Book Feature: Born of Blood by SB Knight

The Blood Chronicles is a series of three books chronicling the life of one family as they struggle to survive while an unimaginable evil pursues them relentlessly. 

In Born of Blood, the first book of the series, Jesse Banks unknowingly steps in the middle of a battle between good and evil that has raged on for generations. As the danger escalates she begins to put the pieces of her clouded past together.

Jesse discovers the truth about her ancestors and the horror that relentlessly pursued them; a horror that now pursues her. For her to survive she must join the fight. But the immortal monster that stalks her has other, more sinister plans and will stop at nothing to see those plans accomplished. Can Jesse escape a fate worse than death and defeat an age old evil?

"Our author, S.B. Knight has given us one of the most wicked and evil vampires to grace the pages of a novel." - 5-Star Review

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Since the release of his debut novel, Born of Blood, SB Knight has worked diligently to establish his name in the writing world. Having completed two more novels, it is clear there is no end to the stories in SB Knight’s mind. With even more novels planned there is little doubt SB Knight feels right at home in the Dark Fantasy genre.

You can connect with the author at his website, Facebook or Twitter.

Book Feature: Piggy Moto, All-Star Boar Band by Nicholas McRae

Piggy Moto, All-Star Boar Band is a grown-up fable that takes a look at life, prejudice, and equality. It tells the story of Eberhard Berringer, a Pig of uncommonly diminished stature. He must rise above the indignity of the unfair reputation that Pigs have in the world and must also overcome the natural challenges imposed by dwarfism. Eberhard and four friends have entered an international music competition with the hopes of changing the world's unflattering views of their people. If their quintet can take the prize, then they will prove to the world that Pigs are not all slovenly beasts, and that little people can accomplish great things. Someone involved with the contest is not interested in fairness, however. An anonymous saboteur stalks and harasses the contestants, and as pranks turn bloody, Eberhard and his friends fear that the fight for social equality might cost them their lives.

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

For more information please visit http://www.piggymoto.com/.

Nicholas McRae's life revolves around fantasy and imagination. He studies music, takes clarinet lessons, builds stained-glass, and covers the walls of his home with his own carved fretwork designs. All of these skills and hobbies work to transform mundane life into something magical. Nicholas reaches out to share his sense of daily wonder through storytelling, and hopes to inspire others to look for inspiration in the world around them. His favorite place to write is in the upper balcony at symphony concerts, where the music most stirs his emotions and inspires him.

You can connect with Nicholas at his website, Facebook or Twitter. Also be sure to read the SpecFicPick interview with Nicholas here.

Interview: Nicholas McRae

Today we have an interview with Nicholas McRae, author of Piggy Moto, All-Star Boar Band. Nicholas McRae's life revolves around fantasy and imagination. He studies music, takes clarinet lessons, builds stained-glass, and covers the walls of his home with his own carved fretwork designs. All of these skills and hobbies work to transform mundane life into something magical. Nicholas reaches out to share his sense of daily wonder through storytelling, and hopes to inspire others to look for inspiration in the world around them. His favorite place to write is in the upper balcony at symphony concerts, where the music most stirs his emotions and inspires him.

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Michael K. Rose: What role do you believe speculative fiction plays in society?

Nicholas McRae: I think that it legitimizes our human instinct to ask, “what if?” It's so easy to get caught up in the belief that reality is something to be accepted without question—that speculation and wonder lead to discontentment and unrest. Works of speculative fiction remind us to daydream and indulge our intellectual curiosity. While each novel, podcast, or television show shares the writer's own ideas, these don't tell us what to think; they tell us that it's good to think.

MKR: Why do you write in this genre?

NM: I write fantasy. I especially like to project the world in which we live into worlds of fantasy—wondering how things would take this familiar shape in a magical universe. How do people travel? How do they cook? What sorts of cocktails do they make? What about medicine and health care in a world where magic is real? Most importantly, though, how familiar would this world be to us? Would it be too alien to survive in, or would we find it so similar to our own that we'd quickly acclimate?

MKR: How did you come up with the idea for this book?

NM: Piggy Moto, All-Star Boar Band began as a role-playing adventure that satirized “reality television” shows such as Project Runway and American Idol. During the story, players hunted for clues to find and stop the man responsible for a series of bloody attacks on contestants. They also listened to musical selections that represented each act, and voted for which ones to advance, and which to “boot off” the stage. I had so much fun telling the story, that I decided to novelize it for my first year participating in the National Novel Writing Month. For a twist, though, I wrote it from the perspective of one of the bands rather than that of the detectives.

MKR: What was your biggest challenge in writing it?

NM: The biggest challenge was definitely revising the story to make it more meaningful. When I finished the novel, I wanted it to be more than just a novelized role-playing game. I wanted to say something about the real world and give readers something to think about. I consulted a man who told me about his own life as a Little Person and shared great insight into the challenges that little people face in this world. I realized that I had a lot of work ahead of me, and ended up almost completely re-writing the whole novel after that.

MKR: What are you working on now?

NM: Right now I'm working with a couple of editors to get my next manuscript polished up and ready to send out to agents and publishers. This one is set in modern times and deals with alienation, isolation, and faith amid the breakdown of reality as we know it.

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You can connect with Nicholas at his website, Facebook or Twitter. Read more about Piggy Moto, All-Star Boar Band here. Also be sure to visit tomorrow as Piggy Moto... will be our SpecFicPick Book Feature (update: read it here).

Art Feature: The Fantastic Art of Maurizio Manzieri

Today I have an interview with Maurizio Manzieri, a fantastic artist of all things fantastic. Maurizio is an award-winning freelance illustrator renowned in the field of the fantastic literature. The Art Studio where he dreams up his Universes is a small oasis in the heart of the town of Turin, Italy, near the Alps.

Maurizio's artwork has appeared on the covers of the most prestigious magazines and books of leading Italian and international publishers: Mondadori, La Repubblica, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Putnam/Berkley, Prime Books, Subterranean Press, and many others.

If you want to know more about the artist, visit his official website at www.manzieri.com. He has also opened a Facebook page, where he posts new images for the fans his digital creations.

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Michael K. Rose: Was there any defining moment when you realized you wanted to be a fantasy/science fiction artist?

Maurizio Manzieri: I was born in Naples, one of the most enchanting cities on Earth, under the shadow of the volcano Vesuvius, exploring the ruins of Pompeii and visiting the islands of Ischia and Capri. My career as a fantastic artist is strictly intertwined to my land and to an avid passion for speculative ideas, enjoyed through any kind of medium, from books to TV series, from movies to comics. It's a distinctive deviation in my chromosomes, imbued with that special air of my places. It says aloud in the back of my head: "You are a fantastic artist!” I couldn't think to be anyone else, without betraying my true self.

MKR: When you are commissioned to create a piece of art, do you prefer to get a lot of details from the client or do you prefer to let your imagination fill in those details?

MM: It depends on the type of assignment. In the case of editorial commissions, I prefer always to read the full story before daring to materialize any sketch on paper. As a rule, it's already the publisher forwarding a copy of the manuscript, or fat synopses, together with the assignment. Take note that the more the story is important to or inspired by a renowned saga, the more fundamental it is to take into account the respect for the fans (you see, I've always been a fan myself). Characters and environments have to be deeply coherent to the text and emotionally linked to the readers.

Pictures from an Expedition by Alex Irvine – Digital – 

(The Magazine of Fantasyand Science Fiction, USA, 

2003 / Spectrum, The Best in Contemporary Fantastic

Art, USA, 2004)

MKR: Do you have a favorite piece?

MM: We artists try always to improve ourselves, so I keep working day after day toward the favorite one. Anyway if I should choose a particular painting, I'd say I'm really fond of a cover I realized for Fantasy & Science Fiction about ten years ago, titled "Pictures from an Expedition" (a novelette by Alex Irvine). My astronaut conquered a full page in Spectrum, The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, and in the same year I won both the Europe and the Chesley Award with other illustrations.

MKR: Are there any artists who you look to for inspiration? Was there anyone who you sought to imitate when you were first developing as an artist?

MM: It isn't a secret that my idol has always been Michael Whelan. I consider his paintings pure sense-of-wonder! Over the years, I've been enriching my studio library with art books by Michael Parkes, Gil Bruvel, Jim Burns, Bob Eggleton, James Gurney... all of them offering in their body work not only the fruition of a beautiful painting, but also some impalpable essence of beauty, something able to touch the soul of the viewer like a sort of subliminal message, something I've been trying to do, too.

MKR: What has been your proudest achievement as an artist so far?

MM: I'm a self-made artist with a very optimistic vision of life. Talking again about my wish of becoming an artist, one thing is wishing something to happen; another is seeing that wish happening for real. I see myself in the seventies as a young student fond of Ray Bradbury, and today that student has changed in a grown-up fully immersed in the local and national community of artists. My proudest achievement, more than an award or a huge fee, is having the skill to be able to freeze feelings in an image created from the scratch, then unleashing that image out in the world and letting the Art speak for Herself to the heart of a vast audience.

MKR: Thank you so much for the interview, Maurizio! Readers, check out more of his work below and at his website and Facebook page.

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Five Thrillers by Robert Reed – Digital – 2009 Chesley Award Nominee
(The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, USA, 2008)

Lázaro Y Antonio by Marta Randall – Digital – 2008 Chesley Award Nominee
(The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, USA, 2007)

Briony, Princess of Shadowmarch – Digital - 2003 Chesley Award Nominee
(Asimov’s Science Fiction, USA, 2011)

Dune by Frank Herbert – Digital – (Interior illustration for La Repubblica XL, Italy, 2012) 

Steambridge – Digital – ('The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction #4”,Infinivox, USA, 2012) 

Book Feature: A Human Element by Donna Galanti

One by one, Laura Armstrong’s friends and adoptive family members are being murdered, and despite her unique healing powers, she can do nothing to stop it. The savage killer haunts her dreams, tormenting her with the promise that she is next. Determined to find the killer, she follows her visions to the site of a crashed meteorite–her hometown. There, she meets Ben Fieldstone, who seeks answers about his parents’ deaths the night the meteorite struck. In a race to stop a mad man, they unravel a frightening secret that binds them together. But the killer’s desire to destroy Laura face-to-face leads to a showdown that puts Laura and Ben’s emotional relationship and Laura’s pure spirit to the test. With the killer closing in, Laura discovers her destiny is linked to his and she has two choices–redeem him or kill him.

“Galanti’s debut is a thrilling ride full of believable characters, a terrifying villain, an epic battle for survival, and a love worth killing for. A page-turner filled with fascinating twists and turns!” - Marie Lamba, author of What I Meant and Drawn

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

For more information, please visit the author's website.

Donna Galanti the author of the paranormal suspense novel A Human Element (Echelon Press). She is a member of International Thriller Writers, SCBWI, and Horror Writers Association. She’s lived from England as a child to Hawaii as a U.S. Navy photographer. If she couldn’t write she would bike, hike, and kayak every day. Donna lives with her family in an old farmhouse in PA with lots of nooks, fireplaces, and stinkbugs but sadly no ghosts. You can connect with her at her website, Facebook or Twitter.

Book Feature: Kransen House by Sara Brooke

The Kransens live in an expensive, elegant home in the small town of Flening, Florida. Majestic and private, the grounds are surrounded by lush trees and colorful flowers. But there is an ugliness underneath the manicured and perfect facade... Secrets hide within the walls and curses whisper through the air.

Newlyweds Ben and Ana Kransen are moving into the house with their in-laws. They’ve got high hopes and expectations for a better life. But soon after they move in, strange things start to happen. Noises fill the air, dark rooms unlock nightmares of the past, and it becomes clear that some people are not welcome in the Kransen House. Their lives are infiltrated by death, evil, and an unspoken religion. Ana knows something is wrong and her family is in danger. Left with few choices, she must find a way to save the ones she loves or face the consequences of an evil legacy.

Available at:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

For more information, please visit the author's website. 

Sara Brooke is a horror and suspense novelist living in South Florida. A lifelong avid reader of all things scary, Sara's childhood dream was to write horror books that force readers to sleep with their lights on. Sara's influences and favorite authors include Bentley Little, John Saul, William Blackstone, and Joe McKinney. You can connect with Sara at her website or on Facebook. Also be sure to read our interview with her here.

Interview: Sara Brooke

Today's interview is with Sara Brooke. Sara is a horror and suspense novelist living in South Florida. A lifelong avid reader of all things scary, Sara's childhood dream was to write horror books that force readers to sleep with their lights on. Sara's influences and favorite authors include Bentley Little, John Saul, William Blackstone, and Joe McKinney.

Her first novel, Still Lake, was released in the Spring of 2012. She is presently working on her third novel.

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Michael K. Rose: What role do you believe speculative fiction plays in society?

Sara Brooke: It plays a large role, serving as an escape from non-fiction and to be honest, from the mundane doldrums of life. Speculative fiction gives the reader an opportunity to be immersed in another world. It has always been a respite for me personally, so when I am creating different worlds with different characters, it is a unique pleasure to know that others will soon be entertained. Nothing pleases me more than when readers share their own personal thoughts in reference to one of my novels.

MKR: Why do you write in this genre?

SB: I love horror! It is what interests me. Hence, I write about what I enjoy. That's not to say that I don't enjoy dramas, romance or comedy, but I prefer to read about the horrific. Bentley Little is one of my favorite authors. His tales of terror are fantastical experiences that take the norms and systematically change them to the macabre. Some of my novels emulate that theme. It is quite amazing how quickly "normal" life can shift with just a few tiny changes in the world.

MKR: How did you come up with the idea for Kransen House?

SB: I've always loved a good haunted house story, but the best ones are where the people inside are more horrific than any of the "ghosts in the halls." Being a fan of Gothic suspense, I applied those principles to Kransen House. It really turned out the way I'd hoped despite taking different twists and turns that weren't anticipated when I began writing it. Many readers shared with me that it was a fascinating, horrific journey for them and that they couldn't stop reading until the end, anxious to know how it would all turn out.

MKR: What was your biggest challenge in writing it?

SB: There are scenes in the book that are truly uncomfortable, particularly from a woman's standpoint. Let's just say there are some really bad people in it. But in order to ensure that the story was believable, I had to touch upon topics that are difficult to swallow. Still, that is reality, isn't it? There are people in this world who don't follow the same rules as you or I. And, combining that with a touch of the "haunted" makes the story a tad more delicious.

MKR: What are you working on now?

SB: My third novel. I've posted some teasers about it on http://www.sarabrooke.com/. I'm also part of a new anthology entitled New Flesh, Old Bones, which contains short stories from newer authors like me and other more well-known writers like Joe Lansdale. My short is an interesting creepfest about a Goldfish named "Doug." I hope readers will check it out.

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Kransen House is available for Kindle (Amazon US, Amazon UK) and Nook. You can connect with Sara at her website or on Facebook. Also be sure to visit tomorrow as Kransen House will be the SpecFicPick Book Feature. Update: read it here.