E.M. Jeanmougin's Blog

Seven Wonders Cover Reveal

About the Artist: Alicia Henson

Alicia Henson has been drawing since she was old enough to hold a crayon. Nowadays, she tends to draw fantasy characters such as vampires, demons, mages, or mermaids. You can find her work on Tumblr at:

www.tumblr.com/vampyr-nyrd

or Instagram @alih_creates

Want this (or another Hunter and Spider image) on some merch?

Explore designs on our brand new Redbubble.

We'll have more stuff coming up in the next few weeks, so stay tuned! Thanks and much love.

P.S. For more frequent updates, you can keep an eye on Our Kofi. Or Visit Our Webpage.

New Short! by Me

On the Menu: A Dystopian Short

Test Subject, Nate, is just trying to make a buck, but when the experiment goes wrong, she finds herself on the run.

Word Count: 6000

Genre: Short Dystopian Horror

***This is not a Hunter and Spider story, however, it is available on our webpage.



Ways to Read:

- Download the .PDF on our Ko-Fi

- Read the Web Version Free on the Hunter and Spider Webpage

- Purchase on Amazon in Paperback or Ebook.

Hope you guys like it!

We'll also be doing a giveaway for the Hunter and Spider series on the Spring Equinox, March, 20, 2025.

Happy (Early) Valentine's Day!

In celebration of the day of love, Strangers in the Night is Free on Amazon.

We're trying to get in the top 100, so please make sure to grab a copy. It's totally free and helps boost our ranking, even if you don't read the book.



Giveaway runs through the 15th.



Thanks so much for all your help!

Happy Summer Solstice!

Been awhile since I updated the blog, mainly because we've been busy working on Seven Wonders.

No release date yet, but the story is plotted and we're 118 pages in. It's looking like it's going to be a bulky one, so it might be awhile finishing and polishing.

However, the cast is now finalized and I can safely say Seven Wonders will feature the main gang, specifically Crimson, Jasper, Alcander, & Maxwell. The bulk is set to take place in New York.

As always, I'll be posting updates featuring the synopsis, prologue, and other sneak peeks as Jay and I progress.

Happy Summer Solstice! Thanks for sticking with us! Remember, it's about the journey, not the destination.

(In the meantime, get most of the other books for free, now thru June 25th)

Bad Romance Paperback Update

Hey folks! Just a note about Bad Romance; the cover file for the paperback was printing rather dark, so I've tweaked the color profile to brighten it up. I'm uploading the new file to Amazon today, but it may take up to 72 hours to update.

If you got one of the darker copies, sorry. Look at it this way, you got one of maybe 15 first editions in the whole world.

Thanks again for supporting us.

Bad Romance is Now Live!

Happy New Year! Bad Romance isn't showing up on our author profiles yet, but you can buy the book (or read it free on Kindle Unlimited): RIGHT HERE.

Thanks for helping us have a fantastic launch with Wish You Were Here! Hope you enjoy Alan! Happy New Year!

Wish You Were Here Is Now LIVE!

Just so as everyone is aware, there's an issue where the book is not showing on Kindle Unlimited. We're working to get this fixed as quick as possible, but the updates are currently in-review. Sorry!

Wish can be purchased here.

Hunter & Spider Newsletter: Happy Samhain! Wish You Were Here Pre-Order, Bad Romance Cover, & More

ABOUT THE ARTIST: ALI HENSON
Alicia Henson has been drawing since she was old enough to hold a crayon. Nowadays, she tends to draw fantasy characters such as vampires, demons, mages, or mermaids. You can find her Tumblr @  www.tumblr.com/vampyr-nyrd or Instagram @alih_creates.


ABOUT THE BOOK:
Bad Romance features Alan Augustine in his first full-length adventure, and is heavily influenced and inspired by the music of pop, punk, and emo artists like Marianas Trench, Good Charlotte, Smashmouth, Madonna, & Lady Gaga.
 
Alan Augustine hasn't been lucky in a very long time, so when a too-good-to-be-true business venture drops in his lap, he snatches it up. Unfortunately, a few of his old clients aren't too thrilled. And he can't seem to stop seeing grim omens in his tarot. 
 
PRE-ORDER & RELEASE DATES: 
Wish You Were Here is now available for Pre-Order on Kindle. The book itself will be released December 21, 2023.

Our hope is to release #6 Bad Romance on New Year's Day, 2024. 

BAD ROMANCE SNEAK PEEK: SOY UN PERDEDOR

“Is it customary to tip?” John asked.

Alan Augustine pulled his black mesh t-shirt back on, tousling his thick, black hair into some semblance of style. “Well, did you have a good time?” 

John’s tanned skin betrayed a blush. “Yeah.” 

Alan smiled, sliding in close to John to help button up his navy blue dress shirt. “Did you want to do it again sometime?” 

“Yeah.” 

Alan placed his palm against John’s cheek, giving him his sweetest look. “Then yes, you should tip.” 

Alan left the backroom of Moonlight with an extra fifty bucks tucked into the front pocket of his tight red jeans. It was ladies night and the club was slam-packed with all types. Women in short, tight skirts, men eyeing them and anything else that passed by. Purple and blue lights strobed through the shadows of the club, illuminating the low stages upon which Infernal strippers danced. Alan saw Lurleen, her blue skin laid bare, a long, toned leg wrapped around the pole, arched backward so her gorgeous breasts were on full display, her long sapphire blue hair trailing on the floor. 

Squeezing his way through the crowd, Alan made his way to the bar. Two bartenders worked, slinging cocktails and beer bottles left and right, stuffing bills into the lockbox beneath the counter. It was too busy to bother passing out change. 

After several minutes of trying and failing to get either bartender’s attention Alan draped himself dramatically on the bar top and loudly asked, “Whose a guy got to fuck to get a drink around here?” 

“Yeesh. I hope you’re gonna give me a better cue than that.” 

Alan identified the voice in less than a second, and spun to find the speaker. 

The werespider sat at the end of the bar, under a smokey halo, and before a small cup collection. When he drank, Crimson liked to stack his cups upside down on the counter, much to the chagrin and dismay of demonic bartenders the city over. One shot glass lay on its side. The others made a precarious nine glass pyramid.

“Hey, precious.” Crimson had two pet names for every person he met. With Crims, it was always “sweetheart” or “precious” or “doll” or “angel” or some other endearment. In the low light, his young-old face had a grayish cast, like faded celluloid film. Blood dehydration. And bad. The ailment hit spiders harder. Granted, a little fading wasn’t unusual. In fact, for as long as they’d known each other, Crimson had always gone through spurts where, for a month or four, he grew too morose to eat or socialize. Today, he looked even grayer.  

“How’sit goin’?” added Crimson.   

“Better, now you’re here.” 

The werespider, Crimson Apocalypse, was a lean, tall, drink of a demon, with dreamlike dark eyes, a spaghetti western demeanor, a hard boiled voice, and a fickle, dual nature. An oversimplification perhaps, but… that was how he looked, acted, and sounded. That was who he was. That was Crimson. “D’ya have a poison of preference this evening, mi amor? Appletini? Sangria? Old Fashioned?”

“I’ll drink whatever you’re buying,” Alan said. “But just for your personal reference, old fashioneds are vile, repulsive, nasty, and bitter, and anyone who says different is stuffed with nostalgic syrup and hot horseshit.” 

Crimson knocked back two thumbs of top shelf tequila, and capped his glazen creation with a tenth shooter. “So don’t order an old fashioned then. Order somethin’ else. Order anything on the menu. Whatever your heart desires. Or. Whatever will getcha sloshed the fastest. If that’s whatcha prefer.” 

Crimson talked a lot with his hands and the proximity of the glass tower made both Alan and the nearest bartender flinch at the werespider’s every emphatic gesture, of which there were many. 

This anticipation distracted Alan too long from answering, thus Crimson continued on his tangent uninterrupted, “C’mon. Didja hear me? Or dontcha have a poison? You might as well order whichever’s to your likin’. Don’t let the dimes an’ nickels dissuade. I won’t pay a penny, whatever ya order. I helped ol’ Mr. Loomis solve a little problem yesterday evenin’-- nothing worth a true favor, see, but serious enough he felt compelled he should make me some small compensation. And I said don’t sweat it, we’d straighten it out later, but Looms’ the sort’s gots to square things on the spot or else he tosses and turns and can’t get to sleep at daybreak. Well, you’d know.”

Alan didn’t. Not really. He kept on good terms with Mr. Loomis, but did not relish his company. Loomis felt likewise about Alan and the other employees, so they never did more than exchange baseline pleasantries.
 
With no response forthcoming, Crimson persisted on with his story. “So me an’ him bartered back and forth a bit and then, in the end, split the difference in drinks! I know, what a sucker. It’s like he don’t even know me or somethin’, huh? Now, you’d better order, ‘fore he catches his mistake an’ cuts me off.” 

A mistake, indeed. Crimson’s werespider constitution in conjunction with constant use (and abuse) gave him a high tolerance for substances, even amongst the demonic. His all-liquid digestive system meant he could comfortably consume upwards of forty-two liters of fluid. A shooter of tequila weighed barely an ounce. Alan’s one drink wouldn’t dent the overall bill. 

Alan ordered a cosmopolitan. He didn’t ask what sort of problem Crims had helped the proprietor, Mr. Loomis, solve. He didn’t want to know. He just wanted a drink. “What do I owe you?” 

Crimson warded off the question with a wave, the disruption contorting and twisting the halo. “Say, weren’t ya listenin’? We can talk about all that later. No hurry but-- Hey, by the way, are ya up to anything the third week of April?”

WEBPAGE UPDATES:

- Here's hoping everyone is having a wonderful Samhain! Strangers in the Night is free today on Amazon in celebration. 

- There's still time to Vote in the September-January Poll. This poll will directly contribute to the writing of The Hunter and the Spider #7, so be sure to make your voice heard.

- Book Reviews will now be included on www.hunterandspider.com.

- Read EM Jeanmougin's flash horror, Chilled Coffee.

OPEN CALL FOR BETA READERS: 
Beta reader feedback helps us make better choices. Beta readers are likely to receive digital copies in early-to-mid-November. Copies will be in next-to-final draft condition and may contain errors. Volunteers will be credited in the Acknowledgements section. If interested, please contact us @ hunterandspider@gmail.com   

Thanks again for all your support and encouragement.

X-O-X-O-X,
EM & Jay 

New Poll: September - January

Vote on a Title for H&S #7

Also includes questions about secondary characters, preferred book length, and favored archetypes.

Answers given will contribute directly to the writing of The Hunter and the Spider #7.

Thanks for your feedback,
EM & Jay

Announcing Our New Artist, Cover, Preview & More

ABOUT THE ARTIST: ALI HENSON

Alicia Henson has been drawing since she was old enough to hold a crayon. Nowadays, she tends to draw fantasy characters such as vampires, demons, mages, or mermaids. You can find her work on Tumblr @www.tumblr.com/vampyr-nyrd or Instagram @alih_creates.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Wish You Were Here features Jasper Craig in our first (almost) single-perspective adventure, and is heavily influenced/inspired by the music of classic and alternative rock bands like Pink Floyd, Guns 'N Roses, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, & Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.

Thrust all at once into the strange, sun-drenched world of Elysium, Jasper struggles to master his grace and fit in amongst the Elysians, but plans are easier made than enacted, and the Fields are full of peril.



WISH YOU WERE HERE SNEAK PEEK: FREE FALLING


Jasper could not remember a time before he’d known monsters were real and that this realm, Earth, was not the only one. His adoptive father had always told him stories of monsters and demons and of worlds attached to their own- not with the wonder and whimsy of fairy tales but in the no-nonsense candace of a scientist or a historian. These were facts. Other worlds were real and home to monsters.

Jasper had never much liked that word. Monster.

He was eighteen the first time he’d traveled by portal to another world, a pocket dimension known as the Summerlands. With Crimson’s hand in his it was only a simple jump between worlds, like hopping a trolley. Jasper hadn’t been a fan of the way the portal made his stomach flip and the air pressure to fluctuate so that his lungs squeezed and his ears popped but it had been manageable.

This time, without Crimson’s hand to hold on to, it was much worse.

Jasper tumbled, falling and spinning without a sense of direction. A flash of blue-gray- the sky or water? Golden waves. White slashes. Blue and bright and warm wind and light. Jasper couldn’t even gather his wits to be properly frightened.

The fear came with the pain. It shocked through his body, lighting up his spine from tailbone to skull. It seemed to come from inside, radiating outwards. Jasper, still falling, seized, body jerking so hard he would have sworn his neck had broken if not for the fact that the pain only increased into an explosion. His jacket tore, backpack falling, ripped from his shoulders as a pair of massive feathered wings burst from his back.

Jasper landed, somehow on his feet. Of course, the momentum brought him to his knees, hands braced against the tall, golden grass. For a moment he could only gasp for breath and pray his heart did not explode in his chest. Then he became aware of the blood dripping from his sides, soaking into the warm ground.


ESTIMATED RELEASE DATES:

Our hope is to release #5 Wish You Were Here for the Winter Solstice in late December, and #6 Bad Romance, shortly after, on New Year's Day 2024.


OPEN CALL FOR BETA READERS:

Beta reader feedback helps us make better choices. Beta readers are likely to receive digital copies in early-to-mid-November. Copies will be in next-to-final draft condition and may contain errors. Volunteers will be credited in the Acknowledgements section. If interested, please contact us @ hunterandspider@gmail.com

There's also still time to Vote in the poll or take our Character Quiz. We'll be switching out the poll in September with more character-focused and plot-driven questions.

Thanks again for all your support and encouragement.


X-O-X-O-X,

EM & Jay