The Stitcher

There is a fate worse than death...

Erik is tired of being the farm-hand slave to his abusive uncle. Thrown out of the house at only fifteen years old, he and his little brother sleep in the barn with the pigs and chickens. Erik has made life tough for his brother, but he has a plan to rescue them both from their horrible fate.

Their road is through Odenwald Forest. This forest, however, holds a dark secret. Thirteen children have disappeared in five years, never to be seen again. When Erik and his brother get separated, Erik must conquer his guilt and the monsters of the forest to get him back.

But if he fails to defeat these demons, will he become the fourteenth victim of the Stitcher?

Interview with the Author:
Q. Is this book scary?

A. The Stitcher is a dark, gruesome book. While it wasn't written to be a "scary" story, it's time-honored setting (lost in an ancient forest) offers the isolation, mortal danger, and quasi-supernatural evil that make for a frightening read.

Q. Why is The Stitcher set in Germany?

A. The book started as a short story/fairy tale. When I decided it had too much potential to exist as only a short story, I wanted to keep it close to its fairy tale roots and set it in the fatherland of fairy tales and folklore. Hans Christian Andersen and The Brothers Grimm were certainly influences for this kind of story, so I set it in Germany as an hommage to them.

Q. Why base the story in the 19th century?

A. Historical novels like this benefit from the lack of modern technology. Survival horror fiction can't survive in an atmosphere of cell-phone communication. There needs to be a sense of isolation and despair, which a more antiquated time-period allows.

Q. Is it set in the "real world" or is it an historical fantasy novel?

A. A little bit of both. I think I'm like a lot of writers who want to base their stories in "reality," but also bend the rules just enough for it to be "fantasy." There's certainly a paranormal mystery novel feel to the book, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to see this kind of thing "actually happening." It's certainly fiction no matter how you cut it, but how close it is to the "real world" is up to the reader.

Q. Why did you write this book?

A. It started off as a fairy tale whose potential and possibilities ballooned in my mind until I decided to scrap the short story and just make it into a full book. It started as a creepy folklore-ish tale that developed into more and more of a real-life-ish scary thriller book.

Q. Who were your favorite authors?

A. When I was young, I liked fantasy books and paranormal books like the R.L. Stine Goosebumps series. They hit the sweet-spot of goofy and creepy, but when I wrote The Stitcher I knew I couldn't keep it to that level. It had to be darker. On the spectrum from R.L. Stine to Stephen King, however, it's probably somewhere in between, at least in terms of "darkness."