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T.A. Moore’s Enthralling Labyrinth of Stone
We are very excited to have a special guest with us today. She has graciously agreed to tell us about her new book Labyrinth of Stone. T.A. has even brought a special prologue moment with Teller about when they first landed on the alien planet 10 years ago. As well as TWO very special playlists for this Labyrinth of Stone. Please welcome the talented T.A. Moore.
Title: Labyrinth of Stone
Author: T.A. Moore
Publisher: Torquere Press
Length: 41K
Genre: Science Fiction, Gay Romance
General Synopsis: 10 years ago the Black Rapture transported thousands of people – seemingly at random – from Earth to the strange, inimical world they call the Labyrinth. Will Teller was one of them. Surviving that meant joining an army and becoming better at killing than he’s comfortable with. It’s enough upheaval for anyone’s life.
The only problem is, apparently no-one told his commanding officer that.
A year ago General Nathan Kearney’s lover abandoned him and the city they’d founded. Pride, and heart, stung by that, Nathan’s been trying to fill the void with a series of disappointing lovers. When Teller takes advantage of their long friendship to point out that none of these ‘Colt-lites’ were really working out, Nathan decides he’s right. His solution? Either Teller finds Colt and brings him home, or he takes Colt’s place in Nathan’s bed.
That’s pretty good motivation for a straight guy, except – Teller’s sexuality seems to have gone a bit Magic-8 Ball on that issue. Suddenly Nathan’s started to look pretty good. The situation is complicated by the fact that, apparently, Colt’s planning on coming back anyhow – and not to kiss and make up. He’s given their enemies access to a route into Kearney’s stronghold that only Colt could have known about.
Sent out of the safety of their stronghold to hunt down the source of the violent attacks on them, as another attempt is made on Kearney’s life by one of his ex-lovers, the last thing on Teller’s mind should be his sex-life. Except he can’t help but wonder, if he’d be ok always being the consolation prize. Particularly when he discovers that the unwitting pawn behind the attacks on their city is Colt’s long-lost son.
For your listening pleasure here are two playlists to listen to as you wander the new world of Labyrinth of Stone.
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T.A. Moore has given us a special treat today. A special prologue moment from Teller of their arrival in this strange new place.
TA describes these treats as: “Labyrinth of Stone is set over a decade after these extracts, when Ben Colt’s disappearance has led to Nathan and Teller getting together. It’s a prologue of their arrival in the Labyrinth.”
Teller: Extract Two
The air tasted different. Teller groaned and tried to get up. His legs were caught under the seat, crimped metal pinning his thighs. He wiped his hand over his face, blood sticky on his upper lip. There was a smudged puddle of it where his face had been laying, the imprint of his cheek and jaw smeared. It took him a minute for his brain to flip the image right side up so he realized the bus was on its side. He’d been lying with his face mashed against the window. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘It’s ok. We’re fine. Is anyone hurt?’
No one answered him. It was very quiet.
He twisted around and shoved at the seat, the metal tube-frame digging into the heels of his hands as he tried to shift it. The twisted legs creaked, groaned and gave just enough for him to get his legs out. His calves throbbed as the blood flowed back into them, a flower of blood oozing through his jeans from a gash he’d not realized was there. It hurt now. He ignored it.
Gavin Hawkins was slouched over the back of a seat, his hands dangling limply in front of him. His fingers scraped the grubby floor. Blood dripped from somewhere in slow, gloopy drops. Another boy – Rusty Watts, from the ugly Hawaiian shirt – was half in and half out the window. Shards of glass were broken off chest and under his arms.
Other bodies lay everywhere. Some of them weren’t all there: a neatly severed hand caught in a strap, fingers curled like it was beckoning him; a pair of legs from the knees down fallen over like a pair of old boots.
It looked like something out of a horror movie. Teller retched, vomit hot in the back of his throat, and turned away. Bile and half-digested headache tablets splattered his jeans and sensible, off-the-clock teacher shoes. It wasn’t neat puking, not the barf and wipe of a mild stomach fly. This was messy, gagging, black out pissed, chunks of sour puke in his nose wringing out of his guts.
What was he going to tell their parents? The inane thought bounced about in his head, like dead children was on the same level as explaining their genius fish in a small pond kid was suddenly a smart fish in a big pond. An awkward conversation. Delicate. Not…world ending.
Teller coughed out the last puke and straightened up, wiping his hand over his mouth. He had to…had to do something – call the police, the ambulance. See if there were any injured, they couldn’t be all be dead.
They weren’t. He searched the bus, sweating through his clothes like it was Florida and not mid-winter Wisconsin. The bus was filling up with smoke, but he had to make sure first. Everyone on the bus was dead – eight dead children, he counted them. That meant there were five kids, and one bus driver, missing.
The sharp copper-salt smell of blood started to sour, like a cut of just-off bacon.
He kicked the back door of the bus open and crawled out. The heat hit him like a punch, winding him. Instead of a frosty road on the outskirts of Madison, the tarmac underfoot from a morning salting, he was…somewhere else.
Somewhere insane. Broken. The bus was balanced on top of a raw crack in the earth. It wasn’t smoke filling the air, it was steam. The ground under his puke-stained feet was blue. Teller stripped his jacket and jumper off, his t-shirt already soaked through, as he approached the edge. The sun was rolling along the canyon, a beautiful summer’s sky bubbling and fracturing under it.
Teller didn’t want to do, but it was like a hook in his eyelids. He slowly looked…up. Buildings hung from the green and grey sky, stalactites of glass and shining silver scaffolds. As Teller watched, a smashed bit of building worked its way free and fell down – up? – towards him. It looked small – a window ledge, an antenna, a bit of architectural debris.
It took a long time to fall. When it landed, it cracked the ground open all over again. Shockwaves ripped across the mesa, throwing Teller off his feet and sending the bus and the dead crashing down into the sun. It was a window-box, he thought, full of spiny metal plants that fluttered and screamed as they burned.
The thing was the size of skyscraper.
Teller crawled away from the edge, coughing out fumes that tasted like – lilacs, silver, fingernails -, and rolled onto his back. He stared up into the mad, floating cityscape cracking apart over his head.
‘I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore,’ he said. His voice sounded cracked and strange, worse when he laughed. Horrible that he could laugh – all those dead kids – but.. ‘I don’t even have Toto. I don’t even have a shirt. Dorothy had it easy.’
Another piece of building broke free, spinning down in ever-increasing slow motion. It cast off arcs of light like a disco-ball rainbow as it fell.
~*~*~
As a small child TA Moore genuinely believed that she was a Cabbage Patch Kid and no-one had told her. This was the start of a lifelong attachment to the weird and fantastic. These days she lives in Northern Ireland with an unimpressed cat and her friends have a rule that she can only send them three weird and disturbing links a day (she still holds that a DIY penis bifurcation guide is interesting, not disturbing).
TA Moore believes that adding ‘in space’ to anything makes it at least 40% cooler, will try to pet pretty much any dog she meets and once lied to her friend that she had climbed all the way up to Tintagel, when actually she’d only gotten to the beach and chickened out. She writes about vampires, werewolves and ghosts (*whispers* ‘in space!) and once wrote zombie erotica to prove it could be done.
You can find T.A. Moore around the web at:
Website , Facebook , Twitter , Goodreads
Labyrinth of Stone made the bestseller list at All Romance ebooks just a few days after release, AND, was in the top 100 bisexual romances on Amazon!!
You can buy Labyrinth of Stone at:
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