Sneak Preview of My M/M Werewolf Tale, THE BLUE MOON CAFE

The Blue Moon Cafe will make its debut March 7! I'm really excited about this book for several reasons:

1. It's my first werewolf novel. For 20 years, I have been writing horror, or some variation thereof, but have yet to explore this territory.

2. It's a horror story combined with a romance. More and more, my stories are taking on a romantic edge. I think that The Blue Moon Cafe combines the paranormal and romance in a way that will satisfy readers of both genres.

3. It's my first full-length novel set in my relatively new hometown of Seattle. Seattle is a great location for a werewolf book, especially a gay one...it's got a huge gay population, tremendous natural beauty, and is surrounded by mountains and forests. Hey, it's a perfect home for today's cosmopolitan werewolf.

4. It has a brilliant cover. Cover designer Trace Edward Zaber has done it again and come up with a face for my book that's not only beautiful, but compelling. Trace managed to encapsulate exactly what I wanted to get across: that this was a horror story, yes, but at its heart, it's a love story. It's a book that I hope will make a reader's heart race for many reasons.

The Blue Moon Café releases on March 7, 2010 in ebook format, with the paperback version to follow approximately two weeks later. To read the first chapter, e-mail me at jimmyfels@gmail.com and I will send it to you.

What The Blue Moon Cafe is about:

Someone—or something—is killing Seattle’s gay men.

A creature moves through the darkest night, lit only by the full moon, taking them, one by one, from the rain city’s gay gathering areas.

Someone—or something—is falling in love with Thad Matthews.

Against a backdrop of horror and fear, young Thad finds his first true love in the most unlikely of places—a new Italian restaurant called The Blue Moon Café. Sam is everything Thad has ever dreamed of in a man: compassionate, giving, handsome, and with brown eyes Thad feels he could sink into…and he can cook! But as the pair’s love begins to grow, so do the questions and uncertainties, the main one being: Why do Sam’s unexplained disappearances always coincide with the full moon?

Prepare yourself for a unique blend of horror and erotic romance with The Blue Moon Café, written by the author Unzipped magazine called, “the Stephen King of gay horror.” You’re guaranteed an unforgettable reading experience, one that skillfully blends the hottest romance with the most chilling terror…

Exclusive Excerpt
There are roads going nowhere. Huge ramps and posts holding them up that lead toward the sky, as if aliens had built them for take-off strips. They almost glow, grayish, in the shimmering light of the full moon. Surrounding them are trees, grasses, growing wild in a riot around a lily pad-flecked canal. The wind, cold this September night, rustles through the tree tops, making a sound like whispering and sending the weakest of the leaves, harbingers of fall, down to the ground.
 
It would be pitch and even though he has dark-adapted eyes, it would be difficult to see were it not for the moon tonight, which is glorious, a pale-faced imitator of the sun. Everything, here in the Washington Park Arboretum, is cloaked with a veil of silver. Night has become a kind of day, one that exists in black and white. The pale light and the ability to actually see along the path has brought out many wanderers in the woods. They—all of them men, all of them solitary—make restless circuits of the trails going through the woods and along the canal. They stop here and there, where a bent tree or a copse of bushes provide a kind of shelter, looking for another soul who will elevate them from their loneliness for a few minutes. Some have succeeded—condom wrappers and condoms themselves, used, litter the ground and some even hang from branches.
 
He also hunts…but not for the same thing. While they search for the warmth of sexual connection, hungry for the taste of cum, he looks for the coldness of destruction and the taste of blood. He lifts his snout to test the cool air and is rewarded with the smell of at least a dozen men, traversing the trails that cut through the woods of the park. He has slipped through the shadows, watching as the men exchange silent signals with one another, couple, then separate, to wander back to the parking lot. Some of them hurry, with their heads hung low, as if ashamed of what they have done. Others, shameless, walk jauntily back to their cars of their homes in the neighborhoods bordering the park, satisfied with their release.
 
Disgusting.
 
The creature pads along a trail, waiting for one of the men to break free of the others, to follow a trail perhaps down to the canal’s edge, to separate from the pack. It is the ones who stay by themselves, perhaps the ones too fearful to actually do what they came here for, that he wants. Vulnerable. Alone.
He is quick and sure when he attacks. There will be no screams to alert the others. There won’t even be a scuffle. There will be only death and feasting, silent and sure, gliding in on one of these men, unsuspecting, like a shadow. The element of surprise has always been his trump and his calling card. His stealth and razor sharp fangs will ensure a quick demise, painless for only a second or two, until blood and flesh is rendered and offered up to him like a gift.
 
He revels in the anticipation of the kill. He will satisfy his own ferocious hunger, in his belly for certain, but also for the elusive taste of justice. These men deserve to have something bad happen to them. Look at them! In a public place, looking to sate their perverted desires, to connect with strangers in a way that should be reserved for private, for time alone with a creature one loves and bears some commitment to…
 
He is an old-fashioned monster. He feels no remorse for what he is about to do. In its own way, he knows that his hunting and killing is for the common good, eradicating those who foul the world with heedless desire and warped attractions.
 
He pads along a trail and hops jauntily along the wooden surface of a small bridge, making not a sound. Ahead, one has separated far enough from the pack that the beast thinks he may have a chance, especially if the man is foolish enough to duck into a cluster of foliage which will shields dark couplings from passersby as close as a few feet away. He knows his al fresco meal will be over within seconds. It’s not the length of the meal that defines its quality.
 
From a few feet away, he pants, licking his chops, and watches the man. He is tall, clad in a pair of tight fitting jeans, boots, and a dark T-shirt, much too lightweight for this chilly night, but perfect for showing off biceps that have been pumped unnaturally large and a chest that spans super-hero width. The monster is certain that such physical dimensions make the man a desirable candidate, a kind of trophy or reward. But his bulging muscles and cocky walk are all for show; he knows there is no strength to back them up. He will be just as easy to bring down as all the rest. And like all the rest, he will not even make a sound.
 
He will go for the neck first.