A painting ruined Cole Sharpe’s life.
“Fans of Clive Barker will relish this slow and steady descent into Hell.”
—Andrew Hunt, Raven Banner Entertainment
“Stolen Pallor is a darkly profound novella that explores the dangerous power of art."
– Joseph Sale, author of The Claw of Craving
A painting ruined Cole Sharpe’s life.
When Cole was a boy, he survived an art gallery fire that killed his father and other dignitaries during the unveiling of a mysterious work called Gone By Morning. In the aftermath, Cole became a detective specializing in bizarre mysteries with the help of a mischievous psychic named Mikey.
Cole's newest case exposes him to a dark force that is infecting the art galleries of New Florence, a city so devoted to art that even street buskers can produce paintings worthy of Michaelangelo. A force which causes random patrons to freeze in place for hours and then disappear into the night. As Cole investigates further, unrelenting nightmares threaten his sanity.
Meanwhile, in a bleak counterpart to New Florence called Midnight Village, whose citizens are just as devoted to their own macabre artistic expression, the dark master who created Gone By Morning is preparing his final masterpiece—and plans on making Cole its finishing touch.
Joshua Viola is a Colorado Book Award winner and Splatterpunk Award nominee. He edited the Denver Post #1 bestselling horror anthology, Nightmares Unhinged, and co-edited Cyber World—named one of the best science fiction anthologies of 2016 by Barnes & Noble. He is the co-author of the comic book slasher series True Believers with Stephen Graham Jones, which features official cameos by Jamie Lee Curtis, R.L. Stine, Matt Heafy, GWAR, Devon Sawa, Jeffrey Combs, and more. As a producer, he has worked on films like Skinner's Shrine of Abominations, Deathgasm 2: Goremageddon, and most recently with Slash of Guns N' Roses on Steven Kostanski's Deathstalker reboot. As a videogame developer, he worked on Pirates of the Caribbean: Call of the Kraken and TARGET: Terror. He is co-owner of Bit Bot Media with Hollywood musician, Klayton (Celldweller), co-owner of Metal X Entertainment with Bram Stoker Award winner James Aquilone, and the owner and chief editor of Hex Publishers. He lives in Denver, Colorado, with his husband and son. Learn more at JoshuaViola.com.
Sean Eads is a writer and librarian from Denver, Colorado. He is the author of 5 novels and 1 short story collection, and has been a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Colorado Book Award. His next novel, Lost Story, is about Ernest Hemingway. You can find him online at www.seaneads.net.