I’m an author of horror and dark fiction. I love writing strong female leads and I’ll promise you one thing: the dog never dies.
If you wanted to trace back the history of my writing career, my mother would refer you to a poem I wrote about bats in a graveyard in 2nd grade. She still has it, laminated and smashed in a binder of decades old memories from my childhood.
But I started writing horror in earnest about three years ago when something really strange happened to me.
Every year, my friends and I rent a cabin in the foothills of Shenandoah National Park. It’s really out there. No people, no towns, just trees and grass and hills. Three years ago, I arrived at the cabin straight from a trip I took to India, and I had the WORST jet lag I’ve ever had. I’d sleep all day and be awake all night.
Anyway, one night when I was lying awake, I rolled over to my side and gazed out the big front window of the bedroom I was staying in. The view overlooked a gloriously vast meadow filled with pine trees and wheatgrass, and right around 4am, when everyone else was asleep and a new dawn mist was forming in the distance, I saw this large shadowy thing slowly move across the land. I got up to look at what the thing was, but I couldn’t make it out, only to see that it was absolutely huge. It didn’t do anything crazy, it just moved – almost hovered – from one side of the meadow to the other.
After I was done being completely terrified and the sun came up, my mind ran wild with story possibilities. I scribbled an idea down on a piece of paper and recounted it to my friends that very day. Turn it into a short story! Turn it into a screenplay!
I was shocked they actually thought it was… good. So I did, and it started a little thing I was just going to post online until some fellow indie authors encouraged me to do more with it. I spent the next two years writing, and rewriting, and editing, and rewriting, and RE-rewriting, and just last week it finally saw the light of day in the form my first full-length novel, Sentinel.
I’ve already got a sequel in the works, and I’m releasing a short story collection later this fall with my best short fiction to date. If you want to check out my work, I’d be utterly delighted if you gave Sentinel a try (free on KU for a limited time).
by Drew Starling
May 14th, 2021 Genre: Supernatural Horror
Publisher: Eerie River Publishing
HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO GET YOUR SON BACK?
Something is lurking within the woods just beyond the young Dreyer family’s new country home. And an evil that has been hiding in plain sight for centuries is about to emerge.
A neighbor is brutally murdered, their 4-year-old son goes missing in broad daylight, and the local town of Bensalem devolves into a cesspool of finger-pointing and chaos.
With nowhere left to turn, Aaron and Ellen Dreyer are forced to venture into the woods to find their son. But in the process, they uncover a force larger and more sinister than anything they ever could have imagined.
Excerpt
But from that nothingness, something arose. A click-clacking of claws on hardwood perforated the stillness. It started faintly and grew louder, closer, until a pair of glowing, yellow eyes suddenly stared back at him from the center of the room. Cooper’s eyes. Cooper stood there watching, alert. Aaron pushed himself up off the couch. “You okay? Come here.” But the dog did not heed his owner, instead lumbering through the living room to the front door. It, too, faced the front yard and the meadow across the street. “You need to go out?” With his nose an inch from the solid oak door and his eyes glaring right into it, Cooper’s ears pinned themselves back, and his upper lip curled, exposing a trap of lethal white teeth. His tail, which usually bounced along as he walked, divined itself straight down towards the ground, and his back legs began to quiver. Cooper glared at the door, slightly shaking, growling in a triggered rage. “Cooper, knock that off.” Aaron stood and faced the living room windows. Nothing seemed out of place in the front yard or the meadow, but Cooper continued to growl, his volume low enough not to wake Ellen or Caleb, but so downright out of place for a dog of his character that Aaron kept his distance. Then, like a photo somehow coming alive, a dark object moved on the perfectly-still canvas. A shadow at the edge of the pine forest on the right-hand side of the meadow pulled itself out of the thick black trees.
About the Author
An Amazon bestselling author of horror and dark fiction, Drew Starling is a husband and dog dad who loves strong female leads, martial arts, and long walks in the woods with canine companions. He would like to think his plots are better than his prose, but strives to make his words sound both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. He listens to Beethoven, Megadeth, and Enya when he writes, and he’d be absolutely delighted if you’d consider joining his mailing list (which you can find a link to about one and a half mouse scrolls up this page). His only rule of writing: the dog never dies.
But from that nothingness, something arose. A click-clacking of claws on hardwood perforated the stillness. It started faintly and grew louder, closer, until a pair of glowing, yellow eyes suddenly stared back at him from the center of the room. Cooper’s eyes. Cooper stood there watching, alert. Aaron pushed himself up off the couch. “You okay? Come here.” But the dog did not heed his owner, instead lumbering through the living room to the front door. It, too, faced the front yard and the meadow across the street. “You need to go out?” With his nose an inch from the solid oak door and his eyes glaring right into it, Cooper’s ears pinned themselves back, and his upper lip curled, exposing a trap of lethal white teeth. His tail, which usually bounced along as he walked, divined itself straight down towards the ground, and his back legs began to quiver. Cooper glared at the door, slightly shaking, growling in a triggered rage. “Cooper, knock that off.” Aaron stood and faced the living room windows. Nothing seemed out of place in the front yard or the meadow, but Cooper continued to growl, his volume low enough not to wake Ellen or Caleb, but so downright out of place for a dog of his character that Aaron kept his distance. Then, like a photo somehow coming alive, a dark object moved on the perfectly-still canvas. A shadow at the edge of the pine forest on the right-hand side of the meadow pulled itself out of the thick black trees.
An Amazon bestselling author of horror and dark fiction, Drew Starling is a husband and dog dad who loves strong female leads, martial arts, and long walks in the woods with canine companions. He would like to think his plots are better than his prose, but strives to make his words sound both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. He listens to Beethoven, Megadeth, and Enya when he writes, and he’d be absolutely delighted if you’d consider joining his mailing list (which you can find a link to about one and a half mouse scrolls up this page). His only rule of writing: the dog never dies.
Twitter Tags:
@ScaryStarling @EerieRiver @RRBookTours1 #RRBookTours #Sentinel #Supernatural #Horror
Book Tour Schedule
May 31st
Reads & Reels (Spotlight) http://readsandreels.com
Book Dragons Not Worms (Spotlight) https://bookdragonsnotworms.blogspot.com/?m=1
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June 1st
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June 2nd
Nesie’s Place (Spotlight) https://nesiesplace.wordpress.com
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The Musings of a Final Girl (Spotlight) https://musingsofafinalgirl.wordpress.com/
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Scarlett Readz & Runz (Spotlight) https://scarlettreadzandrunz.com/
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June 4th
@dreaminginpages (Review) https://www.instagram.com/dreaminginpages/
@evelovesbooks_travel_art (Review) https://www.instagram.com/evelovesbooks_travel_art/
Phantom of the Library (Review) https://phantomofthelibrary.com/
@the.b00kreader (Review) https://www.instagram.com/the.b00kreader/
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