"The Empath"

Chico novelist Michael Agliolo's supernatural techno-thriller is a seat-of-your pants wild ride. "The Empath" ($11.43 in paperback, self-published from MA Productions; also for Amazon Kindle) tells the story of 40-something day trader Jason Marino. He has a secret.

Jason is an empath. Sometimes, seemingly at random, he feels a "pull" toward someone who has been hurt. Touching them, he takes on their pain. In doing so, the healing process speeds up, and Jason, exhausted, falls sound asleep. He never makes a show of it. No one must know. 

"It doesn’t take a genius," he says, "to know anyone who can heal people would be hounded, dissected, and turned into some government science project if the word got out." But his life as a nondescript divorced guy in Northern California is about to come to an end. 

Visiting a hospital he feels the old familiar "pull" toward a young boy named Joey being wheeled into one of the rooms. Donning a disguise as "Dr. Cavanaugh," Jason gains entrance into Joey's room and touches his arm to "take his pulse."

And then: "The pulling sensation jolted me. All my senses vanished except my pain receptors. The pulling sensation surged. My head began to throb. Not a sharp pain, just a deep dull ache. My left leg hurt. Everything intensified. I owned the pain now."

Things really get strange when he meets Sarah Backman. She has prophetic dreams, seeing in advance what is going to happen--or what may happen if things are not changed.

They are surrounded by news that U.S. President Cunningham is stepping down after a brain tumor is discovered. Jason can help--but how is he going to get to the President? Child's play, compared to what happens next. Jason is inserted into a desperate mission to stop North Korea from bringing America to its knees, while Sarah at home guides them by her dreams. 

Jason, aboard a super-secret U.S. nuclear sub that runs at unheard of speeds by bubble cavitation, has an audacious plan and a load of nuclear missiles. What could go wrong?

"The Empath" will have readers cheering for Jason and Sarah, even as they learn the real cost of truth-telling.

"Tangled Up With The Dead: An Historical Ghost Story"

"Between the years of 1854 and 1929," writes Chico novelist Cathy Chase, "from the large cities in the Eastern part of the United States, orphaned or abandoned children were loaded onto trains in large groups and sent West to be given to families. As many as 250,000 children were relocated." From that starting point, Chase spins the story of one of the orphans, fifteen-year-old Hannah Banks, who is taken to the tiny town of Sweetser, Indiana to begin life anew. 

But all is not right. The story's narrator, Hannah herself, reports "the old familiar feeling of hot tingling darts shooting down my arms and into my fingers." What Hannah will encounter threatens her very life; it is a force from the depths of supernatural horror.

But to help the reader make sense of events, Jane, Hannah's mother, takes over the story. It is 1884, sixteen years before Hannah's arrival in Sweetser. Jane remembers her romance with Jonathan Banks a year before, who took her through the church graveyard where she spotted the marker of the Slaughter family who had lived in a cabin on the outskirts of town. 

Daniel, the father, came home roaring drunk one night and burned the place down, killing them all, including his wife, Martha, and young daughter, Emily. Another family, the Spectors, eventually built on top of the remains. Jane is Jane Spector, and she's shaken by this revelation, especially because she's had a "secret friend who's visited me in my room since childhood"--named Daniel. "Spector"; "Slaughter": do not take these names for granted.

Jonathan and Jane fall in love, but Jane's invisible friend, Daniel, is not pleased. Not pleased at all. As Jane tells Jonathan, "I think the Daniel who resides in this house, who wants to keep me, is the same Daniel who killed his wife and child. He is an evil demon." Then comes the voice of Daniel in Jane's head: "I order you to call off your wedding."

Daniel will stop at nothing to keep Jane for himself. The shocking result forms the background to Hannah's own supernatural battles that will keep readers turning pages until the last.