Today is my final post on the ShOctober tour and I’m sharing an extract from Descent To Hell. My post is shared with thanks to Zoe O’Farrell and the team at Spellbound Books for inviting me on the tour and for my copy of the extract.

Blurb:

A child dragged into the underworld.
A man forced to enter mankind’s most feared territory…

When Charlie Ward’s beloved niece is kidnapped by a demon, he must find the secret gateway into the one place every human fears.

Armed only with courage and determination, Charlie has to survive in a forbidding place filled with despair and anguish, a cruel place from where nobody has ever returned.

Charlie must face challenges no mortal should ever have to endure. Challenges that threaten to claim and destroy his very soul.How far would you go to save someone you love?

DESCENT TO HELL – a contemporary horror thriller, perfect for readers who like to be scared witless.

Extract:

A long strand of Max’s hair developed a life of its own, finding Clarence’s wrist and wrapping itself around it, pulling his hand into view along with a card he had kept hidden.

Wulfric threw his cards down on the table. ‘By Odin’s mighty cock! That’s the fifth time during this game!’

Clarence shrugged, giving an apologetic grin. ‘Sorry, can’t control it, doctor said it’s a compulsion.’ Everybody laughed, even Max. Trying to find out how and when Clarence tried to screw them over had become an even worthier challenge than the poker games.

They knew the ferry had landed with the newcomers but none of them paid much attention to the flock of people disembarking. It was the same procedure every time. The newly damned and useless were arriving in Hell.

Clarence and Jones had used pieces of an old discarded cupboard to craft a huge sign like the ones greeting you when you arrived at some posh holiday destinations. The writing on it read: Welcome to Club Dread – Your holiday here will last forever! Max had smiled mildly when they had proudly put it up. 

Sadly for the two, no one seemed to pay attention to the sign or managed to see the irony in it. No one recognised a good piece of art these days.

They were about to pick on Clarence again for cheating when they suddenly all felt it. The air had shifted, the four turned their heads toward the shore and the replenishment of the freshly doomed.

Wulfric was the first to speak again. ‘Fuck me with Thor’s hammer! Did you feel that? I can almost smell him. A pure soul!’ 

Jones’s grin vanished. He had never seen Wulfric so excited before. He wasn’t entirely sure what Wulfric was talking about. He had not heard that expression before. ‘What’s a pure soul exactly?’

‘Someone who doesn’t belong here, Jones. An exotic and rare being in Hell.’ He was already up and on his way, the others stood up, craning their necks to see where he was heading. 

Max sensed Jones’s excitement. ‘Your first one ever, Jones? You experienced a jolt charging through you like electricity?’

Jones nodded, his eyes and mind too busy following Wulfric, eagerly waiting to see his first pure soul. 

Clarence patted Jones on the shoulder, enjoying the anticipation on Jones’s face. He took off his hat to run a hand through his hair then put it back on. He failed to recall the exact time when this had last happened but he remembered the young man who had last found his way through the secret entrance vividly, as if it had been only yesterday. Even for a veteran of Hell like Clarence, the arrival of a pure soul was an event not to be missed.

***

Descent To Hell is available from Amazon.

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