Twenty-five year old David Frye is known as the best drug dealer in King Beach, California. But when a local gangster calls for his head on a plate, he is made an offer that he can’t refuse by an unlikely source. A mafia clan of vampires has chosen him to test run their new business venture: use the drug trading system as a way to distribute human blood amongst themselves. David accepts and is quickly swept away by the seductive world of the undead. That is until he begins to suspect that there might be something far more insidious at work than what he had originally bargained for. Encountering vampire history, a secret government agency of monster hunters, and more; David is confronted with the darkness within himself and is forced to come to terms with the horrors that he has unleashed.

For The Love of Monsters

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to tell stories. Growing up with a form of cerebral palsy, I was unable to do most things things that other kids did. As a result, I developed an overactive imagination. Creating stories on my own lead me to becoming an actor, a filmmaker, playwright, and now an author.

My favorite genre more than any other is horror. The first movies that I ever fell in love with were the Universal Monster films of the thirties and forties. While they certainly aren’t as scary now as they were when they were made, the classic monsters did have something that most horror icons today do not: pathos. These creatures of the night weren’t necessarily evil, just people with really bad problems. In that way, one could be both terrified and empathetic to these characters because they reflected the darker side of ourselves. As I grew older, I read the works of Poe, Lovecraft, Mary Shelly, Anne Rice, Richard Matheson, Clive Barker, and of course, Stephen King. Consuming these dark worlds naturally made me want to create my own.

The Importance of Fangs

Monsters, I think, are the Swiss-Army knives of metaphors. There is no better example of this than the archetype of the vampire. Both repulsive and attractive, the vampire represents the version of ourselves that we keep hidden. The version of ourselves that is hedonistic, the version of ourselves that lusts, the version of ourselves that is apathetic, the version of ourselves that is cruel. It’s a subject that you may think has been done to death, but as of late, I feel that the vampire has lost its bite. There are really two types of vampires that exist now: the Sexy Vampire and the Feral Vampire. The Sexy Vampire is nothing but a sexual fantasy of the perfect lover. Where as the Feral Vampire is nothing more than a killing machine. I feel that both of these templates miss the point of the vampire in the first place. Unlike a werewolf or a zombie, you can converse with a vampire. They have thoughts, feelings, and desires as well as a thirst for human blood. My goal with BLOOD TRADE was to combine these two versions of the myth while also doing something new with it. Too long have monsters been explained away with science and the laws of reality. My vampires are not the byproduct of a new virus or of a science experiment gone wrong. They are from the bowels of Hell itself. They are purely supernatural creatures. They can climb walls, they cast no reflection, they burn in the sun, etc. All of the familiar elements of Stoker’s DRACULA or King’s ’SALEM’S LOT, and Rice’s INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE are all there, but with a modern crime twist.
BLOOD TRADE is not just a novel about vampire gangsters, it is also about the darkness within ourselves. I wanted to write a story about how humanity chooses to ignore the problems that we create, and thus, "feed" a type of evil that becomes larger with every soul we refuse to comfort. It is a book that is filled with complex characters, mythology, and themes. I wanted to create a book that is both a love letter to the history of the vampire as well as bring it into the future.

BLOOD TRADE is already a complete novel. and with your help, I hope it comes to print. It’s something that I am extremely proud of. If you long for something new out of your horror, this is the book for you.
-A.B.
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