Friday, October 11, 2019

The McAllister Series by L.V. Gaudet

  • Can you, for those who don't know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?

I’ve been intrigued with the ability for words and stories to move me since I read my first novel. Back then (as a kid) I was more into “animal” stories, Black Beauty, Cry Wolf, The Stallion, that sort of thing. I also loved the Choose Your Own Adventure story I had. I actually wrote my first story “Charlie” for a middle grade school assignment. I was terrified of talking to or in front of people, so my ELA teacher had to read it to the class for me. It made her cry. I guess that was a good thing. Writing that short story moved me in a way nothing else could and a writer was born. Writing is the one thing I wanted to do.

I moved on to experimenting with stories about people, reading them and exploring how they made me feel. One in particular I can’t remember the author or title of, but it caused my parents to feel the need for an intervention. I do remember it was about a girl struggling to deal with her own confused pre-teen feelings and feeling like she is drowning. We had a bit of a standoff until I showed them the book.

My tastes matured with me and veered to the darker world of horror fiction. I can’t count how many horror books and authors I read over the years, and it certainly has an impact on my writing. You know, the old saying, “You write what you read.” Right? (Okay, I know it’s “You are what you eat,” but I like my take on it.)

I wrote in secret off and on for years before a writer friend I met online convinced me to come out of hiding and tell people what I do, and to actually pursue being published. 
  • What is something unique/quirky about you?

I am absolutely, unequivocally, and without sound reason, scared of spiders. Yes, a writer of dark fiction, who puts their characters is spaces spiders would be, and I am scared of spiders. I’m also a little scared of funhouses. Too many horrors in there. It’s a fun and popular place to scare characters in horrors movies. 
  • Where were you born/grew up at?

I was born and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. If you don’t know where that is, it’s the place that has been known at times to get colder than Mars and the North Pole in the winter and hotter than Hades in summer. With weather ranging a full 60+ degrees and more (Celsius) between the extremes of winter and summer, not including the winter wind chills and “feels like” summer humidity, you never get bored with the same old weather; except in winter. That gets old fast. It also contains the (East to West) longitudinal center of Canada.

Hey, the mill on the cover of Old Mill Road kind of resembles Grant’s Old Mill in Winnipeg. Cool, right? Only Grant’s Old Mill is maintained while the old Mill Road mill is left to rot and be haunted. I wonder if Grant’s Old Mill is believed to be haunted too. 
  • If you knew you'd die tomorrow, how would you spend your last day?

Probably trying to convince someone to finish all my unfinished stories, and not just to promise me they will to shut me up, but to actually do it. That and writing my own exit blurb. Don’t you just hate those eulogies where it sounds like whoever wrote it really never knew the person at all? A tribute should not sound like someone is reading out the deceased’s long form resume. Yeah, and put a little dry humor in it. 
  • What are you passionate about these days?

I don’t know if I would call it passionate. My passion is my writing, sinking into the dark nether regions of the stories in my head. I do like a nice wine and you could say I get borderline passionate over chocolate.


Where the Bodies Are
The McAllister Series Book 1
by L.V. Gaudet
Genre: Psychological Crime Thriller 

Step into the twisted mind of a serial killer in this disturbing psychological thriller.


Dead bodies are being left where they are sure to be found. But, the killer made a mistake; one victim left for dead survived.

Kept in a medically induced coma while she recovers, they can only watch her and wait for the killer to come back for her.

While Detective Michael Underwood protects their only living witness, Detective Jim McNelly and his reporter friend Lawrence Hawkworth are determined to find the killer and bring his killing spree to an end. Instead, they discover a bigger mystery.

The killer's reality blurs between past and present with a compulsion driven by a dark secret locked in a fractured mind. Overcome by a blind rage that leaves him wallowing in remorse with the bodies of victim after victim, he is desperate to stop killing.

After learning of his victim’s survival, the killer sees it as a sign they are meant to be together. Threatening her tenuous grip on life, he is determined to take back his prize while he continues kidnapping and murdering young women.

Accustomed to a life of abuse, one victim’s experience becomes her refuge in a desperate bid for survival.

Instead of killing her, he keeps Katherine Kingslow imprisoned in the dark while he continues plotting to take back the Jane Doe in the hospital. How long can Kathy survive and will she lose her own mind?

The search for the killer will lead to his dark secret buried in the past, something much larger than a man compelled to kill again and again.





The McAllister Farm

The McAllister Series Book 2
Step back in time to learn the secret behind the bodies in Where the Bodies Are in this disturbing look at the boy who will grow up to create the killer.



1981

Meet David McAllister, the boy who will grow up to create the killer.

In 1981 there was a man who lived on a farm. William McAllister was a private and reclusive man who, above all else, did not like to have attention drawn on his family.

He wanted only to be left to mind his own business and family and for the world to do the same. But that very reclusiveness fosters contempt and suspicion in the people of the small farming community his family has called home for generations.

William McAllister has a son, Jason McAllister. Jason is a troubled boy. Growing up under his father’s strict rules and isolated from the normal childhood relationships, he is left to explore his darker inclinations. Seeing the darker side of Jason, William tries to rein his son in by bringing him into the family business.

Just then a serial killer starts preying on local young women. The McAllisters quickly find themselves drawn into the spotlight when the town decides William McAllister is the killer. As the town’s search for the killer focuses on the McAllister farm and the woods behind it, the threat to the McAllister secret grows.

The McAllister family history is as dark as the secret hiding in the woods. The attention is a threat to both William McAllister's profession and his family. He has no choice but to find the killer himself. He might not like what he learns.





Hunting Michael Underwood

The McAllister Series Book 3
Step deeper into the twisted mind of a serial killer as he slips further into madness in this disturbing psychological thriller.



Hunting Michael Underwood follows on the heels of book one, Where the Bodies Are, bringing the first two stories and their characters together as the search for the killer continues.

Michael Underwood has vanished and everyone is searching for him. Detective Jim McNelly is determined to not stop until he finds him. Working with the detective, Lawrence Hawkworth is still chasing the bigger story he knows is behind the bodies. Jason McAllister knows he must stop the killer he created before he goes too far. He may be the only one who can stop him.

Unable to let go of his barely remembered past and the search for his sister, the killer goes looking for Jason McAllister’s past and his family.

*****

Detective Jim McNelly is furious. Detective Michael Underwood disappeared without a trace with the only living witness to the McAllister murders. Worse, Michael is not who he pretended to be. And then the other shoe fell.

Jason T. McAllister, tried and convicted of the kidnapping and murders of multiple women and the prime suspect behind the bodies discovered in the woods behind the McAllister farm, is being inexplicably set free. He will not spend the rest of his life in prison.

Jim is determined to find Michael Underwood, bring him down, and discover the truth about who he really is and what his connection to Jason McAllister is.

Working with his long time friend, the notoriously unscrupulous investigative reporter Lawrence Hawkworth, Jim will not stop until he finds Michael and the answers to the bodies found in the mass graveyard in the woods behind the McAllister Farm.

Jason McAllister knows he must stop the real killer behind the murders he was convicted for. As the killer spirals further into madness, Jason is the only one who can stop him. But, he needs help. He is going to have to talk to his father, William McAllister, the man who taught him how to hide the bodies.

Michael Underwood and Katherine Kingslow are on the run. A victim of domestic abuse and only known survivor of the McAllister Farm killer, Kathy has lapsed into Stockholm syndrome. Now she is torn between her need to be with her captor and fear of his escalating psychotic episodes.

Everyone is hunting for Michael Underwood.





Killing David McAllister

The McAllister Series Book 4
Everyone wants to kill David McAllister in this explosive conclusion.

David McAllister must die.
Crazy comes to a head in this disturbing psychological thriller.



When an unbalanced serial killer sets his sights on a little girl, there is only one way it can end. Someone will die.
Sometimes the only way to stop a monster is to kill it. He has gone by many names, but he was raised as David McAllister, and finding what he is looking for is not enough to quiet the darkness inside him.

The organization ordered the cleanup of the entire McAllister family.
The job was given to Sophie McAllister.
While Detective Jim McNelly and his reporter friend Lawrence Hawkworth continue to hunt them down, the McAllisters move into hiding.
David McAllster’s psychosis continues, but now Sophie’s daughter is in danger. He believes she is his tiny sister Cassie.
The presence of his now adult sister Cassie does not stop his dead little Cassie from tormenting him.

***
Sometimes the only way to stop a monster is to kill it. He has gone by many names, but he was raised as David McAllister, and finding what he is looking for is not enough to quiet the darkness inside him.
David McAllister must die.
While the McAllisters move into hiding, Detective Jim McNelly and his reporter friend, Lawrence Hawkworth, continue to pursue them. Jim and Lawrence split up to follow their own leads, routes that will take them each on their own path to discover secrets behind the McAllisters.
Anderson and William are trying to keep the group together and ahead of the detective hunting them while trying to resolve the issue of what to do with David, Kathy, Rose Bheals, and the boy Jason brought, Billy.
Kathy is becoming increasingly fearful both for and of David and wants out, but feels trapped. She is certain death is the only way out.
Cassie swore to kill David for what he did to Connie and the others. Torn by memories she does not have and the knowledge of the dark hole this life will bury her in, she needs to escape.
Sophie has been ordered to kill David and Kathy. She may have to kill her own brother, Jason, too. When the time comes, she’s not sure if she can do it.
With Marjory’s lapses into the foggy confusion of Alzheimer’s, nobody believes her when she really needs them to, when Sophie’s little girl’s life is at stake.
David is slipping further into madness and, convinced she is the little sister he lost so many years ago, he is going to take little Lauren with him. Having his now adult real sister, Cassie, there is no help.
Will someone reach David and Lauren in time as the blackness closes in and rage takes over?



L. V. Gaudet is a subjugated cubicle dweller by day and a Canadian author of dark fiction by night, a member of the Manitoba Writers’ Guild, the Horror Writers Association, and Authors of Manitoba.
L. V. grew up with a love of the darker side; sneaking down to the basement at night to watch the old horror B movies, Vincent Price being a favourite, devouring horror books, and has had a passion for books and the idea of creating stories and worlds a person can get lost in since reading that first novel.
This love of storytelling has L. V. working writing and editing into a busy life that includes a full time job, family, and doing the little things to help the writing community including offering encouragement to others in the online writing community and volunteering time editing the Manitoba Writers’ Guild newsletter and helping with their Facebook presence, proofreading for the HWA newsletter, and visiting schools for I Love to Read month.
L.V. Gaudet currently lives in Winnipeg with two rescue dogs, spouse, and kids.

L.V. Gaudet’s books are available in ebook and print format at online bookstores.




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