The Night Librarian, a short story by Neil Benson, to be included in Satin Beauty

My short story,The Night Librarian, was accepted for publication inin Satin Beauty Anthology, to be published by Static Movement. The Night Librarian is a story about a librarian who helps the students at a local college during the day, and helps herself to the local students at night. The librarian is a succubus who uses The virility of the male students to a replenish her energy on a daily basis. She is a "good succubus" because the students are alive, but tired the following morning. Ancient myths portray Lilith as the mother of all succubi. She's also been accused of being the mother of all vampires.Clearly, the woman has a bad reputation. If you have a few minutes to kill, so to speak, type in "Lilith" into Google and I guarantee you will have a few very interesting minutes.

"Getting my novel about a wizard published" by Neil Benson

I am writing a novel about a young female wizard who works for the Department of Homeland security. She and her partner, a former special forces officer, prevent terrorists and terrorist wizards from killing people in this country and destroying our property. You're writing a wizard novel, someone might ask. Sure, I am very familiar with the young lad named Harry Potter. It is imperative to make my story about a wizard clearly different from the Harry Potter novels.

There are other difficult challenges in writing such a novel. When I go into the local library, or to Barnes& Noble's, I see many novels that have a plot  in which the protagonists fight terrorists. To get the reader's attention, most of these novels describe terrorists who are about to blow up this country, the world, or maybe even the entire universe. Al Qaeda is far more successful in fiction literature than it is in the real world. But that's the way it has to be, because nobody wants to read a story about terrorists who hide in caves.

Even if I create an exciting, well written novel, "getting" it published is far from assured.I read that there are approximately a 100,000 books published in this country each year. However, most of them are written by writers who have a history of other published books. Very few literary agents will read a novel written by an unpublished or unknown author.Fortunately, there are small presses who are willing to read the first 20, 30, or 50 pages of a novel written by an unpublished author. Unfortunately, there are many other people writing novels very similar to mine regardless of how unique I think it is.

Why do I spend hours each day writing a novel when the odds of it being published are not in my favor? I write because I enjoy it and it affords me the opportunity to be creative. For me, it is far more fun to write about  imaginary people who are capable of unimaginable acts, than writing reports to enable my corporation to keep the Medicaid project. That's an entirely different story, one that I will never write.

Video of the Artwork of Esther Sanz- very talented artist

I have embedded a video of the artwork Esther Sanz who did the cover for my vampire novel. Almost everyone I have talked to has complimented me on the cover and I tell them about Esther. Below is a lovely video showing her  work.

Esther, muchas gracias for your cover for my book.

Review of Unholy Embrace by Neil Benson Paula Phillips

**** Unholy Embrace by Neil Benson 09/06/2010

 

Review  by Paula Phillips: Unholy Embrace - Neil Benson -2010

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A popular storyline lately has been the tale of the mortal/vampire love story and the majority of them have ended up writing the male as a Vampire and the female as the lovestruck mortal. One thing that I really liked in Neil Benson's book is that he decided to use gender reversed roles and make the male the lovestruck mortal and the female the Vampire. Having it this way, was a nice change for once.

The story starts when Frank and Nessa are out on a date and are attacked by Werewolves, the attack causes Nessa to extract her fangs and go all-vampirey , something that Frank hasn't really experienced before. From then on , we are transported back to the beginning -where they first met and how their relationship started and of course how they reached the point in the story.

What follows is Nessa explaining and opening her 400yr old heart to Frank and telling her story on how she became a Vampire starting in Hungary all the way to her travels via Vienna and Paris to the Present time in New York.  We read as the Werewolves attacks are just the beginning as Nessa has been on the run nearly 400 years and has been tracked by Narice - the vampire lover of the Vampire who turned Nessa and in return Nessa Killed out of vengeance.

When Frank realises the consequences and danger of being with Nessa , can he stand strong and embrace the unholiness of being with a Vampire or will he take the white feather coward option out and leave Nessa to follow a path of a normal life ?

An excellent story that shows readers in a paranormal and supernatural way that no matter what happens and how terrifying obstacles can be - love between not only mortals but mortals and supernaturals can stick together and overcome anything.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Embrace-Neil-Benson/dp/0982679505/ref=tag_stp_s2f_edpp_neil_b11on

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/56944