Gallery: The Twilight Lover

RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2025 

 

click all images for a closer look

This book actually started out as a short story that I wrote for publication over a decade ago. It was picked up for a queer horror anthology, but the press no longer exists. For this incarnation, I instead opted for a more lighthearted treatment with a surreal love triangle thrown in. In the original short story, the focus was on a rustic youth being "chaperoned" home by the ghost of a long-dead man. 

Part of this book's updated plot was inspired by the Narcissus myth but with Echo also factoring in, so there's a hat tip to her in the story. Another thing is that the Narcissus character (Rowan Linville) is made untouchable not because of pride, but because of the spirit of a dead man. And here we have another hat-tip to one of my favorite horror tropes: the demon lover.

art by Emile Friant

This story is also a pretty family-oriented one in that we get to spend time not only with Rowan's tiny family, but also with Tennyson's much larger and chaotic one. Actually, all of the families involved in this book are chaotic in their own ways -- including side characters like Dr. Barbary and the Bassanelli and Clifford families. For Tennyson's family, we have a wide range of personalities and accomplishments with the three youngest children (Tennyson, Dorothea [his twin], and Jacqueline) standing in stark contrast to the two oldest (Aveline and Leighton). Tennyson's an artist, Dorothea aspires to write and publish poetry, and Jacqueline -- is a dark goddess, according to Tennyson. 

Jacqueline's character was modeled after Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice and Wednesday Addams. She's also, in a way, an extension of Alma Nightshade but with more humanity in her because she's kind and generous in spite of her goddess of death persona.  

Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams

Glossop, the fictional English town in the book, is meant to reflect contemporary life in that it's diverse in the way it draws immigrants like Shanyuan Leung from China and Ridouane Barbary from Morocco. Others come from Italy and Germany as well. 

The note at the beginning of the book identifies Blackadder as my primary inspiration for this story, and I can safely say it's the one series that's taught me an invaluable lesson in writing humor -- particularly in a story that's set in the distant past. No other show or movie has inspired me (and continues to inspire me) to embrace and celebrate the weird, the anachronistic, and the absurd and make all that work in what otherwise would be the wrong setting. And it's safe to say that this is one of those books I had the most fun writing, which turned out to be a much-needed release following the more unrelenting darkness of its predecessor (Compline). 

And for musical inspiration, I went back to this song a few times for the mood and the sentiment.

The Twilight Lover is available in e-book format for 99 cents and in print for $9.00 USD.