Feb 3, 2012

Read A Scattering of Jades for Free

It's been out of print for a while now, but I like this book a lot. It was my first try at writing a novel, and all things considered I think it turned out pretty well. I'd like more people to read it, so I PDFed it and I'm making it available to anyone who cares to click this link or the image at left.

If you're unfamiliar with A Scattering of Jades, it won the Locus, Crawford, and International Horror Guild first-novel awards when it came out in 2002. Here's the flap copy:

The great fire of 1835 burned most of New York City's wooden downtown. Like many people, Archie Prescott thought he had lost everything. His home was a smoldering ruin, his dead wife's body at his feet. And next to her is a child's corpse he assumes was his daughter. It seems like the end of everything.

But it is only the beginning.

Goaded into action by New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, Archie runs afoul of one of P. T. Barnum's former sideshow workers, Riley Steen. With the help of an ancient book translated by Aaron Burr, Steen has resurrected a chacmool. This ageless Mesoamerican avatar plans to use the blood of Archie's still-living daughter to bring about the end of humanity.

At the same time, Stephen Bishop guides tourists through the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Stephen, a slave, wants nothing more than a world where the color of his skin doesn't deny his humanity. His fateful first meeting with the chacmool leads him to believe that the promise it offers may bring him to such a world.

In the midst of ancient magic and murderous conspiracies, Archie finds himself with the power to save the world or drown it in sacrificial blood . . . but first he has to stop mourning his daughter and undertake a grim cross-country journey to save her.

Read or download it here. (There's a Kindle edition too, but I've never seen a dime from it, so you might as well read for free!)

And if you like it, of course, there's One King and The Narrows and Buyout...

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