Blog Archives
Pre-order the Cross books and get 25% off
I can’t believe the summer is halfway over already — or that my first three Cross books are only a few months away from republication! I’m excited as hell to see these books — The Mona Lisa Sacrifice, The Dead Hamlets and The Apocalypse Ark — out in updated versions by Wolsak and Wynn in October, with brand new covers by Michel Vrana (who also designed Has the World Ended Yet?, my collection of short stories). The new editions have been revised and feature afterwords by me as well — it’s almost like getting brand-new books!
If you pre-order all three novels in August directly from Wolsak and Wynn, you’ll get 25% off. Plus, if you order from Wolsak and Wynn or your favourite bookstore, you’ll get bonus benefits such as stickers and bookmarks. All the details are here.
It would genuinely mean a lot to me if you are able to pre-order the books. This sort of thing increasingly matters in today’s difficult publishing environment, where initial sales of a book can mean the difference between it reaching a wide range of readers or quickly disappearing without a trace. The more pre-orders a book gets, the more likely it is to get better bigger orders from bookstores and better placement, as well as higher rankings online. All of this ultimately translates into more readers — and more readers in turn mean more books by me or your other favourite authors. Yay readers!
If you can’t manage a pre-order, please consider a positive review on your site of choice or a shoutout on social media. Every signal boost helps a writer get a few more words out into the world.
As always, thanks for reading. I hope you like the Cross books as much as I enjoy writing them.
If you’re not familiar with the Cross series, here’s a little teaser:
The Mona Lisa Sacrifice
The immortal angel hunter Cross is a drunk, a thief, and a killer who scours the world for his ancient and equally undying enemy, Judas. Yes, that Judas. When one of the angels he hunts promises to deliver him Judas if he can find the real Mona Lisa, Cross charges headlong into a mystery involving a sisterhood of gorgons, Alice from the Wonderland tales, the faerie queen and her court, and a war between the angels that could very well end the world.
Praise for The Mona Lisa Sacrifice
- “A deliriously unhinged roller coaster of a novel, blending fantasy, history, horror and humour with the aplomb of an overfull blender, but all of it smarter than it, truly, has any right – or need – to be.” – National Post
- “Sweeps you up with its gallows humour, whether you’re revelling in the pleasures of two-fisted, angel-punching action or the cleverly rendered language.” – Quill & Quire
Pre-order The Mona Lisa Sacrifice now!
The Dead Hamlets
Something is rotten in the court of the faerie queen. A deadly spirit is killing off the faerie, and it has mysterious ties to Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. The only one who can stop it is the immortal Cross. He is no friend of the faerie since they stole his daughter and made her one of their own, but when it appears she will be the next victim he has no choice but to solve the ghostly mystery. He encounters an eccentric and deadly cast of characters along the way: the real Witches of Macbeth, the undead playwright/demon hunter Christopher Marlowe, a deranged and magical scholar – and a very supernatural William Shakespeare. When Cross discovers a startling secret about the origins of Hamlet itself, he finds himself trapped in a ghost story even he may not be able to escape alive!
Praise for The Dead Hamlets
- “The Dead Hamlets is a fun, and whip-smart, read.” – Vancouver Sun
Pre-order The Dead Hamlets now!
The Apocalypse Ark
The immortal Cross faces his most dangerous enemy yet: Noah. For ages Noah has sailed the seas, seeking out all of God’s mistakes and imprisoning them on his ark. Noah is not humanity’s saviour but is instead God’s jailer. But he has grown increasingly mad over the centuries, and now he is determined to end the world by raising the mysterious Sunken City. Only one person can stop him: Cross.
The Apocalypse Ark is an epic chase around the world and through history and myth as Cross races to stop Noah from finding the Sunken City. He’s joined by a few old friends, such as Alice from the Wonderland tales, and several new characters make memorable appearances as well: Captain Nemo and his crew of Atlanteans aboard the submarine the Nautilus; the sorcerous pirate Blackbeard, who has sworn revenge upon Cross; the devilish angel Sariel, whose sacred duty it is to protect God’s Bible; and the eerie and mysterious Ishmael, who may be the key to the world’s salvation – or its damnation. Cross must find a way to bring them all together to stop Noah or the world will drown in madness.
Praise for The Apocalypse Ark
- “Mythological beasts, Lovecraftian allusions, pirates, and characters from Moby Dick and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea all fuse together to form a vastly entertaining, fantastical, breakneck hodgepodge quest novel that has the good sense never to take itself too seriously.” – Publishers Weekly
- “[Darbyshire] writes with the unfettered delight of a gluttonous reader trapped in a library in his own mind, drawing promiscuously from myth, folk tale, religious texts and apocrypha, literature, music and philosophy — seemingly anything that catches his attention” – Vancouver Sun
Cross reprints now available for pre-order!
I’m more than a bit excited to announce that the reprints of my first three Cross books are now available for pre-order with Wolsak and Wynn! Check out the amazing new covers designed by Michel Vrana, who also designed Has the World Ended Yet?, my last story collection. The books also include new bonus material that I’ll reveal later.
And yes, there is a new book in the Cross series coming soon. More on that to come.
Link for pre-orders: https://www.wolsakandwynn.ca/authors-all/peter-darbyshire
If you’re not familiar with the Cross series of supernatural thrillers, here’s a little bit about each:
The Mona Lisa Sacrifice
The immortal angel hunter Cross is a drunk, a thief, and a killer who scours the world for his ancient and equally undying enemy, Judas. Yes, that Judas. When one of the angels he hunts promises to deliver him Judas if he can find the real Mona Lisa, Cross charges headlong into a mystery involving a sisterhood of gorgons, Alice from the Wonderland tales, the faerie queen and her court, and a war between the angels that could very well end the world.
Praise for The Mona Lisa Sacrifice
- “A deliriously unhinged roller coaster of a novel, blending fantasy, history, horror and humour with the aplomb of an overfull blender, but all of it smarter than it, truly, has any right – or need – to be.” – National Post
- “Sweeps you up with its gallows humour, whether you’re revelling in the pleasures of two-fisted, angel-punching action or the cleverly rendered language.” – Quill & Quire
Pre-order The Mona Lisa Sacrifice now!
The Dead Hamlets
Something is rotten in the court of the faerie queen. A deadly spirit is killing off the faerie, and it has mysterious ties to Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. The only one who can stop it is the immortal Cross. He is no friend of the faerie since they stole his daughter and made her one of their own, but when it appears she will be the next victim he has no choice but to solve the ghostly mystery. He encounters an eccentric and deadly cast of characters along the way: the real Witches of Macbeth, the undead playwright/demon hunter Christopher Marlowe, a deranged and magical scholar – and a very supernatural William Shakespeare. When Cross discovers a startling secret about the origins of Hamlet itself, he finds himself trapped in a ghost story even he may not be able to escape alive!
Praise for The Dead Hamlets
- “The Dead Hamlets is a fun, and whip-smart, read.” – Vancouver Sun
Pre-order The Dead Hamlets now!
The Apocalypse Ark
The immortal Cross faces his most dangerous enemy yet: Noah. For ages Noah has sailed the seas, seeking out all of God’s mistakes and imprisoning them on his ark. Noah is not humanity’s saviour but is instead God’s jailer. But he has grown increasingly mad over the centuries, and now he is determined to end the world by raising the mysterious Sunken City. Only one person can stop him: Cross.
The Apocalypse Ark is an epic chase around the world and through history and myth as Cross races to stop Noah from finding the Sunken City. He’s joined by a few old friends, such as Alice from the Wonderland tales, and several new characters make memorable appearances as well: Captain Nemo and his crew of Atlanteans aboard the submarine the Nautilus; the sorcerous pirate Blackbeard, who has sworn revenge upon Cross; the devilish angel Sariel, whose sacred duty it is to protect God’s Bible; and the eerie and mysterious Ishmael, who may be the key to the world’s salvation – or its damnation. Cross must find a way to bring them all together to stop Noah or the world will drown in madness.
Praise for The Apocalypse Ark
- “Mythological beasts, Lovecraftian allusions, pirates, and characters from Moby Dick and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea all fuse together to form a vastly entertaining, fantastical, breakneck hodgepodge quest novel that has the good sense never to take itself too seriously.” – Publishers Weekly
- “[Darbyshire] writes with the unfettered delight of a gluttonous reader trapped in a library in his own mind, drawing promiscuously from myth, folk tale, religious texts and apocrypha, literature, music and philosophy — seemingly anything that catches his attention” – Vancouver Sun
The second coming of Cross
I’m beyond excited to announce that my Cross series of supernatural thrillers will be continuing, with a new novel scheduled for 2025. The novel will be published by Poplar Press, an imprint of Wolsak & Wynn. I’m particularly happy about this because Wolsak & Wynn published my last book, Has the World Ended Yet?, and did a fantastic job. They will also be reissuing the first three books of the series in 2024. (The books were originally published under the pen name Peter Roman.)
If you’re not familiar with the Cross books, here’s the description of the first novel, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice:
For thousands of years, Cross has wandered the earth, a mortal soul trapped in the undying body left behind by Christ. He’s been a thief, a con man, a soldier and a drunkard. He’s fought as a slave in the Colosseum and as a knight at King Arthur’s side. But now he must play the part of reluctant hero, as an angel comes to him for help finding the Mona Lisa—the real Mona Lisa that inspired the painting. Cross’s quest takes him into a secret world within our own, populated by characters just as strange and wondrous as he is: gorgons and dead gods hidden away in museums; faeries that live in countryside pubs, trapping and enslaving unwary travellers; and super-rich collectors who trade magical artifacts among themselves. He’s haunted by memories of Penelope, the only woman he truly loved, and he wants to avenge her death at the hands of his ancient enemy, Judas, a forgotten god from an ancient time. The angel promises to deliver Judas to Cross, but nothing is ever what it seems when Judas is involved, and when a group of renegade angels looking for a new holy war show up, things truly go to hell.
The CBC compared The Mona Lisa Sacrifice to the work of Neil Gaiman, while the National Post called it “a deliriously unhinged roller coaster of a novel, blending fantasy, history, horror and humour with the aplomb of an overfull blender,” so that should give you some sense of the book.
For more info on the rest of the series, check out the second book, The Dead Hamlets, and the third book, The Apocalypse Ark.
This news brings two of my favourite things together. Cross has long been the character that most intrigues me as a writer, and his tales are my love letter to literature and myth. And Wolsak & Wynn has been my best publishing experience yet — they’re a great team that really care about publishing quality books. I’m still enamoured with the design of Has the World Ended Yet? years after it was first published! (Check out this backstory about the design process.) I’m really looking forward to continuing the Cross saga with them.
While you’re waiting for the new books to come out, please give Has the World Ended Yet? a read and support Wolsak & Wynn (and me). And if you’ve already read it, please consider giving it a review to let other people know about it. The best publicity for a book is another reader recommending it. And in these challenging times, books need all the publicity they can get. If you’ve already reviewed the book, then you have my deepest gratitude.
As always, thank you for reading.
An update on my Cross series of books
By now some of you will be aware of the controversy surrounding ChiZine Publications, the publishers of my Cross series of supernatural thrillers under the pen name Peter Roman. In light of all the information that has come out, I requested the rights back to my Cross series through Cooke McDermid and CZP agreed, so the rights have now reverted back to me. It’s a difficult situation for many reasons, not the least of which is I had a new Cross book ready to go in the series. I love Cross’s world and I do want to keep writing those stories, but I’ll have to figure out a new way to do that now.
My heart goes out to all the other writers and the readers affected by this situation. CZP published and employed many amazing, incredibly talented creators, so it’s a really heartbreaking time. I sincerely hope everyone lands in a good place for them and are able to keep following their passions. I urge you all to check out their works now if you haven’t already done so. (You should be able to do so by searching ChiZine on Google or your relevant social media networks.
Thanks to everyone who has supported me and read the Cross books to date. At the end of the day, you are why I write and will continue to do so.
Much love.
Peter
We all want to visit impossible cities
“Give me the impossible city, the perfect Paris,
its people wearing shoes made of saltwater,
its streets full of whipped cream and opera,
its fire-breathing street vendors selling
both balloons and bourbon bottles.
Give me books written on illuminated
garlic skin by domesticated foxes;
the cloud-breaking Eiffel Tower
afloat on the buttery backs of croissants.”
I love the poem “Trips to Impossible Cities” by @Sandra_Kasturi, and not just because of the nod to The Mona Lisa Sacrifice!
(Photo is of me in a gallery in Paris, many ages ago. Long before I’d dreamed up Cross and The Mona Lisa Sacrifice!)
Three years of angel-punching action!
My calendar reminds me it’s been three years since the publication of The Mona Lisa Sacrifice, the first in my Cross series of supernatural thrillers. I wasn’t sure where the tale of Cross and his angel enemies and mythical friends would lead me, but it turned into a wild and unpredictable journey. Shakespearean spirits and faerie intrigue! Strange, magical libraries! Undead Atlanteans, literary vampires and crazed angels! The difficulties of being a single parent to a ghost child! The horrors of monstrous royal families! The complications of love among immortal beings! And a host of characters that seem to have been born more from their own imaginations than mine – including, of course, Alice.
I think as a writer the thing you hope for most is to create a world that hasn’t been done before – and that wouldn’t have been made up by anyone else. Something that is a unique creation, a world that other people want to visit for a time and return to at different points in their lives, be it for discovery, nostalgia, comfort or joy. Those are the books that live on in my imagination. Hopefully Cross and his friends are creating such a world for some of you.
Also, I have recently finished the first draft of the fourth book in the Cross series. With any luck, you’ll have a chance to spend more time with Cross and his friends – and enemies – in the near future. Which, with Cross, always means a trip into our secret pasts….
Happy Sacrifice, er, Canada Day!
Happy Canada Day! It’s been 150 years since our ancestors were banished from the Elder Lands and exiled to Canada, where they built the Great Tomb of Parliament to imprison the Sleeping Horror, which awakens once every, you guessed it, 150 years. And you thought those screams were from the fireworks.
Anyway, my publisher ChiZine is offering all its Canadian-authored books for free or pay what you can today, because there will be no tomorrow. Get them while you still can.
All the Cross you can eat
Tired of misplacing your Cross books during arcane rituals? Can’t remember the order of the Cross series ever since that angel melted your mind in the movie theatre because someone texted you? Interested in new Cross tales to give you some hope or at least distraction during these dark times? Then you may want to check out the new Cross omnibus.
The omnibus features the first three Cross books — The Mona Lisa Sacrifice (No. 1 Amazon.ca Fantasy and Historical Fiction bestseller), The Dead Hamlets, and The Apocalypse Ark — plus two new Cross stories never before published! In “The World Will Drown in Tears,” Cross stumbles into a strange battle in a frozen wasteland that some history scholars will recognize. And “A Different Kind of Wolf” puts Cross at the centre of a very famous fairy tale, but with a few diabolical twists all of his own.
The omnibus is ebook only, because to put it in print form would be to risk breaking the eighth seal. It’s available at fine online book emporiums everywhere, except for where it’s not. Buy it now, before the world ends! (It will also be available after the end of the world.)
Plus, there are hidden tentacles on the cover!
Praise for the Cross series:
- “If you liked Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, you’ll love The Mona Lisa Sacrifice”: CBC
- “The Mona Lisa Sacrifice is a deliriously unhinged roller coaster of a novel, blending fantasy, history, horror and humour with the aplomb of an overfull blender, but all of it smarter than it, truly, has any right — or need — to be”: National Post
- “Never lets the reader pause for breath . . . fans of the genre will find one of its ultimate expressions here”: Publishers Weekly
- “Sweeps you up with its gallows humour, whether you’re revelling in the pleasures of two-fisted, angel-punching action or the cleverly rendered language.”: Quill & Quire
- “Takes urban fantasy to a different level”: Library Journal
- “A pulp novel with genuine depth and wisdom, insight and consummate skill”: Regina Leader-Post
- “There are few writers, in this country at any rate, quite as unhinged and skilled, simultaneously, regardless of genre”: Saskatoon StarPhoenix
- “A fun, and whip-smart, read” – Vancouver Sun
- “A Rewarding, Witty, Hot Mess of Angel-Pummeling, Action and Noir Detective Fiction” – Pop Bop on Goodreads
- “Resembles something written by Neil Gaiman at times with its somewhat mystical imagery and at other times it reads as a full-blown work of bizarro fiction.” – Minneapolis Books Examiner
- “A spiritual relative to Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim and Lavie Tidhar’s Bookman series, meaning that anyone (and anything) in the literary universe is fair game. Mythological beasts, Lovecraftian allusions, pirates, and characters from Moby Dick and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea all fuse together to form a vastly entertaining, fantastical, breakneck hodgepodge quest novel” – Publishers Weekly
- “One of Canada’s finest literary writers” – CBC
- “If you like your literature with a nitro fueling, you’ll love these” – CBC
- “One of the strongest, and strangest, literary creations this country has ever seen” – The Vancouver Sun
- “Is he still making up those crazy stories? When is he going to get a real job?” – Mom
The hidden tentacles are the best part
I’m happy to announce that ChiZine, the publisher of my Cross series, will be publishing an omnibus edition of the first three Cross books this coming spring. Which is really just an excuse to show off another supernaturally good cover by Erik Mohr. Bonus content will be one or two Cross short stories, depending on their length when I’ve finished editing them.
The omnibus will be ebook only, because print is dead and we learned our lesson after people reading The Apocalypse Ark in bookstores raised all those ghouls in that hidden graveyard under the Barnes & Noble.
Together again, for the first time
It’s the very first time I’ve seen all my Cross books together in a bookstore! Thanks, Chapters!
Well, that’s the Sixth Seal broken. On to the next one.
peter darbyshire 