The Cornelius Correspondence: The Cradle Book Tour
Letter #3 of 5
Dear Cornelius,
I’m not feeling well today. It’s bright, sunny, and generally cheerful out so I’m avoiding venturing into its optimism. I don’t think I could bear it. Hopefully, you’re well. I received your letter yesterday, but hoisting a pen from the holder on my desk and putting it to paper seemed as daunting as typing one on the computer. I know how you love traditional correspondence, as rare a novelty as it is these days. I feared I would just stare at the blank page or screen and remain uninspired for hours. As it turned out, I did that anyway when I attempted some creative writing. Inspiration comes and goes, with longer bouts of absence, I’m afraid. I curse my Muse often for forsaking me in my desperate times of need, though I find him far more eager a guest when I have specific libations to share. He’s a far bigger alcoholic than I am, the poor old heathen.
Perhaps you’ve noticed how I love my flawed characters—drunks, druggies, sex addicts, the forsaken, the forlorn… all the broken souls who’ve ever come to me in my flights of fancy. I embrace them. I am mesmerized by them. Bringing them to life in all their withered, melancholic, sordid glory is an honor to me. There’s no greater a triumph for a writer than to humanize what society tends to vilify. The truth is society loves to denigrate such folks, lower them to cruel labels and lazy stereotypes. We are much deeper than any flippant kind of profiling, so too are my dear friends, my characters… my companions in the dark. I don’t believe any of them are easily labeled or dismissed, in Cradle especially, my precious Radley and Scotty, not to mention Kinkaid. Then again, you know Cornelius that I didn’t just make them up.
I love each and every one of them, even the profoundly evil ones who seem to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. To grant the most un-redeeming of characters the qualities that make them so un-redeeming, I have to love them, I think. At least a little bit. I have to love my mother to portray her so perfectly as someone else’s, right? Ah, but am I violating your request not to divulge too much? Like anyone who knows me well, I don’t think the love/hate relationship I have with my mother is any secret. Everyone is keenly aware of the “mommy issues” among my host of other pathological disorders.
Sometimes I wish I was just a complete lunatic so I could be whisked away to the padded room of an asylum where I could live out my days with only my scribbling to worry about. I suppose that wouldn’t be much fun after a while, at the mercy of high school dropouts as orderlies and the lowest common denominators as my healthcare providers. I’d die an early death from the cruelty and neglect, if not some heinous infection contracted via an innocent knick. And who am I to deny the world my insane writings? Bear with me a moment, my dear Cornelius, as I wait out my loud amusement. I’m laughing so hard, I’m crying. After fifteen minutes of being unable to contain my cackling, and an inability from keeping this piece of paper from being soaked by tears, amused by thoughts of being locked away in the high fairy tale tower of a loony bin, I think I shall bid you farewell at this time.
Amused Into Insanity,
Joshua Skye
Look for the other letters!
October 26th – Letter #1 – ArmandRosamilia.com
October 27th – Letter #2 – Shah Wharton WordsinSync
October 28th – Letter #3 – The Sirens Song
October 29th – Letter #4 – The Road to Nowhere
October 30th – Letter #5 – An Opener’s Closing
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Cradle
Joshua Skye
In the deepest vale of Crepuscule’s Cradle, in the cul-de-sac at the end of Direful Hollow Road, is a once grand Folk-Victorian home known as The Habersham House. It’s a place haunted by far more than rot and neglect – evil dwells here, an evil that craves children.
Eight-year-old Scott Michaels-Greene has a fascination for tales of the strange and unusual, especially local folklore. His favorite story is the one about Habersham House; a ruined old place where many curious children have disappeared.
Hours away from Crepuscule’s Cradle, in Philadelphia, author Radley Barrette has just lost the love of his life to a random act of violence. Amongst his endowments from Danny’s estate is an old house in the backwoods of Pennsylvania, Habersham House. Though grief stricken at leaving behind the only home he and Danny had ever known, he knows he cannot remain in the city. Besides, the isolation may be just what he needs to clear his mind of the writer’s block he’s suffering from.
Crepuscule’s Cradle is not as he imagined. The locals are inhospitable. The skeletal forest surrounding it is as unwelcoming as the town. And the house itself – there is something menacing, something angry inhabiting it with him, and it’s hungry. Radley’s world slowly begins to unravel; the fringes of his reality begin to fray. In the midst of his breakdown, a local boy with an unhealthy fascination for Habersham House begins sneaking around and the evil residing within has taken notice.
Blending fantasy with horror, Crepuscule’s Cradle is the darkest of fairy tales. The morbidity of classic folklore and contemporary style weaves a web of slowly encroaching unease. Radley Barrette’ winter bound home is more than a haunted house, and Crepuscule’s Cradle is more than a mere horror tale. It’s a bedtime story that will pull you into its icy embrace, lull you into a disquiet state, and leave you shivering in the dark.
Cradle is available online at:
Amazon: US | UK | Australia | Canada | Germany | Italy | France | Spain | Japan | Mexico | Brazil | India | The Netherlands
Amazon Print: US | UK | Canada | Germany | Italy | France | Spain | Japan | Mexico | Brazil | India
Barnes & Noble (Print & eBook)
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About the Author – Award winning, bestselling author Joshua Skye was born in Jamestown, New York. Growing up, he split his time between Pennsylvania and Texas. Ultimately he settled in the DFW area with his partner, Ray – of nearly two decades, and their son Syrian. They share their lives with two dogs, Gizmo and Gypsy, and a chinchilla named Bella. Skye’s short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies including Childhood Nightmares: Under the Bed, and periodicals such as The Sirens Call. He is the author of over ten critically acclaimed novels, among them The Angels of Autumn that takes place in the same nightmarish universe as Cradle.
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Check out the rest of the tour here:
The Sirens Song 
[…] Letter #3 […]