Today, we're doing something a little different. Michael Aronovitz is stopping by to talk about his fascinating book!
Hello, Michael! It's great to have you on MLB. :)
Hello! Thanks so much for having me!
My pleasure, of course! I also want to thank you for allowing me to visit as a guest recently on your own website. :)
Of course!
So, let me ask a few questions since you're here...
All right.
Can you tell us a little about your latest book? When did it come out and where can we get it?
The Witch of
the Wood is an erotic horror piece about an ancient race of shape shifting
women who change according to their mates’ evolving sexual desires. These witches were imprisoned long ago and
when they “come out,” all hell breaks loose.
Sexy. Scary. Crazy.
Pure “Terrotica!”
This came out
through Hippocampus Press in December of 2014 and is available on Amazon or
directly from that publisher.
Great!
So, what inspired you to write your book? How did you get into writing horror?
Hmm. The first question is easy. I wrote this particular story because guys are so fickle, chasing after skirts with their eyes constantly (sometimes more than the eyes) almost seemingly compelled to frankly make fools of themselves. I figured…what if women just changed right along with them, laughing all the way, sort of staying one step ahead of the fantasy. I wanted to combine that with the idea of the witch, and if I was going to write about witches they were going to be sexy.
The second part
of the question is harder to answer, because I don’t know why I write horror. The supernatural and scare factors both
interest me. Don’t know why. They keep me on the edge of my seat.
Okay. What, do you feel, sets this book apart from other books in the genre?
Well, without trying to sound like I’ve figured out any secret universal code, I would hope I bring strong characterization and intrigue to a genre that often gets less respect than it should. My stories are always character and twist oriented. The horror is just flavoring.
So...give us a teaser or two if you can.
First was the great rumbling, vibrations
that sent numbing shooters through Rudy’s feet, pebbles and dirt seemingly from
nowhere rolling and threading down the hill toward the shed, Patricia’s plywood
work board trembling and shivering on its supports, then falling off at an odd
angle. Next was the rocking, the skyline
come alive, trees all around pitching to and fro as if engulfed in some strange
hurricane that painted arcs on the horizon.
From beneath, there were great pulling
sounds, stretching, yawning, a muffled army of high tension bows being drawn as
the massive network of intertwined root systems strained to the absolute
breaking point.
Then the earth erupted, a million buried
circus whips cracking all at once as the embedded, roots ripped up from
underfoot in a damp throaty roar, soil coming up in bursts and cascades,
peppering the house, showering all around Rudy Barnes who covered his face with
his forearm.
He thought he heard screams: a neighbor
walking a dog maybe, a jogger, who knew?
It got drowned out quickly by the fantastic collapse, the purging of the
skyline as every tree came crashing down to the earth.
Rudy was lucky he was not killed. The border elms like the slats of some
massive gate-barrier thundered down in a diagonal pattern, first smashing
through the roof atop the detached garage, then the kitchen and laundry room,
the rose garden, and all along the hill Rudy was sidestepping down, the ground
feeling like shuffling floorboards in a funhouse. Rudy turned and tried to run. A gargantuan trunk pounded the ground missing
him by inches, and he dove off to the right.
The weeping willow on the far side of the back yard smashed down into
the shed turning it to splinters and three trees plunged across Rudy’s path a
few feet ahead of where he had fallen to his stomach. He covered his head with his hands for a
moment, the scratches and abrasions up his forearms wet and stinging.
The thunderous booming of it was
overwhelming, rolling shockwaves pounding the ground, a riotous tumult that
felt like the end of the world. It
reached a tremendous peak, then slowed, thinned out and scattered to isolated
shivers, the final showers of soil and rock pelting down, then drizzling off
like an engine ticking down as it cooled.
There were dull echoes. There was aftermath silence, but then came a
mad skittering in the grass. Rudy raised
his head and there, coming on at ground level from the felled ruin of the wood
beyond the iron fence, was a mad rush of wildlife flooding over and between the
crooked nest of trunks and branches: white and grey field mice, chipmunks,
squirrels, rabbits, gophers, small foxes, deer, all jumping and crawling over
each other in a mass exodus from a world that had been turned inside-out.
There were more screams now from over
the hill, honking horns, cars crashing into things with gritty finality, hoarse
shouts.
“Good acoustics all of a sudden,” Rudy
thought wildly, as he pushed to his feet and made for the tool shed, its opened
back corner still standing on its own like some ancient monolith. He moved, climbed, stepped across the jigsaw
of foliation, lost his footing and raked his shin, then doggie paddled over to
the “monument.” The catty-cornered
shelves had held, and Rudy swiped the remains of a collection of gardening trowels
to the ground along with a stack of clay flower pots. He climbed two shelves high and wrapped his
arms around the corner post for dear life.
The evacuation swarmed underneath him,
yipping and rustling, and what looked like a bear cub loped right past his
ankle nipping and snapping at the air.
The mass covered the hill, a rippling hoard of clawing, retreating
hindquarters that scurried off to the jungle that had become Hampstead and Elm
Avenues and beyond.
The dust and dirt that had risen in the
air was now settling to a resinous haze.
There was almost a dramatic pause then, like the time for a deep breath
where one could take inventory, cut his losses, and measure his options.
But along the slope of the near hill
there was new movement. A sneaky sort of
creeping.
It was a spread of strange coloring, an
outpouring, and Rudy’s breath caught in his throat. Bone white hands and arms were creeping out
of the holes in the ground, skeletal fingers feeling about the perimeters, palms
settling, then pressing, and then was the emergence.
Rudy focused on the closest cavity
across the yard, where an elm had toppled down across the forest gate, bending
the corner into a twisted black dog-ear.
Back at its dark uncorked root-cellar, a form pushed out of the hole,
black beetles and other vermin swimming off her in a sort of unveiling, white
skin stretched bone tight and spotted with filth, tangle of black hair peppered
with dirt. Her bulbous black eyes
shuttered open and closed in reaction to the glare of the sun, and she pushed
up to a standing position, bony knees almost buckling.
Her hand was at her forehead then, in a
protective salute to shield her sensitive eyes, and Rudy noticed
something. He still had a clear view of
her face in an odd, sort of bare perspective.
“No
shadow,” he thought.
She let her hands fall to her sides, and
took a step forward, careful not to touch branch, leaf, nor stalk of the prison
column that had held her underground for so long. She gave a slight curtsy, and then said in a
voice rough with dirt, “Rudy.
Rudy…Barnes.”
Well, you have my attention!
So, I'm
sure readers are curious about your next writing project. Can you tell
us what you've got cooking up now or is that a secret?
No secrets
here! I wrote my first paranormal
romance, no horror at all, in the form of a young adult novel titled Becky’s
Kiss. This will come out through
Vinspire Press this coming November. It
is about a 9th grade girl named Becky Michigan who falls in love
with the boy of her dreams on the first day of high school. Too bad he keeps disappearing!
My other big
project is Phantom Effect, my third adult horror novel. This is my most shocking work, and the one
that people will hopefully remember. It
is about a serial killer who is forced to relive the last week of his last
victim’s life, as her, and see what it is like to be stalked by himself!
In reference to
stuff I am hacking out at the computer presently, I am 28,000 words into a new
novel to be titled Dead Red, and shopping a new short story about social
media and the disasters we have coming in the near future. That one is called Soul Text.
Awesome! Can't wait! I just love those titles!
Thanks so much for stopping by to tell us about this book, Michael!
My pleasure!
Readers, you'll just have to pick up a copy of this exciting, erotic horror story! ;)
Here is the blurb.
Rudy Barnes, an adjunct professor no longer young, thinks he is
attending a routine faculty meeting when he is struck by the beautiful
April Orr, an administrator who is giving a presentation at the meeting.
He is even more amazed when, after the meeting, he finds himself going
with April to her house and having an intense sexual encounter with her.
This is the beginning of a bizarre supernatural adventure in which
April, a “witch of the wood,” explains to Rudy the true origin of the
female of the species. Rudy must now team up with Wolfie, the child he
bore from April, and his ex-wife, Pat, to battle cosmic forces who are
seeking to destroy the witches and bring about a universal cataclysm.
In this gripping novel, Michael Aronovitz displays the crisp and
riveting prose, the careful delineation of character, and the powerful
horrific effects that have enlivened his previous novels and tales. In
addition, he provides a thought-provoking mythic background to an epic
struggle of good and evil.
Michael Aronovitz is the author of the acclaimed short story
collections Seven Deadly Pleasures (Hippocampus Press, 2009) and The
Voices in Our Heads (2013), as well as the novel Alice Walks (2013).
Purchase Links:
Amazon Universal link: http://bookgoodies.com/a/B00SURBGZS
Publisher: http://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/fiction/the-witch-of-the-wood-by-michael-aronovitz
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-witch-of-the-wood-michael-aronovitz/1120948500
About the Author:
Michael Aronovitz
has been writing horror fiction since 2009. Along with his two
collections and two novels, he has published short stories and critical
articles in a variety of magazines. In 2011 his short story "How
Bria Died" appeared in Paula Guran's "The Year's Best Dark Fantasy
and Horror, and in 2014 his short story "The Girl Between the Slats"
appeared in S.T. Joshi's "Searchers After Horror" anthology.
Aronovitz is a Professor of English and lives in Pennsylvania with his
wife Kim and their son Max.
Author Links:
Website/Blog: http://michaelaronovitz.com/
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1FgSTou
Books:
Author Links:
Website/Blog: http://michaelaronovitz.com/
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1FgSTou
Books:
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