Empyres Bloodblind ~ Paperback ~ John Koloski

"The suspense is reminiscent of a classic Hitchcock film. And the journey the reader takes - an existential transcendence that continuously evolves - would make Carlos Castaneda proud... a breath of fresh air amidst a sea of modernity and convention." -- Shroud Magazine If Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft had ever collaborated on a modern horror novel, they might have produced one like this: Driving through the night at 95 miles an hour, 32-year-old artist Adam Morrow has a lot to live for. Yve, a gorgeous girlfriend who loves him; a powerful sports car; and Patrick, a buddy who kills for him without question or hesitation, in the back seat. But every blessing hides a curse. The Corvette is stolen. Adam is blind. A crash years ago killed his fiancee, Leiko Hunter. The crash was caused by empathic vampires, who wanted him dead. Empyre leader Sterling Richards meant to kill Adam and take Leiko as his bride. But the plan went horribly wrong. Yve, beside Adam in the Corvette, is also an Empyre. She's pregnant with Adam's child. And Patrick, an ex-con and serial killer, has sworn to obey him only until they reach Philadelphia. Will Patrick kill him then? Not likely, because Adam's already been dead for a week. Now, pursued both by police and Richards's murderous Empyres, the three of them race toward Philadelphia, where a hidden cure might restore Yve's life and his own. Amrita, an Empyre elixir, promises Adam, Yve and their baby a normal future. It makes the living immortal, and even brings the dead back to life. The key to finding it lies in Adam's painfully fragmented recollections of the accident that blinded him and killed Leiko. Reliving those memories might be worse than dying. But the real struggle isn't to save Adam, or even Yve: it's really a fight to save their unborn child . . . the already-conscious, half-human fetus, gifted with unimaginable power, that they've begun to know as 'Shassa. Beautifully crafted, unfailingly imaginative, and spellbindingly tense from beginning to end, EMPYRES: Bloodblind marks the debut of a stunning new talent in fantastic horror.Author BiographyJohn Koloski was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, "the most haunted city in America." His inherited psychic sensitivity supplies encounters with ghosts, orbs and shadow-people much like those in his fiction. John holds degrees in English Literature (BA, Binghamton University) and Creative Writing (MA and MFA, Wilkes University.) He has been an editor and writer for national magazines. His stories and poems have appeared in The Endless Mountains Review, Southern Tier Images, and Midwest Poetry Review. He's presented papers for the National Council of Teachers of English and The John Gardner Society. His scholarly works are included in collections at The University of Rochester. A high school English teacher, John lives with his wife and children in the misty Endless Mountains. EMPYRES: BLOODBLIND, which was an invited public reading at the 2007 AWP Conference in Atlanta, GA, is his first published novel.