Hi, lovelies! It gives me great pleasure today to host Matt
Carter and his new book, “Bennytown”!
For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click
on the banner above or any of the images in this post.
Be sure to make it to the
end of this post to enter to win a $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with Matt
and to increase your chances of winning!
This eBook is on SALE
during the book tour for ONLY $0.99!!!
See below for more details.
Thanks for stopping
by! Wishing you lots of luck in this
fabulous giveaway!
Bennytown
by Matt Carter
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GENRE: Adult Horror/Thriller
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BLURB:
For
nearly sixty years, Bennytown has been America’s most exciting family theme
park destination. Under the watchful eye of cultural icon Benny the Bunny, the
park has entertained generations of children with its friendly atmosphere and
technologically innovative rides, acting as a beacon of joy and wonder, where
magic is real and dreams come true.
Bennytown
once saved sixteen-year-old Noel Hallstrom’s life, and to repay it, Noel has
applied for a summer job. Though the work is messy and the hours are bad, Noel
is happy to be a part of the Bennytown family, until he sees the darkness
beneath the surface. Strange, mechanized mascots walk the park perimeter.
Elegantly dressed cultists in wooden Benny masks lurk in the darkness. Spirits
of the many who’ve died in the park roam freely, and every night the park
transforms into a dark dimension where madness reigns and monsters prowl.
Noel
is about to find out more about Bennytown than he ever wanted to know, and that
its darkness might have designs on him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT TWO:
The
third escalator is the longest, looking like a black cut has opened in the
earth before me. Carefully and quickly, I bound down the steps.
Halfway
down, Benny starts laughing over the speakers with a mechanical, staticky roar.
His voice mingles with what sounds like a man whistling. The steps shake
beneath me as the escalator jolts downward, twisting me off balance. The dolly
flies from my hands, tumbling end over end down the moving steps. My arms reach
out wildly for purchase, and I grab one of the rubber handrails, slowing my
fall, but not stopping it.
I
land on my back, upside down with the wind knocked out of me. I try to ignore
the stabbing pain from the steps while Benny interviews Flora Fox about her
upcoming movie over the loudspeakers.
The
voices are shrill and the pain rings in my ears so loudly that I don’t realize
there’s a humming sound coming from the bottom of the escalator.
The
dolly lies at the edge of the disappearing final steps, tumbled and with a
gouge in one of its wheels and a yellow sticker I’ve never noticed on the
bottom of its scoop. In front of the dolly, I’m staring straight at the
escalator’s base with welcoming spikes ready to swallow my hat, my scalp, and
my face. I can picture the flesh being peeled from my bones. I try to claw my
way out of my sprawl, but my hands are slick from sweat and rain. My fingers can’t find anything to grip on the
polished escalator sides. The motor is getting louder while the grinding
vibrates the steps beneath me.
Wordlessly,
I cry out, attempting to twist and fight my way free.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GUEST POST:
Inventing and Developing Mystical Creatures:
I imagine
that inventing and developing mystical creatures is a different kind of
challenge across genres, be they fantasy, science-fiction, or in what is often
my case, horror. Creatures of all sorts and natures have to fit their stories
and have a life of their own, otherwise they won’t come alive to the readers
and will simply feel like flat concepts on the page. I always try my best to
not just bring life to whatever entities I choose to involve in my stories and
make sure that they organically seem to live in their world, but make sure that
they have a way of following the reader from there once they’ve finished with
the story.
I’m
going to use my newest novel, Bennytown, as an example for how I like to
go about creating a world of mystical beings.
Bennytown is a
horror novel set at a fictional, popular American theme park that has a twisted
history of death, madness and dark magic. A variety of strange beings walk the
park’s grounds, some of them living, some of them dead, some of them in some
terrible place in between, while others defy such simple descriptions. While I
don’t want to offer too much in the way of spoilers for the story, I’ll be
happy to go into some detail about the creative process behind some of the
park’s nastier denizens.
So, let’s talk about
ghosts.
One
of the biggest presences of the supernatural in the park comes in the form of
its many spirits, mostly from the people who have died in Bennytown over
the years. That was one of the ideas I knew I wanted from the start, that the
park would be incredibly haunted, but it took a while of figuring out the rules
for the ghosts, as no two pieces of fiction treat ghosts the same. Some are
clear, some are human, some look normal, some are gruesomely rotten. Working on
what I liked most cosmetically and what would best fit some of the twists and
turns of the story, I decided that the ghosts would look human most of the time
when they are visible, but when they are under incredible stress or they want
to put on a good scare, they can easily take on the gruesome forms of how they
looked when they died.
Trapped
in Bennytown and not able to pass on to any other area of the afterlife, these
are people who had lives once, employees or visitors to the park, people who
came from different places and times, and by knowing who they were and what
brought them to their terrible ends in Bennytown, I was able to bring them more
to life, so to speak. Bored and driven mad from their imprisonment, most of
them have become chaotic entities, harmless for the most part, but up for their
share of mischief and mayhem when it suits them, allowing for some of the
story’s more unsettling scares.
Of course, not all of the
spirits of Bennytown are harmless.
Not
all of the people who died in Bennytown were very nice, and I wanted to do
something special with them. The more violent individuals who died within
Bennytown’s hallowed come back as formidable revenants, monstrous mockeries of
humanity who barely maintain a semblance of a human form. I wanted them to be
immediately distinguishable from the other ghosts of the park so readers would
know right away that these were not beings to be trifled with. From the
electricity based Wallace Vickers to the twisted Doctor Dare and the
nightmare-inducing Wilbur Walrus, I wanted them all to be as unforgettable to
readers as they were frightening for me to come up with.
While
ghosts aren’t the only dark denizens that prowl the hidden corners of Bennytown,
I hope this look into my mind and creative process has proved entertaining, and
might just have you considering booking a trip to Bennytown as well…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR BIO:
Matt Carter has
used his lifelong love for writing, history and the bizarre to bring to life
novels like Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel, Pinnacle City: A
Superhero Noir, and the Prospero Chronicles young adult horror
series (all co-authored with Fiona J.R. Titchenell). Bennytown, is his
first solo horror novel.
He is
represented by Fran Black of Literary Counsel and lives in the usually sunny
town of San Gabriel, CA with his wife, their pet king snake Mica, and the
myriad of strange fictional characters and worlds that live in his head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CONNECT WITH MATT:
Website:
Website:
Facebook:
Twitter:
BookBub Author Page:
BookBub Book Page:
Goodreads Author Page:
Goodreads Book Page:
Amazon Author Page:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOOK BUY LINKS
& BOOK SALE INFO:
**The Bennytown eBook is on SALE during the book tour for ONLY
$0.99!!!**
Amazon Kindle eBook:
Amazon Paperback:
Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:
Barnes and Noble Paperback:
The Book Depository Paperback:
BAM! Books-A-Million Paperback:
IndieBound Paperback:
Kobo eBook:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY INFO:
Matt will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to
a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this
blog. This does not cost you anything,
it just helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
This contest is sponsored
by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish
Promotions. Prizes are given away by the
sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish
Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
Matt ~ Good morning! Welcome to FAB! It is so great to have you here! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking time to share your book with us and it's always a pleasure in our family to learn about a new one.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any ideas for a follow up book?
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great read.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the great post!
ReplyDeletethis sounds really interesting
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds very spooky! I love the simple, effective cover.
ReplyDelete