STALKING THE MOON
Wyrdwood Welcome, #1
by Angel Leigh McCoy
April 24th 2020
Publisher: Wily Writers
Cover Artist: DIStudios.pl
Genre: Supernatural Suspense
ISBN: 978-1950427055
ASIN: B0832JJRPG
Number of pages: 290
Word Count: 88,868
Tagline: A New Mythology for the 21st Century
BLURB
Normal life is complicated enough. Add magick to the mix, and suddenly all hell breaks loose!
Viviane doesn't have time for voices in her head or monsters in her bed! Her family relies on her. She's in charge of a mentally ill mother, a sneaky grandfather, and a sexy (but delusional) fiancé. And yet, the whispers in her mind are barging into Reality—with claws and teeth and murderous intent.
When her fiancé goes missing, she'll do anything to find him. If that means magical, mythical creatures hunt her down, then so be it. This could be the end of her life as she's known it, but well… Consequences be damned.
Excerpt
The staff entrance was on the women’s wing, near the employee parking lot. Out of habit, I entered there. Nurses, orderlies, and doctors all greeted me as I made my way to Richard’s office.
Richard was seated at his desk. "Hey, Vivi. Come on in." He rebuttoned the collar of his white, custom-fitted dress shirt.
"Howdy." I shut the door behind me and went to the leather couch. It was overstuffed with a high back and deep seat. I felt small on it, but that was part of Richard’s evil plot. Plus, it would have been impossible to fall off it while under hypnosis. It cradled me.
"What part of my psyche are we going to poke today?"
Richard folded his arms on the desk, a pen flapping in one hand as he looked me over. "I want to revisit your early days," he said. "I’ve been going through the transcripts of our sessions, compiling them, and there are a couple things I’d like to revisit."
"Let’s get to it then."
The first time I met Richard, back in the early days, he was finishing his last year as a graduate student in the Psychology Department at the University of Illinois. He was in Peoria doing an internship at the counseling center, and Abram had dragged me there to get my head fixed—at the junior high principal’s request.
Back then, Richard had a long ponytail and was every teenage girl’s dream of the older college boy. I was only thirteen, and he was taller than me, though that changed when I had my growth spurt a few years later.
Thirteen-year-old Me had gone into his office with a chip on my shoulder, hating Abram, hating my illness, and hating Dr. Richard Reuter before I’d even met him.
He'd appeared in the waiting room and asked, "Viviane? Right? Would you come with me?"
"I don’t got a choice."
Abram hissed, "Hey," at me, and said "Be nice."
"Yeah, sure."
I walked into the office and went straight to a chair, flopped there, and crossed my arms on my chest. The first thing I noticed that interested me was the plate of cookies on the coffee table. They were chocolate chip and appeared homemade. I pretended not to see them. I didn’t want him to think I was going to stay all that long, and besides, my stomach didn’t feel too good.
Richard sat in the chair opposite me and watched me for a full minute. Finally, he asked, "How old are you?"
"Fifteen." It was a bold-faced lie.
"I know you’re lying."
I asked, "How old are you?"
"Twenty-nine."
"Are you gay?" I said with vehemence, calculating his possible reactions.
He didn’t even flinch. "Viviane, do you know why your grandfather brought you here?"
"Because he’s a sociopath afraid of being noticed. I draw attention to him, and he wants me to stop."
He smiled at that, and for the first time, but not the last, I thought how handsome he was.
In that first session, he didn't hypnotize me, though later, it became a regular part of our therapy sessions. Richard felt it was the best way to track down the source of my hallucinations. He would take me back to the time before my first hallucination, and we'd go over the events of a day or two in each session, gradually working forward through my memories. It was my own personal reality-TV show.
One time, I had what can only be described as a past-life memory, or maybe a dream. Both Richard and I waved it off as an aberration, though I never forgot it. The dream had been wonderful, about a place with emerald hills, crystal streams, and a palace that felt like home. Whenever I thought about it, I could still imagine the smell of honeysuckle on the breeze.
Twenty years later, I was thirty-three, and our regressions were catching up to the conscious flow of time. In the hypnosis sessions, he recorded my soul in bits and pieces, saved forever as audio recordings, transcribed to digital documents, and printed out on paper. He kept the files in his cabinets.
I’d often wondered what would happen when we finally caught up to the present moment. Maybe I’d die. Maybe he’d die. Maybe the entire world would end as the Ouroboros swallowed its own tail.
"All right." Richard got up from his desk. "I’m ready, if you are." He sat in the chair opposite me and leaned forward to turn on the metronome.
I said, "Take me to a happy day."
"You know the drill. Close your eyes, relax, and remember."
Not every tick and tock of the metronome sounded the same. The differences were subtle, but they were there if I listened for them. It was a song without rhyme or reason.
It started small and distant: tick.
The cuckoo clock on the wall at Abram’s house had to be wound. I loved pulling the chains that raised the heavy, metal pinecones. Tock. It had been my job, every morning, when I was a kid. My body rocked to the beat: tick tock. Time ebbed, and space flowed. My spine relaxed. Tick. Gravity released me. Tock. The metronome sang its song in my belly. Tick tock. I was energy, and I radiated.
"We’re going to continue our journey back in time," Richard said. The waves of his voice rippled through me, and the present faded into the background.
I followed the metronome down into a trance. We had a signal. I raised a finger to indicate that I was ready to begin.
"Go back," Richard suggested, "to the moment when you first met Simon, when you were thirteen."
The scene formed around me, inside me, throughout me.
"Describe it to me."
I’m home, and I’m taking a shower. There’s blood running down my leg. It’s swirling in the water and spinning down the drain. I know what it is. Lettie’s had hers since last year, and she took me to buy the stuff I’d need. I’m really glad I didn’t have to do that with my grandpa.
Lettie and me, we read the little instruction book that came in the box and made fun of the pictures. She warned me how it would be, the cramps and mess, but it’s worse when it’s actually happening. It’s scary and weird. I keep thinking that my blood is supposed to stay in my body.
So, I’m standing there in the shower, watching my blood drain away, and I’m trying not to cry, wondering if I’m going to die, and that’s when I hear a man. He sounds like James Bond. "You’re probably not going to die."
I scream and cover my private parts with my hands, but no one’s there.
The voice says, "What I mean is, you are going to be just fine." But nobody’s there. I’m freaking out. I jump out of the shower and run through the house. I’m screaming.
The voice is following me. "Oh, lass, it’s okay."
I streak into the kitchen, and my grandpa is there, trying to calm me down.
I’m crying, naked and wet, shaking all over, blood staining my leg, and Grandpa thinks I’m upset because of my period, but that isn’t it. It’s the man talking to me right next to my ear, when there’s nobody there.
He says his name is Simon.
The metronome sang. Tick. Tock.
Author Info
Angel Leigh McCoy wears author, game designer, and audiobook narrator hats—sometimes simultaneously. She is the creative force behind the Wyrdwood series of novels and the Dire Multiverse audio drama. She was a senior writer on the award-winning video games CONTROL and GUILD WARS 2. Her work on the White Wolf World of Darkness series included books for Mage, Vampire, Changeling, and several others. She was also the first female game designer on the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS team at Wizards of the Coast. These days, she works from home and is intent on building her own epic worlds, including Wyrdwood and the Dire Multiverse. Her cats approve.
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview with Angela Leigh McCoy . . .
How would you describe your style of writing to someone that has never read your work?
I write supernatural suspense flavored with a pinch of adventure and romance. My work has both a dark side and a light side. I adore the sweetness of love, friendship, family, and victory; but I also appreciate the spice of conflict, danger, and even loss. All my books have happy endings—relatively speaking—although my characters may go through Hell to get there.
The Wyrdwood series is epic. I’m creating a world in which the stories intertwine and intersect. Each book adds to the world and increases the richness of stories to come and stories already told. Different series will have different characters but they all live in the same world.
I believe in the power of a good story to open minds and heal hearts. My books tackle mental illness, diversity, war, Fate, religion, violence, and other such controversial topics with as much heart and humanity as I can inject into them.
Do you take your character prep to heart?
Very much so. I have a chart I fill out for the main characters before I start writing. I plan everything from eye color to worst fear. This helps me keep consistent with the character across books, but more importantly, it helps me write a deeper, more three-dimensional person.
I take the time to discover their backgrounds, their families, their flaws, their quirks, their needs, and their desires in advance.
Thus, I’m able to be more creative. I’ve discovered that if I write a character on the fly, I tend to resort to stereotypes I overuse. If, however, I brainstorm in advance, I can weave a more complex and interesting character who is both more challenging to write (i.e., more fun for me) and more interesting to read about.
Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character(s)? If so which one(s)?
I have. 😊 Corona Bachmeier reminds me so much of one of my best friends that I just love her. She’s a tiny spitfire who hacks for fun and profit. Most of all, I love that she goes through life full of love, excitement, and courage. Not much can get her down for long. And if she loves you, she loves you with all her heart and soul.
Do you have a character that you have been working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
The Wyrdwood Project is a set of book series all related to a township called Wyrdwood, and I have a population of characters already living in my head. They make me wish I could write faster, to get them all out!
I recently had a moment of inspiration on waking, and I discovered two of the characters I’ll write about in a future murder mystery series. One of these characters is a 49-year-old woman called Scotch, a nickname she was given in the Marines. Her best friend is Violet Blum, also 49, who is a self-made millionaire and a firecracker. I am itching to start writing these two!
What are some of your writing/publishing goals for this year?
For the first time in my life, I’m able to write full-time. This is a gift for which I am hugely grateful. I’ve spent most of my life writing professionally in the games industry, putting other people’s kids through college. I’m now in my 50s, and I’ve shrugged off the monkey of working for someone else. I’m going all-in on living my lifelong dream of being a novelist.
In 2020, I will be releasing the Wyrdwood Welcome series (3 books).
Stalking the Moon (April 2020)
Jumping the Moon (May 2020)
Hexing the Moon (June 2020)
I’ll also be releasing a collection of my short Horror stories, called Dark was the Night (July 2020).
My next Wyrdwood series will be ready for release in August 2020. And I have a series of Wyrdwood romances planned for November launch. Most of these are works already underway. I’ve been preparing for this for a decade, and I am SO thrilled that I can finally bring Wyrdwood into the light of day.
I hope I find my reader-soulmates who will love spending time there as much as I do!
I write supernatural suspense flavored with a pinch of adventure and romance. My work has both a dark side and a light side. I adore the sweetness of love, friendship, family, and victory; but I also appreciate the spice of conflict, danger, and even loss. All my books have happy endings—relatively speaking—although my characters may go through Hell to get there.
The Wyrdwood series is epic. I’m creating a world in which the stories intertwine and intersect. Each book adds to the world and increases the richness of stories to come and stories already told. Different series will have different characters but they all live in the same world.
I believe in the power of a good story to open minds and heal hearts. My books tackle mental illness, diversity, war, Fate, religion, violence, and other such controversial topics with as much heart and humanity as I can inject into them.
Do you take your character prep to heart?
Very much so. I have a chart I fill out for the main characters before I start writing. I plan everything from eye color to worst fear. This helps me keep consistent with the character across books, but more importantly, it helps me write a deeper, more three-dimensional person.
I take the time to discover their backgrounds, their families, their flaws, their quirks, their needs, and their desires in advance.
Thus, I’m able to be more creative. I’ve discovered that if I write a character on the fly, I tend to resort to stereotypes I overuse. If, however, I brainstorm in advance, I can weave a more complex and interesting character who is both more challenging to write (i.e., more fun for me) and more interesting to read about.
Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character(s)? If so which one(s)?
I have. 😊 Corona Bachmeier reminds me so much of one of my best friends that I just love her. She’s a tiny spitfire who hacks for fun and profit. Most of all, I love that she goes through life full of love, excitement, and courage. Not much can get her down for long. And if she loves you, she loves you with all her heart and soul.
Do you have a character that you have been working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
The Wyrdwood Project is a set of book series all related to a township called Wyrdwood, and I have a population of characters already living in my head. They make me wish I could write faster, to get them all out!
I recently had a moment of inspiration on waking, and I discovered two of the characters I’ll write about in a future murder mystery series. One of these characters is a 49-year-old woman called Scotch, a nickname she was given in the Marines. Her best friend is Violet Blum, also 49, who is a self-made millionaire and a firecracker. I am itching to start writing these two!
What are some of your writing/publishing goals for this year?
For the first time in my life, I’m able to write full-time. This is a gift for which I am hugely grateful. I’ve spent most of my life writing professionally in the games industry, putting other people’s kids through college. I’m now in my 50s, and I’ve shrugged off the monkey of working for someone else. I’m going all-in on living my lifelong dream of being a novelist.
In 2020, I will be releasing the Wyrdwood Welcome series (3 books).
Stalking the Moon (April 2020)
Jumping the Moon (May 2020)
Hexing the Moon (June 2020)
I’ll also be releasing a collection of my short Horror stories, called Dark was the Night (July 2020).
My next Wyrdwood series will be ready for release in August 2020. And I have a series of Wyrdwood romances planned for November launch. Most of these are works already underway. I’ve been preparing for this for a decade, and I am SO thrilled that I can finally bring Wyrdwood into the light of day.
I hope I find my reader-soulmates who will love spending time there as much as I do!
Prizes:
1
Audible.com 3-month membership (or 3 credits if you’re already a
member). Entitles you to partake of the Audible Originals titles offered free
each month to members. (all-told, a $45 value) If you’ve ever wanted to try
audiobooks, this is the time.
5
- Wyrdwood Welcome Swag Bags
Each swag bag includes:
-Free ebook copy of JUMPING THE
MOON, Wyrdwood Welcome Book #2, due for release on May 15, 2020.
-A “Proud to be Wyrd” pin
-A Wyrdwood magnet
-Invitation to the private and
exclusive Wyrdwood Facebook group
-Treats from the “Wyrdwood
Candiporium”
-A surprise toy!
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So honored to be hanging out here. Thanks so much! <3
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