Inspiration is a living thing and it is hungry...
Terra Desmarais's success as the next big artist in NYC is absolutely inevitable. Her patrons, the associates, Mr. Black, Mr. Silver, and Mr. Green, can practically taste the raw talent dripping from the enigmatic trailer park prodigy's dollar store paints.
Up and coming pastel artist Cedric Fleck is a lucky discovery of the associates. Rescued from oblivion by Mr Green, put up in a studio by Mr. Silver and paraded around on the arm of Mr. Black should be the dream. But within the steady stream of great press and even better parties, Cedric can't shake the sense that something is very wrong. He wants to hate Terra for her overnight success, but he's taken by her earnest love of art.
As the artists around them crash and burn, and Cedric struggles to break free from the toxic seduction of Mr. Black, Terra is only concerned with her strange and compelling paintings. She seems to want nothing of the fame, the money, the sex or the drugs. As greed exposes the true colors of the associates, and Terra is too lost in her art to notice the danger, Cedric discovers that inspiration is a living thing, and it is hungry.
Review :
"Devious, suspenseful, and wickedly wry, MUSE is a visceral story about the cost of creation for the artists who embody it, the mavens who crave it, and the dangerous forces that make it all happen."
- Dennis Mahoney, author of Dear Demon
"Muse is one of the more original books that I have read in quite some time."
-John Watson, The Horror Book Review
"A vibrant story about the intersection of art and suffering, and the predators behind the scenes looking for their pound of flesh, both literally and figuratively."
-William J. Donahue, author of Only Monsters Remain and Find Your Way Back to Me
"LCW Allingham understands women at a visceral level and art at a deeply spiritual level."
-Ef Deal, author of The Twins of Bellesfees Series
"LCW Allingham goes places you don't want to go so you don't have to. This blew me away. Such a beautiful rendering of art, horror, and fantasy, it was impossible to look away."
-Chris Bauer, author of Cobalt and Cradle, the Maximum Risk series
"Muse is a novella that uniquely explores the mysteries of creativity, the people who possess such talents, and those who would exploit them."
- Lucas Mangum, author of Saint Sadist and Gods of the Dark Web
