’s cell, always the land line.
The night started out calmly, with no sign of the horror to come.
from the middle of chapter one...
“Sh! It’s moving,” Cassidy told them.
The wine glass shuddered again, and this time it began to slide over the poster board, the lip scraping and smearing a few of the still-wet letters, gathering glowing paint around its rim.
The glass moved across the alphabet to the word YES in the upper left corner of the poster, scraping up glue and glitter from a sparkly red pentagram along the way.
“Who’s doing that? Are you doing that?” Reese asked Tamila, who shook her head, her wide eyes fixed on the board.
“Hello? Are you a spirit?” Barb asked.
The glass slid half an inch, then right back into place. YES again.
“Who are you?” Barb asked. “I mean, to whom do we have the pleasure of speaking?”
The wineglass lay still for a moment, then vibrated and hummed as if someone had plinked it with a fingernail. The glass slid over the alphabet.
Cassidy felt her heart racing. She hadn’t expected it to work at all, and it was starting to freak her out. She wished they hadn’t turned off the lights.
from the end of chapter one...
The glass flew back to the top row of letters.
D...I...E...
It moved faster, back and forth, never leaving the top row.
DIE
DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE
Cassidy watched in horror, spellbound as the glass raced back and forth, smearing the top row of letters into an illegible green streak, but still sliding back and forth, back and forth, touching the spots where the three letters D, I, and E had been.
She wanted to let go and pull away, but her fingertips felt glued to the wine glass. The glass became icy, burning cold under her fingertips, a crust of smoking frost forming inside the bowl and along the stem.
J.L. Bryan studied English literature at the University of Georgia and at Oxford, with a focus on the English Renaissance and the Romantic period. He also studied screenwriting at UCLA. He enjoys remixing elements of paranormal, supernatural, fantasy, horror and science fiction into new kinds of stories.He is the author of The Paranormals series (starting with Jenny Pox), The Songs of Magic series, Nomad, and other books. He lives in Atlanta with his wife Christina, his son John, and some dogs and cats.
Website: www.jlbryanbooks.com
Twitter: @jlbryanbooks
There are two ways to win some awesome prizes during this blitz:
GIVEAWAY ONE- open INT
Win an ebook copy of The Unseen!
To enter, just leave a comment on this post letting me know you want to win an ebook copy and leave your name and a way to contact you (email address or Twitter handle). Giveaway ends on Nov. 3 at 12:00 pm EST
GIVEAWAY ONE NOW CLOSED
GIVEAWAY TWO- open US/CAN
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