Far beneath the waters off Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, an ancient evil is awakened and an archeologist’s dream suddenly becomes the world’s nightmare.
Far beneath the waters off Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, an ancient evil is awakened and an archeologist’s dream suddenly becomes the world’s nightmare. A small town reporter and his wife try to put the pieces of their lives back together after losing their unborn child, and soon find themselves thrust headlong into the midst of bizarre and terrifying events neither of them could have predicted.
From the dark forests of the Great Dismal Swamp to the underground caverns of Cat Island in the Caribbean, the reanimated body of Blackbeard the Pirate moves with blind fury and a single-minded purpose ... to open the gates of Hell on an unsuspecting world. One man knows the true secret of Diablero, and he must be found before time runs out, not only for those who seek to stop the demon, but for the entire human race.
Excerpt
Dan quickly realized it wasn‘t any marine life he‘d seen before. The creature, or whatever it was, seemed to be digging its way out from under the sand, pushing its way up out of the ground like a mole.
When he got close enough to see what it was, he froze, holding the beam steady, mesmerized by the sight. There were two things pushing sand out of the way now, and something else rising up in the midst of them. A cloud of silt spread out around the thing, partially obscuring it from Dan‘s view.
Suddenly it broke free of the ocean floor and rose up like a nightmarish monolith, the cloud of dirt swirling in the lamplight like smoke from the fires of Hell.
Dan‘s last thought before utter panic set in was that the thing standing before him should not, could not, be alive.
Without thinking, Dan dropped the AquaSun, then reached down and unfastened his weight belt, letting it fall to the sea floor. He began to rise quickly, ignoring his decompression stops on the way to the surface; but his terrified mind raced beyond logic. Dan didn‘t bother switching gases on his mixed gas suit, which resulted almost immediately in hypoxia. He muttered incomprehensibly as Jonathan, who had been monitoring Dan‘s depth gauges from the Lucille, screamed things into the radio that Dan could not begin to comprehend.
He ascended in seconds from three hundred feet to two-hundred-and-sixty feet—two hundred . . . one hundred, his blood filling with gas bubbles and entering his brain, which would soon cause a massive gas embolism.
In a matter of minutes, Dan bobbed to the surface and tried in vain to grab the ladder fastened to the side of the Lucille, but his hands no longer obeyed his brain. His eyes rolled in his head like two runaway marbles and he began frothing at the mouth.
Jonathan hoisted Dan out of the water and dragged him across the deck, then laid him out on the deck. With much effort, he pried off Dan‘s helmet. The ocean air hit Dan and brought him back momentarily to semi-consciousness. Dan managed to gain control of his eyes, if only for a second. Just long enough to recognize the face of his friend, Jonathan, who was mouthing words that he could no longer understand.
With every last ounce of strength, Dan grabbed Jonathan by his shirt collar and pulled him close. Something important he had to tell him. Jonathan had to know, had to be made to understand.
Dan forced the words from his brain to his mouth, concentrating every bit of effort into making his lips move, praying to God that he was saying what he meant to say,that Jonathan understood his babbling.
Then, Dan released his grip on Jonathan, lay his head down on the hard wooden deck of the ship, and drifted off into the darkness.
Professional Reviews
Goodreads.com
I was privileged to be allowed to read this book prior to it's release. WOW! Talk about a killer book! From Virginia and North Carolina, to the Caribbean and back, this book is spellbinding.
Someone uses a voodoo type spell to awaken Blackbeard. The beheadings begin. A young couple that have just lost their unborn child and are on the edge of a divorce are thrust into the story almost from word go. Lisa Singleton, a park ranger, is working on the first beheading. Hunter, her soon to be ex is a gonzo journalist for the local paper covering the story. Both are about to become entrapped in a web of deception. And yet the beheadings continue. One is witnessed. You literally find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat and hoping that neither of them is next.
The author has created characters that are both memorable, and as familiar and the neighbors next door.
Tate has the makings of a younger James Rollins, the archeological bent of David Gibbons, and the sense of the macabre that is Stephen King. He also drew the cover!
I wouldn't recommend this book be read if it's dark, and you're alone. You just never know if the foot steps you hear outside your door are a treat for you, or a pirate!
This new book is being released by a smaller company, Nightbird Publishing, in October, 2010, but can be obtained by your local bookseller. Be sure you have a 1st edition. This is one you're going to want to have signed!
Horror News.net
At some point during childhood almost every little boy, or in my case little girl, fantasized about being a pirate. Pirates symbolized everything a child dreamed for; adventure, danger, the freedom to do whatever you wanted without an adult figure telling you no. For some the way the stories and movies romanced the pirates called to them. Those like me it was the occult legends the lured us in. For whatever reason you may have to like pirates you more than likely will be able to find it somewhere in the pages of Toby Tate’s Diablero.
During Saturdays airing of The Barret-Jackson Car Auction writer and explorer Clive Cussler said during an interview, "…Ships won’t be found until they want to be." I didn’t have any paper or my laptop handy, so that may not be an exact quote. Those few words rang true for many explorers no matter what they are looking for. It also sums up how Diablero starts. From the start Diablero is written in a way that seemed more like one of the better made for SyFy channel movies rather than a book with its short scenes dealing with one group of characters before switching to scenes of another. Conversations are conveniently repeated by more than one group without any of the members being around during the last conversation. I would say it’s a cheap way to move the plot along, but it fits in with what’s going on. If the detail that explains the reason for the repeats of conversation is thrown in as a last minute correction it is done in a way that does not seem like it. Much like the newest novel in a Young Adult Series I will not mention by name, Diablero has no chapters, but instead has skulls and crossed swords to put breaks into the story that I found very creative and in tune with the plot. These little scenes or Chapters, if they must be called, were sometimes only a couple pages long. The Chapters could have been a little longer without taking anything away from the plot, but I found it to be a bold choice by Mr. Tate by not doing what so many horror novels do. There also wasn’t much description placed into the novel. What description was in the novel was very memorable and may not have been if the whole book was filled with great description.
The characters are all different from each other and in true horror movie fashion some are stereotyped. Mr. Tate does not rely on covering up who is good and who is bad in the book. It was fairly easy to figure out sometimes even during the characters first appearance in the book what characters were on what side. Unlike your normal horror movie though it is all set up that way for a reason that benefits the plot. For example the character Lisa reminded me of Monet St. Croix from several of the Marvel Comics X-Titles. Lisa is described to be perfect in almost every way except for her personality. Due to events that happened prior to the book’s beginning she’s become very cold and basically a bitch. As the book plays out she learns to never forget what happened, but to forgive and realize that what happened affected other people too and just not herself. The plot of the book is just as much her journey of forgiveness as much as it is Blackbeard’s journey to finish what was started several years ago. Blackbeard is kept in the shadows for half the book as the demon worked his way towards completing his first goal, but once he stepped forward into the plot with the other characters he became more than just a horror novel monster. Blackbeard contained just as much heart and soul as the protagonists and supporting characters did making him one of the more unforgettable characters from the novel.
If you’re looking for something new you won’t find it in Diablero. You will however find an enjoyable modern day take on Blackbeard’s tale.
Moonlit Dreams.org
Diablero is a sci-fi fantasy novel written by Toby Tate and being released by Nightbird Publishing this October. Sample chapters are available HERE.
I was immediately swept away off the coast of North Carolina, diving its waters in search of a long lost Pirate ship, as I began turning the pages of this awesome tale. While I have spent most of my life in northeastern North Carolina, I felt I was seeing the coast and the inland waters of the Dismal Swamp anew. I love to be transported to new places when I read, and while many of these settings were as familiar to me as my own backyard, I was seeing these places freshly through the eyes of the many characters that jumped off the pages. For a moment I became Dan, gasping for breath as the discovery of a lifetime turned into a frightful accident. I saw the world through a reporter's eyes as Hunter Singleton began investigating a strange death in the middle of the Dismal Swamp for The Daily Tribune, and then I continued to read because I couldn't help but turn the pages!
Toby manages to put the reader firmly in the middle of the story by having characters, so rich in detail they feel like old friends. I am horrible for giving away spoilers when I write reviews, so in an effort not to do that, I would like to say - you don't know what you're missing! This is one unputdownable book, from start to finish! I wish Toby lots of luck with his second book, that I know is already in the works, because I can't wait to get my hands on it!
