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Under the Cover: Behind the scenes of the Cross books
All Lit Up has published my “behind the scenes” account of creating my Cross series of supernatural thrillers. Learn about the ancient poem that was the inspiration for Cross and the first book, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice; why the second book, The Dead Hamlets, had to be a ghost story set in the theatre world; and why the third book, The Apocalypse Ark, is literary chaos.
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Publication day for The Mona Lisa Sacrifice!
It’s publication day for The Mona Lisa Sacrifice. I am absolutely thrilled to see the first book of my Cross series of supernatural thrillers back in print with a special new edition from Poplar Press, an imprint of Wolsak and Wynn.
The early reviews have been positive, and it’s been gratifying to see all the love and interest in the book on social media. I’ve particularly enjoyed the podcast conversations I’ve had around the book — it’s always lovely to be able to talk about books and the writing process. Here are a couple that have gone live so far:
If you’ve read The Mona Lisa Sacrifice and enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review on your platform of choice and/or spread the word about it on social media. Positive word of mouth is how most people discover new reads now, and it’s incredibly important to writers such as myself. The more people that learn about a book, the more potential readers it has. That means a greater chance of future books by the same author!
If you haven’t read The Mona Lisa Sacrifice yet, here’s a brief summary:
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.
Anyway, I hope you like(d) the book. As always, thanks for reading!
Peter
From inspiration to The Dead Hamlets
I had a wonderful time talking to Ruff Radio about my book The Dead Hamlets and all things theatre — Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, performance vs. text, representation, the creative process, Ur-Hamlets and more. I actually worked in theatre a little in the past, and The Dead Hamlets is very much a love letter to those days. Many thanks to Christine Horne of Shakespeare in the Ruff for her thoughtful questions and theatre insights! I’d appreciate it if you give the interview a listen.
Here’s a bit of background to The Dead Hamlets if you’re not familiar with the book:
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, a charming rogue who also happens to be a drunk, a thief, and an angel killer. He is no friend of the faerie since they stole his daughter and made her one of their own. When it appears she may be the next victim of the haunting, though, he must race against time to save her. He encounters an eccentric and deadly cast of characters along the way: the real Witches of Macbeth, the undead playwright/demon hunter Christopher Marlowe, an eerie Alice from the Alice in Wonderland books, 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!
Vancouver Sun highly recommends The Mona Lisa Sacrifice
The reviews for the new editions of my Cross books are starting to appear, which is lovely. I’m so grateful to see these books out in the world, particularly with such beautiful new covers. And I’m very grateful to read the Vancouver Sun review of The Mona Lisa Sacrifice, which calls the book “a pleasurable, fast-moving romp through history and myth, conspiracy, and confusion.” I very much like the part where Tom Sandborn, the reviewer, says the book “is likely to find a large and enthusiastic audience.”
If you like The Mona Lisa Sacrifice or any of my other books, please consider leaving a review of them on your favourite platform. It’s the sort of thing that can really help boost a book’s profile and bring it to the attention of other readers. And more readers means publishers are likely to pick up an author’s next book, so that means more books as well. It’s pretty much a win for everyone! Unless, of course, you hate the book….
Link: https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/book-review-bc-peter-darbyshire-dan-brown-territory
Links to order The Mona Lisa Sacrifice
I’m delightful – and unsettling!
I’m grateful to see my book Has the World Ended Yet? included in 49th Shelf’s roundup of Story Collections to Delight & Unsettle. My goal in life is to be delightfully unsettling, so this is perfect!
Last chance to save on Cross pre-orders
Last call for discounts! A reminder that my Cross series of supernatural thrillers is 25% off until the end of August if you order directly from the publisher, Wolsak and Wynn. If you’re into books with immortal antiheroes that hunt down angels while solving literary mysteries AND you like discounts, then this is the series for you! https://bookstore.wolsakandwynn.ca/collections/cross-books
As I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s quite helpful for authors when you pre-order our books. The publishing environment is getting more difficult by the day (what isn’t?), and initial sales of a book can mean the difference between it reaching readers like you or disappearing without a trace. The more pre-orders a book gets, the more likely it is to get decent orders from bookstores and better placement, as well as higher rankings online. All of this ultimately translates into more readers, which in turn translates into more books by me or your other favourite authors. So pre-orders actually matter.
Also, Wolsak and Wynn says they’ll throw in some goodies like special bookmarks and such for pre-orders. I mean, who can possibly resist custom bookmarks?
Anyway, I hope you’re looking forward to the new editions of the books as much as I am. As always, thanks for reading.
– Peter
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
Azrael and the Dead Man’s Hand now available
My latest tale of Azrael the angel gunslinger, Azrael and the Dead Man’s Hand, is now available in the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Follow Azrael as he rides into a strange town of the dead and joins a dangerous supernatural card game.
Excerpt:
The angel Azrael rode the dead horse across the broken land under the light of a half moon until he came across a graveyard that seemed to have no end. Wooden crosses stretched away to the horizon, more than he could count. Many of the crosses were bent close to the earth by time and the elements. Some were decorated with worn hats or gun belts with guns still in their holsters while others were adorned with bits of tattered lace or other fabric. None of the crosses bore names, at least none that Azrael could see.
It had been a week since he’d last come across a trading post, and even then the proprietor had been the only living soul there. Azrael had traded her a feather from his ruined wings for some of her homemade whiskey, served in a battered cup decorated with bloodstains. The whiskey had left his thoughts in a haze for days, but Azrael was relatively certain the woman hadn’t mentioned this field of the buried dead. Maybe she’d never ventured this way. Or maybe there was some other reason she hadn’t said anything. Either way, it wasn’t the first time Azrael had stumbled across a forgotten graveyard in the middle of nowhere. The world was made of such places.
Azrael scanned the night sky for the buzzards that trailed him everywhere, and because he had the eyes of an angel, he was able to pick them out of the darkness. They were hanging back, as if they didn’t like the looks of all those crosses stretching to the end of the world. Azrael reined in the dead horse, contemplating whether he should pick some different direction to wander. But then he caught a flicker of light in the distance, and a few seconds after that the faint sounds of glasses clinking together. It was a sound he’d heard countless times before, and it meant there was a saloon ahead. And where there was a saloon, there was real whiskey. He rode on, ignoring the warning of the buzzards, because his saddlebags were as empty of spirits as everything else.
A cluster of structures grew out of the night as he neared some sort of small town in the middle of the graveyard. Although to call it a town was to embellish its nature considerably. There were three buildings side by side and leaning against each other like they would fall down if not for the others. A saloon, a hotel, and a church, in that order. Only the saloon had lights flickering in the windows, courtesy of the candles inside. There were none of the usual sounds of laughter or quarrelling coming from such a place. Instead, the whole town was as quiet as the surrounding graveyard.
The crosses stopped a few dozen feet away from the walls of the buildings, but the space around the town wasn’t empty. It was full of wagons that looked as weathered as the crosses. They were piled with wooden crates and barrels, bundles of shovels and hoes, rolls of canvas and rope, and so on. All the cargo had a thick layer of dust upon it, suggesting the wagons had been out here some time. As if abandoned or forgotten. A couple of the wagons were covered and held sleeping mats spread out inside, indicating they were home to entire families. Another wagon had painted words on the side of it. Sky’s Elixirs for Good Health and the Preservation of Your Soul. There was no sign of horses or any other beast of burden. Nor were there any roads leading to this town or away. Whatever travellers had come here must have done so in a distant enough past that the elements had covered up their tracks.
It was a peculiar sight, nearly as odd as the vast graveyard itself. But Azrael didn’t dwell on it. He’d seen plenty of peculiar things in his travels, and he wasn’t planning on lingering in this place.
This marks the seventh Azrael tale in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Here are the others in order of publication:
- The Angel Azrael Rode Into the Town of Burnt Church on a Dead Horse – The angel Azrael rides into the town of Burnt Church for a drink and ends up helping the very strange inhabitants fight off a gang of demons that’s been tormenting them.
- The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies – The angel Azrael encounters an angel who is determined to turn the world into her own personal Hell and only Azrael can stop her.
- The audio version of “The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies” with a new introduction I recorded for the story
- The Angel Azrael Delivers Justice to the People of the Dust – The angel Azrael rides into a mining town that is under siege from curious bone creatures stealing the town’s children. When Azrael intervenes, he discovers that nothing is what it seems in this strange place.
- The Angel Azrael Encounters the Revelation Pilgrims and Other Curiosities – The angel Azrael is hired by a group of pilgrims to guide them through a dangerous stretch of land, where they encounter a city of the dead and an outlaw band of half angels intent on ensuring they don’t make it to their destination.
- The Angel Azrael and the War Ghosts – The angel Azrael tries to stop a group of ghostly soldiers from preying upon travellers and rides straight into his own troubled past.
- The Angel Azrael Battles a Dead God Among the Heretics – The angel Azrael encounters a village full of crazed golems intent upon resurrecting a dead god to unleash upon the world — a god that Azrael has already killed once.
Early release of Azrael and the Dead Man’s Hand
My latest tale of Azrael the angel gunslinger, “Azrael and the Dead Man’s Hand,” is available for early download for supporters of the Beneath Ceaseless Skies Patreon. What happens when the angel Azrael wanders into a strange town and becomes trapped in a deadly and supernatural poker game? You’ll have to read the story to find out!
This marks the seventh Azrael tale in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Here are the others in order of publication:
- The Angel Azrael Rode Into the Town of Burnt Church on a Dead Horse – The angel Azrael rides into the town of Burnt Church for a drink and ends up helping the very strange inhabitants fight off a gang of demons that’s been tormenting them.
- The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies – The angel Azrael encounters an angel who is determined to turn the world into her own personal Hell and only Azrael can stop her.
- The audio version of “The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies” with a new introduction I recorded for the story
- The Angel Azrael Delivers Justice to the People of the Dust – The angel Azrael rides into a mining town that is under siege from curious bone creatures stealing the town’s children. When Azrael intervenes, he discovers that nothing is what it seems in this strange place.
- The Angel Azrael Encounters the Revelation Pilgrims and Other Curiosities – The angel Azrael is hired by a group of pilgrims to guide them through a dangerous stretch of land, where they encounter a city of the dead and an outlaw band of half angels intent on ensuring they don’t make it to their destination.
- The Angel Azrael and the War Ghosts – The angel Azrael tries to stop a group of ghostly soldiers from preying upon travellers and rides straight into his own troubled past.
- The Angel Azrael Battles a Dead God Among the Heretics – The angel Azrael encounters a village full of crazed golems intent upon resurrecting a dead god to unleash upon the world — a god that Azrael has already killed once.
If you like the Azrael stories, please share them with a friend. Word of mouth is one of the best forms of recommendation for a writer and helps lead to new readers. And new readers means the kind of support a writer and journals like Beneath Ceaseless Skies need for new stories.
As always, thanks for reading.
No ghost in the machine?
I recently checked to see if any of my books were included in the books data set used to train AI systems and found The Mona Lisa Sacrifice and The Apocalypse Ark — Books 1 and 3 of my Cross series of supernatural thrillers. Book 2, The Dead Hamlets, was not included. I don’t quite know how I’m supposed to feel about that. Pleased? Irritated? The tale of Cross battling an order of renegade angels to free the gorgon Mona Lisa from their imprisonment is good enough? As is the tale of Cross desperately trying to stop the mad creature Noah from ending the world with his eerie ark at the Sunken City? But the tale of Cross becoming trapped in a ghost story featuring the original Hamlet ghost isn’t good enough for an AI?
I know I should probably have an opinion on whether or not books should be used in this manner, and I do: authors should be consulted on how their works are adapted or used and compensated appropriately. Without those basic rights, it’s a lot harder for authors to be able to keep creating the works we do. But I’m also too exhausted to say much else about it because, well, 2023.
And if the AIs run amok and try to end the world I’m really sorry about that….
The good news is that if the world doesn’t end the Cross books will be republished in 2024 with Wolsak and Wynn! Hopefully they’ll find some new human readers.
(Thanks to George Murray for the reminder about the data set. He has some thoughts about the whole issue in a recent Walrus article that is worth checking out.)
peter darbyshire 