Monsters of muscle, leather, and teeth stalked out, snarling, frothing, driven mad by the thunder and blood. Each pit-dog stood chest-high, massing close to a hundred kilos, twice the weight of most men.
As a veterinarian, I love folding animals into my books. They appear throughout my novels--playing both hero and (and in this case) a deadly threat. I've read so many novels where animals appear, and they're so unrealistically and poorly portrayed that I expect them to break into song like in a Disney movie. Instead, I love to flesh out the bestiary in my books, to portray them as authentically as possible, whether it be a sign-language speaking gorilla (The Bone Labyrinth) or a military war dog (Bloodline). And in the past, I even created a few creatures of my own design--what veterinarian wouldn't want to do that?!? In my upcoming Sigma novel, Kingdom of Bones (out April 19, 2022), that is exactly what I get to do--only amped up to the nth degree. So fair warning: be careful what you reach down to pet in one of my books.
