About the books:
Donovan DeChance is a collector of ancient manuscripts and books, a practicing mage, and a private investigator. This Omnibus Collection includes books I, II, III, and IV of the series. Included are Heart of a Dragon, Vintage Soul, My Soul to Keep (The Origin story of Donovan DeChance) and Kali’s Tale – book IV of the series. Also included are the bonus novellas “The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs & The Currently Accepted Habits of Nature,” and “The Preacher’s Marsh,” both of which provide background on settings and characters that appear in Kali’s Tale. If you enjoy this book, you should read Nevermore, A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe, which follows on Kali’s Tale, has a cameo from Donovan DeChance, and leads into Book V – A Midnight Dreary,
Heart of a Dragon, When a local houngan begins meddling with powers she may not be able to control, a turf war breaks out between the Dragons motorcycle club and the Los Escorpiones street gang—a war that threatens to open portals between worlds and destroy the city in the process. With his lover, Amethyst, his familiar, Cleo – an Egyptian Mau the size of a small bobcat –the dubious aid of a Mexican sorcerer named Martinez and the budding gifts of a young artist named Salvatore, DeChance begins a race against time, magic, and almost certain death.
Vintage Soul, When, despite the finest in natural and supernatural security, a sexy and well-loved, three hundred year old lady vampire is kidnapped right out from under her lover’s nose, Donovan is called in to investigate. There will be no ransom for the kidnap victim, and if Donovan doesn’t prevent an ancient, forbidden ritual from reaching its culmination, far more than a single vampire’s undead existence will be at stake.
My Soul to Keep, Donovan DeChance is a very private man, and he is in love. When he invites his partner and lover, Amethyst, for a quiet dinner, she has no idea of his true intention. Donovan has planned a sharing – a vision that will give her the keys to his early life – the origins of his power – and a lot more than she bargained for. Join young Donovan as he fights to keep his soul, save a town, and learn the roots of his teacher and guardian – and meet his familiar, Cleo.
Kali’s Tale, When Donovan is asked to follow in secret as a hot-headed group of young vampires set out on a ‘blood quest’ to kill the ancient who created the young vampire Kali against her will, he learns that – as usual – there is a lot more to the story than meets the eye. Through the juke joints of Beale Street in Memphis, to the depths of The Great Dismal Swamp, Donovan and his lover and partner, Amethyst, find themselves drawn along on one of the strangest quests in their long, enigmatic lives as they delve into the world of the undead, the magic of The Blues, and the very heart of alchemy both to protect their young, vampiric charges – and to prevent an ancient evil from destroying the balance of power in the universe.
A Midnight Dreary, the long-awaited fifth volume in The DeChance Chronicles, picks up outside Old Mill, NC, when Donovan, reminded that he has promised his lover, Amethyst, and Geoffrey Bullfinch of the O.C.L.T. a story, draws them back in time to a vision of the final chapter of the novel Nevermore, a Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe. At vision’s end, they realize that they have to act, to free Eleanor MacReady from the trap that holds her on the banks of Lake Drummond, in the Great Dismal Swamp,
These novels directly crosses over to the original series O.C.L.T. – where Donovan is a sometimes consultant. It features appearances by Geoffrey Bullfinch and Rebecca York, O.C.L.T. agents, as well as Old Mill, North Carolina’s own Cletus J. Diggs.
There was a jet fueled and waiting for them when they arrived. The powers funding O.C.L.T. had resources that could be mind boggling at times. There was a small sigil on the tail-wing of the sleek, private aircraft. Beneath that, in a semi-circle, the words “Colorado Star.” The pilot, a tall man with dark hair that was just beginning to gray at his temples, greeted them as they climbed aboard.
“Lewis!” Geoffrey said. “I didn’t expect you to be available.”
“Just in from the Amazon. We had a long flight back, but I’ve had a day’s rest, and you know me. When Mr. Dodd’s call came in, I was first out of the gate.”
“Just like your father,” Geoffrey chuckled. “With a bit of your grandmother thrown in for good measure.”
“I will take that as it is intended,” Lewis said. “As a compliment. Perhaps, once we are in the air, I can join you for a bit. You have stories that even I haven’t heard.”
Geoffrey nodded, and smiled, then climbed on board. Gunter followed, and within moments they were seated, their luggage stowed, and the jet began rolling slowly across the tarmac, turning down a runway in preparation for takeoff.
“This isn’t one of our regular aircraft,” Gunter observed.
“Everyone is out,” Geoffrey said. “Colorado Star—and, Lewis and his parents—are old companions of mine. We tried to recruit them for O.C.L.T. but they have a lodge—an old group—and they keep mostly to themselves. His grandmother, Stasi, was one of the most gifted Seers I’ve ever encountered. I’ll tell you one day about how they met Nikola Tesla—I believe that story would be right up your alley.”
Gunter eyed him for a moment with an assessing expression that Geoffrey had come to expect from the old physicist.
“Sometimes,” Gunter said, “The things we surround ourselves with—the people—distract me so much I can’t think. For instance, you speak of Nikola Tesla almost as if he were a contemporary.”
Geoffrey smiled.
“When time permits,” he said, “I’ll tell you some stories. You can judge for yourself how much you believe, and how much you credit to the wandering imagination of an aging mind. In any case, Lewis is one of the best pilots in the world, and this craft—much as I love our own—is likely protected in ways we’ll never understand.”
As the jet reached airspeed and lifted off the ground, Gunter leaned back, and stared out the window as they nosed up toward the clouds. He sat very still, and very quiet, until they leveled off, and then he turned back to Geoffrey. When he did, his eyes twinkled, and his face was a mask of wonder.
“I feel like a bird,” he said. “A very lazy bird. Did I tell you? I have developed a theory about your vampires. I have studied what is available in the library and questioned several of the others—Isabella and Rebecca, even Mack, who found a bit more than I was able to with his wires and computers.”
“A theory?” Geoffrey said. “About their existence?”
“Indeed. There is little in the world that does not have an explanation, but there is much for which those explanations have yet to be discovered. How can a man die and still live? How can drinking blood, something that would not sustain a living man, and which can certainly not rebuild a respiratory or circulatory system, be the key?”
Geoffrey remained silent. He knew of no scientific answer that could do justice to the question.
“Exactly,” Gunter said, responding to the silence. “It defies logic, but that is often the way with things we do not understand. It’s not nature that is flawed, but the logic. So, let me propose that one of the pet theories of quantum physics is true. There are many dimensions—this is only one. Possibly every decision we make, every word we speak, splinters off and becomes a form of the original. If this is true, your vampires would be—in some dimensions—alive and well, and in others quite dead.”
“That makes sense,” Geoffrey admitted. “The vampires here, however, seem to be neither.”
“And that is the key,” Gunter beamed. “They seem to be neither. What I believe is that they have somehow managed to forge a bond with another version of themselves. A living version, living a life without any awareness of the connection. As our vampire lives, and moves through the world, it saps energy from its ‘host’ in that other dimension. Very likely, at times, it is near to causing a second death. And then? It feeds. The ingestion of blood, while of no use to the vampire itself, feeds the life force of the victim across the dimensions to replenish the strength of the ‘host’.”
Geoffrey stared. He opened his mouth to say that he believed it was totally preposterous, but even as his lips parted, he realized—it was not. In some way, it made perfect sense.
“What of the longevity?” he asked. “If the connection is to a single other self, and that other self lives a normal life, why does the vampire not perish when that other’s life ends?”
Gunter grinned.
“There are infinite possible selves, and I believe the longer such a bond exists, the more versions become connected. For all we know there are dimensions where death doesn’t exist at all, where the idea of such an ending would be as foreign as the idea of immorality is to you—or to me. Is it not true that the longer such a creature exists, the more powerful it becomes?”
Geoffrey nodded.
Then Gunter’s grin widened. “It is only a theory. Feh, perhaps they are supernatural creatures of the night who are magically regenerated by the blood of the living. What do I know?”
Geoffrey laughed, and Gunter joined him.
“I think,” he said, “that this will prove a most interesting adventure.”
Purchase at:
DECHANCE CHRONICLES OMNIBUS
Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/2Vqjxyd
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2UYjJFw
A MIDNIGHT DREARY
Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/2Vtu8su
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Zz6TfM
Giveaway:
(1) Ten dollar Starbucks Card and a David N. Wilson Book Collection, and (5) Books from the author, winners’ choice
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