BooksChatter: ☀☄ Trust in the Unseen: The Edge of the Known [2]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Trust in the Unseen (6 June 2014) a romantic metaphysical novel by Seth Mullins, the second book in "The Edge of the Unknown" series.

Check out the book's synopsis and the excerpt below. You can also read the first chapter on Amazon.

Author Seth Mullins will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts, also the more comments you leave the higher your chances of being a winner.

Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | Book 1 Trailer | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

Following the rigors of their self-made tour of the West, the members of the groundbreaking and volatile band Edge of the Known - "hands down, craziest band on Earth" - have an unprecedented chance to finally expose their music to the world. Unfortunately, singer/guitarist Brandon Chane, founder member and erratic genius of the group, is weathering a spiraling trip through an abyss of heartbreak and despair.

His personal pain threatens to derail his band's progress even as it fuels some of its most incendiary songs. To further complicate matters, his mentor, Saul Mason, is weathering his personal crisis and no longer seems to be the all-knowing spiritual savant that Brandon first perceived him to be.

The road ahead looks bleak; and once more, he turns to the one thing that has sustained him throughout the course of his wounded, conflicted and inspired life: His Muse.

"We'd all thrown our fates to the wind, trusting in the unknown - in the Unseen, as our EP so proudly proclaimed - and that leap had thus far landed us in a place where we couldn't even grope our way forward in the dark anymore."

Discovering his voice was only the first step of the journey. Now he must somehow learn to trust the depths from which it comes, and the unknown horizons that it may sweep him away to, even as every part of his personal world seems to be falling apart.

Teaser: Excerpt

I gazed down at the street below and felt the whole spinning and sickening free-fall that could bring me to kiss that pavement. A couple walked by, hand in hand, oblivious to the clamor of Armageddon. I gave up in that moment. I couldn’t stop her. The gods had granted Janie complete executive power over my damned soul.

Her heart was turning away, shining its light elsewhere? I was never going to touch her again? Suddenly the fall from the balcony seemed the much kinder terror.

“You need someone who can really meet you in those places. And I…”

“Don’t!” I managed. “Don’t act like you’re doing this for my sake. I can decide what’s good for me!”

“Fair enough.” Her voice was wispy, insubstantial: An echo of the distance that had already claimed us. “I need to feel like I can keep up.

“It’s like… you’re living in this world that’s being totally reinvented every day. And I’m sort of stumbling along trying to figure out what the rules are.”

“There aren’t any rules!” I protested. “Just be with me, and…”

“I can’t.”

Janie bit her lip. One fat tear slid down her cheek. I doubt that she’d wanted to say it so bluntly. But what gentle way is there?

Folding chairs, and a wooden rail rife with splinters; cigarette smoke lingering in the still spring air. Nothing there to cling to, to spare me from the plunge.

This can’t be happening!

I’d once told her that if it ever came to this I would understand. I’d been a goddamn liar. The death of something so beautiful and divinely inevitable could never be understood; it was incomprehensible.

Janie reached over and squeezed my arm. “Hey. I do treasure what we’ve shared.”

“Then don’t turn your back on it and let it die!” I growled. I could feel my face curling into a snarl. I couldn’t stop it. Janie withdrew. Having lost the focal point of my anger, I reverted to teetering on the edge of the precipice.

“I really tried, Brandon,” she said.

It was that voice both forlorn and resolute, and every man hears his end in it.

Trust in the Unseen - available NOW!

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"The Edge of the Unknown" Series

Artistic visionaries rarely have an easy existence, and the forces that fuel their work and stir their inspiration are oftentimes the same ones that consume them from within. Guitarist, poet, songwriter and singer Brandon Chane echoes the archetypal mold of such creative luminaries with both the originality of his vision and the depths of his suffering.

To make his music his life seems the only possible salvation. Unfortunately, his beliefs about himself and the nature of reality – formed throughout a troubled childhood and adolescence – constantly undermine his efforts to create and to share the fruits of his vision with the world.

It is here that a mysterious shamanic figure, a guide of souls working in the guise of a crisis counselor, Saul Mason, throws Brandon a lifeline. The journey of awakening and healing that begins with their meeting holds vast implications not only for Brandon’s own life but also for the lives of all those who are touched by his music…

Book 1 Trailer

What Casts the Shadow? [1]

Guitarist, songwriter and singer Brandon Chane is a gifted artistic prodigy and also a perpetual outsider: A young man driven by powerful forces both creative and destructive. His home life is in shambles and his outlook on the future is bleak. The whole wide world seems to be his adversary, and he's learned to fight for every inch of human dignity that he can wrest from the 'hostile' society that surrounds him.

He's found a congenial soul in Tommy Visconti, his best friend and creative partner. Together they form the thoroughly extreme and mind-bending band Edge of the Known. Tommy is also, in many ways, Brandon's emotional anchor in the world. Brandon looks to the band - and the dream of living through his music - for salvation.

But when an altercation outside of a performance venue nearly proves fatal, he begins to realize how far his life is spinning out of control. His efforts to channel his pain, frustration and thwarted loves into his music may not suffice to save him. Then he meets Saul, a crisis counselor with the soul of an ancient medicine man, and a far-reaching journey of healing - one that may teach him how to steer away from the very edge of the abyss - begins. [Published 12 January 2014, 240 pages]

Humanity's Way Forward [3]

"The echoes of those scars can clearly be heard in Edge of the Known's music. But one can also discern, quite distinctly, that other inexplicable thing that is within us all, the undying flame that transcends our wounds and sufferings..." Brandon Chane had always seen life through the eyes of an outcast, a misfit, a young man at odds with the world and with himself. Now they're calling him a wounded healer; a shamanic Pied Piper for the throngs of alienated youth; a thief of fire. He wonders if he and his band can escape the claims that the world has suddenly laid upon them. But what about the cherished dream that he's struggled so desperately to fulfill, the dream that finally seems to be coming to fruition? [Published 1 December 2014, 248 pages]

About the Author

Seth Mullins first conceived of his dream to write novels in his early teens, and this one desire has stayed with him throughout all the other myriad twists and turns of life. His inspirations include methods of inner exploration such as dream-work and shamanism and his experiences as a songwriter and performing musician.

He studied creative writing at Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico and Lane Community College in Oregon.

Seth has lived in Connecticut, New Mexico, Oregon and (currently) Vermont.