Secrets of the CitySpire, Book 1 - A Familiar Love Song Book

"Call me crazy, but there is something terribly wrong with this city."

The CitySpire, a city with monolithic skyscrapers, flawless streets and endless boulevards rests in the middle of the sea. It is an island that waits both quiet and vacant. Its single inhabitant wakes unfamiliar to his surroundings, his memory as thick as the fog that occasionally rises from the city sewers, with only a single card to greet him, "You are Samuel Bell."

Alone he wanders the CitySpire, lost in the miasma of the surreal. He is drawn by a figment, the sound of footsteps and the occasional shadow. Are they real or are they ghosts from the past? Streets change and some disappear entirely. Is the city alive? Is it enchanted? And why can he not shake the ever-present feeling of being stalked?

"Three times and then declines forever."

Samuel is beset by a phantom woman, a spectre he believes to be his lost love. Rachel calls to him, yet she speaks in riddles, and no matter how hard he tries he cannot shake free the cobwebs in his head. One thing is for certain, she holds the key to unlocking his past.

On one of his trips to the island's pier, he encounters a battered figure along the shoal. After nursing her back to health, Samuel learns that the self-named Emily Waters suffers as he and knows far less about the island or how they may have arrived. Together they embark on a powerful journey to learn the island's secrets. In their travels, they meet the Lockes, a couple who exude the presence of high-class, but what hides behind Michael's gentry smile and Natalie's flirtatious charm?

When Emily professes her love for Samuel, he must make a decision of whether to abandon his pursuit for Rachel and return her affections, or turn Emily aside completely.

"We are all subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated you of this island."

A monstrous creature crawls from out of the darkest recess of the CitySpire and stalks the newly-acquainted friends. He calls himself Count Champ de Croix, the true owner of the city and imparts his gruesome laws. Those who find themselves in violation are issued a death sentence. When more people arrive in the CitySpire, Samuel learns the true extent of the Count's laws when violators are skinned alive and left to hang from lampposts as a future warning.

With more people, each bringing a figment of innovation and ideas, the CitySpire evolves and twists to encompass a more technologically equipped world. From flying cars to electromagnetic weaponry, science advances. Yet no matter how hard the inhabitants strive to peek beneath the veil of the unknown, the city's magic only becomes stronger and more elusive.

But an even greater danger threatens the CitySpire, one more cruel and frightening than the Count himself. Samuel takes on the role of defender, and with the aid of his friends must fight against the evil. It is the same threat that leads him to unveil one of the CitySpire's greatest secret. Will Samuel persevere or will its discovery consume him?

Find out in, "Secrets of the CitySpire, Book 1 – A Familiar Love Song".

"Secrets of the CitySpire" is a gothic sci-fi novel that is influenced by the poems of Emily Dickinson and inspired by science fiction writer, Phillip K. Dick. It is a modernization of Shakespeare's infamous play, "The Tempest" and complimented by 18th and 19th century style of writing from classical writers such as Jane Austen, Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve and Mary Shelly.