The Blood That Bonds

Back when I was just a wee little edit-monkey, fresh out of the English department of the University of Florida, I filled my free time (i.e., the time during which I wasn't glued to Monster.com, dancing at Market Street Pub's free-cover 80's night, or playing some serious Halo 1) with lots of odd editing jobs. I proofread a few novels, including both modern and historical Mormon-slanted romances, pro bono for a vanity press. I worked a couple grammatical kinks out of a comic book or two for my friends the Killer Robots, who were collaborating with (omfg) Bob Burden in a Flaming Carrot crossover at the time, in exchange for a few bucks, a few drinks, and a free ticket to Dragon*Con. But Christopher Buecheler was the first author who actually paid me to proof an actual novel.

It involved vampires and hookers and action and lurve, and I cared for it like it was my own strange little wordbaby. Christopher and I fell out of touch after I worked on the first part of the story -- he was still writing the second part, and we both became busy with our day jobs.

Flash forward 5 years -- past the stints I worked handling nutrition textbook manuscripts, proofreading gay male erotica written by and for women, editing a novel about cartoon cereal mascots, and copyediting all the rheumatology ever -- to about a month ago, which is when I received an e-mail out of the great #0000FF yonder from one Christopher Buecheler. He's launched that first book I worked on, The Blood That Bonds, online, and is currently offering it as a free download in a number of a formats, hoping to manifest the reader and maybe-hopefully-even publisher interest that the story deserves.

He's also convinced Garry Brown to do a lot of really gorgeous artwork for the story & characters.

The Blood That Bonds is an urban horror-ish title along the lines of the Christopher Pike and R. L. Stine novels I loved when I was in high school, and still indulge in via things like Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series and Mike Carey's Felix Castor books -- it's supernatural, sexy, violent, and filled with equal parts shock value and earnest emotion. If you or a teenager you know thought you might've enjoyed Twilight if all the vampires hadn't had so much sand in their vaginas, you should give The Blood That Bonds a go. It contains 99% less vampiral vagina sand, guaranteed. And for the low, low price of zero American dollars, it's worth at least a download & taste test, right? Right.