Category: author guest post

Bleeding on the page: An introduction to the new book ‘Bled’

I started writing the untitled short story which became Bled for an upcoming anthology called Nights Gone By. When I passed 10,000 words on it, I realized I had something way bigger and more involved than a short. I also realized that some of the characters from a previous novella called Shed had crept into the cafe where the main character works in this book. Uh oh, I thought. This means we’ve started a series!

And, sure enough, as the word count grew, I saw how things needed to evolve on the island where these 

two stories take place. And, I saw more stories beginning to form. Bled will not be the last book, novella or short tale to take place in the same universe as Shed.

There are more to come.

As for Teeny McLeod, her mom and the patrons of the Highliner Cafe, I’ll be honest when I say it all occurred to me when I was sitting at a cafe inside a big box store near where I grew up. Since memories of where I grew up mingle freely with the world of Dovetail Cove and Shed, the two worlds became mentally entwined.

I recognized the sixty-something waitress from when I was a kid and used to visit the same cafe with my grandparents. They would get their sixty-cent coffees and I would get a slice of pie and ice cream. Here was this waitress, all these years later, still pouring the coffee, still bringing out the dessert. I wondered what her life would have been like if, say, one thing had gone differently a long time ago.

I began on Bled, still without a title at that point, only an image of this waitress as a young woman. What might the world have looked like for her, I wondered. And away I went.

Bled: About the Novella

She only wanted to leave. But he took that option from her. Now she wants it back.

Set on the same island as the reader favorite Shed, the latest literary suspense novella from bestselling author Jason McIntyre picks up the Dovetail Cove saga with this story of one lonely woman…trapped.

Tina McLeod is on the cusp of a new life. Extraordinary change is rare in her world but this newsflash means she can finally leave her small island town for good. No more pouring coffee for townsfolk in Main Street’s greasy spoon, no more living under the weight of her born-again mother. That is, until Frank Moort comes in for his usual lunch and dessert on an ordinary Friday in May.

Bled sees things turn backwards and upside down for each of them. Their encounter is prolonged and grotesque, the sort of thing splashing the covers of big city newspapers. Both are changed. And neither will come out clean on the other side.

A story about taking what’s not yours, Bled explores pushing back when you’ve been pushed too far. It paints in red the horrors from our most commonplace of surroundings: right out in the open where nothing can hide behind closed doors and shut mouths.

About the Author

Jason McIntyre has lived and worked in varied places across the globe. His writing also meanders from the pastoral to the garish, from the fantastical to the morbid. Vibrant characters and vivid surroundings stay with him and coalesce into novels and stories. Before his time as an editor, writer and communications professional, he spent several years as a graphic designer and commercial artist.

McIntyre’s writing has been called darkly noir and sophisticated, styled after the likes of Chuck Palahniuk but with the pacing and mass appeal of Stephen King. The books tackle the family life subject matter of Jonathan Franzen but also eerie discoveries one might find in a Ray Bradbury story or those of Rod Serling.

Jason McIntyre’s books include the #1 Kindle Suspense, The Night Walk Men, Bestsellers On The Gathering Storm and Shed, plus the multi-layered coming-of-age literary suspense Thalo Blue.

Bled: Teaser Trailer