C. David Belt's Blog, page 8

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Flying high with praise for Devourer of Souls

With his newest book, “The Witch and the Devourer of Souls,” C. David Belt shines bright as a master of suspense and tasteful horror. Tabitha Moonshadow has expanded her talents, and with the help of her faithful, struggling husband, is thrown into an epic who-dunnit that keeps you guessing right until the end. David hits all the right notes in this fantastic sequel that seats him firmly in the same section as Stephen King and Dean Koontz.

Walt Parker, South Jordan, Utah

It is a rare feat for an author to pull off a sequel that is better than its earlier work, but in the case of “The Witch and the Devourer of Souls” that is exactly what C. David Belt has done.

Belt’s heroine, Tabitha Moonshadow, returns with even greater abilities than before, thanks to a special connection she and her husband have through the Power. As college students with a new baby, their lives seem perfect.

But a string of kidnappings and murders in their community soon changes that. To her own endangerment, Tabitha unwittingly begins using the Power to help police find the perpetrator. Before long she begins to suspect everyone around her.

With Belt’s trademark plot twists, “The Witch and the Devourer of Souls” captures the reader’s attention from beginning to end.

Adam Ward, Centerville, Utah

The Witch and the Devourer of Souls is a riveting work of fiction. I couldn’t put it down! I didn’t read the first book in the series, but I didn’t feel that I was lacking in the information that I needed to enjoy the story. Now I want to go back and learn more of Tabitha’s beginnings. This novel had characters that were believable in their everyday lives and the identity of the Devourer kept me guessing until the very end. It was quite suspenseful, intriguing, and well done.

Crystal Earl – DeWitt, MI

This book was a wild ride. Like all of Belt’s works, it tells the story of good people in horrifying circumstances who make it through because of their faith and their love for each other. The characters were delightful. Josh and Tabitha are endearing in their newlywed love without being nauseating. In contrast, the eponymous Devourer may be the most creepy, disgusting villain I’ve ever encountered in fiction. Belt kept me guessing and second-guessing his identity until nearly the end of the book.

Though The Witch and the Devourer of Souls is the sequel to The Witch of White Lady Hollow, the story stands well on its own, with concepts like the Power explained well enough to prevent confusion. Though it is certainly not a bedtime story for young children, there are enough uplifting and genuinely hilarious moments to keep the reader from losing hope. I oscillated between wanting to throw up and nostalgically chuckling at the heroes’ Provo-esque antics. I’d recommend this book to anyone with a strong stomach who wants a thrilling, quirky read.

Elissa Cardon Nysetvold – Beaumont, TX

I had never dedicated a grave before.

I have seen it done. I have read the procedure. I know how to do it, but I had never done it personally.

Until yesterday.

My dad passed away early Monday morning, and yesterday (Tuesday)—yes, just one day later—we buried him. Per my mother and my father’s wishes, there was no funeral. There will be a family gathering at the gravesite and then later at my home, but that will have to wait until my mother can attend. You see, she’s in the hospital, fighting for her life. So, all plans for a memorial gathering will have to wait.

No, they weren’t both in a tragic accident or anything like that. My mother has been sick for some time and has been in the hospital for nearly two weeks. She was in the hospital before my father fell and broke his hip early Saturday morning. We called 9-1-1. An ambulance came and took him to the hospital. A surgeon repaired his broken hip, but given my father’s severely advanced dementia and general health, we all knew this was a life-ending injury.

On Sunday night, he was approved for hospice care. A little over eight hours later, he had passed. This was almost exactly forty-eight hours after he arrived at the hospital.

We are grieving, of course, but his quick passing is also a tender mercy.

My parents have lived with us for the last few years, and their presence has been a great blessing. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to care for and provide a home for my parents in their later years.

Dementia is such a cruel disease. It slowly steals away your loved one. It slowly steals away the victim’s mind. I say, slowly, but sometimes this horrible disease progresses with stunning speed. At first, it was simply struggling to find the right words. Then he would start a project, like removing a shed door, and then forget how to put it back on. Then he would forget why he had come into a room. Then he would forget names. And faces. He would tell the same one or two stories over and over.

And then he forgot the stories.

His decline in the last two weeks has been stunning. He could no longer recognize me, didn’t know who I was. He didn’t recognize my mother anymore. Or my wife, Cindy. We were just strangers to him. He could rarely form complete sentences, and when he did, he would substitute words, seizing out of the recesses of his clouded mind whatever words he could. Often these words had nothing to do with what he was trying to say. He could no longer tell us what he wanted or needed. He could no longer understand what we were saying to him. Two weeks ago, you could have described his comprehension as that of a two-year-old. In the last few days, he had lost even that level of ability.

My father, a history professor and a very talented teacher, had lost the ability to speak.

In his last two days in mortality, there was nothing left of him. His soul was still there, but it could no longer peek out of those eyes—those tender, blue eyes that had once been so loving. In the end, he was trapped in a mind that could no longer allow him to be himself. In the end, there was only pain and fear.

My father was a great and loving man. He IS still a great and loving man. I have many, many fond memories of him. He was a strong man who worked hard all his life for his family.

We have an eight-thousand-gallon fishpond in our backyard. My dad dug the entire pond by himself using a shovel, a pickaxe, and a claw-hammer. He dug it the first time my parents came to “winter” with us. (They wintered with us three years before selling their home in the mountains of Nevada and moving in with us permanently.) I only expected him to start the project, perhaps to get only a quarter of the way done. He needed a project, needed something to keep him busy, something repetitive that didn’t require thinking. He dug the entire pond that winter. All by himself. In one shot. That was my dad.

That IS my dad.

On Sunday morning, I went to Choir. One might question how I could go to Choir with all this going on. The truth is, I was desperate for any sense of normalcy. So, I went. A few of my brethren in the Choir asked how I was doing. One of those men is my friend Brad. I told him. I unloaded. Then I sang the broadcast. And, yes, I was weeping through most of it. (No surprise, I know.) On Tuesday (last night, the day we buried my father), we had a recording session. After the recording session, Brad asked me how I was doing. I told him. Everything. He said, “You seem like you’re doing so much better tonight than you were Sunday.” And the truth is, he was right. I am doing better. So much better.

We are grieving and we will miss him. But he is freed at last from the prison that his mind had become. He has his great mind back. He has been reunited with loved ones lost. He is himself again.

I miss him, but I am so profoundly happy for him.

I thank my Heavenly Father and His Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ, for Their great plan of happiness and salvation. I know I will see my dad again.

And when I see him again, he will know who I am.

 

Typical of Belt’s works, he paints a picture of a gripping tale that keeps you glued to your seat right from the beginning! There is romance, humor, drama, suspense, incredulity at how deranged a character can be, and some fanciful uses of the Power, something to which we’re introduced in a previous novel titled The Witch of White Lady Hollow. And the picture’s canvas is set in cultural “Happy Valley” Utah. If you’re looking for a story in which you collect details and ponder them to attempt to detect the villain’s identity, only to find out you’re wrong, look no further. Only a gifted author who carefully crafts a story can fool not only the main characters, but also the reader!

John Abercrombie

I have a confession to make. A huge confession. Let me work up my courage, take a few deep breaths, calm my trembling hands.

Okay.

Here goes . . .

I love Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”

There. I said it. Now all the world knows (or at least those few who actually read this Author’s Note).

Okay, now before you take away my man-card, hear me out.

I enjoy a good, well-written horror tale, but I also enjoy a good love story. And as anyone who is familiar with my work can attest, I firmly and enthusiastically believe the two need not be mutually exclusive.

While I do love “Pride and Prejudice,” it ends (in my not-so-humble-opinion, and with a small—very small—apology to Miss Austen) far too early in the story. I want a sequel! And not from a modern writer—I want to know from Miss Jane herself. I want to know how the Darcys kept their romance alive! I want to know how they survived the horrors and vicissitudes of the Napoleonic Wars!

Romance doesn’t end with the first kiss or even at the altar.

At least it shouldn’t.

In the early 1980’s, shortly after Cindy and I had completed our separate church missions (hers in Spain and mine in South Korea and Los Angeles, Korean-speaking) and early in our married life together, while I was finishing my degree at Brigham Young University (where I took exactly zero English and/or creative writing classes—which may be painfully obvious), I discovered a TV show called Hart to Hart. This little gem related the adventures of a married couple who solved mysteries together. What drew me to the show was the chemistry between the husband and wife. The two characters obviously loved each other and were devoted to each other. There was no “romantic tension.” There was just romance. (All the tension came from outside—from the villains and the adventure—it was never about “will they or won’t they.”) And it was exciting! And it never got old. At least not to me.

In “The Witch of White Lady Hollow,” when last we met the intrepid and courageous (and short) Tabitha Moonshadow, she had just met . And although we knew the two of them would or should end up together, that didn’t happen in that first book—we merely had the potential for love and romance. All we had was a handshake (literally) and a spark. And a mutual penchant for watching old, scary movies.

In writing the sequel, I could have picked up the story right there and have related all the details of the courtship and the wedding—not too many details about the wedding, since it takes place in a temple, but I digress—but I didn’t tell that part of the tale. I skipped all that. (Oh, the horror! I think I may faint. Quick! The smelling salts!) No, I jumped ahead in their lives—to when they were starving married students with a baby at BYU. I mean, so many of us can relate to similar scenarios, right? It wasn’t that the courtship and the wedding weren’t important—they absolutely were. Courtship is exciting and it’s new, and the wedding is (or should be) glorious and beautiful and sacred. But courtship must not end at marriage. Courtship is a grand, life-long adventure.

But sometimes, the grand adventure is mired in the mundane and in the everyday problems of life. Tabitha and  have classes, homework, low-paying jobs, a barely running, high-mileage car, bills, nearly empty cupboards, dishes to wash, floors to sweep, laundry to do, and a baby to feed and clean and nurture. (“Whatever you do, don’t you dare wake the baby!”) Romance can get lost in all of that. All too frequently, it does.

So, I wanted to tell a story about two people who have to deal with all of that crap (literally—remember, there are dirty diapers to change) and somehow still find time for romance and love and rejoicing in what brought them together in the first place. In short, I wanted to tell a story of passionate, tender, married romance . . . with the Power and a supernatural serial-killer thrown into the mix.

I mean, we can all relate to that, right?

Okay, this is seriously spooky.



Windows just popped up a reminder for me to do something. This is NOT a task or reminder that I set up. No, this is a task that Windows created for me.



The reminder quoted something from an email I sent. Windows/Microsoft had read my email, analyzed it, and determined that I needed to follow up on what I said I would do.

And today it reminded me.



Windows/Microsoft is reading my email.



You can pretend all you want that this is benevolent, but it’s not. It’s spying. It’s an invasion of privacy.



But of course, Microsoft knows better. They only have my best interests at heart.


This is more than spooky. It’s evil.

Check the date. Regardless of what the calendar says, it’s 1984.


All hail Big Brother.