The Prologue to The Adventures of Braxton Revere

Aw, it's that time all of us writers love, when you get to share an excerpt from your novel, hoping to entice readers to give your work a shot. But where to begin? I spent a lot of time thinking about it, desperately searching for that one place where I had written something so clever that masses of people would go running to their computers to load up Amazon and find my book in order to devour the rest. After some time searching, it became clear that it was best to just start at the beginning.

Genius.

Without further ado, here is the prologue to The Adventures of Braxton Revere. The story is told from Braxton's perspective; the prologue is to bring you in to his world.

Prologue

When Marianne finally found him, frightened and alone, his face painted in tears and grime, he came running and buried his head into her small frame. All she could do was hold him as he sobbed out the awful news: his father was dead, killed at the hands of Ralugard. She could hardly believe it. The famous vampire-killing Revere family was reduced to this boy, Braxton Revere. Special, and certainly Revere blood, but a boy all the same. The burden now fell on her to not only slay this demon, but to train little Braxton. It was a grave task; how could she succeed where the great Fenton Revere had failed?
  

Before the thought could overtake her further, young Braxton choked back tears and his story continued. Special? A Revere? Indeed he was, for he went on to describe how he rose up from his grief, driven by a surge of anger, and seized the mantle of his heirs before him by thrusting a stake through the black heart of his father’s killer. Once again the plots of Ralugard were laid to ruin, another chapter ended in his long saga with the Reveres.

It was an astonishing tale, and Marianne resisted the urge to scold him when it was finished, for following this display of great courage, Braxton had erred grievously. It was not his fault. He was a boy, after all. How was he to remember, amongst such unspeakable tragedy, that the body of the vampire was to be secured, and kept safe from enemies? That ultimately, to fulfill the family destiny, they must forever remove the head of the snake by destroying the vampire’s body in the proper way: through fire. To do so would prevent Ralugard from re-emerging the way he always had before, returning when least expected in the fashion of droughts, earthquakes, and other such pestilences that tormented mankind.

Though she knew they would be too late, with all haste Marianne and Braxton returned to the sight of the tragedy. When they arrived, the missing corpse confirmed what she already knew. The boy took no notice, buried in grief as he was, unable to gaze upon anything but the fallen frame of his father. 

Marianne moved to console him, though in truth she could use comfort herself. She knew all too well what the missing corpse meant.

Someday, somehow, Ralugard would rise again.

It would fall upon her, and this boy, to stop him when he did.

Find out what happens next in The Adventures of Braxton Revere, releasing May 29th on EAB Publishing!