Tell us a little about your latest release.
Oubliette – A Forgotten Little Place is a paranormal historical fiction thriller. People
who’ve read it compare it to American
Horror Story meets Game of Thrones.
Which I think is awesome as I love both shows!
The
book consists of several intertwining storylines set around the fictional oubliette
in a French castle. The ideas for each came from different eras in history,
myths, and real happenings.
The
main inspiration for writing Oubliette –
A Forgotten Little Place came after
learning about the real oubliette at Leap Castle in Ireland. They removed the
remains from over 150 different bodies when they emptied it in the late 1800s.
I realized each of those victims had a story, and so I wrote several fictional
accounts using real moments in history to craft my tales.
Oh,
and Leap Castle is allegedly haunted by a terrifying “elemental”—that juicy
morsel gave me some inspiration as well!
Have you ever based your book or characters on
actual events or people from your own life?
Late
night visitors I call “shadow people” would appear by my bed at night when I
was a child. These experiences served as the catalyst for the main character’s
struggle.
To
this day I don’t understand what these things are. I’ve met others who told me
about similar experiences. I’m a realist and practical; I wish I had answers.
In a way, I guess using this in my book was a type of therapy to explore possibilities.
Do I believe they are supernatural in origin? I honestly just don’t know.
Is there a theme or message in your work that you
would like readers to connect to?
A
message I’d like readers to know and connect with, is that if they’ve ever felt
the presence of something otherworldly, they’re not alone. If they’ve been terrorized
by something ominous at night, they’re not alone. And above all else, they’re
not crazy.
While
I can’t say for certain what those experiences are, I will say that they are something, and you should never let them
hold any power over you.
Of all the characters you’ve ever written, who is
your favorite and why?
Sebastian
from Sebastian’s Story in Oubliette. The setting is during the
time Rome occupied parts of Gaul. Beguiling and crafty, he weasels his way into
the good graces of the governor in an attempt to disrupt the Empire’s hold over
his homeland.
He
is equal parts sexy, devious, demented and dangerous. You can’t nail down his
motives (at least not right away) and he is someone you despise and also, in
some way, root for.
What is next for you? Do you have any scheduled
upcoming releases or works in progress?
I’m
excited about working with Prophecy Girl Films’ Minoti Vaishnav to turn Oubliette
into episodic television. Minoti is an award-winning screenwriter who is
writing the pilot and first episode, as well as outlining the seasons. Fingers
crossed we get it picked up!
What book are you reading now?
I
just finished The Life We Bury by
Allen Eskens. I’m nearly done with Girl
on the Train by Paula Hawkins as well as The Zombie Fallout series by Mark Tufo.
What is in your to read pile?
Six
of Crows
by Leigh Bardugo and Rise of the Rocket
Girls by Nathalia Holt.
What would your readers be surprised to learn about
you?
I’m
a big fan of fan fiction. I love the idea of being inspired by a book or
character and riffing off it like a musician might use samples from another
recording artist.
That’s
why I’m excited that Black Chateau Enterprises is launching the Ohh La La Oubliette Fan Fiction contest,
courtesy of. This contest is giving someone the amazing opportunity to win trip
to France.
If
you’ve never been to France, trust me, you must! I traveled to Paris, the Loire
Valley, and even the Catacombs when researching Oubliette—A Forgotten Little Place. The winner will have the chance
to explore just like I did!
If
you’re a reader, that means there’s also a writer inside you. This contest
gives those who are brave and bold enough to put their ideas into a story, the
ultimate opportunity to go on a magical vacation to France.
Here’s
the link for more details and the rules:
Oubliette: A Forgotten Little Place
Vanta M. Black
Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Paranormal,
Historical Fiction, Genre-Fiction,
New Adult, Horror
Publisher: Black Chateau Publishing
Date of Publication: March 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9964488-2-6
ISBN: 978-0-9964488-1-9
ISBN: 978-0-9964488-0-2
Number of pages: 566
Word Count: 247,912
Cover Artist: Black Chateau Enterprises
Book Description:
Veronica knows the monsters aren’t “just in her head”, but no one listens to the headstrong ten-year-old as they tie her to a hospital bed every night.
Years later, after being dumped by her business-partner/boyfriend, Veronica finds herself on the verge of bankruptcy. Then a late-night call promises the perfect solution — a job opportunity decorating a castle in France.
Will Veronica risk what little she has left to chase a fairytale?
When the shadowy things that once terrorized her come back, Veronica must decide how much she’ll sacrifice for them, for her sanity, and for her life.
This epic book consists of interwoven stories with paranormal twists. A horror-filled historical fiction adventure, it spans nearly two millennia.
You'll be transported to an ancient Pagan ritual, Roman-ruled Gaul, the bloody Inquisition of the Knights Templar, France as it's ravaged by the Black Death, the duplicitous Reformation, the Paris Catacombs, and the gory French Revolution, while you unravel Oubliette’s cryptic layers.
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/y0NMLzBnxKg
Prologue
Los Angeles –
Early 1990s
V
|
eronica
didn’t understand why they looked for the monsters in her head, that’s obviously not where they were. Instead
of listening, the doctors stuck pads with wires to her temples and increased
the dosage of an IV that dripped into her veins.
They also told the nurses to tie her
down with thick, leather belts every night.
The tethers didn’t matter though,
because when the monsters came, she wouldn’t be able to move anyway. The only
thing Veronica could ever do was scream.
The doctors called them “night
terrors”. The pudgy lady who talked funny –– she told Veronica it was her accent –– said they were “spirits”.
Mommy used the term “shadow people”. Veronica just called them “monsters”, and
wished they’d stop scaring her when she slept.
They wanted her. Deep inside, on a
primal level, Veronica knew the monsters –– or whatever they were –– craved
her, and if given the chance, they would do something very, very bad to her.
The little girl tried to explain this
to the doctors, the nurses, the accent-talking lady, and her mother, but none
of the adults really listened. Instead they argued and shouted at each other,
and huffed in and out of the room –– but the thing that frightened Veronica the
most, is when the adults would simply shrug their shoulders, and admit that
they really didn’t have any idea what the monsters were at all.
It was almost ten o’clock ––
shift-change time. The night staff would come now. The nurse on duty was a
plodding and lazy lady who would only check on Veronica at the beginning of the
shift, and then abandon her in favor of the nurses’ station and a VHS tape of
the day’s soap operas. Veronica didn’t like her. Sometimes it would take “Nurse
Lazy” a full five minutes before she’d respond. She never came fast enough.
Veronica tried to tell the doctors that
the nurse was too slow, but the complaints of a ten-year-old weren’t taken
seriously against the word of the lazy nurse who smiled sweetly and said, “Poor
dear and those dreadful night terrors. I always come running as fast as I can!”
Veronica cringed as the television
automatically turned itself off. It always happened at ten o’clock; it was on a
timer. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt it protected her and wished more than
anything it could stay on. The noise, the pictures, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, there was something
inexplicable about the TV that kept the monsters away.
Veronica’s pleas to leave the
television on all night were never honored by the adults. Nurse Lazy actually
once told her, “Oh, we can’t leave the TV on, it’ll give you bad dreams.”
Ha! Little did she know the TV prevented the bad dreams.
The door opened and in walked Nurse
Lazy. Her metal nameplate actually read “Lucy”. She handed Veronica a little
paper cup with a green pill inside and waited with a thin, forced smile. The
longer Veronica took to take her medicine, the longer Nurse Lazy would have to
wait until she could watch her soaps.
Veronica plucked the pill out of the
cup. “Aren’t they ’sposed to be yellow?”
Lucy flared her nostrils ever so
slightly as she replied, “No, your new doctor prescribed the green ones. Hurry
up and take it.”
Veronica studied the pill closely,
holding it inches from her nose. She looked at it slightly cross-eyed. “I don’t
think I like the green ones though. Yellows are better.”
Lucy’s trembling hand clutched a Dixie
cup of water. “That’s for the doctors to decide. Now eat it up! Time for
sleep.”
Veronica painstakingly laid the pill on
her tongue and grunted for the nurse to hand her the water.
Lucy thrust it forward. “Here, drink!”
Veronica pouted, though she knew the
cute face wouldn’t work on ol’ Lazy.
“Thanks,” she muttered as the nurse
buckled down Veronica’s arms and legs and pulled the covers up to her chest.
“Goodnight,” Lucy grumbled. She
snatched the mermaid doll that sat by Veronica’s side, and tossed it on the
nightstand before careening out the door.
Random acts of meanness like that
weren’t uncommon for Lucy. Veronica sniffed as the silence left in the nurse’s
wake permeated the room.
Then familiar, tinny tunes from a
transistor radio wafted through the air. It hung from the janitor’s cleaning
cart. He always blared it while mopping the halls. There was that song again. Some stupid radio
station played it almost every night right around this time. Veronica stared at
her doll on the nightstand, just out of reach, as the lyrics began:
Dream
the dream that only you can dream
Sing
the song that only you can sing
Dance
with me, we’ll start slow
Clasp
my hand, now lose control
Bite
the monster only you can see
And
dream the dream you only dream for me
Veronica tried to squish her head into
the stiff pillow so her ears were covered, but it didn’t work. The heavy metal
song’s pounding chorus kicked in.
Spirits
in the maze
Burning
brighter
Like
a dream within the haze
Dancing
fire
Deep
inside malaise
Hungry
spider
Force
your screams to blaze
Spinning
spiral
The song frightened her. It seemed to
always precede a particularly bad episode. She really wished she had the yellow
pills. She felt defenseless as sleep consumed her. The green pills would be no
help if one of the bad ones came…the real
Bad Ones, that is.
She twisted her head and glared into
the large mirror on the wall across the room. People watched her from inside
there. Veronica wasn’t sure if they were the doctors, the accent lady, or maybe
even her mother, but every now and then someone would move, the light would
catch just right, and she would see a figure behind the glass. Dimly, she
watched them watch her. They studied her and talked about her and wrote notes
about her on clipboards. Knowing they were there gave Veronica little comfort
because they weren’t there to help; they were only there to watch.
Her sleepy eyes narrowed at the
watchers and she whispered with dopey lips, “What, no popcorn? You gonna stare
at me all night and you got no stinking popcorn? You’re all a bunch of stupid
heads, ya’ know that? Stooopid heads...”
Sleep quietly took over while Veronica
cursed the stupid heads behind the glass. She jerked her droopy neck to force
herself awake, but the green pill was powerful. It pushed her into the darkness
where the shadow people waited.
Veronica,
here we are!
Veronica,
time to steal your dreams.
Time
to let us steal your dreams and break your bones and slip your soul right out
of your slimy sack of skin…Veronica!
She fought to wake up. With all her
might she tried to scream, but the green pill seized her motor functions and
paralyzed her. She was like a petrified slab of meat laid out on a table ––
unable to move, unable to cry out, unable to defend herself.
Do
you know the evil that you dream, Veronica?
Do
you know the song that only you can sing?
Veronica!
In the limbo between sleep and lucidity
Veronica sensed their heinous presence with crystal-clarity. She was
hyper-alert and instinctively knew these were the real Bad Ones. Without
looking she saw one crouching in the
far corner of the room. It glared at her intently and oozed animosity. It
waited patiently, almost casually, for Veronica to succumb.
With a sudden surge of intense
willpower she cried out — just a little — it was a tiny whimper that was barely
audible. It wasn’t loud enough to scare the shadow people away though, and it
definitely wasn’t loud enough for anyone living to hear.
Another Bad One pulled itself onto the
foot of her bed. This one was small and hairy like an animal. Scrooching under
the blanket, it crept slowly along the side of her bare leg. It felt for a nook
to burrow — a soft place like her stomach or side so it could squirm and writhe
itself into her flesh — where it could rip her apart from the inside out.
“Help,” Veronica whispered one last
time before falling into the dark depths of sleep –– deep, down, spinning
‘round, until the darkness took a hold…
About the Author:
Vanta M. Black, author of Oubliette—A Forgotten Little Place, enjoys uncovering the dark mysteries of our Universe.
In addition to writing, she enjoys traveling to provocative places and studying all things esoteric.
Black has degrees in English, communication and art. She resides in Southern California with her husband and two pug-mix dogs, and spends her time in support of causes that empower women and advance science and technology.
https://twitter.com/VantaMBlack @VantaMBlack
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