http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
Today we are having a "book bomb" for my new ebook, El Vengador! A book bomb is when all of the fans and readers of an author get together and purchase their copies all on the same day! This can get the ball rolling on sales, because it results in a significant bump in the sales rankings, that in turn pulls in people who are browsing but unfamiliar with the author. But first, a little bit about El Vengador, just to...you know...whet your appetite.
Deputy Sheriff Michael
Kirtchner gets an "unknown disturbance" dispatch call to a remote
house trailer in the swamp. There, he discovers an old woman and a dog,
terrorized by a mysterious beast, which he takes to be a bear. But when he
contacts Game Warden Jeff Stuart to come trap the animal, Stuart tells him to
get out if he values his life - this is no ordinary animal. Is Kirtchner up
against a Swamp Ape - a Florida version of Bigfoot - or something
more...sinister?
El Vengador
is my first deliberate foray into the paranormal and horror genres. I’ve had
numerous friends try to convince me to do so in the last few years, but never
was able to get hold of the right story idea. So I waited and let it
“percolate” in the back of my mind.
But when a Facebook friend (who wants to remain anonymous - for obvious reasons!)
told me the story of his encounter of a mysterious “Florida Swamp Ape” during
his tenure as a deputy sheriff, I was fascinated. And when he gave his
permission for me to fictionalize the story, I knew I had found my paranormal
horror story.
So I took his basic story from his own words and I
transformed it. I cleaned it up, couched it in proper writer’s grammar, changed
the point of view. I changed the deputy’s name, added the perspective of other
civilians who encountered the creature…and then I twisted the knife.
Because, you see, I have some Cherokee in me. Oh, the family
can’t prove it, not after the way the Cherokee were ejected from their
properties during the Trail of Tears; any Native American who could pass as
white in those days, did, and all records of their heritage were lost. But
because I have several distinctive genetic expressions of that heritage, I am
accepted by most elders I know as Cherokee. And my curiosity being what it is,
along with my sincerity in wanting to know, I’ve been taught numerous things
that most people don’t generally
know.
Like the fact that the Cherokee (along with the Seminole and
the Iroquois Confederacy, among others) are purported to have been offshoots –
colonies, if you will – of the Maya peoples. It’s interesting to note that,
just as the “Cherokee” are a group of tribes [Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw,
etc.], the Seminole are a group of tribes [Seminole, Creek, Miccosukee, etc.],
the Iroquois Confederacy are a group of tribes [Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida,
Seneca, Cayuga, and later Tuscarora] ― so too are the Maya really a collection
of tribes [Yucatec, Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch’ol, Kekchi, Mopan, and more]! The Maya
comprised, and still comprise (oh yes, they’re still around ― they were
laughing their butts off at the white fear of the “end” of their repeating
calendar), more than 25 different peoples. The notion of splinter groups of
this huge nation (it covered a substantial portion of Central America, butted
up against the Aztec/Olmec empire, and expanded out into the Caribbean) moving
up into Florida, then up the East Coast of North America, isn’t hard to believe
at all.
It’s also true ― as I mentioned in the story ― that the
medicine people and elders hold that the Maya, in turn, came from some place
across the Great Sea to the East. Depending on who you talk to, this means we/they
originated in Ancient Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, the Biblical traders of
Tarshish, or even Atlantis!
So it seemed to me that it would put a fun spin on things if
I had this swamp ape, this mysterious unknown creature, be something other than
pure animal. As it turned out, my research into the Maya turned up a mysterious
“Howler Monkey God,” one Hun-Batz by name, and an entire mythology in which this god was
set. Monkey = simian, and ape = simian,
so it wasn’t a huge jump for me, to proposing a curse invoking the Son of
Hun-Batz. And suddenly the whole thing congealed into this amazing,
suspenseful, paranormal horror story.
How amazing and suspenseful? Well, let’s just say I
literally creeped myself out. I’m a night owl, prone to insomnia and getting up
in the night to putter around until I can fall back asleep. And I immediately discovered
that I didn’t enjoy that anymore; I had a constant feeling that there might be...something...outside, in the yard, in the dark, watching through the windows and
doors. When I did go back to bed, it was only to have lucid nightmares about
the creature and the events in the book! I took to closing the curtains and
blinds, avoiding the windows at night. Finally I gave up writing on the story
after sundown, choosing to write only in the light, and hoping to get the
imagery out of my head by bedtime.
I was more or less successful in that. I find that I still
do better not to think about the book at night, and I still have the blinds and
curtains closed at night. But our neighborhood is well lit with street lights,
and the birds cluster in the trees around the house and sing cheerfully. So I
know there’s nothing out there that they think is unusual. And that is
comforting.
I don’t know that I’ll regularly write horror. I’m inclined
to think, from my experiences with El Vengador, that I might not be cut out for that! Still and all, much of the
science fiction mystery I do write
tends to have strong elements of both paranormal and thriller, with the
occasional seasoning of horror concepts thrown in for good measure. So I think
I can take what I have learned from the experience and fold it back into my
other works. And I think they’ll be the better for it.
And you never know. After all, my friend really did
encounter…something…in the swamps of
Florida…
~~~
El Vengador is an ebook available through Amazon. If you're interested, please seriously consider purchasing it today, and let's see how high we can drive the sales ranking! Best-seller? Through the roof!
-Stephanie Osborn
