Prophet's Lamentation
by Robert Creekmore
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GENRE: Thriller
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BLURB:
Two years after Naomi murdered the serial
killer and rapist Vernon Proffit, she is attempting to adjust to a quiet life
with her wife, Tiffany. But Vernon’s flock is not done with her. Under new
leadership, their numbers have swollen as they morphed from a single entity
into a network of cultists called Apostles of the Cloven Hand.
Naomi has suppressed her abilities since killing
Vernon, but she cannot ignore the voices of the young people the new flock
tortures and molests. They scream for help in her dreams every night, causing
her to question her own sanity.
When she uses her long-dormant abilities to stop an
attempted gay-bashing, Naomi’s true identity is exposed. The cult sends an
assassin to kill Naomi and her family, forcing them to flee the state while the
Apostles move to take everything the family has built.
Naomi fought the cult before and won. But that was
before she had her chosen family to worry about. Now, she must choose between
hiding on her own to keep her family safe or fighting back to destroy the
Apostles. If she hides, the Apostles will continue to victimize those near
them. If she fights, her family will be at risk of the same fate they plan for
Naomi.
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Excerpt One:
“Even after your enemies’ defeat, they are still with you.”
Those are Nate’s words. I hear them whenever I wake up
screaming and fighting in the middle of the night. Tiffany has similar
episodes.
How do you build an ordinary life when you’re not, well,
ordinary? Terror and fury molded me for eleven years. That abruptly ended with
the death of Vernon Proffit and his acolytes. Sure, there was a period of
celebration following. After vengeance, the anger never completely subsides.
Don’t interpret that as regret; some motherfuckers need killing.
What bothers me is that before I fed Vernon to the Atlantic
Ocean, the screams that woke me were my own as I relived trauma.
The abilities my guide, Mara, gifted me are still intact,
but I choose to shut myself off from them. However, now something new comes
pulsing forth from the ground that I have no control over. I’m stirred from
sleep by the horrors others are experiencing. They cry out for help, but I
don’t know how to save them. Mostly, they’re abused young people. Their voices
drive me mad. If I could only find them, maybe I could stop their suffering.
Last night, it was a young man named Vincent. I couldn’t see where he was. I
could only hear him wail in pain as he experienced abject hopelessness.
But I attempt to tarry forward.
Today, I should be happy. It’s July twentieth,
two-thousand-six; my twenty-seventh birthday as Naomi Pace. Legally, as Hannah Sillman,
I’m thirty-four and will turn thirty-five on Christmas day. That birthday is
celebrated more ominously, as the real Hannah rests with her mother, Milly,
under an old oak tree high up in the hills of Yancey County. Her father, Al,
gifted me with this new life by giving me her identity for my eighteenth
birthday. He was more of a father than my own, Amos, who beat me mercilessly
when he found out that I was in love with Tiffany. I still am. Their hate and
violence couldn’t destroy that.
I won. Why am I still so sad? Why do I disregard my own
life, feeling guilty about those I couldn’t save, like Charles? He died during
our escape. There was nothing I could do. I know that, logically, but I can’t
convince my heart of it. It eats at me with each heartbeat, saying, ‘you could
have done more.’ It does so now, at four-thirty in the morning. I’m sitting up
in bed with no one to speak with. I don’t dare wake my beautiful bride,
Tiffany, as she sleeps soundly next to me.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Robert Creekmore is from a rural farming community in Eastern North Carolina.
He
attended North Carolina State where he studied psychology. While at university,
he was active at the student radio station. There, he fell in love with punk
rock and its ethos.
Robert
acquired several teaching licenses in special education. He was an autism
specialist in Raleigh for eight years. He then taught for four years in a small
mountain community in western North Carolina.
During
his time in the mountains, he lived with his wife Juliana in a remote primitive
cabin built in 1875. While there, he grew most of his own food, raised
chickens, worked on a cattle farm, as well as participated in subsistence
hunting and fishing.
Eventually,
the couple moved back to the small farming community where Robert was raised.
Robert’s
first novel Afiri, is a science fiction love letter to his childhood
hero Carl Sagan. It was nominated for a Manly Wade Wellman award in 2016.
Robert’s
second novel is the first in a trilogy of books. Annoyed with the stereotype of
the southeastern United States as a monolith of ignorance and hatred, he wanted
to bring forth characters from the region who are queer and autistic. They now
hold up a disinfecting light to the hatred of the region’s past and to those
who still yearn for a return to ways and ideas that should have long ago
perished.
Amazon buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-Lamentation-Robert-Creekmore-ebook/dp/B0BZ6MRPVW/
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GIVEAWAY :
Robert Creekmore will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good read.
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