Not by a frigg’n long shot.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A West Point graduate and former Army Ranger, James MacGhil hails from rural New England (the town of Acushnet, MA) and subsequently spent the good majority of his adult life in the southern US resulting from his time in the Army and ensuing misadventures in corporate America. After returning to Massachusetts for a recent five year stint, he again retreated to warmer climates and now resides in Tallahassee, Florida with his beautiful wife, two amazing kiddos, and a yapping triumvirate of slothful canines.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
So, two books down and one to go in the opening trilogy of my apocryphal universe of legend, lore, and nonsensery. When I set out on the epic misadventure of writing Wrath of the Fallen roughly eighteen months ago, I had two goals in mind. The first of which was to give it a different feel than Rise of the Giants. The second of which was to not drink as much beer as I did when writing Rise of the Giants. For the record, I totally blew it on Goal #2 but, to be fair, it was a stupid goal. Seriously though, if you’re still reading — I can only hope that I achieved the Goal #1 and you enjoyed the droll levity that I tried to weave into the backdrop of a global apocalypse.
I mean hell, if you can’t have some fun with a story line featuring giants, fallen angels, semi-divine super soldiers, half-bred beasties, time hopping weirdos, and the frigg’n Devil’s divorce court woes — what’s the point?
At any rate, despite the fact this book took a lot longer to write than I was anticipating, and took some interesting plot turns along the way, I had a blast writing it. New characters …new places … new problems … fourth wall breaking shenanigans … nothing was off the table.
All that said, I need to thank a few folks and hereby assign plausible culpability in the roles they played in the creation of this most apocryphal of tales. Foremost, I’m tossing some serious propage to my family unit, Sherrie, Jesse, and Kenz, for hanging in there while I spent more nights than not behind my computer screen swearing and acting generally grumpy-er. For as a part time vigilante author, I spend my days as a mild mannered member of society and my nights buried in the suburban jungle of my study where I pour out any remaining brain power into my literary misgivings. Not only are they cool with it, they even pretend to be interested in my farcical ideas once in a while. Thanks, hommies! Love you guys.
Next, I’d like to recognize Dr. Hans M. Holland, Professor of Applied Bloviation at the renowned Ginger Institute of Technology and Underwater Basket Weaving. Seriously though, can’t thank Hans enough for lending his scary powerful intellect and creative panache to helping frame out the story, talk through plot points, and beta read every chapter I wrote, re-wrote, and then re-wrote six more times over. Not only is Dr. H a great American — he makes really good beer. So he’s got that going for him…. which is nice. #RoosterBragh!
Speaking of reading my book a thousand times over…many, many thanks to the husband/wife dynamic editing duo of Julie and Keith (from the Clan Campbell) for turning my three hundred page conglomeration of bad punctuation and typos into a polished gem. I truly appreciate their efforts and sincerely hope that prolonged exposure to my mad ramblings doesn’t throw them into marriage counseling. #Dr.Phil
How about that book cover? Yeah, buddy. Give a shout to Mark Cooper of Mark Cooper Art who is one hell of a talented digital painter and a seriously good dude. One might even say that an amazing book cover such as that would make one hell of a nice seven foot poster…which may or may be sitting in my office at the moment. #Overkill? #Probably
Lastly, many thanks to all the folks that beta read along with me as I pushed out chapters at an impressively slow rate and/or sent along their encouragement for me to keep going (and hurry up). To that end, I’d like to ingloriously recognize Mike M, Noah S, Ginny L, Dale ‘Double O’ D, Jake G, Robin C, Tim ‘The Grunt’ W, Mark M, Mike P, Lisa P, and Marianne M (aka me Mum).
Alright, that’ll about do it. Thanks again for reading my wee novel and please stay tuned for the Guild of Deacons grand finale (Rage of the Heavens) at some point in 2018 barring any unforeseen global meltdown caused by mutated alien ecoterrorists…. which could seriously happen.
In the meantime, you can always visit me at www.jamesmacghil.com to get the dealio or to mercilessly heckle me. Whatever works.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Wrath of the Fallen: The Guild of Deacons, Book 2 Page 35
