Pre-Order Vyx Starts the Mythpocalypse

the full cover reveal and why I wrote the book

The pandemic was a tough time for everybody, but it was especially hard on young people. School was out for-e-ver, like Alice Cooper sings, and while for some that might be a welcome respite, being holed up in an apartment, with parents either stuck at home working, jobless, or stressed to hell from being so essential that they had to work long hours with little protection was not great. That, and having leadership who likes attacking people for where they come from, what they look like, and what’s under their clothes was awful for every target, but imagine what it was like for the kids. And still is.

Friends, my nieces and nephews, the children of friends, and people I may not know but still care about—I’m like that—were all going through it. In 2016 I could have left for Ireland; I decided to stay and fight. In 2020 after I lost my job thanks to the pandemic, I applied for a job in Tralee, and I’m feckin thankful I didn’t get it. Have you been to Tralee? I have, and it’s not quite terrible, but even the interviewers were asking “why’d ye want to move there from New Jersey?” I mean, it’s not all like Tony Soprano’s cushy suburb, but they boggled at me leaving the vicinity of Manhattan to live there, and they were right. Thankfully, I stuck it out, and found a job that kept me here with the people I care about.

I’d had an idea before all that, to travel the country by train, and write a book about a young person whose parents are taken by the government, who discovers an underworld in the thin spaces between the concrete. This was inspired by a few creeks and tributaries in the suburbs of New Jersey that exist between mechanic shops and apartment buildings, that are sometimes still traveled by wildlife, or by adventurous locals with flat bottom canoes, or feet wrapped in plastic bags. As a kid, my sister and I used to play in such creeks, and I imagined a trail across the country using them. The pandemic ended my plan to write this on Amtrak, but I wrote 30 chapters on successive Sundays, publishing them on Patreon to an audience who helped me when I was unemployed. I couldn’t go back and change anything, I had to move forward, from cliffhanger to cliffhanger, as Vyx tried to rescue their parents.

I’d had a discussion with my friend Josh Stallings about how fantasy was gatekept by some; I found that ridiculous. Magic isn’t owned by anyone. My Irish family never mentioned the Good Folk, but my Italian side was friends with a strega named Angelina, who I wrote about in the Joey Cucuzza stories (read them up there in the Stories tab.) I’ve always loved unicorns, dragons, faeries, and folklore from all over the world. In Vyx’s world, they are real. We’d been saying “this can’t be happening!” when seeing the news so often, I felt, why not have it be about something wonderful? And that mindset is what drives this story.

The print book has nearly three dozen color illustrations by Kim Parkhurst, who also created the art for this stunning cover. The cover design is by Suzanne Dell’Orto, and the interior design is by Jaye Manus.

First, the e-book cover:

The wraparound cover is just stunning. Click to embiggen:

Vyx Starts the Mythpocalypse will is available for pre-order on Kindle and all other e-book formats, and soon, paperback and hardcover. The release date is March 26th, for all retailers. If you want a signed copy, you will be able to buy the paperback or hardcover directly from me via Stripe.

I’m so excited to finally share this book with you. If you have been following since the Patreon days, the book has a few new friends to make between its pages! If you haven’t, I can’t wait for you to meet Tod and Mags, The Doom That Came to Ho-Ho-Kus, and the Karate Hobbits.

Please share this with your book-loving friends! If you have a book club, I guarantee it will give you plenty to talk about. It’s been enjoyed by readers from ages twelve to seventy-seven.