Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: Growing up is complicated—particularly when you’re a gay kid living in the Bible Belt. R.C. Dickens has given us a fantastic queer coming-of-age novel, , and we’re lucky enough to have them here to answer our questions about it. R.C., can you tell us the blurb for your book?

R.C.: Kayden Moses has worked for 15 years to be a good pastor’s son. He’s volunteered at every Vacation Bible School, never missed a youth group meeting, and tries to follow the example of his spiritually gifted twin sister, Delilah. However, all his diligent efforts are disrupted when he meets the biggest stumbling block of his life:

Alex. The new boy in youth group. Bubbly. Opinionated. Dizzyingly nice to look at.

Suddenly, Kayden finds himself caught in a spiral of confusion and asking questions he’s never asked before.

Who is Kayden Moses? Because he’s certainly not a good pastor’s son anymore.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

R.C.: This book initially started as a short story imagining a young man protesting a pride parade seeing his ex-lover from across the fence. That conflict of faith and sexuality became the core of Crown of Blooms and it sort of spiralled from there.

Zilla: It sounds like a very personal story. If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?

R.C.: Sorry not sorry, lol. But to be serious, I would probably tell Kayden that there is an entire world outside of the Bible Belt, full of people who will love you as you are. The world is not nearly as hopeless for a queer kid as it feels, as you’ve been told over and over again for your entire life. It’s cliche to say, “It gets better”. I think it’s more honest to say, “You can make it better.” You can break free of those chains, form your own beliefs, find your own tribe. Your Pink Pony Club is out there, somewhere, waiting for you.

Zilla: That’s really beautiful—thank you for saying that. Is there a fictional character who has been with you through your life?

R.C.: Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) was my first love. I wrote three novel length ATLA fanfictions between the ages of 12-16 about Zuko and my self insert Mary Sue OC. No one understands Zuko like I do. I genuinely owe my whole writing career to this character as I wouldn’t have discovered my love of writing if not for my obsession. He’s just such a compelling, well rounded character with endless depth. I could talk about the intricacies of his character arc for days.

Zilla: What’s your next writing project?

R.C.:  I’m currently looking for beta readers for the sequel, Crown of Thorns, which is very exciting. I’m also publishing a serial romance on the Radish app called Prince and the Gladiator if you’re interested in a high-heat trope driven romp.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

R.C.: You can find me on TikTok @babyraythesadclown or on Instagram @rcdickens_author. If you want to go purchase your copy of Crown of Blooms, sign up to be a beta reader or read my other work, check out my link tree: https://linktr.ee/RCDickens

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: We have Peter Darbyshire here with a wild, magnetic fantasy novel, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice. Peter, can you tell us a bit about the book—and the rest of the trilogy?

Peter: The Mona Lisa Sacrifice kicks off the Cross series of supernatural thrillers, where the immortal rogue Cross moves through a hidden world of faerie, gorgons, ghosts and more to stop a war among fallen angels. Cross is no hero but he may be the only one who can stop the end of the world.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Peter: When I was in university I read an Old English poem called “The Dream of the Rood,” which told the story of Christ’s crucifixion from the cross’s point of view. It was such an interesting angle that it stuck with me. Years later, I was thinking about it again and I had this idea: what if Christ’s body was like that cross? Something that held his spirit but then remained behind when he left our world? And what if another soul somehow came to occupy that body after the Ascension? That’s how I came up with the character of Cross, an immortal, drunk, thieving murderous angel killer who’s the one you really want to handle your supernatural problems.

Zilla: Were you inspired by an image when you wrote this?

Peter: I’ve long found the Mona Lisa painting to be rather eerie — to me it’s like a portrait of someone not quite human in an alien landscape. So when I was looking for the first story for Cross, I knew it had to involve the Mona Lisa but with a magical twist. I made the book The Mona Lisa Sacrifice centre around the weird entity the painting is supposedly based upon in Cross’s world. There are actually a number of paintings that appear in the book, and Cross even manages to get himself trapped inside one of them!

Zilla: Did you do much research for this book?

Peter: I did a lot of research for The Mona Lisa Sacrifice and the other books in the Cross series (The Dead Hamlets and The Apocalypse Ark). They are set in our world and involve key moments in history as well as real people from history — Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, for instance. So I wanted to make sure I got all the details right, so that when people read my version of Shakespeare wielding a magical quill that gives him the power to change reality or ink that grants immortality, they’ll be willing to buy that magical element because everything else is so real.

Zilla: What’s your next writing project?

Peter: I’m about to tackle the edits for the fourth book in my Cross series, which is out later in 2025. After that I’ll be starting the fifth book in the series. Hopefully there’s many more books to come!

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Peter: You can find me and links to buy my books at peterdarbyshire.com. I can also be found at the usual social haunts with the handle @peterdarbyshire.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: Whether you’re in the mood for science fiction action or dark fantasy, Nick Snape has you covered! Nick, can you tell us a bit about your serieses?

Nick: Weapons of Choice has 8 books in an action science fiction series with an emotional storyline. Join Finn, Zuri and Corporal Smith (deceased) as they explore new worlds and face hostile alien contact during their desperate search for a pathway home, in this thought-provoking, scifi thriller series. And my humorous but dark science fiction thriller, The Scorching, has this tagline: On a devastated Earth, the Drathken arrive promising to heal the planet. Joshua Nkosi, joker, vlogger and sea-cop and his modded octopus partner find themselves between the Earth’s future and the terrorists looking to break the alien/human accord.

Sabitha: What inspired you to write this book?

Nick: I love the Saturday afternoon 1970s/80s American science fiction series and the old black and white Flash Gordon serials. Amazing memories, and that ‘tune in for the next episode’ approach where the storyline is complete, but the overarching nefarious plans are yet to be resolved.

Sabitha: Do you have a playlist for your book? 

Nick: Beat the Devil’s Tattoo by BRMC, and the Welsh artist Ren whose storytelling is superb–especially Hi Ren.

Zilla: If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?

Nick: We always have conversations and the internal monologue often adds unexpected plot twists. If I met them, I would ask them to read the ‘mirror’ book I wrote – Bk7 – where clones of my main characters go through emotional and physical hell. And I’d say, “See, it wasn’t so bad.”

Zilla: What book do you tell all your friends to read?

Nick: Tom Lloyd’s The Stormcaller—dark fantasy ratcheted up to eleven—leaves you raw.

Zilla: Have you ever killed off a character your readers loved?

Nick: I killed off the two clones of the main ‘love and bullets’ interest. They fell out of love—an emotional disconnect due to the horrors of war, ending with the funeral attended by their originators—powerful stuff.

Zilla: Do you have any suggestions to help people in our community become better writers?  

Nick: First, write, have it read, and listen to those readers, whoever they are. Secondly, write the first line of the next chapter when you finish the previous one—keep the mental momentum going for just one more line.

Zilla: What’s your next writing project?

Nick: A Dragon of the Veil, where artifice dragons arise in a world where magic has been suppressed. First of three, with a soul-eating enemy to follow.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Nick: On all socials and my website is www.nicksnape.com. My books are on Amazon, the newer ones will be on all retailers.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: When things feel hopeless, fiction can be the place to remind us that the community has the power to resist. That’s why I have Richie Billing here, to tell us about his fantasy novella, Together We Rise. Richie, can you start by sharing your blurb?

Richie: In the crumbling city of Pietalos, where corruption and poverty reign, the fires of revolution burn hotter each day. An oppressive government has bled its people dry for the benefit of the elite, but the citizens have had enough.

Eight lives—each scarred by loss, betrayal, and violence—intertwine as they fight for their own futures and that of the city.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Richie: Together We Rise is a story of a people’s revolution against a corrupt government—very timely given today’s political scene. I’ve been fed up with the state of politics for a long time. I’ve seen the worrying shift to the darker reaches of the right and felt quite helpless about things. Writing this story was my way of fighting that despair, and it provided a welcome escape too. Being something I’m passionate about, I loved every moment of writing and editing it and I can’t wait to share it with the world.

It’s a nice, short story (about 150 pages) with a unique structure. It’s split into eight parts, with each part featuring a different character. Working like a sort of literary relay race, each character takes the story up to a point and then hands it onto the next character.

The idea behind this was to explore the issue of rampant, unchecked capitalism from the points of view of the many different people it affects. My favourite TV show is The Wire, and part of the reason for why is its ability to look at a single issue critically from different perspectives (in that case, the war on drugs).

In Together We Rise, you can find the perspective of a healer, a worker, a street kid, a drug dealer, a guard (the equivalent of the police). It’s all set in a fantasy world, which gives it a unique spin, and something else I’ve done is incorporate an original soundtrack. Each character has their own song which mirrors their emotional journey in the chapter. You can scan a QR code at the start of each chapter to listen. Hopefully, it adds another layer of immersion to the experience.

Zilla: With such a wide-ranging cast, who’s your favourite character? If you can pick!

Richie: The roots of this story lie in a character called Tillia. I created her many years ago when I first started writing. She was a key part of a fantasy novel, set in the same world, and her part of the story was actually my favourite. I’d taken another big chunk of that novel and used it in another story I’m working on, leaving just Tillia’s story. I decided it was too good to waste.

You don’t see all of this in Together We Rise, but learn of it. Tillia is the daughter of a blacksmith (and also a master swordsman), but becomes ensnared by a deceptive evil man, named Vaso, whom she ends up wedding. Over time, he beats and abuses her, destroys her will, and the evil bastard also kills her father and destroys her childhood home. She’s trapped, powerless, helpless, until one night she happens upon a city guard assaulting a woman. She intervenes and ends up killing the guard, and she feels power like she hasn’t felt in a long time. It sets her on a path of vigilantism, taking out the bad guys on the streets and cultivating a murderous alter ego named Shadow. After a while of doing this, she realises it isn’t enough. She has to do more to fight the problems corrupting the city. And that’s when she decides to start planning a revolution. Together We Rise is the story of Revolution Day.

Zilla: I am so here for characters standing up to abusers and abusive systems. Would you say this story is more character-driven, then? Or plot driven? 

Richie: This particular story is very much character-driven. As mentioned, there are eight unique characters in this story, and while the plot is very much about a revolution against a corrupt regime, the thrust of the tale is about the internal revolution that each character goes through. That’s one of the key points of this story, that even when the world is rubbish and doesn’t feel like it won’t get any better, we all have the power to change things, but to see the change we want in the world, we maybe have to change some aspect about who we are first.  

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Richie: You can learn all about Together We Rise on Goodreads, or get it at this link.

Here are some other helpful links:

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: I just ordered my paper copy of The Audacity Gambit (my review will go in the newsletter—I am PUMPED to read this) but while I wait for it to arrive I’ve got B. Zedan here to tell me all the details of their fantasy novel. So, with no spoilers, can you introduce me to your book, B.?

B.: Here’s The Audacity Gambit’s blurb:

It’s the back half of the 1990s and recently-graduated Emily’s big life plans include maybe getting promoted at her grocery store job, and not much else. It’s not that she doesn’t have ambitions, it’s that she feels more or less fulfilled already. She has a roof over her head (her aunt’s trailer), friends (the much-younger kids she babysits), hobbies (babysitting, reading), what more could she want?

Of course, it’s not about what she wants. It’s about what she was made to do. With little choice in the matter, Emily is plunged head-first into a fairy world that isn’t nearly as fabulous and fantastical as books would lead you to believe, though it’s a nice enough place for a vacation.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

B.: I’m from a poor rural part of Oregon, originally, and boy-o one just doesn’t see that world in fiction unless it’s romanticised by people who haven’t lived it. So why NOT have the chosen one live in a trailer and treat it like its normal to live in a trailer, actually.

Zilla: I love that. Were you inspired by an image when you wrote this?

B.: In a way yes—the idea of the garden arbour on fire is so central to the book it’s on the cover. I love the idea of something so mundane as a portal.

Zilla:  Is your work more plot-driven or character-driven? Or a secret, third thing?

B.: The real truth of it is: I am a Nickelodeon run on Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index tokens. I like to take the structures of folktale types, use those as the scaffolding and see what I can build. It’s very obvious in the context of The Audacity Gambit, but more so in other work I do. I don’t mean “remixed Cinderella,” btw, though that’s great, I mean like “type 565, “the magic mill” and looking at the actual components of that story type.

Zilla: I love when stories are in conversation with other stories that way. After all, an author is always influenced by every book they’ve read, so why not put the inspiration to direct use? Now that this book is out in the world, what’s your next writing project?

B.: I am desperately trying to finish a story that combines food review writing like Jonathan Gold’s with cosmic horror. Which means I’ve been working on anything else.

Zilla: Okay, so you need to tell me when that one comes out, though I relate far too much to the issue of working on the alternative projects instead of the “main” one. For everyone who hasn’t ordered your book yet, where can the Night Beats community find you and it?

B.: You can pick up The Audacity Gambit just about anywhere (a handy books2read page of places) but if you want to read it for free I’ve also serialised it and it’s available here: https://bzedan.com/blog/the-audacity-gambit-serialised/I have other writing work on my site (https://bzedan.com/blog/writing/), I kind of just… put things up and hope people read them sometimes. I’m also on all the places as “bzedan” but mostly you’ll find me on Tumblr.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: Black metal in an even darker storyline, a weird storytelling form, and I’m swooning in love. Michael Bettendorf’s Trve Cvlt sounds like everything I like best in a book. So Michael, can you introduce us to your black metal horror gamebook?

Micheal: Trve Cvlt is a meta-take on stories similar to Choose Your Own Adventures with a bit of a fatalist spin.

You wake up with a brutal hangover, but that can’t crush your spirits: you’ve been invited to take back the drum throne for Abyss, the cult band you co-founded.

It means setting aside a turbulent history with Abyss’ vocalist, Austin. You aren’t sure if he’s invited you back to bury the hatchet or if he’s just desperate because infamous black metal legends Waste Doctrine are rolling through town. They’ve given you the opportunity to open for them and maybe, finally, get the hell out of this nowhere town.

The promise of the upcoming gig doesn’t come without its share of hurdles, though. Austin’s hellbent on creating a ritualistic experience out of the performance, turning the abandoned roadhouse he’s chosen as a venue into a bloody, occult nightmare.

Yes, it’s black fucking metal, but is it too far?

Only you can decide.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Micheal: Trve Cvlt is rooted in an urban legend, specifically Cult Road and the alleged house(s) where local cultists gathered. Me and a couple of buddies went out looking for Cult Road one day and ended up lost on some backroads. We eventually found an abandoned farmhouse that was the epitome of dread. We almost ran out of gas on low maintenance roads before finding our way back. I wanted to write a black metal book for a long time, but didn’t know what it was supposed to be, but eventually I framed it in this setting and it clicked into place. It wouldn’t have existed if Alex Woodroe of Tenebrous Press didn’t tell me, “Pitch her something weird. Something no one has done,” at StokerCon 2023. I thought her partner in crime, Matt Blairstone was in on it, but it turns out I pitched him cold. Still the best rouse Alex has pulled on me. I’m forever grateful.

Zilla: What would your characters say if they met you?

Micheal: Austin would probably call me a fucking poser. The unnamed main character would probably have my back. So would Danny…mostly. Ryan would likely tell me to get better at drums.

Zilla: A range of responses! So who is your favourite character in Trve Cvlt?

Micheal: I think Abyss is my favorite character. It didn’t start as a character, but it morphed into one. It’s chaos. It’s love. It’s dread. It’s a god. It’s an ungod. It’s a manipulator. It’s existential dread. It’s us. It’s…the abyss.

Zilla: Who do you imagine reading your book?

Micheal: I wrote it for the outcasts and metalheads and weirdos and I think they are among the crowd who read it, but I also think it has struck a chord with the horror-curious.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Micheal: You can find me on Bluesky @BeardedBetts, at www.michaelbettendorfwrites.com, and my linktree. You can pick up Trve Cvlthere.