Deep in the basement a wooden box sits on a table. Demons that were called into the world are etched on the box. With tiny claws they writhe, push, and scratch at the wood, attempting to gain freedom. The forked tongues flick the air, bulbous noses scent, swollen cheeks pulse. Their icy determined voices vibrate the atmosphere with inaudible high-pitched screeches calling for revenge. Five-year old Stephen's mother, Cathy, is dead. Her body was cremated, her ashes cast into the ocean. Yet her spirit hovers over Stephen. It urges him to go down to the basement. For Stephen is meant to be the demons' instrument. His innocence will be their mask, his love their weapon. Because Stephen's father ended his affair with the babysitter too late. And Stephen's oppressive, demanding grandmother must pay for the pain she selfishly forced on her daughter. With blue eyes and cherub smile, Stephen will set out to punish Mommy's persecutors.
Biography
Mary Ann Mitchell has published 11 books. Her first book, Drawn to the Grave, was a final nomination for the Bram Stoker Award and won the International Horror Guild Award. She held officer positions with the Horror Writers Association and with the Northern California Sisters in Crime organization. She is now making her books available as e-books.
As a child, Mary Ann Mitchell wrote short stories, essays, and poetry. When she was twelve she sent her short stories to the night editor of The Journal American, who encouraged her to send more. Her mother intercepted the letters and forbade her from writing. Seems some of the family's dark secrets were oozing onto Mary Ann's written pages. Her writing became secret and sporadic. Once she completed graduate school, she became a civil servant. Years later her husband asked her what her dream career would be. She quickly answered that she always wanted to be a novelist.
She began her writing career by taking writing classes at The University of California, Los Angeles and writing several short stories, which her husband encouraged her to submit for publication. Mary Ann Mitchell's short stories have been published in a number of magazines. The short story The Hyacinth Girl appeared in the anthology The Year's Best Horror Stories: XXI, edited by Karl Edward Wagner.
Before writing the Marquis de Sade series Mary Ann read many of Sade's works and a number of Sade biographies. She also read Marquis de Sade, Letters from Prison translated by Richard Seaver. This helped to form in her mind an image of the historical Sade.
She has always enjoyed crime novels and thrillers, especially the noir writers such as Jim Thompson and the brutal street novels of David Goines. Mary Ann has written a crime fiction novel of female vengeance titled Siren's Call.
