Dark fiction writer Mark Towse chats with me today about his new multi-genre dark romance, Chasing the Dragon.
During his virtual book tour, Mark will be giving away a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!
Bio:
Mark Towse is an English horror writer living in Australia. He would sell his soul to the devil or anyone buying if it meant he could write full-time. Alas, he left it very late to begin this journey, penning his first story since primary school at the ripe old age of forty-five. Since then, he’s been published in over two hundred journals and anthologies, had his work made into full theatrical productions for shows such as The No Sleep Podcast and Tales to Terrify, and has penned fourteen novellas, including Nana, Gone to the Dogs, 3:33, and Crows. Chasing The Dragon is his debut novel.
Welcome, Mark. Please tell us about your current release.
This debut novel is a tongue-in-cheek story about the long-term effects of trauma and how it never fails to continue shaping us. Life is imperfect, and so are we.
Chasing The Dragon was a thrill to write, a dark concoction of all the genres I’ve touched on. It is horror, thriller, romance, crime, fantasy, and mystery, with the staple thread of Towsey humour to lighten the load. I hope you fall in love with Reformo as much as I did.
N.B. This is certainly not designed to be a self-help book. Oh, and there are no dragons in it.
Official synopsis:
A town on its knees, dread’s bony fingers wrapping around its throat and squeezing, death rattles soon to follow.
Drugs, filth, and a lack of human decency are starving it of hope.
Introducing Simon Dooley, our trauma-driven wannabe superhero, the relentless voice of his dead mother pleading with him to “end the chaos.” Dressed in a leotard and armed only with a dozen dog poop bags, Simon’s plight will find him falling in love and going head to head with the seediest characters walking the streets.
The town needed a hero… it got Reformo.
What inspired you to write this book?
To get straight into this, it’s me on the pages of this book: the same upbringing, the same claustrophobic and uncomfortable environment, all dictated by my iron-fisted mother. If I left crumbs on the counter or a cup next to the sink without washing it, my life would not be worth living. And God forbid if someone parked outside our house or started playing loud music. In those cases, the day, possibly week, would be ruined. My mother even uttered the words, “When will the chaos end?” at one point, thus the multiple references in the story. The Reformo connection is all about the fantasy world I often escaped to. Writing this was incredibly cathartic and therapeutic.
Excerpt from Chasing the Dragon:
This is an example of Simon’s hilarious interactions with one of the residents. It really says it all. People have given up hope, and the harder he tries, the harder he fails.
***
Yes, it’s time for me to step up.
As I make my way past the boarded-up windows of once-treasured stores, my eyes draw to the house across the road, the word ‘cockmuncher’ sprayed across the rotten panels of the fence. A dirty yellow streetlight shows the paint still glistening as I march across, eyeing the discarded aerosol in the overgrown lawn. Edith, is it? Yes, Edith, the name of the woman who lives here. Mother knew her. She said the lady had a Shih Tzu that held true to its name, pebble-dashing our driveway with its little brown nuggets one morning. Eighty if a day—the woman, not the Shih Tzu—and I suspect the old lady munches on cough drops over cocks these days.
Feeling helpless, I bend down and pick up the discarded aerosol.
“I saw who did it,” the feeble voice emerges from the partially open door. “Little shit had a skateboard tucked under his arm. One of them inbred faces too.”
Over the muffled sound of her TV, I hear smashing glass and howls from night walkers, accompanied by the ever-present soundtrack of thumping bass and distant sirens.
“Did you call the police?”
She offers a croaky laugh. “You’re a funny bastard, aren’t you? Had an incident last month, and it took two hours before the pigs showed up.”
She knows as well as I do most are paid off or have given up the fight. So-called ‘drug lords’ taking over the town, everyone in their back pocket while the place goes to shit. The sirens are just for show, an attempt to placate, but those days are long gone.
“Things are going to change around here,” I say. “Mark my words.”
“Some twat came to the door a few months ago promising the exact same thing,” Edith says. “Shoved a leaflet in my face and told me his party would put this town back on the map again. He was in the papers a week later, caught with his pants down in the disabled bogs, some hooker choking on his meat stick. You know—his love truncheon, pecker, womb ferret, purple-headed—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it, dearie.”
“Anyway, certainly not the sort of thing you want to be on the map for.” She opens the door a little further, exposing a tuft of hair resembling iron wool, albeit with a blue tinge. “Do I know you?”
“Just know that things will get better.”
“Why, are they dropping an effin bomb on the place?”
“No.” I clear my throat. “A saviour is coming.”
She sighs, opening the door further to reveal the flickering frown across her forehead. “A bloody bible basher, I should have known. Christ, you’ve got some nerve, kid, touting the Lord’s name around here.”
“No, no, no, you’ve got me all wrong.” Time for a change of tactic. “I despise all that stuff. In fact, I hate Jesus.”
A strange, garbled croak leaves through the tiniest hole in her lips, and her eyes grow just as narrow. “You hate Jesus?” She takes an urgent step across the threshold, looks to the heavens, and makes the sign of the cross on her chest.
“Yeah, but… but”—some days you just can’t win—”I mean the way you can love someone, with all your heart, but also sometimes hate them. You know, like your parents or your partner, for example.”
“My parents are worm food, and my Bernard had a coronary four years ago.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck.
As the woman continues her heavy wheeze, I make a mental note that saying things like “I hate Jesus” will not necessarily make friends.
***
What exciting project are you working on next?
My second novel, The Sound of Suffering\ has just been picked up by Wicked House Publishing. That’s exciting.
Currently, I’m working on a couple of projects.
Daemon Manx and I were recently commissioned to write a ‘Try Not to Die in Arcranium’ book, a spin-off to the very popular collaboration we did a few months back called ‘Arcranium.’ To cut a long story short, four friends/horror authors have a burning desire to find out who is the scariest of them all. Introducing Arcranium, a futuristic technology that allows participants to plug into each other’s stories and go along for the ride. It is so much fun—a guilty pleasure. The reception to Arcranium was fantastic; we know this will blow peoples’ socks off.
I’m also working on a solo novel, a seaside town horror story that I’m very much in love with. I should have the draft wrapped up in April. Exciting stuff.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
Only recently.
I’ve been very prolific, amassing 185 short stories and 15 novellas prior to penning my first novel. I firmly believe I now have the skills to call myself a writer.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I write three days a week, squeezing as much into those days as possible, usually eight-hour chunks. I have a family and a day job, but I’m fortunate there’s a degree of flexibility in my work. Every minute of every day is allocated. It’s exhausting, but I won’t accept failure.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I’m a pantser, even with novel-length work. It keeps things fun. If I don’t know where the story is going, the reader sure as hell won’t.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
I would ask your readers to give this book a chance. I guarantee there’s something in this for everyone, and it’s like nothing they have read before. As one reader stated, you will be “laughing one minute and crying the next.” Check out the ARC reviews on Goodreads.
Links:
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Thank you so much for featuring CHASING THE DRAGON and its author.
Great cover art. Sounds like a good book.
Thanks again, Marcy.
Sounds like a good book.
This looks really good. Thanks for hosting this tour.