by Andy Gavin
1913, Salem, Massachusetts – Sarah Engelmann’s life is full of friends, books, and avoiding the pressure to choose a husband, until an ominous vision and the haunting call of an otherworldly trumpet shake her. When she stumbles across a gruesome corpse, she fears that her vision was more of a premonition. And when she sees the murdered boy moving through the crowd at an amusement park, Sarah is thrust into a dark battle she does not understand.
With the help of Alex, a Greek immigrant who knows a startling amount about the undead, Sarah sets out to uncover the truth. Their quest takes them to Salem’s brutal factory workrooms, on a clandestine maritime mission, and down into their foe’s nightmarish crypt. But they aren’t prepared for the terrifying backlash that brings the fight back to their own homes and families. Can Alex’s elderly, vampire-hunting grandfather and Sarah’s own rabbi father help protect them? And what do Sarah’s darkening visions reveal?
No less than the Archangel Gabriel’s Horn, destined to announce the End of Days, is at stake, and the forces banded to recover it include a 900 year-old vampire, a trio of disgruntled Egyptian gods, and a demon-loving Puritan minister. At the center of this swirling conflict is Sarah, who must fight a millennia-old battle against unspeakable forces, knowing the ultimate prize might be herself.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I’d like to thank my wife Sharon, my mother, and my “story consultant” Bryan Visintin for reading each chapter hot off the presses as I finished it. Then reading again. And again. Then discussing each and every possible alteration. Big thanks to my agent, Eddie Schneider at JABberwocky Literary, and my publicist, Kimberly Kinrade.
I owe a great debt to the thousands of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Paranormal, and Horror novels, movies, games, and television shows I’ve consumed over the years. The details in this book wouldn’t have been possible without several hundred writers of histories and whatnot that I gobbled up over the course of my writing. Not to mention the ever handy Google and Wikipedia.
I’d like to thank my professional editors: the incomparable Renni Browne, Shannon Roberts, and R.J. Cavender. 12,855 “changes” in line editing alone!
Proof reading was by Dave Lane, typesetting and book design by Chris Fisher, e-book layout by myself, and jacket copy editing by Beth Jusino. Thanks also to The Editorial Department champs Karinya Funsett-Topping, Ross Browne, and last but not least, Jane Ryder.
The awesome cover illustration is by Cliff Nielsen. The cover and logo design are by me (who says programmers can’t Photoshop). The amazing interior illustrations are by Dave Phillips. The print edition is formatted in Book Antiqua, a font designed by Monotype. Thanks also to my long time business partner Jason Rubin for help with my working cover, logo, and for many lessons in Photoshop blending layers. I used CreateSpace.com to print private draft editions, Advance Review Copies, and the final trade paperback. LightningSource.com printed the hardcover edition. Further thanks to Stephen Rubin for pro bono intellectual property advice.
This novel was written entirely on Apple products (thanks Steve!) and in Scrivener, a specialized word processor for writers. If you write long form prose and are still using a dinosaur like Word, read this. The paper version was typeset in Adobe InDesign and the e-book converted with Scrivener and Calibre. I did the conversion myself in a fairly automated fashion using some scripts I hacked up.
I also very much appreciate my loyal beta readers, especially those who read many drafts or offered up comments: Scott Shumaker, Jane Mullaney, Keren Perlmutter, Ben Stragnell, Lara Shanis (my third grade teacher!), Owen Rescher, Brent Askari, Andrew Reiner, Abbe Flitter, Brian Roe, Danny Pickford, Kimberly Kinrade, Catherine Young, Don Gavin, Zachary Perlmutter, Andrew Notaras, Eric Wunderlich, Bill Guschwan, Emily Perlmutter, Lauren Lewis, David Cotrell, Jason Kay, Mirella Abounayan, Greg Cooper, Valerie Flitter, Mike Gollum, Barbara Feldman, Gilles Wheeler, and Mitch Gavin. If I missed any of you who finished the book, I apologize, or you forgot to tell me!
Lastly, I’d like to thank you, the reader, whose eyes on this page hopefully mean you made it to the end.
All sorts of additional info can be found at my website: http://andy-gavin-author.com
Andy Gavin,
California, November 2012
Andy Gavin is an unstoppable storyteller who studied for his Ph.D. at M.I.T. and founded video game developer Naughty Dog, Inc. at the age of fifteen, serving as co-president for two decades. There he created, produced, and directed over a dozen video games, including the award winning and best selling Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter franchises, selling over 40 million units worldwide. He sleeps little, reads novels and histories, watches media obsessively, travels, and of course, writes.
For more information, check him out at:
http://all-things-andy-gavin/bio.