Soulless
Release Date: March 8,
2016
The
devil’s not the only one buying souls; both sides need bodies to fight their
war, and both have something to offer in return. Nearly anything is possible,
if you are the type of soul they’re looking for. Charlotte Furio learns this
the hard way, when a spirited and mysterious woman named Trisha follows her
home one night and gives her ailing father a simple choice: a healthy body for
his immortal soul.
His
decision introduces Charlotte to the world of soul brokering, and Charlotte is
not only drawn to it, but finds she has a knack for it. Having lived the last
decade of her life with only one purpose—to care for her increasingly disabled
father—Charlotte sees this as her chance to give direction and meaning to her
own life, and the lives of other people. To help them as Trisha had helped her
father.
This
mission is quickly derailed when Charlotte is framed for the murder of one of
the brokers' leaders. Where she once had only one purpose, now Charlotte has
two: get her father's soul back and find a way to prove her innocence before
it's too late.
***
Excerpt:
I walked around the car so
I could jump into the passenger's seat, waited for the crowd to thin and
calmly—barely holding onto my senses—asked for the knapsack. It weighed
nothing, but when I opened it, I found a parchment resting peacefully and
eagerly inside of it. The full moon was out, and the sky was cloudless and
unobtrusive, so when the pale, silvery light touched the papyrus, it was not
reflected but enhanced. Trisha started the engine, and put the convertible’s
top up to block the moonlight, then adjusted her mirror. Her face glowed nearly
as bright as the papyrus.
The windows were tinted so
I felt safe removing the parchment completely from the bag. The second my hand
touched it, I felt a rush of something inexplicable, like a jolt of pleasurable
lightning traipsing through my nerves and extending outward to the world at
large. At first, I thought Trisha had pulled out a taser gun and had shocked
me, but nothing hurt. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to enjoy the
strangeness of the sensation. Shivers passed through me randomly, tingles that
lit my skin. Without knowing how, I knew those shivers were my body's reaction
to people passing alongside the car. It was as if I was connected to the air
through which they moved. I heard the wind pushing through the desiccated
leaves still clinging to their branches, and it sounded like water rushing
around a brook. The smells of the city, even through the confinement of the
car, assailed my nostrils as if someone had bottled it up and threw
it—concentrated—into my lap.
PURCHASE
LINKS:
Author
Bio:
Ismael Manzano was born and raised
in New York City, and has lived his entire life in the Bronx, first with his
parents, and then with his lovely and talented wife, Justine, and now with
their kinetic maelstrom of a child, Logan.
Ismael is an avid reader of fantasy
books, and knew at an early age that he wanted to be a writer. He worked his
entire life to hone his craft to achieve the goal of removing the prefix,
‘aspiring,’ from his title, and referring to himself as a writer.
He has written many reviews and
social commentaries for the web magazine, G-pop.net. Recently, Ismael has found
success publishing his short stories, Playing
in Shadows, at This Dark Matter (www.thisdarkmatter.com)
and Cold, published in July 2015, at Grey Matter. In 2015, Fantasy Works Publishing
signed his Urban Fantasy series, Soul Broker.
Ismael loves watching historical
documentaries and listening to audio lectures about Medieval England, Ancient
Rome, and Egypt. He considers himself an amateur historian, and has never met a
BBC historical drama he didn’t like. One of his favorite things to do is to
watch shows like the Tudors and
movies like Elizabeth, and try to
pick out the discrepancies between fact and fiction. He also hopes to one day
solve a Rubix Cube puzzle, but that dream, sadly, seems to be the greatest
fantasy of them all.
Ismael’s
book, Soulless, is published by Fantasy Works Publishing.
Twitter: @IsmaelManzano76
Facebook: Ismael Manzano - Author
No comments:
Post a Comment