Song of Ariel: A Blue Light Thriller (Chapters 1 & 2 of Book 3)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Under normal circumstances I would never serialize a novel and put it out a chapter at a time. I have nothing against doing this, I’ve read some novels this way and enjoyed them. Remember The Green Mile? And I used to like those old serialized cliffhangers from the thirties and forties they reran on television when I was a kid.

It’s just that I never considered doing it myself until now.

Let me explain. When I set out to write Apocalypse Island I did not have even the slightest notion that there would be a sequel. I thought it would be a tidy little stand-alone novel that would begin and end with the stories of Danny Wolf, Laura Higgins and Rick Jennings, and that would be that.

That’s not the way it turned out. Somewhere along the way this strange entity known as the Blue Light intruded into my consciousness and made its way onto the pages of Apocalypse Island. By the end of that novel I knew that the Blue Light would have to continue in one form or another, one way or another. I wasn’t sure how then, but I knew that it was so.

You see, I liked the blue light. But even more, I felt a strange attachment to it, as if it had a life of its own that had somehow escaped the imagination of its creator and found its way into his heart. Sometimes that happens, and I don’t have an explanation for why.
By the time Apocalypse Island was published I was more than halfway through another novel entitled Soul Thief, which up until then was also destined to be a stand-alone novel. But something happened with Apocalypse Island that I didn’t expect. It became a best seller. A minor bestseller when you compare it to the likes of King or Patterson, but a bestseller nevertheless. And the one thing fans of Apocalypse Island kept coming back to was the Blue Light. I got a lot of mail from fans, as well as a ton of reviews, and the thing they talked about most was the Blue Light, What is it? Where did it come from? Where is it going? Please don’t hurt it. Please don’t kill it. I’m addicted to the Blue Light. I think I’ve fallen in love with it.

Seriously?

Seriously.

Even one bestselling author made that claim.

Somehow, I had unwittingly created an entity, not a human being, but an entity, without form or substance that readers have become attached to.

Go figure.

Well, that next novel, Soul Thief, pretty much wrote itself from then on. The two books became the Blue light Series with ideas for at least two more novels.

Once Soul Thief was published I began to see the same sorts of comments from readers I’d seen with Apocalypse Island. “Loved the Blue Light.” “Can't wait to see the next one in the series.” “Want to know what happens to the Blue Light.” Will Doug and Annie and Ariel be all right. Will they survive? I want to know what happens to them and the Blue Light. Will the characters from the two previous novels come together in the third?”

You get the picture.

And that brings me back to the original reason for this note. The third novel in the series will not be complete for another few months, so, in an attempt to appease those who want more now, I’ve decided to release it as a series of .99 shorts, a chapter or perhaps two chapters (as in the following opening to the novel) or a section at a time, depending on how it all fits together. Some releases will be shorter and some will be longer.
For those who don’t like to read a book this way, well, sorry but you’ll have to wait for the full release.

In the opening two chapters of the new novel you will find Doug and Annie McArthur and their now three-year-old daughter Ariel running for their lives from unknown assailants in the Maine Wilderness, while in St. Petersburg, Florida a grieving Danielle Peterson has found a strange and magical artifact hidden in the home of her murdered grandfather.

Thanks for your patients, dear reader. I’ll see you on the other side of the Blue Light.

Mark