Cozy Fantasy for a Troubling Age

Born in the early 90’s in Statesville, NC, USA, Jed Leonard is an author and musician. With a keen interest in medieval history and a talent for finding humor in the macabre, his fiction strives to connect us to our shared past as human beings.

His current work-in-progress is a plague-era zombie anthology titled March of the Blue. When the Black Plague - known then as the Blue Sickness - reaches the shores of England in 1349, it mutates, suddenly beginning to turn its victims into mindless engines of violence and consumption. Once they have eaten their fill of meat, they “march,” though no one yet knows whither, or why.

Enter Nathaniel Smythe, itinerant Catholic priest and “blue-butcher” - a sanctified slayer of the risen sick. Father Smythe has seen his share of the havoc wrought by the Sickness, and so he has his own sizable share of tales for the telling. And when he is snowed in at a small country inn in Yorkshire, with little else to occupy his time, those tales come spilling out upon a rapt audience of inn staff, fellow travelers, and local drunks. Over the course of this frost-bound week, between the tales, secrets will be unveiled, bonds formed and broken, and danger will rear its head again and again. In the end, the inhabitants of the White Courser Inn will need to band together to help Nathaniel face an all-too-mundane threat: the violence of superstition and religious paranoia.

Anyway, where was I?

Here at jedleonard.com, you can browse several of Jed’s short fiction offerings (including a few selections from March of the Blue), connect with him via Twitter or email, and if you like what you see, you can throw him a few bucks on Ko-Fi. Even a recurring donation, if you feel especially generous. No pressure, though.