New Release! "The Beast of Friday Lake"

It’s finally here! I have published six non-fiction books and had a short story published in an anthology in 2023, but nothing beats my first novel. This book has been in production for many years and was not the first book I had intended to publish. It’s been a long journey from developing the characters and plot and certainly rewriting and editing as well as editing and rewriting and then editing some more and then fomatting for release.

My first book idea was about a ghost group in a fictional setting. I developed what I thought was a good story, but the plot fell apart and I got stuck nearly halfway through it. In the book I had created a character that was friends with one of my main characters. His name was Henry Malone and was a motocross rider as well as a cryptozoologist (those who study unknown and undiscovered animals like Bigfoot). My initial idea was to have a character established in this book that could be used in a forthcoming book in a series of the ghost group or even a spinoff idea. Once the original book began to stall, I decided to develop the latter idea.

The ideas flowed very quickly and as I developed other characters, I eventually moved away from Henry being the main character. I really enjoyed creating the plot and while I wanted to keep some suspense, I never intended to mislead my readers. This is a simple and straightforward book that is meant to entertain but also teach the reader a little about cryptozoology along the way.

The setting is the fictional towns of Friday Station and Friday Lake. The lake is a recreational area that used to be a quiet lake just used by locals only with non-motorized boats, kayaks, and canoes. Eventually the lake was developed for recreational use by the general public and the once quiet town slowly became overrun with tourists. There had always been rumors of a large bipedal creature roaming the woods, but the urban legend was just considered a story until one summer.

A series of murders created the startling possibility that maybe the creature was not only real, but it was killing people who had created reports about it. The book focuses on Henry Malone as well as a local sheriff’s deputy, Deputy Lynne Garcia, who together try to piece together clues to help figure out if a creature or a person is responsible for the murders.

The town turns upside down as more murders occur and the area becomes the focus on a swarm of media that camps out and creates even more speculation about what might be happening. Fingers point in many directions and eventually the beast is flushed out and a life and death chase and struggle ensues.

The book can be purchased through Lulu.com and is coming soon to global distribution at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online retailers.


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