Did you have a minor character who insisted on playing a larger role in the story? If so, please tell us about it. And if not, please tell me how you get the characters in your head to behave.
In many ways, the third and final installment of the Prophets series, Prophet’s Death, belonged to a character named Nate.
In the first novel, he was a young man who had recently come out of the closet to his parents. Nate was beaten by his father and thrown out of their house.
His best friend Herschel, and his mother Diane took Nate in. That was the beginning of the chosen family that takes center stage in my series.
It wasn’t until later that the protagonist, Naomi Pace, became a member herself.
The series takes place over twenty-nine years. Obviously, the characters couldn’t remain frozen in amber emotionally for that time. Nate was never timid, but until the second book, Prophet’s Lamentation, he’d never been involved in a physical altercation with an antagonist.
For him, initially the violence was about protecting someone he loved. By the end of Prophet’s Lamentation, his use of violence was about revenge on a serial killer who had been kidnapping and murdering gay men. One of them had been a good friend.
He was so competent, that despite his diminutive size, he became the person their chosen family looked to for guidance after the apparent death of the protagonist, Naomi Pace. She died fighting and killing the serial murderer and rapist, Joseph Proffit.
Years passed, and in Prophet’s Death, we find that Nate had become a father. With those tumultuous years behind him, his primary drive became raising his daughter. While his demeanor may have been tempered, it ignited again when she was placed in danger.
No one could be sure what he’d do, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of his fury.
To the dismay of Naomi’s family, she succumbed to the injuries Joseph dealt her during their final battle atop the abandoned Coast Guard station, Frying Pan Tower, thirty miles off the North Carolina coast.
Both of their bodies were lost at sea when the one-hundred-foot-tall structure crumbled during Tropical Storm Gabriel.
Naomi’s beloved companions escaped aboard her dive boat, along with Joseph’s final victim, who is on the verge of death.
In the aftermath, Naomi’s family has no choice but to rebuild their lives in hiding, fearing reprisal from the handful of remaining Apostle loyalists.
Soon, their secret, dormant conflict will be thrust onto the world stage by a wealthy benefactor who funnels his personal hatred and unfounded grievances into throngs of ignorant followers.
Is this the end of Naomi’s family? Without her, how will they survive?
The winds of Tropical Storm Gabrielle punish the small dive boat. Its howling feels like the voice of nature herself crying out in lamentation at the death of Naomi Pace.
As Nate pilots the craft over each wave, there’s a moment when he can hear the engines rev hard as the props come out of the water momentarily just before crashing down again. This cycle repeats every few seconds, seemingly without end.
Below deck, Rebecca and Herschel steady an unconscious Malcolm by keeping him squeezed between their bodies. It’s difficult. There’s nothing to hold onto since the Apostles stripped the cabin bare. The two hours it takes to get back to their dock are hell, both physically and introspectively.
Naomi was Nate’s best friend. To him, she was invincible.
How could she be dead? Nate thinks to himself as he involuntarily projects images of their time together across the water.
He has successfully outrun the incoming storm wall, but a new one awaits his fractured mind when all of the chaos subsides.
Neither Herschel nor Rebecca has the same composure. They wail with grief. Reaching across Malcolm’s limp body, they hold one another’s hands for comfort as much as they do to keep their injured companion safe from the onslaught of the turbulent water.
Nate threads the needle at the Masonboro Inlet, just like Naomi taught him. The waves rocking the swollen bay attempt to push them easterly into the mainland. Even though it means safety, the sight of the dock fills Nate with dread. Its arrival in the foreground always meant the end of a day fishing with Naomi, until now.
He attended North Carolina State where he studied psychology. While at university, he was active at the student radio station. There, he fell in love with punk rock and its ethos.
Robert acquired several teaching licenses in special education. He was an autism specialist in Raleigh for eight years. He then taught for four years in a small mountain community in western North Carolina.
During his time in the mountains, he lived with his wife Juliana in a remote primitive cabin built in 1875. While there, he grew most of his own food, raised chickens, worked on a cattle farm, as well as participated in subsistence hunting and fishing.
Eventually, the couple moved back to the small farming community where Robert was raised.
Annoyed with the stereotype of the southeastern United States as a monolith of ignorance and hatred, he wanted to bring forth characters from the region who are queer and autistic. They now hold up a disinfecting light to the hatred of the region’s past and to those who still yearn for a return to ways and ideas that should have long ago perished.
Robert’s first traditionally published novel, Prophet’s Debt, was a Manly Wade Wellman Literary Award Finalist.
His second, Prophet’s Lamentation, was a Lambda Literary recommendation for July 2023.
Website: https://www.robertcreekmore.com/
Twitter: AuthorCreekmore
Robert Creekmore will award a randomly drawn winner a $10 Amazon/BN gift card.
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