Guest Post and Giveaway: Dead Camp by Sean Kerr (Dead Camp Book 1)

Blurb:
Eli is an ancient vampire with an ego the size of a planet and a sex drive to match, but his tumultuous past left him broken, so he hides from humanity and cowers from love, left to endure the crushing guilt that haunts his every waking moment. Even his best friend Malachi, a ghost who is hopelessly in love with Eli, remains unaware of all that transpired in London. Malachi can never know the truth.

When the Angel Daniyyel pays an unwelcome visit, Eli must face his secrets, secrets that he has tried so long to hide. To make matters worse, a chance encounter with the most beautiful man he has ever seen shatters his beloved isolation, pushing him into the world of the living once more. Something about this strange man seems so familiar, but Eli can’t even remember who he was before he became a vampire, never mind explain the unwanted emotions the enigmatic stranger ignites in his dead heart. So Eli has a choice—return to the world that ruined him, or continue his self-imposed exile with no hope of salvation.

Where To Buy:
Smashwords || eXtasy Books || Amazon UK || Amazon US || Barnes and Noble || Kobo

Guest Post:
Let’s talk regrets. Because I’m not sure there has been anyone that’s topped Isaiah’s regret in quite some time. My heart breaks for him because all he wanted was to make a deal to keep those he loved safe. I wonder if it was worth it in the end. Read and enjoy!
My name is Isaiah Nathan Silberman, and I am an exorcist. I am also a traitor to mankind, but we shall get to that in due course.

I met her in Berlin, that wonderful woman, or girl as she was back then. Eva Steinberg. The day and the date shall forever remain engraved upon my broken heart, because it was the first day of the rest of my life. March 4^th, 1909.

Eva worked in a soup kitchen, and the very first time that I saw her, her long black hair bouncing around her shoulders, her green eyes sparkling with mischief, her flushed completion so perfect, my heart belonged to her. Adi seemed so reluctant to introduce us, he was so shy as she sat beside us, and yet, she spoke to us both with such ease, such unabashed confidence, that it is a wonder to me that a que of suiters did not present itself before her at that very moment. Everything about her was a wonder to me, her pretty apron, dusted with flour, her hands with those short, painfully short finger nails – how she hated it when bread dough became trapped beneath those nails – her voice so full of kindness and passion, her devotion to those poor souls less fortunate than her. I fell in love with Eva Steinberg on March 4^th 1909, and I wish now that my heart did not love her so.

The events that followed that meeting, the horror of the world in which we found ourselves immersed, all of it could have been avoided if I had only left that strange little man alone. I would not have met Eva. Such is my need for information and knowledge, such was my curiosity towards Adi, that my fate, and the fate of the woman destined to become my wife, was fixed that day, in that place before God, and may God help me for all that has transpired since.

They would call on me from time to time, those Demons, those creatures born of such filth, and I saw it in her eyes every time I left, the pain, the fear, the terror. I traveled the globe in search of their relics, and I betrayed mankind every time I uncovered such a treasure and procured it for them.

What is it that I do in service of these creatures? Still, even now, even after she was lost to me? To what end do they need such things?

All of that is irrelevant now. Eva, the sun that warmed my heart, the breath that kept me alive, gone. All that I have done, all that I have endured, just to keep her safe from them, such was the bargain that we struck that day in the basement of that church. I would betray my kind to keep her safe, and I would do it gladly. But the world is changing. A darkness covers the globe, and it is a sickness, rotting mankind form the inside. My son, my poor son, left alone to deal with his grief as my inhuman Masters use me once more in their unfathomable scheme. Will my child ever forgive me? Will he understand, that I do for him now, as I once did for her? To what depths must a parent go to protect their child from the horrors lurking in the shadows? Anything. We would do anything.

So that is my regret my friend, that is the horror that I live with every day, the knowledge that I brought Eva into this abominable world, the knowledge that monsters knew her name because of me. I should not have pursued Adi that day. That one incident, that one moment of curiosity, that it should cause so much pain, breaks my heart with every breath I take.

Eva, my beloved, my heart, I am so sorry.

Excerpt:
With a sickening wet sound, his body finally broke free of the earth. A cry of agony burst from between his perfect lips and his head fell back against my shoulder. I felt his long eyelashes brush against my neck as his eyes flickered in defiance of the blackness trying to consume him.

“Stay with me fella, stay with me, we’ll be home in a jiffy.”

Home, back to my castle, what the fuck was I thinking? I was out of my little fucking mind. I didn’t know the man. I owed him nothing. I had an Angel in my dining room and a German soldier in my dungeon and to top things off, I lived with a ghost. Yet I still wanted to take him home? No, I was intent on taking him home, I had decided that the moment I saw him.

But why, why should I get involved, why should I tread that path again, the path that could only lead to pain. It always did. And yet, as I held him in my arms I felt it, something inescapable, something that I could not understand, a stirring, a feeling, like something found when all hope of ever finding it had been forgotten. Something complicated.

A tingle of warning trickled up and down my spine making my hair stand on end. I lowered the hunk to the ground, slowly, carefully and whispered into his perfectly shaped ear. “Remain quiet.”

In a flash of lightning speed, I leapt into a tree, clinging with one hand to a thick branch while my legs wrapped around its thick girth. Someone was out there and not just Mr Fuck Me He’s Perfect. The smell of human, living heart pumping human was unmistakable, that incomparable odour carried on the wind to entice my nostrils and excite my senses, and I was dutifully excited. But there was something else there too, a feint undercurrent, an elusive aftertaste that went beyond sweat and skid-marks, an elusive scent that pricked at my memory, the smell of Demon.

I saw him then, a German soldier winding his way through the field of corpses. His uniform, a grey green feldbluse replete with bottle green collar and shoulder straps, made him almost invisible amongst the branches and the sludge. I could not see his face beneath his field cap but I could easily make out the eagle and swastika emblem embroidered on the bottle green cloth and I noted with disgust the Sturmgewehr semi-automatic rifle hanging loosely from his shoulder.

The Nazi stood barely six metres away from my injured future husband. Do not move lovely man, I said to myself, do not move and don’t make a sound and if you can, be still your beating heart, because to me it sounded like a jackhammer pounding through the forest. He was frightened and in pain. His eyes darted everywhere looking for me, desperate for me, pleading for me to drag him out of that Hell.

I saw the agony flash across his face before the sound escaped his lips. My entire body tensed. Too late, the soldier heard his pain.

He was running then, running towards my Adonis in the pit. Without hesitation, I soared through the air and landed with feline grace before him. The soldier fell backwards with a bloodcurdling scream. The rifle landed at my feet and I picked it up, rising to my full magnificent height, slowly and with purpose, relishing every moment of fear that blossomed across the soldiers white features. I snapped the weapon as easily as though it were a twig and threw the shattered weapon at his feet, watching with satisfied relish as he scrabbled backwards in the mud, his mouth curling away from his face as his terror burst from his throat.

“Demon! You are not from the camp. What are you?”

My teeth extended and my eyes flashed black. My Vampire was out. In one swift movement, barely visible to the human eye, I leapt at him, pulling him off the floor with effortless ease, lifting his flailing body high above my head. I threw him with all my might at the nearest tree. His spine snapped with an audible bang as his fragile body wrapped itself backwards around the trunk of the trembling pine, his lifeless body sliding to the ground and my stomach rumbled. Dinner was served.

About Sean:
I think that as I approach that milestone that is fifty, I must be one of the oldest gamers on the face of this earth. Many a day you will find me lashed to my PS4 enjoying a good session of Skyrim. Who doesn’t love a good session of Skyrim?

I love writing—I have done it since I was a child when I would happily write about the latest episode of Doctor Who (Tom Baker in those days) in my schoolbooks. Growing up and becoming a business owner with my friend Jayne left little time to pursue my dream of publication, but of late the desire and the compulsion to put words onto paper have once again dominated my life so that now, my laptop has become surgically fused to my fingertips.

There is something desperately satisfying about telling a story. My fascination with History, Religion and Conspiracy theories have, in this instance, gone hand-in-hand with my love of all things vampire, fantasy, sci-fi and horror. I drove my parents nuts when I was young because that was all I would read about in books, all I would watch on television, but they have held me in good stead, and long may my obsession with the subjects continue, at least, that is, until the day they put me in my own wooden box. And imagination is such a wonderful thing. I once had a rather vivid dream about David Tennant and the Tardis console, but I could not possibly go into details about that here. Let’s just say that my polarity was well and truly reversed.

Dead Camp is just the beginning. I have to check my knickers every day at the thought that this book is now in the public domain. My first book, and I hope the first of many. And to those out there who love to write, who love to transport us to new worlds, or old worlds with a twisted perspective, I say to you keep going. I never thought I would ever see my work available to download, and thanks to eXtasy Books, the dream that I always thought unobtainable has finally come true. So thank you all at eXtasy, I am one happy homosexual thanks to you, and thank you the reader for taking the time to read this strange tale and allowing Eli and the incomparable Malachi into your lives.

And now I really need Skyrim.

Author Contact:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sean.kerr.146
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Dead-Camp-blog-402721546519007/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sgk69
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6207037.Sean_Kerr
Dead Camp Site: http://seankerr5.wix.com/deadcamp

Tour Stops:
29-Mar: Full Moon Dreaming, Velvet Panic, BFD Book Blog
5-Apr: Rednecks and Romance, Jessie G. Books, Hearts on Fire, The Dark Arts
12-Apr: Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
19-Apr: Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews, Inked Rainbow Reads, Emotion In Motion, Book Lovers 4Ever
26-Apr: Bonkers About Books, Divine Magazine, Nephy Hart, The Hat Party
3-May: My Fiction Nook, MM Book Escape, Bayou Book Junkie
10-May: Dawn’s Reading Nook, Cathy Brockman Romances, Unquietly Me
17-May: Kirsty Loves Books, The Novel Approach
24-May: Elisa – My Reviews and Ramblings, Havan Fellows
31-May: MM Good Book Reviews, Making It Happen, Love Bytes
7-Jun: Happily Ever Chapter, Alpha Book Club
14-Jun: Molly Lolly, A.M. Leibowitz, Outrageous Heroes

Giveaway:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Giveaway:
For the entire month of June, all comments will be one entry into a paperback giveaway. One lucky winner will receive a paperback copy of both Unstable Stud by Ariel Tachna andForgive and Forget by Charlie Cochet. Contest is open to everyone, each comment is one entry, contest ends June 30 11:59PM. Winner must provide their mailing address within one week of contest close or a new winner will be selected.

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