Richard Pieters
Sci/fi
Blurb
A frantic phone call from his sister brings Hollywood actor Carter Collins home to Avebury, Ohio. Their father’s had a stroke. Or was it? The quiet riverside town is falling under the sway of a new evangelist and his dark form of salvation. No one will stand in his way. Carter’s father tried, and now Carter must step in and lead the resistance.
Avebury protects an ancient mystery, a secret Carter has only days to uncover before malicious forces not of this world take control. He finds allies to fight the invasion, but no one is to be trusted. The cost to secure what the town has guarded will be steep, might demand great sacrifice of those closest to him, but failure could plunge Earth itself into darkness.
As the Reverend’s tabernacle nears completion, Carter must accept the unbelievable and the role he was destined for. Friends turn against him. Danger stalks family, friends, his life-partner, all dragged into his nightmare, their lives threatened. The planet teeters on the edge. Carter holds the keys. Can he pay the price of using them?
My Review
I received a free ecopy of this book for an honest review.
Dark Light intrigued me because the story could have been an interesting drama with a preacher (Reverend Hawkin) coming to town and brainwashing many of his church members (Jim Jones came to mind); but, instead, Richard Pieters added a supernatural twist which made the story that much more exciting. With the supernatural twist, things quickly get out of control and no one in town is safe.
Many of the characters are well developed and realistic. The main character, Carter, has come back home to help the family since his father has had a stroke and his mom is acting strange, according to his sister, Susan. He doesn’t really want to be back home but comes back out of a sense of duty. He questions what he’s doing at times but ends up doing the right thing, and being the leader he was meant to be. Susan has some issues with commitment and anger, but she’s a good person at heart. Their significant others are supportive and patient, which is what they need.
There are other characters who aren’t quite as realistic but that’s because they’ve been taken over by the dark side, or the shadows. They were “normal” before the Reverend came to town.
Dark Light flows well, is fast paced and full of suspense. I thought it was a great, and original, book and I definitely recommend it.
AUTHOR
Stalk HIM
Writer, musician, singer/songwriter, actor, hippie, media ad exec, business owner, Realtor. Not necessarily in that order. It’s been a convoluted road.
I remember an idyllic childhood, which is odd, since my mother died when I was twelve and my father two years later. At fourteen, I’d lost both parents, and came back to the Ohio town of my birth, home also to my new mother (my dad had remarried.) She died nine years later.
Little wonder I took to performing, theater, movies, and books. Particularly to stories about death in one way or another.
My father was a Presbyterian minister who believed the Bible told interpretative stories, attempts to understand and draw lessons from the unfathomable, not to be taken literally. My stepmother, a highly intuitive person, read Yogananda. My questioning began early.
I studied creative writing as an English major in college. I was a terrible student. Beyond required short stories and college-kid poetry, most of my writing was songwriting. In those days, the age of the folk movement and protest songs, I believed the “new consciousness” emerging in my generation could change the world. The more I learned of spiritual, mystical teachings, the less I could know to be true. I questioned everything. I still do.
I returned to California as a singer-songwriter, then became involved with a theater troupe, performing in theaters, on the beach, and in the streets. Guerilla theater. Off-Broadway. Exciting, creative work, but reality set in.
Exhausted with the starving artist’s life, I went to work in industrial design, then in advertising, in broadcast sales. All the while, I studied and practiced the craft of writing, never expecting to make a living as a writer. Now, at a ripened age, I’ve reached a place where I don’t give a damn. I’m free of that fear.
I am a gay man, a fact I didn’t come to terms with until my early thirties. Once I owned it, it was a wonderful opening. I did enjoy a short stint as a wild boy living the West Hollywood high life in the days prior to AIDS. Luckily, I met my partner of thirty-eight years, and we no doubt saved each other’s lives at a time when many friends were dying around us.
Eventually, we left LA and the media business and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we had our own business. There, I dived into my writing, journaling and writing short stories, and finally embarked on novel writing.
We left Santa Fe after five years. I’m now back, again, where it all started. Oddly, while in New Mexico, I was compelled to set the novel in Ohio, in a town not dissimilar from the one of my birth and my high school and college years. As the opening of Dark Light says, referring to Thomas Wolfe’s famous line, maybe you can’t go home again, and then, maybe, sometimes you have no choice.
Tags: science fiction
Bound 4 Escape