Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Falling Awake III: Requiem by Kristoffer Gair - Blog Tour with Excerpt and Author's Guest Post

BLOG TOUR


Book Title: Falling Awake III: Requiem

Author: Kristoffer Gair

Publisher: Self-Published

Cover Artist: Kris Norris

Genre/s: M/M Suspense, occult

Trope/s: Love can conquer all.

Themes: Reincarnation, friendship, sacrifice, love

Heat Rating: 1 flame

Length: 149 000 words 

There are two prior books, Falling Awake and Falling Awake II: Revenant.


 

Buy Links

Smashwords  |   Amazon US  |  Amazon UK  

 

He will turn what is into what can be.


Blurb

They targeted him before he was ever born. They will hunt him. They will execute anyone around him. They will rip his innocence away, corrupt him, and twist him into an instrument of terror. He will give the world reason to fear, fear the unknown, and he will do this lifetime after lifetime after lifetime.

Except this time, Daniel Davis hasn’t come back alone.

Four souls have returned with him, would-be protectors who’ve vowed to shield him from this fate. If they succeed, Daniel will turn what is into what can be. And if they fail, his light will dim and fade…forever.


Excerpt

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” Amanda grabbed a blanket from the inside of the vehicle and wrapped it around Daniel, then took a clean cloth and held it up to his chin. He’d need stitches and there’d be one hell of a scar. “Look at me.” He did, still shaking.

She’d almost been a moment too late. A second of hesitation and he’d be dead. What did the intruder want? What had he been looking for? And why did he scream what he did at Daniel?

Let me see your eyes. It’s in there, isn’t it? Deep down you can feel it.

The intruder’s words. Why the eyes? What was in them? What had he looked for? And why would Daniel feel it? Why did all of this feel so familiar to her? She knew the answers somewhere in the back of her memory, just out of reach. Why couldn’t she remember?

You can’t hide from us! We’ll find you again and again and again!

This had happened before. It happened now. It would happen again. Unless…

She studied the young boy’s face, the remains of a kind of innocence now lost and something new dawning. He’d never be the same again. Ever. Nobody prepared him for this. Not this young. How did one recover? With time? Without his mother or father?

Daniel began sobbing anew, as if reading her mind about his parents, whom she was sure he already missed.

“You’re—” Her voice cracked and she struggled not to break down in front of him. He didn’t need that. He needed strength. “You’re safe, baby. You’re safe now, Daniel.”

He stared into her eyes now. Was he searching for truth, or to see the depths of her own demons compared to his?

She met his gaze with her own and peered into his eyes. Blue. The blue eyes she’d seen in her recent dreams when he’d appeared much older. Still there, but… She felt her head tilt to the side as she searched even deeper. Beyond the blue. Something else. Something new. Foreign. Fear? No. Fear was on the outside, on the surface, but below the fear in a place he couldn’t feel or know existed inside himself? Shadows. Something that didn’t belong. A blackness, a blackness that swirled around in its infancy, as if waking.

The intruder is responsible for this. He woke this thing.

The blackness stopped moving for a moment. Did it sense her? She stared at it and some part of it intuitively stared back at her. The blackness knew her. They were old acquaintances. And if the thing, this entity or presence…whatever the hell it was…could have sneered at her, she knew it would have.

Have you ever heard a child scream as if their soul was being ripped apart at the seams? Like there’s no safe place in Heaven, Earth, or in-between that’s safe.

Where did these words come from? When did she say them? Part of her understood she never had, and yet another part, the part far back in her mind, knew she had. But when? How could that even be possible? Amanda also understood Daniel’s soul was infected and this thing inside him would take great joy in ripping him apart.

“You’re safe now, Daniel,” she repeated, mostly to reassure herself, only she knew deep down it wasn’t true.

The darkness in Daniel’s eyes began its dance anew.

…it’s going to eat him from the inside out.

Her words again? When did she say this?

“You’re not going to get him,” she muttered.

The darkness found an opening and began to disappear behind Daniel’s eyes, hiding beyond the physical, beyond reach. Beyond her reach.

He’s already ours.

Daniel began to shake.



The Music of Falling Awake III: Requiem

Music has inspired my writing more than anything over the years. I think this stems from an early love of film scores, since those pieces are meant to elicit certain moods, emotions, and enhance settings. I wrote my first book, Honor Unbound, to Vangelis’s soundtrack, 1492. A Funny Thing On The Way To My Sexual Orientation and it sequel, Andy Stevenson Vs. The Lord Of The Loins, were written to 80s Pop music. And Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell? That’s when I started to enjoy a bit of Metal. The Falling Awake series took me back to electronic music, but not of the Pop kind.

There is a pivotal scene towards the end of Falling Awake and I couldn’t quite nail the feel for it. I knew what I wanted to have happen, but I fell short of setting the mood. I went through several albums by Tangerine Dream—I am a huge fan of Edgar Froese and his work—and found out his son, Jerome, had a few solo albums out. I bought them and, as I listened, came across one of the most amazing tracks I’ve ever had the pleasure to hear. The track is called My Reality At 52 Degrees Of Latitude, and it encapsulated everything I felt and visualized for the sequence perfectly.

That same song plays an equally important role in the third book, also towards the end, only it’s the live version. There was no getting away from the track and I believe it brings so much full circle. Another track by Jerome Froese, The Speed of Snow, inspired the scene in FAIII where we meet Daniel, Tam, and Alex as adults. Alex is standing in the backyard admiring all the twinkly Christmas lights hung for their graduation party, a nod to the character’s previous life as Andrew. The music is a beautiful segue from their childhood into the present.

Now, I didn’t stray far from Tangerine Dream either. Tyger 2013 became Daniel’s theme (in my mind), Granular Blankets a car ride around the bustling streets and freeways of Chicago, La Liberation Tam’s theme, and a very special track, Walking In The Air, TD’s version from the End Titles of Michael Mann’s film, The Keep. Sadly, it’s also a song that’s never had a proper official release.

Had Falling Awake been turned into a film series instead of novels, the main title for FAIII would have been Immortals, by Jean-Michel Jarre & (don’t laugh here because the group is really called this) Fuck Buttons. I know, right?

The rest of the playlist does feature some vocal tracks, specifically Transcendence by Berlin, Stars Will Lead The Way by Simple Minds, Greenwaves by Secret Garden, and As Long As by The Motels. If you read the three books, you’ll notice that two of the novels begin with lines from As Long As. I really wanted to have some lyrics in the front of the book, and lead singer/songwriter Martha Davis read the description of the story I sent her and suggested potential lyrics from two of her songs. As Long As is used in the first and third book, and the second book utilizes a snippet from Call Me A Cab.

The amazing thing is The Motels recorded As Long As a short time later and the song is on their album, The Last Few Beautiful Days. It’s as haunting as I’d hoped, and I am grateful to Martha for working out permission with me for use of her wonderful words.

If any of you might be wondering what track inspired the very beginning of the first Falling Awake scene, it’s called Vortex by film director/writer/composer John Carpenter. Yup, THAT John Carpenter. And the song is amazing!

So, there you have it. If books had soundtracks, this is what mine would sound like. Now, if I could only get John Carpenter interested in making the film version of Falling Awake…



About the Author  



Kristoffer Gair grew up in Fraser, MI and is a graduate of Grand Valley State University. He is the author of 7 novels—some written under the pseudonym Kage Alan—been a part of 6 anthologies, and currently lives in a suburb of Detroit.


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