***winner of the 2015 eLit Book Awards Gold Medal for Literary Fiction*** David Jackson leaves a successful law practice in the big city to return to the hometown he fled long ago. At its center stands Old Suzie's house, a grand home once the elegant jewel of a bygone era. Now abandoned, the house stands decaying, simmering in the town's tortured past. David thought he'd buried his childhood nightmares along with his father in the town cemetery under six feet of dirt and thirty years of grief, but they're not finished with him just yet. His wife and daughter find themselves in real danger from the unquiet phantoms of David's past. David Jackson's childhood might just hold the key to what haunts Old Suzie's house-and his family's salvation. What Other Writers Are Saying: Chris Pourteau's Shadows Burned In turned out to be much more than I was expecting....I read a lot of books from debut authors and frankly, a lot of times it can be a chore. With SBI, Chris had me from the very beginning. This is a debut book that you really should catch....Very literary in its aspirations, an abuse story that is so much more. - Michael Bunker, author of The Pennsylvania Omnibus A great start for a new literary voice...the storytelling and uniqueness of Mr. Pourteau's voice kept me reading on. A wonderful first attempt, and a sign of great things to come. - Roberto Calas, author of the Scourge series This is that novel of childhood's end and adult's beginning. Of saying farewell to the things you love and that scare you and hello to things you're too scared to ever stop loving...written extremely well and with incredible heart. Complex. Bittersweet. It doesn't let you go. I highly recommend this haunted tale. - Nick Cole, author of The Wasteland Saga ________________________________ "The author excels at painting scenery....[the] reader can really see and feel the locations and delves into them.... * [Pourteau] provides lovely gems of description reminiscent of Sarah Addison Allen: "spirit moaned on the wind" as an example; this is excellent writing....The reader goes back over these to enjoy them again. * A sign of a well-written narrative....The different plot paths converge well at the end. Excellent plotting....Good tension throughout; author moves the pace nicely."-Judge, Writer's Digest Self-Published e-Book Awards
Currently residing in College Station, Texas, Chris Pourteau has made a living at one time or another as a teacher, a lab technician helping to recover one of Christopher Columbus's ships, and a technical writer and editor. Pourteau cites writers both modern and classical as influences, notable among them Bernard Cornwell, Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Toni Morrison, Edgar Allan Poe, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Mark Twain. Other major influences include fellow Texan and singer-songwriter James McMurtry, Groucho Marx, and a little-known comedy troupe from England you've probably never heard of named Monty Python. (Python is always happy to have someone shill their name as long as they don't have to pay for it and might get a chance to sell you something, so there you go, guys. Regards from Texas.) As far as reading interests go, Pourteau prefers fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction, which you could probably guess from his list of influences. Occasionally, he likes taking random chances on new writers--new to him, anyway--and has recently become enamored of the works of Roberto Calas, Nick Cole, Suzanne Collins, Tess Gerritsen, Manel Loureiro, and John Scalzi among others. He's also a die-hard Star Trek fan and prefers gritty dramas like Breaking Bad, Hell on Wheels, Homeland, and The Killing when he flips on the tube. If you'd like to say howdy, feel free to email him at c.pourteau.author@gmail.com or visit him at chrispourteau.thirdscribe.com.
