Blood Seed

“A powerful novel that stitches literary fantasy and tender romance into the fabric of the dark spiritual journey.” - “An action-packed saga.” - “Riveting, beautifully rendered, with stunning depth.” - “A new approach to this genre.” - “sweetly erotic…full of delightful creepiness. Way cool!” –
Sheft lives in an isolated, backward village that is terrorized by Wask, a creature that haunts the nearby Riftwood. Sometimes Wask emerges from the forest as a black mist, which is blind; but other times it stalks the village street as the beetle-man, who can see.
Because of his foreign appearance, Sheft is already looked upon with suspicion and hostility, but he also hides a deadly secret. Any drop of his blood that falls to the ground lures the black mist out of the Riftwood and into people’s lives. Sheft discovers within himself a power of constriction that can stop a wound from bleeding, but using this power, which he calls ice, leaves him disoriented and exhausted. He learns to keep himself apart.
Conquering his fear of sharp objects and learning to perfect the icy constriction, Sheft develops a wary confidence that he can avoid bleeding on the ground for the rest of his life.
But he’s wrong. At age eighteen, during the wheat harvest, Sheft’s rival Gwin “accidently” wounds him with a sickle. Despite Sheft’s efforts to stop it, drops of his blood hit the ground. That night, the black mist creeps into the village and a man is found dead.
Malicious rumors run rampant, and villagers look for someone to blame. Sheft’s already cool relationship with his father grows colder. But, beyond what Sheft has ever dared to dream, Mariat breaks through his self-imposed isolation, and the two fall in love. Their feelings for each other deepen, but Sheft can’t bring himself to tell her the truth about his cursed blood. Nor can he share with her a series of devastating revelations about who he is discovering himself to be and the dark journey his destiny demands.
His life takes a downward spiral when Sheft discovers he is required to take part in the secretive—and bloody—Rites of the Dark Circle. What happens there contributes to a deadly net which, unknown to Sheft, is already tightening around him. Meanwhile, the black mist is groping its way closer to Sheft’s door.
As the young man begins to confront the true magnitude of the evil arrayed against him, he realizes it threatens to strip away his life, but will first break his heart.
Blood Seed weaves an evocative tale from two moral premises. The first is Tolkien’s idea of the eucatastrophe, a tragic event that can be redeemed. The second is psychologist Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow, the dark part of ourselves which, if acknowledged and dealt with, can reveal an inner light.