The Dark Heir (SHORTLIST - Open Novella Contest 2019)
**Featured on DARK FANTASY and ADULT FICTION reading lists**
WARNING: EATING OR DRINKING WHILE READING THIS STORY IS HIGHLY INADVISABLE.
Once Upon A Time, Good Omens, Monty Python, and Arrested Development had a back-alley three-way and birthed a fairytale.
Gerald wasn't supposed to be stuck living seven centuries in the future. He definitely wasn't supposed to be "mentoring" The Dark Lord's progeny in the hopes that she would decide to save the world rather than destroy it. In fact, he wasn't even supposed to be named Gerald (the name of every other male in his family for three hundred years), because everyone assumed a weak-chinned, balding, forgettable man, who was just a magician, could never be who Geraldo The Foreshadower prophesied. But that's what assuming gets you, and here he was saddled with a fate he never asked for, in a time he didn't know, surrounded by people he didn't want to like, and he was out of Firewine AGAIN!
The Dark Heir is a darkly satirical tale of assumptions, anti-heroes, and apocalypses, where the road to hell is actually a themed water-park slide covered in slightly less urine than a real one.
It drops literary and film references faster than an NYC socialite drops names, and promises endless laughs - including, but not limited to, sad chuckles, guffaws, uncontrollable giggles at inappropriate moments, brays, barks, cackles, snorts, cachinnations, and the occasional howl (though that may be the Welsh Werewolves showing up unannounced).
Consider yourself warned...
Reviews:
"Completely and adorably bonkers," says @floranocturna
"Hilarious in every way. Even when I cringed, I laughed," says @LadySapphire2018
Winner of The Trident Awards
