Get exicted to meet the family. Blood Family is the third book in the four-part Martyr’s Vow series published by Shadowspark Publishing. It will hit the streets Dec. 15, 2024, mere days from now.
The first part of the Martyr’s Vow series is Accursed Son, which introduces the main protagonist Armand Tarkanian (later called Tark by his Legion of the Lamb buddies), an embalmer who sees the ghosts of those he embalms. Armand is Armenian-American and Armenian culture and traditions play a big part in the series. The Martyr’s Vow focuses on old Armenian myths and legends, the beliefs that shaped pre-Christian Armenia. Here you get the heroes, gods and goddesses, and monsters from folklore that have bled into modern times, namely Fresno, California. We’re talking urban fantasy, paranormal, and elements of family saga and folk horror.
Mr. Penny-Farthing is book two of the Martyr’s Vow and takes place three years after Tark and his girlfriend Vonnie leave Fresno. The couple is struggling to make ends meet and repair their frayed relationship in Arizona. When a gaunt, pale gent on a penny-farthing bicycle tasks the pair with finding an escaped soul of a serial killer, Tark and Vonnie find themselves battling demons and looking for their neighbor’s daughter who may have something to do with the case.
As I mentioned earlier, Blood Family is the third book and picks up the action after Tark and Vonnie return to Fresno. In Blood Family, Tark gets an invitation from his mother’s family in Watertown, Massachusetts, a town outisde of Boston with one of the largest concentrations of ethnic Armenians on the east coast. The Barsamian family are mourning their deceased patriarch, and Tark is invited. He wants to learn more about his bloodline curse, so he and Vonnie board an airplane and are off to Boston.
What they find is basically the Armenian Addams Family: a strange woman who practices Armenian folk magic, a man obsessed with bloodlines, a young man who weighs hundreds of pounds who sits in his room and cries, and an elderly woman who butchers sheep for food in her backyard abbattoir. Tark wakes up in pain after something bit his foot at night, and wanders into the attic, where the family keeps their biggest secret.
Their investigation leads Tark and Vonnie to Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, and Harvard University. Tark also confronts his family’s painful history and learns the shocking truth about St. Razmik and the Martyr’s Vow.
You don’t have to read the first two books to enjoy Blood Family. I wrote each novel to be self-contained adventures, but if you like mythical escapades with a little bit of humor and heart, check out the whole series.
If you’re interested in reading Blood Family, you can put the book on your “to read book list” at Goodreads here.
Blood Family is available in ebook and paperback here.
Eric Avedissian 