Standalone Novels
Cindy’s Story
After her temper led her to walk out on yet another convenience store job, Cindy needed to find herself a new job fast, otherwise she’d end up broke and living on the streets. After discussing the situation with her apartment manager, he informs her that he has a brother who’s been looking to hire an assistant. The only problem is that he’s a private investigator, which is a career field that she has no experience in whatsoever. Still, she was pretty much ready to jump at any opportunity. It was a chance at not only quick employment, but possibly a whole new career that would get her out of the convenience store business once and for all.
As it turns out, being a private detective isn’t as glamorous as they make it look on television. It comes with certain indignities and moral issues that she’d never really considered before. Not only that, but her new boss, Frank, seems to delight in going out of his way to piss her off. The only thing he seems to enjoy more than pissing her off, is complaining about how horrible her coffee is. Still, for some reason that she can’t seem to figure out, he also goes out of his way to help her succeed in any way he possibly can.
While Frank can be terribly passive aggressive, he’s nothing compared to his sister Kayla. She’s like a nightmare on wheels, with no empathy, and no filter whatsoever. You never know what’s going to come out of her mouth next, but it’s a safe bet that it’ll be something infuriating. When your temper is already the stuff of legends, having to deal with someone like her, without the encounter ending in a murder rap, requires a tremendous amount of willpower.
The one thing that Cindy has going for her is that she’s got a super high aptitude for the job. All she needs to do in order to succeed is to work hard, learn how to control that legendary temper of hers, and most importantly, learn how to make a decent cup of coffee. The first two are relatively simple. The third…not so much.
The Accidental Hero
After a nasty fight with his girlfriend, Eric Kaufman got in his car and headed out for the open road, just to sort of cool off a bit and get his head together. Unfortunately for him, as he was driving down a desolate highway way out in the middle of nowhere, his engine died, his car slowed to a stop, and then they showed up. The last thing he ever expected when he woke up that morning was that he’d be abducted by aliens, but sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.
After an unfortunate and very painful incident on their ship, he suddenly lost consciousness, and then woke up next to his car several hours later. He seemed all right at first, but in the days that followed he began to develop superhuman abilities, which would ultimately lead to him becoming something far more than he ever thought he could be.
Sadly, while becoming a superhero might seem cool to the average person, it does come with a laundry list of problems as well. For example, how do you keep your identity a secret? How do you balance being a publicly recognized superhero during the day with your vigilante activities at night, while still getting enough sleep to handle your day job? How do you dispose of all those cartel members you slaughtered, without anyone ever finding their remains? And most importantly, how do you get the taste of someone else’s blood out of your mouth when you don’t have any mouthwash handy?
These questions and more are all issues that Eric must face as he navigates the topsy-turvy world of being the world’s first and only, real-life superhero.
Standalone Novel Trivia
Cindy’s Story Trivia
This story originated from a random story I told someone on Facebook chat one day to entertain them while they were at work. It was all just spur of the moment and off the top of my head, but I liked how it came out, so I started working on it after I finished book 20 of the Unseen Things series.
This book was only ever intended to be a standalone. I wanted to get a non-series book done and published so I could not only use it to introduce people to my writing.
The snappy dialogue in the book is a nod to the film My Man Godfrey. If you’ve never seen the film, I highly recommend it. The dialogue is so fast and punchy that it’s almost dizzying at times, but it’s brilliantly comical.
The Accidental Hero Trivia
I came up with the idea for this story when I was talking to an author friend of mine in a chat online.
My original idea was to have a superhero who, after his encounter with the aliens, could suddenly see invisible beings that had infiltrated our society from another dimension. Ultimately I gave up on that idea, mainly because I didn’t feel like it was worth a whole book, but also because it was too much like the movie They Live. Keeping it more crime and day to day life based allowed me to do a lot more with the story than my original idea would have.
While there is a fair amount of humor in the story, I originally intended for it to be more of a comedy with a klutzy sort of a guy who became a superhero. It ended up not being that at all. Instead, it combines humor with some darker, more serious story elements.
Before I wrote this book, I had started writing the 23rd book in the Unseen Things series. I reached chapter 10, and aside from the main storyline, all the rest of it felt rather forced, so I abandoned it completely. The 22nd book, Aftermath, was always intended to be the final book in the series, and that’s where it stands. There will be no more books in the Unseen Things series.
By Duane • Series and Standalone Novels 0