England-Australia, 1787. A sixteen-year-old genius, separated from her family, is swept up in the convict colonization of Australia as a vampire pod stalks teens for their growing horde.

SYNOPSIS:

We begin at Chesterfield, England in 1787. While England prepares for the launch of the First Fleet to Australia, its judicial system acts as a whirlpool, sucking the Clarke family apart. When sixteen-year-old EMERY CLARKE’S luckless dad, SILAS CLARKE, is arrested for petty thievery, Emery’s mum, ADELLA, heads off to find work to stave off the landlord and hunger. Waiting with no word for two weeks, Emery ditches the finishing school paid for by Mum’s snooty sister to look for both parents. Emery heads down a dark alley and, there, comes upon a chilling scene — a vampire, Christopher Federline, has made a blood breakfast of Adella. He vanishes. She holds dying Mum’s head in her lap and vows to bring the lout to justice.

In the meantime, a young dandy named Kit befriends Silas in jail. Silas doesn’t realize Kit is a vampire. Kit hides out from his master (Federline) to feed on drunken convicts. He’s enslaved to Federline as an “Emergent” — a vampire dependent on his master’s chemical potions and sinister powers to survive. Kit pretends to offer dying Silas comfort. Instead, he vampirizes Silas before he breathes his last, and breaks Federline’s age rule for inductees — Thirty-nine-year-old Silas is too old to “emerge”.

Emery’s struggle to reunite with her only living parent and Silas’ fight against the growing vampire virus inside him come full circle when Federline sets his sights on Emery as his next Emergent slave. In order to ally with the higher powers at work in England’s transportation system, she becomes the ward of the First Fleet’s captain, Arthur Phillip. Phillip will open doors for Emery that assure her security in society, but shut her out from accomplishing her deepest desire — to become a Camarind Pilot among the First Fleet’s prestigious airship “Topper” commanders. Even Phillip’s sexy cousin, Lt. Kane Morecott, can’t distract Emery from her deepest ambition and hopes for reprisal.

Emery’s arc — Emery will start out as a typical outspoken and strong-willed teen stifled by 18th-century cultural expectations. Her fight to become an airship pilot against cultural and physical struggles will both humble and free her. Her idealism will be exchanged for modern sensibilities as the harsh realities of war inform her opinions and priorities as the leader of a women’s fighting sisterhood. Her naïve, girlish dependency will give way to passion and sexual independence — and heartbreak.

COLLECTING THE DEAD blends the supernatural with science fiction. Gadgetry, dirigibles, automatons, and chemical potions elevate the historical setting and connect emotions to the horror of mass mind control contrasted by the elusive possibilities springing from genius and creativity.

Atmospheric and pulsing with the war drums of clans and power-hungry generals, COLLECTING THE DEAD is human and passionate, a reminder that love and fear are conjoined twins.

Close