Paint may be thicker than blood, but both make beautiful art.
Surrounded by her works of rapturous and glorious pain, Trinity is approached by a man of unearthly beauty. His family wants to commission a painting in her macabre style and are willing to pay any price she demands. Soon she finds out that the painting isn’t the only thing they wish to keep.
A dark, sexy, and bloody tale of the extremes of love and hate, Oblivion follows Trinity’s spiral into world darker than the blackest paint and deeper than the human soul.
Introduction
Oblivion is a reprint of Kris Lynn’s debut novel which was published in 2014 but recently moved over to us. We gave it a couple more rounds of editing, found an entire missing section of a chapter, and got it a gorgeous new cover.
It also has four interior illustrations by the author.
It is a novel around 120k words set in the contemporary world. It is written in limited first person with a female protagonist. There is sex, lightly described, not to mention an occasionally disturbing lust toward a certain car. Nothing happens about that, but still entertaining to notice.
There are deaths of named and unnamed characters. Light religious themes. No animals are harmed. While there is sex and frequent arguments between the involved characters, there is no rape.
Samples
The first chapter is available on the Broken Typewriter Press website.
BLOOD: by Trinity Morgan.
Such an anticlimactic title for something that was very nearly my entire existence. I spent two years preparing for this night. I even quit my job. And now my defining moment was here. Tonight was my first art show.
This was my chance to make a name for myself, and more importantly, a chance to escape my own personal hell; my dismal, one bedroom apartment in Sunnyside, New York. Everyday the walls inched closer, creeping in to suffocate me. I did what I could to make this dump feel like home by hanging artwork everywhere and decorating in calming colors. But nothing would ever make this place shine.
The plaster on the buttercream colored walls was deteriorating, exposing rusty pipes underneath. My patchy carpet and faded linoleum were the same ugly shade of shit brown. The air conditioner never worked in the summer, and the temperature rarely reached sixty-five in the winter. Since my only bedroom had been turned into a makeshift studio, my bed also served as my couch, and my dresser became my TV stand. The only furniture to even hint that this was a living room was a dingy, faded blue recliner circa nineteen-eighty.
A white garment bag lay across the ancient comforter on my bed. I spent six hundred dollars on the black designer dress waiting inside. That dress would be the nicest thing I had ever worn, but it also represented half of next month’s rent. If I didn’t sell some paintings tonight, it would become a serious liability.
I removed the dress and slid it on with a smile. The satiny fabric felt more like lingerie than outerwear. The open back plunged down to my tailbone, with two strips of fabric draped across my shoulder blades. The hem was short, and the front dipped low enough to show some cleavage. I would have paid twice as much for it.
The dress also left my entire tattoo exposed. The obscenely nude woman being swallowed in the flesh of my left arm was a half-sleeve version of one of my own works. I could only afford such a large piece because I gave the artist a painting in trade.
Appeal
What really appealed to us about this story is that it is a grittier piece with relatively dark elements–devils, drugs, and death—but it had was written with a flair of someone coming up from the bottom of their own personal hell and becoming stronger when they are thrown into a different hell. The main character, Trinity, is significantly flawed but seeing her struggle to improve herself throughout the story was memorable.
This is also a genre and theme that hasn’t been published by Broken Typewriter Press before. It is more grim than the rest of the authors but still meshed nicely into the growing theme of fantastic stories with unique voices.
Availability
Kris decided to put this on Kindle Unlimited so anyone with a subscription from there can enjoy it. It is also available in print from many sources.
It can also be purchased directly from BTP from their website with a 20% off using the code paint.bloody.portrait. Buying from the BTP store will also provide the EPUB and MOBI files when Oblivion leaves KU in 3-6 months; even past purchases will have access to the ebook versions.