Books with author Claude Clayton Smith

2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Winner! "Clayton Smith is the most innovative fairytale storyteller in ages. Mabel is a genuine heroine ready to take the place of Harry Potter and Katniss for the next generation of kids.""Mabel Gray...is an imaginative romp around a fantastical world of wizards, talking statues, skeletons, a Grandfather Tree...it is whimsical" - Windy City ReviewsAll is not well in Brightsbane, the village of eternal night. An evil wizard—the very wizard who swallowed the sun, in fact—has stolen The Boneyard Compendium, a book of powerful spells that could bring about the destruction of the entire town. When an Elder enlists the orphans of St. Crippleback’s Home for Waifs and Strays to help track down the wizard, the ever-intrepid Mabel Gray sets out to find the three keys of bone that unlock the Compendium before the wizard gets his diabolical hands on them. Armed with only her wit and a frightfully small bit of magic in her pocket, Mabel embarks on an adventure that brings her face-to-face with talking scarecrows, high-ranking monsters, babbling witches, ill-tempered daemons, a riddlesome owl who fancies himself a raven, and more. But the wizard isn’t a wizard for nothing, and his evil magic may prove to be more powerful than Mabel ever imagined...

In the spring of 1651, nearly half a century before the infamous witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, a woman known as Goody Bassett was hanged for witchcraft in Stratford, Connecticut. Few facts are known about this woman and the events surrounding her persecution. This haunting and moving novel, crafted from those few facts as well as detailed accounts of Stratford's early history, tells the tale of young Ruth Paine -- later Goodwife Basset -- and how her singular experience beyond the confines of her Puritan world ultimately leads to her demise. Rich in historical insight, The Stratford Devil gives a touching look into the painfully isolated world of an independent woman as she struggles to survive in circumstances beyond her control. With its focus on religion and terror, The Stratford Devil is a parable for our times.

All is not well in Brightsbane, the village of eternal night. An evil wizard—the very wizard who swallowed the sun, in fact—has stolen The Boneyard Compendium, a book of powerful spells that could bring about the destruction of the entire town. When an Elder enlists the orphans of St. Crippleback’s Home for Waifs and Strays to help track down the wizard, the ever-intrepid Mabel Gray sets out to find the three keys of bone that unlock the Compendium before the wizard gets his diabolical hands on them. Armed with only her wit and a frightfully small bit of magic in her pocket, Mabel embarks on an adventure that brings her face-to-face with talking scarecrows, high-ranking monsters, babbling witches, ill-tempered daemons, a riddlesome owl who fancies himself a raven, and more. But the wizard isn’t a wizard for nothing, and his evil magic may prove to be more powerful than Mabel ever imagined...

Private Investigator Terrance Blake spends most of his days shadowed by an event from his past, while dismantling the lives of those driven by the masochistic need to confirm the lies they deny are cold, hard truths, until Hollywood socialite Jane Teagarden calls him for only the third time in years with news on the whereabouts of her runaway brother, Marlon.Marlon Teagarden has been a ghost for ten years, traveling through the underbelly of society as a means of blotting out a past allegedly rife with child abuse, until he is chosen to Ride the Centipede, leading to the ultimate experience, courtesy of literary translator of languages and drug-infused visions from inner and outer space, William S. Burroughs.

Private Investigator Terrance Blake spends most of his days shadowed by an event from his past, while dismantling the lives of those driven by the masochistic need to confirm the lies they deny are cold, hard truths, until Hollywood socialite Jane Teagarden calls him for only the third time in years with news on the whereabouts of her runaway brother, Marlon.Marlon Teagarden has been a ghost for ten years, traveling through the underbelly of society as a means of blotting out a past allegedly rife with child abuse, until he is chosen to Ride the Centipede, leading to the ultimate experience, courtesy of literary translator of languages and drug-infused visions from inner and outer space, William S. Burroughs.Just your average road trip chase through the dark frontier of addiction and alternative realities gone sideways.Not quite.Also along for the ride, at the behest of a mysterious employer, is a nuclear-infused force of corrupt nature, “some kind of new breed of human and radiation, a blotch, an aberration, cancer with teeth.”Allow me to introduce you to Rudolf.Rudolf Chernobyl.Let the games begin…