GUEST POST
Nevada and The Town from Hell
Usually when the state of Nevada is mentioned, most people think about the glittering city of Las Vegas. If you haven’t seen Vegas at night, it does glitter with 15,000 miles of lighted neon tubing—and can be seen miles away in Nevada’s wide-open spaces. Although Vegas and its little sister up north, Reno, have changed a lot over the years, not much else in the state has.
I was born and raised in Vegas and have driven the straight, lonely highways to California, Utah, Arizona, and Northern Nevada many times. You can drive for hours and not see a building. Tiny towns pop up many miles apart in the dry, brown landscape dotted with Joshua trees and creosote bushes. Nevada has 600 ghost towns, which includes old mining camps (silver mining gave Nevada the nickname The Silver State) and semi-ghost towns. On the drive from Vegas to Reno, you pass Goldfield, population 268. It has a haunted hotel and high school. The next stop is Tonopah with a population of 2,500. Tonopah has the Clown Motel—need I say more, and yes, I stopped to visit it out of pure curiosity. Rhyolite, 120 miles northwest of Vegas, is one of the best-preserved and photographed ghost towns.
Because of the ghost towns and old mines, Nevada was the perfect place for my main characters, Racer and Arloe, to start their adventure in my YA paranormal book Dagger & Brimstone: Town from Hell. The pair decide to go off the grid to a map dot in the Nevada desert—the fictional town of Winthrop. After battling the 110° heat and arriving by motorcycle, their adventure goes downhill faster than the 75mph highway speed limit. That’s where the fun begins for readers. It’s heavy in paranormal with a touch of romance and comedy. The secrets will keep you guessing. It also has suspense and a bit of horror—but nothing as bad as booking a room on Friday the 13th at the Clown Motel and finding out a clown convention is staying there, too. (No offense to clowns.)
Title : Town From Hell
Author: T. W. Kirchner
Series: Dagger and Brimstone
Publisher: Short on Time Books
Published : April 19, 2015
Genre: YA Paranormal
Pages: 274
Seventeen-year-old Racer and his girlfriend Arloe want to be together despite resistance from her parents. In defiance of an upcoming separation, they run away for the summer, going totally off the grid to a remote town in the Nevada desert.
The teens think no one knows where they are—but they couldn’t be more wrong.
Racer’s well-orchestrated plan for freedom turns into a nightmare from hell. Lies, deception and betrayal blur his lines of reality, and he discovers everyone in town is hiding a
terrifying secret, including Arloe.
(Racer’s first experience with the townsfolk in Winthrop.)
The attendant ran her knobby pointer finger along the page while she read. She must have reached the end of the article because she looked up and pushed her wire-framed, granny glasses down on the bridge of her pointy nose. “Kin I helps ya?”
This time, I stared. Her dental work looked like she’d tried to stop a bowling ball with her face. She lacked every other tooth, and the remaining few resembled gray and yellowish nubs. She only needed a wart on her chin and a long black dress. The broom already leaned up against the wall behind her.
I placed a twenty on the counter. “Yeah, I need a fill-up.”
The attendant slid off the barstool and set the magazine down. The legs on both her and the stool creaked and wiggled. She tugged at the bottom of her black, oversized tee and pulled up her baggy jeans. They hung pathetically off her emaciated frame and were frayed at the bottom where they dragged the floor. She picked up the money, sniffled loudly, and wiped her nose on the back of her vein-popping hand. “Which pump?”
I gazed out the huge, front window. The station only had two pumps, and my bike was the only vehicle around for at least a mile. I bit my lip and choked back the smartass comment that popped into my mind. “Pump two, please.”
Witch Hazel pushed a gold button on the ancient cash register and the drawer barely slid open. With the swiftness and grace of a baboon wearing a baseball glove, she placed my twenty in the drawer. I tried to figure out how that register could possibly be connected to the pump when she enlightened me. “Go on and pump. Lemme know how much it comes to, and I’ll give ya your change back.” She slammed the drawer closed. She looked me up and down. “You ain’t from around here, are you?”
I wiped my forehead on the sleeve of my T-shirt, exchanging a layer of sweat for sand. “No, how’d you guess?”
She pointed from the cubic stud in my nose, to the gold ring through my eyebrow, and at the three tattoos on my right arm.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Although writing is T.W. Kirchner’s passion, her first loves are her husband, two children, and furry menagerie known as the Kirchner Zoo, which includes five dogs and three cats. She’d like to have more time to paint, draw, play tennis, and do yoga. Anything wolf, pirate or zombie-related will grab her attention. She has three book series published through Short on Time Books.
Nadene's addiction to reading began at an early age, when a family friend gifted her a copy of Wuthering Heights. From that moment she was never without a book.She will read anything as long the material is compelling enough to hold her attention. She gained many experiences through the pages of the books she had the opportunity to read.She created this blog to share her love of books with like minded individuals hopes that in sharing reviews of the books read visitors to the blog will discover their next addictive read. When not reading, Nadene enjoys cooking, listening to music and watching television.
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