Integral: The Engulfing Night (Visceral Book 1)

In a sleepy Midwest town, the peace between humanity and nocturnals is brought to the brink by a mysterious death. Matthias Trent, a stone-blooded investigator, is ousted from his element of the big city to babysit the aloof and boorish officer assigned to the district. The two vampires have little else in common, and as they clash, others pay the price. Each carves their own path to the truth, revealing more secrets and questions than answers. And while a web of conflicting corporate agendas entangles the agents, a young mage discovers great power and confronts her fears to become the first of her kind to taste freedom. A brash Warden follows close behind, intending to make his career on her retrieval. Beset by a mysterious mercenary company, a towering system of corruption, and their own selfish natures, each must find a way to survive blistering light and the engulfing night. ______________________________________ About The Visceral Series In Visceral, the world has become a complicated place. The world’s economy has collapsed, and powerful megacorporations have filled the power vacuum, carving up the world into territories they govern and exploit. Nocturnals, more commonly referred to as vampires, have come out of hiding to seize a piece of the world for their own. Most think of them as people with a skin condition, but only those afflicted understand the thirst, and no one is sure of the underlying agenda of this new group or the corporation headquartered in the midwest that protects them. Not long after the collapse, gifted humans discovered the ability to manipulate matter, space, and time through a connection with the Ethereal Plane. Corporations move quickly to capture them, train them, exploit them, and when necessary, end them. Integral, the first entry in the series, takes place in middle America in the near future. With a blend of paranormal, noir, fantasy, and cyberpunk, Integral weaves a tapestry for drama and action akin to works like Snow Crash, Neuromancer, and Shadowrun fiction. Subsequent books in Visceral span the better part of a century as the world changes, empires rise and fall, and our cast of heroes is bolstered by new faces and undermined by tragedy. Before the story comes full circle, hidden evils will be tracked across North America, revenge will be sought in China, and mysterious visions will lure readers to a dystopian India with a chilling finale set amidst the Arctic wastes.