Adam – from the Shadow Council Archives series by S.H. Roddey
Book 1: Gods & Monsters
Book 2: Blood & Bone
Book 3: Between the Dim & the Dark
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for GODS & MONSTERS
They have worked behind the scenes of society for centuries, protecting humans from threats beyond their understanding. They are The Shadow Council, and these Archives are the stories of their members and adventures throughout recorded history. From folk heroes to monsters out of darkest nightmare, the Shadow Council Archives explore the world beyond mundane understanding.
He is the original horror novel. He is the first science fiction hero. He is Adam, creation of Victor Frankenstein, and he is more than dead, but less than alive. And he is being hunted.
From the pages of the Quincy Harker novellas comes this original tale of Adam, Frankenstein’s monster, in his earliest days. Wandering Europe shortly after the death of his “father,” Victor, Adam encounters a secret society determined to unlock the mysteries of life and death. He’s seen this obsession before. It never ends well.
Blood, lust, life, death, and friendship are all explored in this incredible look into the mind of the original monster.
MY REVIEW for GODS & MONSTERS
In the Shadow Council Archives, Adam has his own file. Frankenstein’s Monster.
Ms. Roddey brings to life this introspective being, who has major daddy issues. Even more so when a group of cultists seek him out to raise Frankenstein from the dead into unnatural immortality using the perverted blueprint of life Dr. Frankenstein had used to create his manufactured offspring.
The Brotherhood wants immortality at any costs, and they think the Doctor can bring give it to them. Uncle Luke, as Quincy calls him – known to most people as Dracula, crosses path with Adam while investigating the Brotherhood.
Will Adam overcome his nature or will his bestial anger take over? With Luke helping the assembled man called Adam, can the perversion of life be stopped? Can two monsters make a right?
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for BLOOD & BONE
The Brotherhood has returned, with a demon-summoner in Paris.
Adam must go to the City of Lights to do battle with an ancient evil.
Luke is keeping secrets that may test the limits of Adam’s strength and endurance.
There is a greater evil behind The Brotherhood than anyone knows.
S.H. Roddey returns to the Shadow Council Archives, the tales of bygone days in the world of Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter, with Blood & Bone, a tale of intrigue, revenge, magic, lust, and love with ripples that will be felt throughout history. The evil Brotherhood has captured a woman capable of summoning demons, and they plan to unleash her evil upon the City of Lights, Paris. Adam has been enlisted by his sometimes friend, sometimes companion Vlad Dracula to rid the world of this evil.
But there’s something about this woman that Dracula isn’t telling him, and those secrets may get Adam killed…
MY REVIEW for BLOOD & BONE
Adam returns in the second book of this Shadow Council Archive series about Frankenstein’s Monster. The flavor of the Victorian mashes up well with modern sensibilities under S.H. Roddey’s tender author mercies as Adam continues his quest of personhood. And while he has this noble quest, he is like most of us, while introspective, life is about living day-to-day life, surviving – both escaping boredom and escaping our baser nature. (Such a Victorian conundrum.)
Adam is concentrating on this when Luke (most people call him Dracula) drops by for a visit. The Brotherhood have become active again in their quest for immortality. This time innocents are on the line.
And if you want to get the attention of Adam, both the sensitive and the monster sides, endangering children will do it. But can Adam keep his steadily increasing rage issues under control long enough to save lives instead of end them?
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BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for BETWEEN THE DIM & THE DARK
A castle on a lake.
A lonely woman.
A darkness lurking just out of reach…
Adam knows something is about to happen when his vampire friend takes him to the home he never wanted: Castle Frankenstein in Geneva. Having successfully eradicated the Frankenstein bloodline, the old house belongs to Adam, and with it come all of his father’s possessions. Through Victor Frankenstein’s journals, he begins to learn the truth about himself and his origins.
On the other side of the lake, Mary Godwin is unhappy with her current living situation. Her housemates, more interested in debauchery than intellect, mock her pain and laugh in the face of her grief. She and Adam find themselves tangled around one another after a chance meeting that turns the sleepy banks of Lake Geneva into a burning battleground.
History knows nothing of the events of that dreary June. Only the Shadow Council can tell the truth. The Shadow Council Archives are historical accounts of events witnessed by the Shadow Council, a shadowy cabal of folk heroes and anti-heroes from the Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter series by John G. Hartness.
MY REVIEW for BETWEEN THE DIM & THE DARK
The Victorian language bathes a reader in ash and rain when Adam returns to his birthplace in this story. In Geneva he meets Mary Goodwin as she holidays in a nearby cottage with her fiancée Percy Shelly … yes, that Mary … their path crossing has she heaves her angst from the death of her daughter against stone, both of them getting soaked in the rain.
Inside, her companions, Percy, Lord Byron, and John William Polidori, ignore her emotions, trading compassion for pipe and drink. Outside, Mary and Adam discover kindred spirits.
When the Brotherhood return to harass the patchwork man yet again, will the new relationship continue to blossom or will it wilt from betrayal? Because someone from the summer cottage is connected to the Brotherhood and called them to Adam’s location.
While not as action-oriented as the previous two stories, Dim & Dark continues Ms. Roddey’s incredible language and mythos.
