Posted March 26, 2024: A new installment of “Amy reports.”
CROATOAN BOOKS
publisher of
Chaos and Old Night, by S.V. Florian
Pribble Dives In, by Sarah Hume
Welcome to Croatoan Books! Founded in 2020, our little publishing house in Roanoke, Indiana, may be more like a hut at this point, but we have published two novels that you won’t want to miss if you’re a fan of vampires, campus mysteries, police procedurals, or crime fiction set in towns big or small.
Chaos and Old Night (2021)
by S.V. Florian
Real vampires prefer cities, not isolated castles. But they must always guard their secrets. Now the long masquerade is in danger for the colony of “cousins” in the Midwestern metropolis of Buckingham. When a freshly turned vamp runs wild and a fun-loving one tumbles into bloody, public trouble, a cop exiled to the vampire beat has to scramble to keep the cousins in the shadows.
Meanwhile, other detectives in town are struggling to catch a boastful and loathsome serial killer — one who cherishes a dreadful ambition.
The chaos begins with two grim events.
As a fictional Transylvanian gent once told a visitor, “Enter freely and of your own will.”
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We recommend this novel for readers 18 or older.
About the author
S.V. Florian is a man of some age and eccentricity, but he’s not as old or eccentric as some of the characters in this novel.
Florian has worked as an investigator and a newsman, and in recent decades has mostly written non-fiction, under another name. He’s a man who has been around a bit, but for the past several decades he has hunkered down in the small Indiana town where he was raised.
He denies knowing any actual vampires. (See whether you believe him.)
Pribble Dives In (2020)
by Sarah Hume
When the sleepy college town of Muscatatuck, Indiana, awakens to a brutal murder, an unlikely duo join forces to solve an unlikely crime. Detective Jackson Reed digs through conflicting evidence and contends with the town’s oddball residents. Meanwhile, Professor Peregrine Pribble deploys his natural nosiness — without really worrying whether he’s in the way.
Will the passel of peculiar witnesses help the investigation or hinder it? What does the troubled young man who wanders the campus know? How about the returning heir? How many local secrets will emerge, big and small?
Hoosier turns of phrase, flavors, and folkways immerse the reader in Indiana life, but villainy lurks in the shadows of this friendly little place. The outcome is not what you’d expect in this exquisitely plotted hometown whodunit.
Author Sarah Hume, a daughter of Southern Indiana, has the ears, eyes, and voice to craft this story. She knows the depths and currents of the Ohio River country, and the quirks of life on a small heartland campus.
More about the author
Sarah Hume lives a long way from anywhere you have visited in the rural Midwest. She has been on a diet since 1995 and considers herself something of an expert on how not to achieve your ideal weight — at least not for very long. She feeds any stray cats that wander up and also inadvertently adds variety to the diet of opossums, raccoons, and other woodsy neighborhood creatures who can smell a good meal when it’s on offer.
Sarah has deep roots in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky. She is well-acquainted with the culture and people of those places and tells local tales with a local accent. She hopes that her affection for the Ohio River country and its residents is evident to anyone who ventures into Muscatatuck, Ind.
Mr. Florian and Ms. Hume are both working on sequels!
Croatoan Books specializes in genre fiction marketed as Kindle e-books or paperbacks-on-demand, through Kindle Direct Publishing at Amazon.
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