Given that my first four published books were zombie apocalypse stories, it may come as a shock that my next book is straying from the genre...and by no small margin. It is a ghost story. Well, to be more precise, it is about gargoyles.

Gargoyles and ghosts, and one girl stuck in the middle of a longstanding feud between the two. The book is entitled Girlgoyle, and it is the first installment of a four-part series called the stories of the Hollow Mountain Butterfly.

Girlgoyle begins with fourteen year old Tiffany Noboru being killed by a maniacal ghost named Bones. Upon her death she is miraculously whisked away to the gargoyle world and wakes to discover she's been reborn...with wings. And a magical ability to create light and use it as a weapon to kill ghosts. Which is good because that's her new job - ghost hunter cadet.

Tiffany isn't alone in this respect. She is sent to live in a bay full of other unwilling recruits, where she meets and befriends Hedika, an older girl with honed skill and unbridled knowledge of all things gargoyle.

Tiffany is assigned a mentor named Franklin Craft to train her in the gargoyle ways. But his quest for revenge against Bones means Tiffany is dragged into dangerous confrontations with ghosts up in the human world, which spill into the gargoyle one as well.

Now, without spoilers, of course Tiffany must face Bones in the end...but will her newfound powers of light be strong enough to defeat him?

Just a hint: it is four books in the series.

I'm really excited by this series because it is far more than just a book. Manga artist Miimork illustrated the thing, and we have a fan-art/fan-fiction handbook in production as well. The second book in the series should also be done in time to hit the market by the end of this year!

Girlgoyle