Cover Reveal: Speak of the Devil

“Curiosity is foreplay.” — Britney King, Speak of the Devil 

It feels like a long time coming…but the absurdity and the insanity of New Hope cult members are set to return in the latest installment on 10/4/18.

In Speak of the Devil, Vanessa Bolton works for the “church” as a ‘Siren,’ she’s trained in the art of seduction to recruit new members as well as to keep existing ones not only happy— but in line. Turns out, her tactics only lead to trouble as this sort of thing tends to do…

Often termed the ‘honey trap’ it’s a handy spy trick that works in a variety of settings. Take the Bible for example:

In the Book of Judges, the Philistine leadership approaches a woman named Delilah and tells her that there’s a guy named Samson in town with Godlike strength. He can slay lions with his bare hands. He can lay waste to entire battalions if he so chooses. Delilah, the Philistines say, “Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver.”

The first honeytrap!

Samson wasn’t that gullible, of course. He gave her bad information about various ropes and vines that might subdue him, and smart woman that she was, she dutifully tied him up.

But they didn’t work, and he snapped the ropes like they were nothing. He just figured she was into that sort of thing. Delilah stayed at it though, investing quite a bit of time, just him and her and extended interludes in her bedchamber, and finally she got to the heart of the matter. And she said to him, “How can you say, I love you, when your heart is not with me? you have mocked me these three times, and have not told me wherein your great strength lies. And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death.”

He talked after that. And the story ended badly for everyone involved, Samson most of all, his eyes soon gouged from his head. Let’s hope the characters in Speak of the Devil fare a little better.

To warm you up for the novel, I hope to regale you with several real-life stories in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, check out the cover. 🙂

---

Speak of the Devil is a captivating, darkly satiric psychological thriller which offers readers another savage look into a utopian cultish society where beauty and perfection are valued at all costs and it’s best to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. 

In the upscale suburb where Vanessa Bolton lives, she’s your average suburban housewife.

She does her grocery shopping on Tuesday, Thursday mornings are reserved for Pilates, Sundays for church. At home, she’s an impeccable housekeeper and a mother with a mediocre track record.

But in discreet hotel rooms throughout the city, she can be whatever you want her to be—provided you can afford the hourly fee.

In the rapidly expanding cult to which she belongs, Vanessa has been assigned the role of a “Siren”—a recruiter trained to use seduction to elicit compliance from her marks.

Vanessa’s latest assignment—an unsuspecting chemist merely looking for something without strings—proves to be her toughest yet. Unwilling to neatly slide into the roles society has prescribed for them, the two collide in a sensual and savage affair that threatens not only their own lives but also those they seek to protect most.
​​​​​​​
Featuring “tantalizing suspense, pulse-pounding danger, sex, and double-dealing,” Speak of the Devil is a timely and riveting psychological thriller that is impossible to put down.