A Time of Demons by Kathryn Meyer Griffith, with some help from Lisa Jackson (editor),  is a horror story that you will want to add to your spooktacular reading list.

Kathryn is giving away an ebook and an audiobook of her current available titles.

Keep reading to learn more and enter the giveaway.

Add ME to your GOODREADS reading list now.

MY REVIEW

A time of Demons by Kathryn Meyer Griffith has a wicked cover. It gives me a feeling of impending doom. This is Book I of the Before The End Series and after reading this, I cringe at the thought of what lies ahead. This paranormal suspense novel had me, not just rooting for the gang, but rooting for one specific demon too. I want to know so much more about him, about Rayner.

Cassandra and Johnny made their way through life by singing in bars. Sometimes you just have to make do.  Her gift appeared after she was burned in the fire that killed her family, but she still had her brother, Johnny. She now lives in the upstairs of her Aunt Ellie and Uncle George’s duplex. Johnny insists on living alone.

She sees death and so much more.

Don’t even tell them what you see. Don’t ever tell them anything. Oh she’d learned.

Rayner is a blood demon, though most would call him a vampire. He didn’t know why his victims were suddenly haunting him and he hated it. He felt something big was coming.

Mannasseh watched out for the girl. She didn’t know her destiny. Cassandra had a vital part to play in the upcoming battle, the beginning of the end.

Rayner had been watching Cassandra and, literally, bumped into her. She was different. She could see him. How is that possible? He wanted learn more about her. I have a feeling about her and Rayner. Not sure what can become of that, but I am very curious.

The demons cloaked themselves in invisibility and were growing in number. They were arsonists, wife beaters, murderers, doing all they can to create discord and disaster. The demons had been discreet, but were getting bolder by the minute.

Cassandra was confused by her powers. The more they developed, the more she saw and the harder she tried to shrug it off.

Sarah, her best friend, is a psychic and reads Tarot cards and palms. She believes in magic and all the hocus pocus of the Gypsy fortune tellers. She felt terrible trouble was coming, a fight between good and evil, between life and death. Her boyfriend, Walter, works in a carnival and will have his role to play as well.

Cassandra couldn’t quit thinking about the fire that took her family, something felt off about it. Why did her and Johnny survive? Her Uncle George and Aunt Ellie had no answers either.

Thoughts flit through my mind as I read. I wonder, right along with Cassandra.

Circumstances have them coming together as the forces gather around them. They are an army of God.

Can the demons hear them? Is her intuition really the demons talking to her, telling her they know where she is?

The Rapture – angels fall. Can a demon be saved?

The more I read, the more involved I become. I ccouldn’t help but wonder how Kathryn was going to end this. But, wait, this is Book I, so stay tuned for Book II.

A Time of Demons is a different look at the end of the world, very thought provoking. I knew where things were going, but how it got there? Now that’s another story; a demonic, tornadic, apocalyptic ride.

I have been to Poplar Bluff, Mo, a location for A Time of Demons, but I didn’t see any angels or demons.

Demon snacks – people they fed on. Cracked me up. I love a little humor with my blood sucking.

I received A Time of Demons from the author, Kathryn Meyer Griffith, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

4 Stars – Would Highly Recommend To Others

GUEST POST

Why I wrote A Time of Demons

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

About six years ago I decided I finally wanted to write an end-of-days saga that I’d been thinking about for years. It’d be a little like Stephen King’s The Stand, which is one of my all-time favorite novels, and a bit like the Left Behind series (but not as preachy). I’d call it A Time of Demons, though since it’d first been released in 2010 I’ve decided when I get the full rights back in June 2015 from my publisher, Damnation Books, I’ll retitle it A Time of Demons and Angels, which will more completely explain what it’s about…the end of days and the Rapture. I’d originally planned it as a two or three book series but, as yet, I haven’t had the time to write book two. Perhaps in time I will. The book can and does stand alone, though.

A Time of Demons all began with a tiny seed. Two characters. Siblings. These characters, a loving brother and sister, Cassandra and Johnny Graystone, would be nightclub playing musicians who’d lost their whole family (five brothers and sisters and a mother and father) twenty years before and in the present would be living with and taking care of their elderly aunt and uncle. The aunt would have Alzheimer’s and the uncle, age catching up with him, would be frail, as well. They’d be Catholic. As I’d been raised. The uncle would believe the end days had come. Cassandra would be happy with her life singing out with her brother and living with her sick aunt and uncle. Until…she’d begin to know when people were going to die and she’d begin seeing these hideous creatures- demons-hiding behind some of her human audiences’ faces; bad things would start to happen around her, and she’d think either she was going insane or something terrible was happening to the world.

Turns out her uncle was right. The end days had come. I saw demons and angels swirling around her that only, at first, she would see. Then I saw her with a glowing sword that she’d use in battles with other human soldiers of her kind she’d meet along the way fighting a growing horde of demons. The apocalypse not far behind.

Ah, it would be an apocalyptic novel. That’s it. But one with heart; characters you could root for and love, more a layman’s view of the biblical end-of-days, and not near as much preaching as The Left Behind series which I’d read years before and liked.
Since I’ve always wanted to write an end-of-days novel -I’d loved Stephen King’s THE STAND so much- the story had taken firm root and wouldn’t leave me alone until I started writing it. I had to. It would be my masterpiece! The book called to me that strongly.

The woman eventually discovers she is one of many who will have powers to see and fight demons, with the help of angels, as the end days draw near. She must seek out others like herself and convince them to join the fight. She must begin to battle the powerful evil entities she alone is aware of, as well. In the process I send her, her brother, aunt and uncle, and their friends, on a rousing but dangerous quest across the country in a RV…after tornadoes and demons destroy their homes. The world is falling apart around them. Catastrophic earthquakes, tornados and hurricanes are everywhere. A rise in terrible human crimes…most caused by demons or demonic influences. But I tried to make it a story of family and human love as well as a survival story in the face of overwhelming odds as the world spins to its end.

Many agents, editors and publishers turned it down. Too religious. Not religious enough. Not enough this, not enough that… I wasn’t a big enough writer. How dare I write something on such a huge religious scale. Oh, no, you have angels in it? Oh, no, you have demons in it! Whatever. But I believed so much in the book I didn’t give up. I kept sending it out.

In 2010 I finally sold it to Kim Richards at Damnation Books. She read and loved it. She got it.

An editor, Lisa Jackson, helped me polish up A Time of Demons until it shone and Annie Melton created its first cover, a striking one in vivid scarlets with the two main characters at their microphones and a demon-hiding-behind-its-human faced customer at a nearby table.

So that’s how the A Time of Demons was given life. Hopefully, in the next few years I will write that second novel in the series…

Click here for my end-of-days saga A Time of Demons eBook.

BLURB

Since Cassandra Graystone was a child and her family perished in a fire she knows and sees things other people don’t…when someone will die or that a demon lurks beneath a human skin. She sees phantoms. Yet she craves a simple life singing out with her musician brother, Johnny, and caring for her elderly aunt and uncle; to be with her friends, Sarah, a psychic, and Walter, a clown in a carnival circuit. But when Sarah sees apocalyptic events in her tarot cards and demons are everywhere, Cassandra fears she’s going insane or something terrifying is happening in the world.

Rayner, an ancient blood demon, lodges next door. He becomes obsessed with her. Never having felt pity or affection for a human before he believes he loves her, would die to protect her. The demon realm gathers for the final confrontation between us, Rayner warns. The apocalypse comes. You and your friends must prepare.

Cassandra flees that knowledge until an angelic being, Manasseh, appears. Your powers will grow. You must fight for humanity’s survival after the first wave is taken. Seek out others like you. Persuade them to join the battle. Only these can see and challenge the demons until the end when all eyes see them. She doesn’t want her life to change; doesn’t want to be a nomad who battles demons. Doesn’t want to be anyone’s protector. Until a tornado flattens Sarah’s house. Johnny’s apartment. There are monsters maiming and killing everywhere. Demons persecute her and those she loves, burn down her home and force her family and friends onto the road, as everywhere cataclysmic weather and signs of the end days make things hellish for humans. Cassandra and her friends can no longer deny their destinies. They must fight…or see the remnants of humanity engulfed in flames.

EXCERPT ~ Demons destroy the Red Carpet Lounge

Beyond the windows, darkness and rain had arrived, slamming a storm surge against the glass. Thunder and streaks of electricity ripped and echoed across the sky. The windowpanes rattled in their mountings and the lightshow brightened the world. Even with the downpour, the temperature had become warmer. The humans drifting into the bar were soaked in water and perspiration and were short tempered as the heat and the noise level rose to a shrill crescendo.

Manasseh recognized demons behind several of the human faces. More than usual tonight.

They were one of the reasons Manasseh didn’t like going into buildings where there were crowds. The ratio of demon to mortal was shifting quickly. There were demons everywhere.

Manasseh detected and avoided them and they couldn’t see him. For now. There’d come a time when the blinders would be lifted from everyone’s eyes, including theirs, and he’d have to kill them. They’d have to try to kill him.

His foot tapped softly at first and then faster. His body tensed. He couldn’t wait for the day when he could raise his sword and strike all the fiends down once and for all. It’d been coming for so long and he was tired of waiting.

There were demons, disguised as humans, drinking at a table beside the bandstand. “When’s the damn music going to start?” one griped.

“Yeah, when are we going to get some entertainment in this dump?” His friend threw the remaining contents of his drink at the waitress as she scooted past, barely missing her. He stuck his booted foot out and tripped a man returning from the restroom. The guy sprawled on the floor, stunned surprise on his face. But when he looked up at who’d waylaid him, he just lowered his eyes and stumbled off to hide in a corner. Demon mind control. The weaker the human mind, the stronger the control.

Dressed in T-shirts, ball caps, and blue jeans the demons appeared to be ordinary mortals of different ages and races. Manasseh never understood why, but most of them wore beards and never robed in bright colors. They especially hated yellow and sky blue. Most were wearing dark glasses. That he understood. In certain lights, their eyes, empty as their souls or, when angry, burning like crimson embers, betrayed them.

Manasseh could hardly bear to be in the same room. Demons had a stench of burnt blood and ash around them and their minds were as dark as the place they’d come from. They mingled among men and committed the crimes that made humans cry: arson, wife beating, torture, and murders. Manasseh scowled. If there was a heinous crime being committed somewhere, there was most likely a demon perpetrating it or somehow behind it.

They were making him angry. He had to remind himself why he was there and that his first responsibility was guarding Cassandra. It was difficult because all he wanted to do was to exterminate them.

Not here. Not yet.

Cassandra, guitar case in hand, wandered in with her brother in tow. They set up their equipment, tested microphones, got something to drink, and after tuning their instruments began to play.

The demons were instantly agitated at the sound of Johnny and Cassandra’s voices. One of them glared balefully at the girl as another snarled something to his friends, his face shifting into a sneer.

Manasseh didn’t like the looks of any of them. They were a fight waiting to happen. Malevolence glinted in their looks and their pretend smiles had no mirth. But he knew their kind. Most of them were cowards and wouldn’t hurt Cassandra or Johnny in such a public place. It’d garner too much attention and they wouldn’t want that. They usually waited until they could get the humans alone somewhere to do their damage.

An omen of things to come, thunder rippled through the sultry air and eerily mimicked the resonance of human screams. Manasseh shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Still there was no sign of the demon, Rayner. Perhaps he wouldn’t show, though there was enough danger lurking in the crowd without him.

Manasseh listened to Cassandra and her brother. Choir music was more his style, yet their voices were harmonious and their instrument playing skillful. There was an innocent goodness in their demeanors and the messages of their songs that made their performance compelling. And behind the melodies, their souls were luminous and shone like beacons from their eyes. Both of them were pure of heart and strong, the brother not quite as much as the sister, and would need to be because the future wouldn’t be easy for either of them.

An hour went by. The songs and sibling banter were entertaining. People drank, conversed, and socialized. Rayner never showed up.

The demons behaved themselves as much as they were able, hiding their impatience behind their smirks. No doubt they were planning something wicked for after they left the bar.

He was about to see to Obadiah, when one of the demons behind him threw a bottle at Cassandra. She ducked before it made contact and smashed into the wall.

Another demon flung one and hit Johnny in the head…and the brawl was on.

Everyone shoved and kicked each other. Fists and flesh collided. The demons had instigated the clash and notched it up and that alarmed Manasseh. Though it was in their nature to cause pandemonium wherever and whenever they could, they were usually less obvious about it. Another bad sign.

The room was an erupting volcano and people spilled into the stormy night to escape the flying glasses and bottles.

Crouched down behind the bar, Maggie shouted into the phone: “Morey, you better get over here quick. There’s a big fight and everything’s being busted to hell. I’ll try to call the police–” The phone obviously went dead in her hands. “Damn!” She dropped it and ran out the door.

Someone threw a table through a window and wind and rain splattered in. Everyone was screaming, slugging each other, or trying to escape through a door or window.

One of the demons hurled itself at the two singers as if it wanted to tear them apart. Cassandra nimbly stepped aside and the fiend overshot and ended up beneath a table scrabbling to keep from being booted by a bunch of furious cowboys.

Amidst the chaos, Cassandra shoved her wounded brother towards the back exit, their guitars protectively cradled in their arms.

Manasseh followed them into the alley. He’d shield them if he had to. But Cassandra knew what to do. Survival was an instinct she’d been born with. Through the falling water, she aimed her brother towards her car and they scrambled in.

The sound of police sirens rivaled the thunder.

There were demons behind Cassandra and her brother and Manasseh slammed the door in their faces as the pair of humans drove away.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Since childhood I’ve been an artist and worked as a graphic designer in the corporate world and for newspapers for twenty-three years before I quit to write full time. But I’d already begun writing novels at 21, over forty-three years ago now, and have had twenty-one (nine romantic horror, two horror novels, two romantic SF horror, one romantic suspense, one romantic time travel, one historical romance, two thrillers, and three murder mysteries) previous novels, two novellas and twelve short stories published from Zebra Books, Leisure Books, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Damnation Books/Eternal Press; and I’ve self-published my last six novels with Amazon Kindle Direct and my dinosaur novels and Spookie Town Mysteries are my best-sellers.

I’ve been married to Russell for thirty-six years; have a son, James, and two grandchildren, Joshua and Caitlyn, and I live in a small quaint town in Illinois, which is right across the JB Bridge from St. Louis, Mo. We have three quirky cats, ghost cat Sasha and Cleo and live cat Sasha (Too), and the five of us live happily in an old house in the heart of town. Though I’ve been an artist, and a folk singer in my youth with my brother Jim, writing has always been my greatest passion, my butterfly stage, and I’ll probably write stories until the day I die…or until my memory goes.

2012 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS *FINALIST* for my horror novel The Last Vampire–Revised Author’s Edition ~ 2014 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS *FINALIST* for her thriller novel Dinosaur Lake.

*Click here to check out Kathryn Meyer Griffith’s.

Novels and short stories from Kathryn Meyer Griffith:

Evil Stalks the Night, The Heart of the Rose, Blood Forge, Vampire Blood, The Last Vampire,

Witches, The Nameless One short story, The Calling, All Things Slip Away, Egyptian Heart,

Winter’s Journey, The Ice Bridge, Don’t Look Back, Agnes, Before the End: A Time of Demons, The Woman in Crimson, Human No Longer, Four Spooky Short Stories Collection, Scraps of Paper, Dinosaur Lake, Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising and the just released Dinosaur Lake III: Infestation.

Kathryn’s Links

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kathryn-Meyer-Griffith/579206748758534  

http://www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/889499.Kathryn_Meyer_Griffith

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Kathryn Meyer Griffith is a prolific writer. I have read several of her books and you can check out the review links below:

Dinosaur Lake by Kathryn Meyer Griffith – Creature Dines on Crater Lake Smorgasbord

Spooky Short Stories by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Vampire Blood by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

What’s more dangerous than a lion protecting its young, a vampire protecting hers – Human No Longer by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

GIVEAWAY

There will be two winners.

Kathryn Griffith is offering a free eBook of ANY of her 21 novels AND a free Audible.com CODE for any of her 18 audio books. Click HERE to choose your ebook or audiobook. To enter, just leave a comment, with your email, and let Kathryn know which book caught your eye and if you want an ebook or audiobook.

Which one will I read next? Do you have a suggestion?