Rabbit Rue: Book One of the Phase Cycle

Tammond Dale, a peaceful burg of succor and madness cowers at the whim of Rabbit Rue, who sups upon the souls of the undone. Malicious Rue, spinner of dreams that rend and tempt oblivion to swirl through madness and despair, rules unopposed and unknown, biding 'till his shackles fall to cinders. This town has failed to shrug the churn and plods among the damned, clinging to tattered shreds of former, clichéd lives. When providence blows Kyle and his family to the harrowed gulch and into the arms of Adriana, the girl Rue so jealously guards, he too becomes snared within warped visions of insanity and horror. Confused and fatigued by Rue's cruel assault, he unearths clues that lead to Old Town, a hollow bastion of Tammond Dale's uneasy past. But to resist is exhausting, and he withers, and Rue is aided by relentless minions in wisps of swirling shadow. His life, humanity, and realty all hinge on understanding he lacks. His only hope exists beyond time, and the glimmer of escape from chaos it can offer...

Shaun was born in 1977 in Olympia, Washington with a major congenital heart defect. Until his corrective surgery in 1984, he could partake in very little physical activity due to lack of oxygen. This set the stage for him to become an avid reader. For most of his early life, libraries and books became his solace and inspiration. Though he's been writing since the age of twelve, Shaun never pursued writing as more than a hobby, having grown up poor and unwilling to risk resuming that lifestyle. Instead, he graduated from Cornell College in 1999 with a double major in Mathematics and Computer Science with a minor in Physics, following another love he'd always cultivated: curiosity of the physical world. Along with the dark tint carried from his early brush with death, science and philosophy always color his stories. Shaun currently works as a database administrator in the Chicago area. He and his wife Jennifer are both nerds at heart, happy to spend a day reading when time permits. Rabbit Rue is the first of three novels in Shaun's planned Phase Cycle. Stay tuned!