Vincent St. Claire's story begins in the shadows of an orphanage in a small, forgotten town in Texas, where the seeds of his future as a writer of horror were sown amidst the solitude and silence of his early years. Now at age 31, or 44, or 56-no-one is quite sure-Vincent's journey from an orphaned child with a vivid imagination to an enigmatic horror writer reads like one of his own elaborate tales, filled with twists of fate and shadowy corridors of the human psyche.

Raised without the anchor of a family, Vincent learned early on to escape into worlds far more colorful and thrilling than his own. This early isolation fostered an uncanny ability to delve into the darkest corners of the human mind, a skill that would later define his horror writing. 

Adopted into a radical fundamentalist sect, Vincent eventually escaped in his late teens and, with the help of government loans, pursued a degree in English Literature. Post-graduation, Vincent embarked on a global odyssey, assuming a myriad of identities--from a deckhand on a freighter in the South Pacific to a bartender in a seedy Parisian café, and finally, a librarian in a musty, forgotten town in Rhode Island.

Despite his burgeoning reputation in dark literary circles, Vincent remained a reclusive figure. Some whispered that he had consorted with witches in the forests of New England, others that he had walked the catacombs of Paris with only the dead for company. His past--a tapestry of unbelievable spectral encounters--became fodder for speculation, lending him an almost mythological status among his readers who waited for letters and stories of what came next.

Nothing you've read here is true. Well, almost nothing. Some of it is true. Really.

Vincent St. Claire is a nom de plume of horror author, Peri Robb Shah. 

Sorry. That's not true either. But close ... if you can figure it out.