JP’s pistol tastes like bourbon.
Sergeant JP Grimm
didn’t pull the trigger. Now his Marine brothers are dead. All victims of a child
in a suicide vest…a child that resembled Sgt. Grimm’s very own. But how are you
supposed to take a child’s life? How can you kill someone that looks just like
your own son?
Those same hazel eyes he saw in his scope continue to haunt him long after he left the desert death lands as he tries to reconnect with his son, Adin. JP battles another war at home against PTSD and the worthless, dejected thoughts that he is the reason his friends are dead. His wife, Lisa, struggles to let her stubborn husband work it out on his own terms. She does all she can to give him space, support, and strength—but her love can only go so far.
As the world shows signs of impending doom from a weakening magnetic field and flaring sun, JP, too, shows signs of his own impending doom. After pushing everyone away, JP must face his nightmares to restore his relationship with his son, save his marriage, and save himself before the modern world burns out in a fiery, electromagnetic disaster.
read an excerpt...But he wasn’t thinking about any of that. Instead, his thoughts were on the dead. The man who raised him, the men who fought with him, and the friend he let die in the dirty streets of Iraq. He was thinking about life’s cruel and crippling punishments for the mistakes that are made.
With a hot gut, he stood and carried himself and his pistol to the window of the timbered front door. There, his quivering hand brushed aside the curtain, and he peered into the night. The moon cast long shadows like the sun in the desert. Even at home, he couldn’t escape their reach.
He lifted his gun to the glass. A dull clink sounded when he pressed it against the pane. A sudden dread shimmered at his neck. His eyes narrowed while scanning the front yard and rolling corn stocks, chopped and twisted from the late summer’s cut.
Someone’s out there! he thought, feeling eyes upon him and switching the button on his tac-light mounted under his pistol. A bright beam flooded the front lawn. He pressed his forehead to the chilled glass and slid his light back and forth. Nothing. But a prowler still lurked around him. He searched as the light lit up the trees like statues in the yard. With each sweep, he thought he found the threat. But no. Only trees and toys and a truck.
His heavy breath blew waves into the curtain. He flicked off the light and let the curtain fall into place. The gun sunk to his side. His weary glare rose to the timber beams above him. “What am I doing?” he whispered.
With a moping drift, he made his way over to his chair and glass, slugged back the rest of the whiskey, and pulled up his text messages. He flicked past the long line of ignored texts from his hometown friends asking him to come out for a beer, to play cards, or just hang out for a while. But, he couldn’t. He wasn’t that guy anymore. So, he flipped briskly through the days, leaving those old memories alone, until he found Cpl. Richardson’s name. He hammered the words with his thumb and sent them before he changed his mind.
Jacob Paul Patchen is an award-winning author and poet of inciting fiction and provocative poetry.
Jacob earns his inspiration through experience and believes every book has a purpose. He writes powerful, emotional, and thrilling stories about mental health, war, social stigmas, and other taboo subjects in order to bring awareness, change, and hope to those who need it.
Raised in Southeast Ohio, he’s a sucker for fast workouts, long laughter, and power naps. Snacks are his love language, and he thinks he’s a Pisces. Check him out and join his newsletter at Jacobpaulpatchen.com
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ReplyDeleteI think the cover looks great. Sounds like a good book.
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