BLOG HOP HUNT: MEET MARC ROYSTON

Hi I’m Jenny Bynum, Owner of Black Words-White Pages, and I’m your host for this stop in the tour.

This is your post for the ACOA Scavenger Hunt and I am pleased to be hosting MARC ROYSTON, and in his post you will find a number, not in written text, but as a numerical number. Write it down and collect them all as you visit every post along the way. Good Luck!

GREETINGS, MERRY TRICKSTERS!  

I am Marc Royston, Author of Hecate's Faun (available now at Amazon.com); The Story of Méabh (current project); and The Wizard Ignites (Volume I of A Wizard's Life) (UPCOMING RELEASE FOR 2016 from My Boy Publishing).  

NEW RELEASE

HECATE’S FAUN (dark fantasy/historical fantasy/gothic horror/magical realism)

While Savannah burns on the horizon and the final battle of the Civil War is fought, an old woman discovers the corpse of a satyr floating in her pond. When a confederate officer arrives and claims the body is a demon, the homicidal ghost of the old woman’s daughter instigates a night of horror and recrimination while crimes long hidden and secrets too terrible for the light of day are revealed.

Amazon Rating: 5 of 5 Stars.

“Captivating” “Well-Crafted” “Great prose” “A great buy for lovers of the gothic horror and magical realism genre” – AlbedoOne, “Ireland’s longest-running and foremost magazine of theFantastic”

EXCERPT FROM HECATE’S FAUN 

“The world awoke to a shock of silence. Ash no longer fell. Patched by sinuous dunes of snowy cinder, the landscape began to brighten. A smoky bruise veiled the dawn. Behind the morning’s haze, God’s angry 83 eye, red and glaring, slowly climbed. Infinite clouds filled the sky. Here and there, cerulean rifts gradually pierced the grey. Out every gap, a shaft of radiance erupted. Without exception, one-by-one, each beam extinguished, as if what they lit below was too repugnant to be witnessed.

Synchronous to the break of day, warmth swelled upon my back.

I don’t know when the dead had withdrawn, but I was grateful not to weather their censure. Still, although they were unseen, I felt as if they listened.

With gritty scrapes, my shovel bit the earth. Heels-to-hip, the pit in which I stood consumed me. Above, a little knoll piled higher, growing with my shovel’s every swing.

Adjacent to that mound, my petticoats lay where I had discarded them. A muddy crust stained the frills in shades of bile-yellow. The rags looked like a carcass with a ruptured chest. Arches of each hoop’s broken ribbing jutted between the folds. Ivory-white, the curves of whalebone starkly contrasted against the upturned earth.

Despite the split in the crotch, I still wore my drawers under the remnants of my skirt. Except for the last button before my waist, my bodice flapped free. When I leaned over, my chemise sagged, and my shriveled teats peeked above the neckline.

But I didn’t concern myself with modesty. I concentrated on my labors. And Gigi hummed a lullaby that I favored when I was still a girl.

I heard a stiff snap. From the edge of my spade, as light tremor ran up the handle and through my fingers.

Abruptly, Gigi’s ditty ended.  

“There you are, my darling,” I said. Triumphant, I smiled.

Slanting rays of sunlight now grazed my shoulder. Inch-by-inch, an aura of red crept down the hollow. Slowly, the infection of the tainted dawn descended. Hugging one wall, the roots of an oak that had been toppled long ago branched like the gristle in a slab of jerky. Their shadows warped and crawled. Plastered by clumps of soil and tarnished by decades of seeping rains, moldering layers of bone emerged from the other sides. Here, an arm; there, a foot; phalanges and a pelvis.

Delicate and white, the side of a skull, smaller than my fist, bulged out the muck at my feet. Even after all these years, a few shreds of a burlap shroud still remained.

“Sweet pea,” I said, “Momma has brought you a friend.”

UPCOMING RELEASE

Out of an Inferno, a wizard’s life begins. 

Accused of being a witch and of murdering the girl he loves, a naïve young farmer faces the terrible cost of his gift for magic. While on trial for his life, Götling unravels a web of intrigues spun by wizards, gods, and royals. If he can overcome his persecutors and gain admittance into the Academy of Arcane Arts, Götling might yet learn to control his fiery power and become the instrument to decide all wars.

The Piper of the Dead invades the Empire. The Shadow Queen and her demon army prepare to escape their long imprisonment. And an insane goddess plots to overthrow her peers.

The time foretold has come. A fire, a reluctant hero rises into legend.

The Wizard Ignites, an adult epic fantasy, was a ShortList Finalist, Novel-In-Progress, in the two thousand and eleven William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. 

MEET THE AUTHOR 

Marc Royston (Artist/Actor/Writer) was born in Atlantis but currently lives in California. He talks to himself a great deal and yells at his computer. As the author of numerous teleplays, screen plays, poetry and fiction, he began his writing career at the age of six. His earliest drafts were composed in crayon on whatever surface he could find (whether paper, wall, floor, or sidewalk). A fantasist, Marc Royston, spends much of his time exploring alternate universes, which reflect our own. Through tales of magic and legend, he delves into the intricacies and foibles of human relations amidst the conundrums of modern society. 

Quote: "I seek to take my audience on an emotional roller-coaster ride, a journey of laughter and tears and every sentiment in between. I immerse myself and therefore my readers in worlds as familiar as they are wondrous and strange."  

FOLLOW Marc Royston NOW at

The Wizard’s Workshop

         

Scavenger Hunt Hint

The number for your clue will not be written in text, but it will be numerical. Tally all the numbers you find during the hunt and tally them together. This final number will be an entry in the Rafflecopter on the ENTER HERE page on the official Website. If you get stuck along the way because of a broken link, please visit the AUTHORS LINK page. 

Did you find the number? If you did, then click HERE on MARC ROYSTON to continue the Scavenger Hunt.