Robert Creekmore
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GENRE: Southern Noir
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BLURB:
To the dismay of Naomi’s family, she succumbed to the injuries Joseph dealt her during their final battle atop the abandoned Coast Guard station, Frying Pan Tower, thirty miles off the North Carolina coast.
Both of their bodies were lost at sea when the one-hundred-foot-tall structure crumbled during Tropical Storm Gabriel.
Naomi’s beloved companions escaped aboard her dive boat, along with Joseph’s final victim, who is on the verge of death.
In the aftermath, Naomi’s family has no choice but to rebuild their lives in hiding, fearing reprisal from the handful of remaining Apostle loyalists.
Soon, their secret, dormant conflict will be thrust onto the world stage by a wealthy benefactor who funnels his personal hatred and unfounded grievances into throngs of ignorant followers.
Is this the end of Naomi’s family? Without her, how will they survive?
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EXCERPT
The winds of Tropical Storm Gabrielle punish the small dive boat. Its howling feels like the voice of nature herself crying out in lamentation at the death of Naomi Pace.
As Nate pilots the craft over each wave, there’s a moment when he can hear the engines rev hard as the props come out of the water momentarily just before crashing down again. This cycle repeats every few seconds, seemingly without end.
Below deck, Rebecca and Herschel steady an unconscious Malcolm by keeping him squeezed between their bodies. It’s difficult. There’s nothing to hold onto since the Apostles stripped the cabin bare. The two hours it takes to get back to their dock are hell, both physically and introspectively.
Naomi was Nate’s best friend. To him, she was invincible.
How could she be dead? Nate thinks to himself as he involuntarily projects images of their time together across the water.
He has successfully outrun the incoming storm wall, but a new one awaits his fractured mind when all of the chaos subsides.
Neither Herschel nor Rebecca has the same composure. They wail with grief. Reaching across Malcolm’s limp body, they hold one another’s hands for comfort as much as they do to keep their injured companion safe from the onslaught of the turbulent water.
Nate threads the needle at the Masonboro Inlet like Naomi taught him. The waves rocking the swollen bay attempt to push them easterly into the mainland. Even though it means safety, the sight of the dock fills Nate with dread. Its arrival in the foreground always meant the end of a day fishing with Naomi, until now.
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Why do my novels have such
high body counts?
The
phrase that got my first novel, Prophet’s
Debt, published was my describing the moral of the story as “Some
motherfuckers need killing.”
I stand by that. There is far too much evil
in this world. My news feed is festooned with articles about religious leaders
and police officers who are being charged with sexual abuse crimes against
children. Of course, those are the ones who get caught. Others, especially in
the rural south and midwest, are often allowed to marry their victims as a way
to legitimize the relationship.
The progenitor of childhood marriage laws in these rural states
revolves around the idea that allowing it will reduce the number of abortions.
So, instead of protecting the rights of, mostly young girls, they are instead
treated as vessels and denied both agency and the freedom to advance
themselves. They thus become the dedicated wombs of powerful, religious
figures.
Seeing other humans treated this way pisses
me off, and makes me want to murder men like that. Yes, in real life.
Unfortunately,
there is a prohibition against doing so, even against such monsters. Sadly, my
country often allows men of this poor calibre a pass, while punishing the
children they rape.
I satiate my want of murdering them with
fictional accounts of vengeance.
This want stems from my trauma at the hands
of the American Evangelical Church. No amount of medication or therapy has
soothed that pain, and likely never will. Only my fiction provides me respite.
However, I have fans who have contacted me
to let me know that my trilogy has helped them process their trauma. For that,
I will be forever grateful. That was one of the reasons I wrote it.
Hopefully, for now, writing will keep me out of Central Prison in Raleigh, or worse, from death row.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
.jpg "PROPHET'S DEATH by Robert Creekmore")
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.
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.
Robert’s first traditionally published novel, Prophet’s Debt, was a Manly Wade Wellman Literary Award Finalist.
His
second, Prophet’s Lamentation, was a Lambda Literary recommendation for July
2023.
Website: https://www.robertcreekmore.com/
Twitter: twitter.com/AuthorCreekmore
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Prophets-Death-Robert-Creekmore/dp/1962308162/ref=sr_1_1
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER
CODE
Robert Creekmore will award a randomly drawn winner a $10 Amazon/BN gift card.
2 Comments
Thank you so much for hosting today.
ReplyDeleteThis should be a fascinating read. Thanks for sharing and hosting this tour.
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