Introducing The Bluesman

Inspiration can strike us at the oddest times.  When I finished The Way of the Brother Gods, the final book (for now) in The Malja Chronicles, I decided to take a long break from that world.  I had been in it for a long time and I needed a rest.

But while I didn’t dive into another Malja novel, I kept thinking about the Bluesmen — the group of blues musicians who are also highly-skilled assassins.  They can conjure spells with song and even form portals into parallel worlds.  I just kept wondering about them.  What had happened to those who survived the events of The Way of the Black Beast?  What do they think of the life they lead?  And though they don’t suffer racism or slavery or any of the hardships the bluesmen of the past suffered, they do suffer (we all do, that’s why the blues continues to thrive as a music genre).  What drew them to the blues in the first place?

Around this same time, several readers of the series remarked on how much they liked The Bluesmen and hoped to see more of those guys in later books (btw, we do see them again in The Way of the Brother Gods).  I agreed.  I liked them a lot.  After Malja, Tommy and Fawbry, the Bluesmen are my favorite characters in that series.  Add to this my love of blues music and my desire to incorporate more of it in my writing, and well, you get this:

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This is the first in a series of short stories that I’ll be releasing over the course of this year.  Here’s what it’s about:

The Bluesman – musician, magician, lethal killer. Thrown into our world from a parallel universe, the Bluesman seeks to save the Earth from being overrun by the horrid, mutated creatures that came with him. Armed with magic, skill, and his companion, Scotch, he faces these monsters hoping to create a peaceful world for all.

The tone is very different from Malja’s stories.  Her stories are often dark as is her world.  Though Fuller the Bluesman comes from that same world, he’s stuck in ours, which is positively joyous compared to the post-apocalyptic nightmare of Corlin.  Also, I write the story from the perspective of Scotch, the sidekick — sort of how Watson tells the story of Holmes, only with monsters and guns.  Scotch is a light-hearted, easy-going kind of guy and so is his story-telling style.

If I do my job right, the Bluesman stories will be fun, funny, action-packed adventures with magic and monsters and mayhem set in our modern world.  They are certainly a lot of fun to write.  I suppose that’s been part of the inspiration, too.  Some stories are written because of the challenge.  There is a difficulty in the set up that makes me want to attempt the writing.  Some stories are an exploration of an idea.  But some, oftentimes the best, are written simply because they are fun.

How many I write will be up to you.  If you read ‘em, I’ll write ‘em! And I guarantee one thing, we’ll all have an adventure!

So check it out! Here’s some links:  Kindle  |  Nook  |  Kobo