Dahlia: The Velvet Witch and Her Dark Spirit : Urban Fantasy by David Minutillo ➱ Promotional Tour with Giveaway

Dahlia:
The Velvet Witch and Her Dark Spirit
by David Minutillo
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Romantic Thriller

Making a pact with the underworld isn’t a problem …
… but change the deal and hell breaks loose.

Dahlia’s world was turned upside down as a child and her innocence taken. But she chose to fight back with her own blend of magical mayhem. Levi has been let down by every person he’s ever loved. He’s betrayed, lost and about to end it all.

London, 2019. Our star-crossed lovers meet at a tattoo festival on the Thames. Big Ben might look the same, but magic is spilling onto the streets as Dahlia’s dark spirit begs for blood. Can she keep her raging orbit in check long enough to survive? Are they doomed? Or can Levi save them both?

You'll love this paranormal thrill-ride of beauty, chaos and despair which will keep you guessing until the bitter end.

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Excerpt 1

I wrap up class after mumbling about homework then meet Ruben out front.

“They looked disappointed it all came to an end.”

“Everything comes to an end,” I answer.

“Well, at least they’ll know how to paint it, thanks to their 35-year-old hipster teacher.”

“Is that a compliment or a fucking dig?”

“Jesus, you’re getting paranoid in your old age.”

I want to say, “Paranoia is just the tip of the iceberg,” but I’d rather gargle sand than talk about how broken I’ve become. I need another, ‘try-to-engage-with-the-world-more,’ spiel like I need a kick in the bollocks.

The walk north into Camden Town is silent, lazy and almost enjoyable with that soft hum playing its soundtrack over the top. The streets are free of human clutter as most have found their café of choice and dug in for a deep session of Sunday morning tabloids, beans and toast. The smell of tea and bacon blend well with the incense and grime of the markets and alleys that run around my hometown like dark veins of the underworld.

A thick blanket of gunmetal-grey clouds cover the sky. Autumn has long since fled, leaving winter with its grubby paws all over the weather. The air doesn’t feel as cold as it should so I take off my trench coat and sling it over my arm.

My lack of inspiration seems like a distant memory by the time we switch from the Northern line to the southbound Piccadilly track at King’s Cross. The ride is also quiet and pleasant, until an eccentric-looking woman, stands and moves into the centre of the carriage as we sway along the rails at speed.

“For the sake of my pride, I ask you to lend me your ears, while I riff you a tale of my lifelong woes,” the dishevelled woman sings to her audience.

Excerpt 2

We bounce from tent to tent, gawking at the wondrous displays on show. The buzz of tattoo guns is thick in the air, along with the smell of sterilised steel and ink. Only in a hospital would you find more bloodied body parts.

We stop to watch a lady have her inner thigh carved up with a vibrating weapon. Between the way the artist has her positioned and her very short skirt, nothing’s left to the imagination. But it’s his design that really has us drooling.

This festival is about so much more than tattoos. It represents an entire subset of society, the counterculture movement, those that choose not to conform and are proud of the fact. If it’s considered taboo, you’ll find it here. Each stand is an ode to the odd. One heavy-set man is flogging body rings and offering to, “throw the piercing in for free”. A husband-and-wife team stand behind a pyramid of homemade soap, each block coming with precise instructions on how to scrub your soul clean. Another display is merely hundreds of stacked plastic cages filled with docile rodents being cared for by a boy who barely looks thirteen.

We wander on, pushing each other and giggling like idiots. We’re riding high from our earlier escape and the cocktail of additives in our systems. The drugs are working nicely now. Our minds are on a spicy teapot ride. We stare endlessly at everything and focus on nothing. People’s faces roll in and out of our gaze and one lady even bothers to ask, “Are you two alright?” Probably not, but God, don’t it feel good.

Excerpt 3

Dahlia and I sink into each other as the energy builds in her too. We’re both glowing like brilliant suns with a need to prove nothing and gain it all. I close my eyes, put my hands on her belly and feel the force that’s giving her life.

The waves are pushing out to my extremities, each stronger and more powerful than the last. It’s like the surge of pure ecstasy, but it doesn’t dissipate as they break. This is a tidal wave with such force it could shift a city. I become queasy as my stomach starts to spasm. It wants to get the tea out and fast. I close my eyes and force my inner muscles to hold it down. Eventually, after retching several times, the tumble dryer settles, and I’m able to sink back into the bliss.

The owl hoots again.

“Are you ok?” she asks as her eyes flicker closed.

I can’t manage a yes, just a long, satisfying groan as I fall deeper from reality. The waves have completely subsided and left a spiritual glow in every corner of my being. I close my lids and can see into my mind. I’m standing in the centre of my thoughts, watching neurons fire as they communicate with each other. Dahlia is standing next to me, barefoot and brilliant.

Excerpt 4

“If I’m sacrificing you, shouldn’t I have a knife?” I joke.

She doesn’t respond this time. Her breathing’s heavy and forceful. She’s in the zone. I turn serious in a heartbeat, grab a candle and hold it above her. Her eyes close as her hands fall to her sides. But my brain fizzes as I realise I can’t hurt her so I lower the candle.

“Levi, it’s ok, this is a different type of pain. I want it. It turns me on.”

I must trust her if I want to journey with her, learn and grow with her, protect her and if that means hurting her a little, then it’s time to get on board.

She shuts her eyes as I raise the candle again. And as wrong as it feels, I smile, knowing that I’m a better man because of her and she’s a better woman because of me and her pleasure isn’t about how I feel, but how she does.

Love The Grind

Sure, every journey starts with a step. And yes, that first step is undoubtedly the most important. But the rest of them are where the real work gets done and it’s how you get to the finish line.

I wasn’t always a grinder. For a long time, I was an A.D.D. poster child. I would pinball around, starting a million things, finish none and repeat. It was an unsuccessful existence to say the least.

I learnt the grind when I moved to drilling. The long days coupled with a laser-focused goal (drill as many holes as you can as quickly as you can) taught me how to knuckle down and work.

Now, every day, come hail or shine, I pull myself out of bed at 6 am, brew coffee (decaf because over caffeination is as useful as under caffeination) and get writing. I write 1.5 hours on, 0.5 hours off, until 6 pm. I write one story at a time and I don’t stop until I’m done. I do this Monday to Saturday, every week of the year.

This method has seen me write two novels and a novella, launch a website, write blogs, make adverts, learn Canva and Adobe Premiere and on the list grows. Being self-published, if I don’t show up, that’s the whole business down for the day and we can’t be having that.

Don’t get me wrong, somedays I churn out junk and hate every minute of it. Others, I hit the right flow and life is good. But irrespective of the amount of artistic success I’ve had on any given day, what I’m always the proudest of is that I CHOSE to get up and get after it.

It’s the grind that sets a good creator apart. Anyone can do anything that’s easy, but few can do what’s hard and even less will see the finish. The magic sauce, if you want to create, is your commitment to the grind. Love it and own it.

A small travel journal on a family holiday to Italy in 2005 would become the catalyst for my first book. After bad weather forced us inside, I found myself scribing a story about a fictional character named, Lucca from Portofino. Balcony Nights – Tales of a Moonlit Guitarist was born, and for the next year, my keyboard took a beating as my imagination leapt into print.
But my downfall was self-belief. And eventually, niggling inadequacy won the battle, and I shelved the project. Over the next decade, I would get random hot flushes of enthusiasm and open the manuscript from time to time. Though inevitably, after a day’s tinkering, I would see a complete rewrite was in order and quietly back away from the near finished draft.
Ironically, another holiday would change all that, when I read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (the Holy Bible for anyone suffering with procrastination). It was time to kick my own ass into submission and get a book finished. The idea for Dahlia came into my head a few days later, and once again, I spent morning and night, before and after long days of work, bashing away at the keys. One day I looked up and there it was. A 120,000 word, completed manuscript.
Not long after, came the redundancy call from Egan. And just like that, I was a full-time writer. It’s now been a year and change since that day, and I couldn’t be prouder of sticking to my guns and working my ass off to make this dream come true. In that time, I’ve started and finished a novella called Travel Infinity, completed a second, 100K manuscript called Scarecrow and have just published my first novel called Dahlia - The Velvet Witch and Her Dark Spirit on all major sites.