Author Genre: Mystery, Dark Fantasy
Website: Rob Cornell
Author's Blog: Rob Cornell - "News" page
Twitter: @RobCornellBooks
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Pinterest: Check Out Pinterest
Post with Profile + Q/A: HBS Author's Spotlight
Author Description:
An accidental nomad, Rob Cornell grew up in suburban Detroit, then spent five years living in Los Angeles before moving to Chicago to receive a BA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College. He has traveled full circle, now living in rural southeast Michigan with his wife, two kids, and dog, Kinsey--named after Sue Grafton's famous detective. In between moving and writing, he's worked all manner of odd jobs, including lead singer for an acoustic cover band and a three-day stint as assistant to a movie producer after which he quit because the producer was a nut job.
Darker Things
The Lockman Chronicles #1
Author: Rob Cornell
Book Trailer: Darker Things
Amazon
Smashwords
Craig Lockman...
No one had called him that in fifteen years.
Not since his days at the Agency. Not since he was trained to kill creatures that were supposed to exist only in nightmares.
Yet the teenage girl on his doorstep not only knows his real name, she claims she's his daughter.
Before Lockman can learn how the girl found him, he's attacked by a black-ops team of assassins. But these aren't ordinary killers—they're heavily armed vampires sent by his most hated enemy.
Forced on the run, Lockman protects his daughter from an onslaught of horrors while searching for who betrayed him and why. The investigation leads him to Detroit, where he unwittingly sets a plan into motion that could trigger a paranormal apocalypse and cost him his soul.
“Imagine if James Patterson wrote about vampires...Dark and thrilling, brisk and brutal.”—Will Entrekin, author of The Prodigal Hour
“Great read for fans of dark fiction. Plenty of action, intrigue, and supernatural beasties to suit every taste.”—Marc Paoletti, author of Scorch
“…an adrenaline rush from start to finish. I didn't want to put it down. Craig Lockman is the vampire slayer version of Jack Reacher…”—J. Sims
“Wonderful realistic relationships between the characters. Darker Things puts real people in impossible situations, and step-by-step pushes them beyond the breaking point.”—Michael W. Lucas
Excerpt:
“I’m going to ask you this one more time. Who sent you?”
She scrunched up her face. “Sent me? No one. I came here on my own.”
Did she really expect him to believe a teenage girl had compromised him all on her own?
She threw up a hand, dismissive. “Forget it. Obviously the guy was wrong.” She started to turn, her hand coming down from her wave.
Lockman grabbed that hand by the wrist and yanked. The next was easy, and her age had nothing to do with it. She'd let her guard down the second she had dismissed him. Meant her center of gravity was his to manipulate. He twisted her hand with an improvised bit of Aikido. He had her inside and the door closed in less than two seconds.
When he released her wrist she backed away, shaking off the pain in her hand even though he had barely used any force. Hadn't needed to. The sudden move had thrown her equilibrium off, both literally and mentally. Her next move should have been a sprint for the back, get out through the sliding glass door. Instead, she hesitated, more concerned with her hand and what the hell was going on than any kind of survival.
“You're lucky I'm not a pervert,” he said.
“That remains to be seen.”
“I could have you unconscious and under total control within seconds. You aren't even smart enough to run for the back door.”
She glanced over her shoulder as if she was considering it.
“It's too late to get away, so you might as well cooperate.”
She gave him a practiced teenage look, as if she had lived through most her teen years already and had the routine down pat. “I could run. I'm fast.”
“You don't know anything about me, do you?”
Her brow creased. For a second she dropped all the affectations of a teenager. “Are you Craig Lockman or not?”
“Who gave you that name?”
“No one gave it to me. I've known it most my life.”
Lockman's chest tightened. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. “Did Dolan send you? Is he here right now?”
“Look, I'm sorry if I got the wrong house. I'm just looking for Craig Lockman. I don't want any trouble.”
“That's better.”
“What's better?”
“You're scared now.”
She covered her face with her hands and sighed against her palms, making almost a whistling sound. “This isn't going anything like I expected.”
“You should not know that name.”
“So you are him.”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to. It's weird. It's like I somehow learned to read your face by watching my own.”
That was it. That strange recognition he'd had earlier. She had described the feeling perfectly. He'd learned to read her face by studying his own. Then a possibility started to piece together and the screws tightened. Every part of him simultaneously wanted to deny and celebrate the idea. Whatever the truth, this girl's presence meant nothing good. And just as he realized this, the automatic gunfire chopped a line across the front of his house.
Darkness Returns
The Lockman Chronicles #4
Author: Rob Cornell
Amazon
One objective has driven Craig Lockman since the day his daughter arrived on his doorstep--protect her at all costs. But now he works for a new Agency with a leader who insists Jessie is the Chosen One, prophesized to bring about The Return and send all supernaturals back to wherever they came from. He will stop at nothing to see it realized. Meanwhile, still enraged over the loss of her sister, Teresa Stevenson sees Jessie as a dangerous monster who must die, and Teresa will suffer a frightening sacrifice to make it happen. But everyone has forgotten one small detail--if anyone wants to get to Jessie, they'll have to get through Lockman first, and he won't make it easy.
Excerpt
The boy began to tremble like an old car with a bad engine. The pupils in his eyes dilated so wide it made his irises look pure black. Hoyt wouldn’t swear to it, but he thought he saw a greenish glow in that blackness. Just a reflection from the fluorescent bars on the ceiling. Light playing tricks. Had to be.
“You have to stop her,” he said, voice as thin as the last string on an old violin.
“Stop who?” Hoyt asked, knowing that participating in a patent’s hallucinations did nobody any good. But he had felt the darkness the boy mentioned, had experienced it change him somehow. Now that Burlowski had dragged him out of its sphere, Hoyt felt like himself again. If he wanted, he could pretend he’d never touched the darkness. But denying it seemed wrong. Not just dishonest, but dangerous, like some folks who kept tigers as pets ignored the threat coiled in the beast’s very nature. Hoyt believed if he turned his back on this particular cat, he would definitely get eaten. “Stop who?” he repeated.
“The beast woman. The one who’s going to ruin everything.”
“All right,” Shanna snapped. “Enough. Bill, get Hoyt out of here. Get the ever-loving doctor for God’s sake.”
Burlowski tried to tug Hoyt along with him, but Hoyt planted his feet and stiffened the arm the security man held.
“I don’t understand,” Hoyt said. “What does it mean?”
The flat stare Ryan gave turned Hoyt’s gut into a cold sandbag. “It means you really should give Shanna that Valentine and tell her how you feel, ‘cause the world’s gonna end soon.”
How the hell did you know about—
Burlowski yanked hard, throwing his three hundred pounds out in the hall, his body the ball, his arm the chain clamped to Hoyt’s bicep. Gravity did the rest, pulling Hoyt off balance so that he had to scramble backward through the door in order to keep from falling over.
He thought about struggling to pull free and get back in there, ask the kid how in the world he knew about the Valentine, let alone his feelings for Shanna. Going back in the room also meant facing Shanna with his secret exposed by a crazy-talking kid diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia even though Hoyt had overheard one doc admit he didn’t really know what was wrong, as his symptoms were so erratic and standard treatments didn’t work.
Hoyt let Burlowski drag him down the hall a little further before he finally wrenched himself free. “I got it, Bill.”
“Then quit acting like one of the patients and call the damn doc.”
He did as he was told, then stayed planted in his seat in the Glass Box, thinking about putting in that transfer request after all. And if that didn’t work, maybe quitting altogether, though that would put a strain on Shanna what with them as understaffed as they already were.
Ryan went back to screaming. He kept saying, “We have to stop her. We have to stop her.”
Fucking nonsense, Hoyt thought while he stared at Shanna’s purse. Then he pulled the Valentine out of his back pocket and jammed it into her bag. What did he have to lose? According to Ryan, the world was about to end. Damn if it didn’t feel true.
To view this author's complete Profile (HBS Author's Spotlight), CLICK HERE.
Rob Cornell is in the HBS Mystery Book Reader's Circle.
FREE PROMOTION of the first book in The Lockman Chronicles, DARKER THINGS. The sale starts on August 5th and runs through the 9th.
Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
Publisher of ebooks, writing industry blogger and the sponsor of the HBS Author's Spotlight
plus the industry blog: eBook Author's Corner.
Check out the index of other Spotlight authors. Spotlight Index.
No comments:
Post a Comment