The Gatekeeper - Coming 09.30.2011. Cover Preview

Four Talismans of Power: The Cup, the Spear, the Sword and the Stone. Throughout history they have been known by many names including the Grail, the Spear of Destiny, Excalibur and Tara. Their power is legendary and their individual appearance in this dimension has always heralded great change. Together they could bring about a time of peace and enlightenment or they could unleash Hell on Earth. They have not been brought together since the forging of the world - until now.

Investigating a series of murders linked to a druidic sect practising the dark arts, Inspector John Holmes is unwittingly led to play a pivotal role in a ritual from the ancient book, The Angelicus Infernal, thought to have been written by Lucifer himself.

The ritual brings the four talismans of power together and opens a gateway to a nightmare world that unleashes armies of hellish creatures that spread throughout Europe leaving mayhem, death and destruction in their wake.

The only hope for humanity is thought to be contained in a secret chapter in The Book of Kells written by The Columban monks in 800AD. Holmes must locate it and decipher the code in a race against time to close the Gates of Hell.

The Gatekeeper - Coming 09.30.2011

Four Talismans of Power: The Cup, the Spear, the Sword and the Stone. Throughout history they have been known by many names including the Grail, the Spear of Destiny, Excalibur and Tara. Their power is legendary and their individual appearance in this dimension has always heralded great change. Together they could bring about a time of peace and enlightenment or they could unleash Hell on Earth. They have not been brought together since the forging of the world - until now.

Get a FREE pdf of A PRELUDE TO THE APOCALYPSE

Leave your email address here under comments or email it to derekg(at)iol(dot)ie if you would prefer.

Aldergun Books

ALDERGUN BOOKS is an imprint, set up with my wife and partner-in-writing, Alice (I do the writing, she does everything else - editing, some covers, website derekgunn.com, blog, twitter, facebook etc.). We plan to release a number of new titles this year.

The reason we have set it up is to be able to bring some of my books direct to readers in ebook formats (which are now toppling paperbacks and hardbacks in sales, apparently) and to have control over pricing, publishing dates, cover design etc. For the moment, Aldergun Books titles will only be available in ebook format. Quite honestly, the reason is because I can price them low and the cost to readers of any paperbacks we published would be too high in the current economic climate, in my humble opinion.

Books published under the Aldergunn Books imprint will be available initially from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de. We will roll them out to include Smashwords (which will also distribute via B&N and iBooks etc.).

The first two titles were published in April/May:

Gemini - a full length spy/espionage/triller


A Prelude to the Apocalypse - a series of diary extracts written within my Vampire Apocalypse universe from the vampire's point of view and each is set in a different historical time period.



More full length novels are planned for release over the next few months so stay tuned!

Happy Birthday to THE ESTUARY!

To celebrate the second anniversary of The Estuary, I’m giving away three copies (winners choose either paperback or ebook) in a random drawing which will take place on June 30th 2011. The Estuary was published by Permuted Press on June 30th 2009. This competition is open to contestants worldwide.

The Estuary - new contest at the International Thriller Writers website - win free copies - no need to sign up or subscribe, just post your reply to enter at http://thrillerwriters.org/bookgiveaway/?p=314

Here’s a little about the book:

Journalist, John Pender has returned to his home town of Whiteshead to rekindle his marriage. Ex-British intelligence officer Dave Johnson has arrived to isolate himself after his fiancé is murdered during a mission that went terribly wrong. But excavations for the new shopping centre unearth a mysterious contagion that threatens to throw their lives into chaos.

Now the residents of Whiteshead are trapped within a quarantine zone with the military on one side and ravenous hordes of living dead on the other. Escape is no longer an option.

Far out in the mouth of the estuary a small Keep sits forlornly surrounded by an apron of jagged rocks. This refuge has always been unassailable, a place of myth and legend that has grown in folklore through the years. Now, it’s the survivors’ only hope of sanctuary. But there are thousands of flesh-eating infected between them and the Keep and time is running out …

“I want to immediately read a sequel and grab popcorn for the big screen movie adaption! This book is a definite recommendation for any fan of the horror and zombie subgenre as well as Gunn’s magnificent and adventurous writing style that will grab your bloody beating heart and never let go!” Fangoria

“some great action sequences, particularly towards the end of the novel. Gunn is able to write tension-filled scenes that kept me turning the pages. Gunn has created some very frightening monsters” Fatally Yours.com

“The Estuary, not your average Zombie Novel. Thank God! Derek Gunn gets it right with this novel of horror.” zombiefiction.com

Good luck!

Derek Gunn

A PRELUDE TO THE APOCALYPSE - now available

PRELUDE TO THE APOCALYPSE is a series of five works of short fiction written in Derek Gunn's VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE universe. Each is a diary entry written from a vampire's point of view and set in five different periods in history.

Buy at Amazon.com
Buy at Amazon.co.uk

Want a free copy? Click HERE for more details.

From the author:
The main kernel of my VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE series of books came from the proliferation of 'nice' vampires that are so popular in fiction today. I never saw the vampire as an aristocratic figure, noble to a fault and lonely for a good woman's, or man's love. I always saw them as creatures who had moved on from being human over the centuries. They do not consider themselves human, most have probably forgotten they ever were. They are creatures ruled by base hunger. For all their power they are slaves to a gnawing hunger that rules there very existence.

I have written some diary extracts recently as part of a back story to the VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE series. Over the course of the centuries we can see the changes going on inside the head of a vampire, how his thoughts of humanity, religion and his place in the world change him. I have tied this into the 'real' history of the world, offering a different view of how some of history's events actually happened, and the impact this had on the mindset of the vampire.

They are short vignettes that try to go some way to explain how these creatures can change so drastically. Even the most noble would change their attitudes over centuries and humans are food after all. How often do you have to eat meat to no longer consider the source as intelligent?

The GEMINI Giveaway

I’m giving away 2 digital copies of my latest thriller through Amazon Kindle. The winners will be randomly chosen on May 3rd 2011 from comments posted in reply to this contest. Winners will be notified by email so don’t forget to include it! Here's the link - The GEMINI Giveaway at the International Thriller Writers website
Here’s a little about the book:

GEMINI is a full length thriller novel by Irish writer, Derek Gunn.

Intelligence Officer Jack Lawson has to stop an elusive assassin from murdering the American President, but there’s a terminal order out on him.

Identical twin boys are born to the wife of the Deputy American Ambassador to Palestine and her illicit lover, a local businessman and a high ranking Palestinian activist in 1963. The twins are separated at birth and unaware of each other’s existence…until now.

Emil Hamad is reared in Palestine against the backdrop of the political unrest and is hell bent on restoring Palestine to its rightful owners. Jack Lawson is raised as the son of a prominent American Ambassador and chooses a career as a caretaker of American freedom and democracy. Each would see himself as a patriot.

The American Ambassador to Ireland is murdered while retrieving his young daughter from a kidnapping in Dublin. The White House Chief of Staff is found dead in his private swimming pool. Intelligence from Iraq has identified a $20 million per head contract for the five architects of the political and economical systems in post-Hussein Iraq. One of those architects is the President of the United States.

It’s a race against time for Military Intelligence Officer Jack Lawson to stop the elusive assassin known as The Hangman from murdering the remaining three. But now there’s a Terminal Order out on Lawson – DNA evidence places him at the scene of the kidnapping in Ireland. The hunter has become the hunted. Lawson is on the run to catch The Hangman, prove his own innocence and stop the assassination of the President.

Derek Gunn is the author of the VAMPIRE APOCALYPSE series of novels(A WORLD TORN ASUNDER, DESCENT INTO CHAOS, FALLOUT), THE ESTUARY and the SENTINELS OF THE SEA series of novellas. See http://www.derekgunn.com for more details.