Issue the warmest of welcomes to our writing family for Jude Matulich-Hall, if you please. Jude is the newest writer to come into our stable of writers, and she has a fascinating book which will be coming out in fall of 2021.

Here’ a synopsis:

“EVERSTEAM is an old city full of culture and diversity; for hundreds of years its isolated shores have been a location of refuge for many. Boats and ships travel in the waters and in the skies. Gondolas, monorails, trolleys and trains, horse-drawn carriages and old motorcars; a place where humans and automatons work side by side. A city caught at the turn of the 20th century, where the old is meeting the new. It’s here we meet Private Detective, PENELOPE O’Connell. Because of the many tragedies she’s had to endure, she has lost her belief in everything and everybody. Her once thriving detective agency is on its last leg. Though she has some goggles that help reveal lost things, they are no longer working, and she is receiving resistance from clients and police alike. Unbeknownst to her, she is being spied upon by a clockwork raven, sent from the parallel world, unReality. The dangerous owner of the bird wants to prevent Penelope from using the goggles to find a Special Spærk. Spærks are the source of energy and power in this world – not just the kind of power that makes machines work, but the kind that creates wars.

Deep in the dark corners of this strange city lurks The PYRO. He accidentally blows himself up and goes to Hell where he is greeted by his biggest fan, MISTER SMITH (don’t call him Lucifer), and they join forces. HEATHROW Jennings is a sergeant obsessed with finding the Pyro. He believes in absolutely everything – magical, theological, and otherwise; everything, that is, but himself. Penelope and Heathrow meet, and in a confrontation with a horrible Inspector, she hits her head and gets a concussion, causing her to have visions.

Elsewhere, the monk, DORJE Jamyang, has a chant that can knock down walls. He befriends the Demon, PATCH, who has just reincarnated. During Patch’s last death, it was revealed to him that he must help some humans go to Hell. He and Dorje embark on a profound journey to Eversteam. In Heaven, we are introduced to the archangel RUFUS – reluctant and miserable, it is his nature to be The Most Annoyed of Angels. Tired of Heaven, he escapes to Earth.

The time-traveling Bounty Hunter enters the story, a forgetful cowboy from the old west, Clarence W. MCGILLICUDDY; he is targetting Sean O’Connell, but ends up in the wrong year and is stalking Penelope instead. A new god comes into existence, small demons overrun the surface, and strange crimes take place. The weather changes and magic reawakens in the world!”

Now that is a fantastic sounding book!1