Carnelian – Book Excerpt

Welcome friend! It’s a new week and we are going to talk about some new books. 🙂 First off. some months back, I hosted a cover reveal for Jules Devito’s Carnelian. This novel is now out! Let’s chat with the author and learn more.

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Get to know the author: Jules Devito

Welcome Jules! Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!

Hi, I’m Jules and this is my debut novel! I’m a single mom by choice. I live with my son and my mom on the south fork of Long Island. We have two dogs, fish, and various birds. I’m a massage therapist and professional dancer, and occasional dance teacher. When I was five years old, I dictated a book of poetry to my mom, which she typed up and stapled together. I haven’t stopped writing since. When I’m not writing or working, I like to spend time by the ocean.

What inspired you to write this book?

I’ve loved vampire lore since my teens, so in a way, this book has been with me for a long time. Its working title was Possum Kingdom, after the song by The Toadies. Like most of my stories, this one started with characters that I wanted to put into situations, and this seemed like a really fun situation (for me. Obviously not for the characters!)

How long did it take you to write this book, from the first idea to the last edit?

 From idea to last edit? This book was in limbo for a few years as it bounced around among agents and and publishers, does that count? I started the first draft in the summer of 2018 and finished it on October 31^st of that same year. I did my final edits in June of 2024! But there was a period of a few years in there when it was just kind of sitting there, or looking for a home, which it finally found in Inked In Gray.

What makes your story unique?

I think this is a really different take on vampires, as they navigate the dangerous world of privately-financed or barter-system healthcare.

Who would enjoy reading your book?

Anyone who likes their humor dark, or their horror light. Also probably anyone who was a fan of The Lost Boys!

What’s something you hope readers would take away from it?

I tried not to make a lot of statements in this book, and mostly to keep it fun entertainment, but I think one of the themes is the inherent worth of every person, and that worth not being based on how hard you work, how much money you’re able to spend, or what you are able to contribute to a system of capitalism.

Do you have a favourite quote or scene in the book that you find yourself going back to?

“Millennials killed the killing industry!” I thought that one was pretty funny.

What is something you have learned on your author journey so far?

Patience and persistence!

If you could give a shout out to someone(s) who has helped in your writer journey, please feel free to mention them below!

Lauren Davila. I can’t overstate how much Lauren went to the wall for this novel.

You mentioned this is the first book of a series. How many books are there? Do you have ideas for another series or story?

This one is not part of a series, but I do have a “trunk novel!” Also, in 2015, I wrote another novel about a global pandemic that was mishandled by a US president who then refused to leave office, resulting in the firebombing of the White House. It got shelved in 2016. But, uhh, we try not to talk about that novel for various reasons.

Where can readers find you on the Internet?

X, Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. Learn more on my website.

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Book Excerpt from
Carnelian

Chapter 1
Jesse
October 13^th 

Six crows sat on a wire cawing at the sky, silhouetted by late afternoon sun. What did six crows foreshadow? It didn’t matter, did it? One day soon, Jesse Westchurch would get into a bed and never leave it again, as his father had.

Dogs barked and caught tennis balls thrown by their owners, all of whom would probably still be alive by the time winter rolled around. He should have waited until he was home to check his Patient Health Record account. Any of his clients could see him here, on a bench in a dog park of all places, crying over his phone.

Tears blurred the images, and Jesse wiped his face on his sleeve. He was a doctor, he knew what he was looking at. With results like this, he would be looking at his patient ― or rather, his patient’s owner ― with sympathy, and they would ask him if there were any options, or if euthanasia was the right choice. He would tell them that euthanasia wasn’t the wrong choice if only suffering lay ahead. 

Jesse had no such option and wouldn’t take it if he did. Some fool was bound to tell him to stay hopeful, that a cure might be right around the corner, that there were clinical trials. He would stay hopeful, too. He would seek out the trials in whatever time he had left. 

Trials would drain away his family’s savings, all the money he and Stella had been saving to buy the practice. Stella took her role as big sister to heart; she would tell him to do it anyway, and when he was gone, she’d be taking care of their mom and Finn on her own. Finn at twenty-five was harder to deal with than teenage Finn, he had become so distant lately. How would Stella even begin to deal with that, on top of her grief? These questions were no longer hypothetical.

Jesse couldn’t fathom being separated from his family. He couldn’t be separated from the shapes the sun was making on the grass as it danced through the leaves, from the scent of the bay on the autumn breeze, or the smell of the earth. He was only 33.

His phone pinged and a notification popped up, obscuring the images of his quick-time march into the void. It was from STELLA FIVESTAR. 

Mom wants to know if you’ll be home for dinner. Also Shep asked if you’ll work tomorrow cause he wants to go golfing and for you to do his surgeries for him, he says it’s just cats he’s being a dick

He pretended for a minute that he was going home for dinner, and everything would reset. They would talk about Doctor Shepherd and how they couldn’t wait until he retired, and what they would do with the practice once he was gone, how they wanted to update it. Mom would come downstairs for dinner. Finn would probably skulk out and they’d talk in serious tones about setting him down and making him tell them what was going on. These things had seemed overwhelming even yesterday.

Maybe he would ignore it all and not tell them, let it play out until it was obvious. A few more weeks of normalcy— what could it hurt? Stella’s bullshit meter was set pretty low; she’d know that something was going on, but this time the truth was worse than any dark path her mind would wander. 

He texted her back: I think I’m going to stay at Jared’s tonight. Then he added the 🙂 so she wouldn’t think something was up. Jesse never said no when Shep asked him to work.

STELLA FIVESTAR: K Jessebess have a good night. Too bad, I’m gonna grab some greek I don’t wanna cook long day LOL. I’ll save some for u

Jesse swiped tears from his eyes. 

Maybe they would name the dog park after him. 

“Doctor Jesse!” A woman jogged up to him, her pug trotting beside her, unleashed. She was small, with long, brown hair in a bun, fair skin, and she wore a coat a little too warm for autumn.

Jesse scrubbed a hand over his face and strained for a smile. It took a few seconds to place her: one of Stella’s clients, Marcie. . .  something?

“Doctor Jesse, how are you?” she asked. 

“I’m great!” Too cheerful, too forced. Scale it back. The pug came up to the bench and put its little paws on his legs. He scratched it behind the ears. 

“Barney, get down,” she said. Barney did not get down. “This dog just cost me hundreds of bucks. He will be the death of me, I swear.”

“What happened?” He genuinely didn’t care, but after he was gone, Stella would drag around his reputation forever.

“First thing,” she said, “he starts coughin’.”

I’ll have to tell Mom not to waste money on a coffin. Maybe put me in one of those pods so I can become a tree. People can sit under me. I can drop my nuts on their heads.

“Turns out he’d been eating rocks,” she went on. “Can you believe it?”

Or they can turn my ashes into a diamond and take turns wearing my pressurized corpse. 

“That’s not uncommon,” he finally managed. “We’ve done loads of obstruction surgeries.” He would probably never do another one.

The bells from the church down the street rang out five times.

“Oh, crap,” Marcie Something said, checking her phone. “I had no idea it was so late. For whom the bell tolls, right? Will you pass on our regards to Doctor Stella?” 

He searched her face for any indication that she was messing with him: eyes a little too tight, smile a little too rigid? His social programming was offline; he couldn’t read her, he could only stare.

He stood, startling Barney. “Yes, sorry. I’m late for a thing. . .  dinner. I will send your regards to Doctor Stella, of course.”

She smiled a little too long.

His heart battered at his ribs as he left the park and made his way toward his car. When he looked back, the woman and the pug were gone.

He should call Jared. They’d been seeing each other for eight months; it was probably fair to share this with him. Besides, Jesse wanted to hear another human voice. He would keep this from Stella and Mom for as long as he could, but his boyfriend should know. He dialed him, but it went to voicemail. 

“Hey, Jared.” He put a stop to the quivering in his voice. “Um. . .  give me a call when you get a second. Are you free tonight for dinner? Okay, give me a call.”

As soon as he hung up, a deeper, older urge filled him. He scrolled through his texts until he found one from three months back. He clicked it, and typed:

Hey Lucy. I always thought there’d be time for us to bang, but I’ll be dead soon so if you don’t want to miss the window of opportunity, call me. I’m at the dog park that they’re going to name after me.

  He deleted it unsent. He couldn’t do that to Jared, nor could he put Lucy on the spot like that. Immediately, another notification popped up.

Lucy<3: Jesse, where are you?

Okay, that wasn’t too strange: they did have that ‘I had a feeling you were about to call’ thing between them, and a way of living in each other’s heads. God, could he even tell Lucy? Sixteen years of friendship. Lucy would mourn, maybe even freak out, and Jesse wasn’t sure he could deal with that. Or maybe instead they’d make a terrified attempt at humor together: Lucy would say that being alive was so mainstream anyway, they’d call each other hipsters, and laugh through their tears.

Lucy<3: Jesse text me. Please.

When he didn’t answer, the phone started ringing: “Peace up, A-town down!” and the opening notes to Usher’s “Yeah!” – Lucy’s ringtone.

Not yet. He couldn’t deal with Lucy’s grief on top of his own. The phone stopped ringing. 

Lucy<3: Please, it’s important.

  He waited another ten minutes for Jared to call him back, but his phone didn’t ring again.

Lucy<3: I’m in town. I came home last night.

He could drive around town until the rest of the family was in bed. 

Lucy<3: Turn on your location, we need to talk

Lucy<3: Jesse!

The crows leapt off the wire and flew over him. Their black wings reminded him of Lucy’s hair. 

Jared didn’t call back, so Jesse got in his car.

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Interested?

Add Carnelian on IndieStoryGeek and Goodreads.

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