Fiction Novelist
Charles Harlan Boehler
The St Gregory Project ~ The lore of forgotten past is the dark tales of now. Those stories weave together here. Every town has its secrets.
The St Gregory Project ~ The lore of forgotten past is the dark tales of now. Those stories weave together here. Every town has its secrets.
Featured on Youtube - Listen to the first chapter of St Gregory
Ambrose is a priest, a man of faith and reason. Or so he thought. But a dark obsession follows, and the ties of blood bind man and demon alike. In 1859 a town lies in the Northwest Frontier where the dead rise, monsters prowl, devils scheme and what begins as a missing persons case becomes a case of losing one’s self.
The St Gregory Archives chronicle the life of Ambrose Odenwald and the cursed town of St Gregory. Called to investigate the disappearance of his mentor, Ambrose finds himself surrounded by murder, mayhem and black magic. Is it the cultish leader of the town? Folk tales come to life? Or something far more sinister? As innocents die, he knows the answers lie in a black grimoire, yet to use it is to forsake the world he knows and admit to one beyond, where faith and reason lose all meaning. As tragedies mount he despairs and falls into drink and laudanum. The townsfolk cannot see the monsters in front of their eyes. They cannot recognize the evil hidden behind behind priestly robes, or hear the cries of the forest warning them to leave.
And always, the same questions torture; Is he strong enough to fight it? Will he ever be the same if he does? And who is this mysterious woman?
Every town has its secrets... Read More
Irving and Poe taught me to read. Father Gilsdorf taught me to write. At least he tried - I wasn’t the best student. I’d like to think I’m well-rounded. I’ve had a lot of character building experiences in life, and I’ve always taken great pains to make sure those experiences have never made any money; after all being poor is character building, and I am nothing if not committed.
I grew up subsistence farming in the savage wilds of the American Heartland, pre-internet. As a toddler I lived in a haunted Catholic Preparatory school and am likely haunted myself. I have a degree in German Historical Linguistics, that I am not putting to any sort of good use. I lived in a monastery as a Zen Buddhist monk for several years. I’ve gotten sick in third-world countries and robbed in first-world ones. I was propositioned to smuggle hash from Nepal into Germany by a Nepalese “movie star” who owned a gem shop in Kathmandu (I declined).
I maintained a malaria mosquito colony (for research) and refilled ATM machines, plainclothes, with a duffle bag stuffed with $60k in twenty-note bills in downtown Los Angeles. I was locked into the Père Lachaise Cemetery overnight in Paris looking for Oscar Wilde’s grave (I didn’t find it). I’ve studied eclectic and traditional systems of medicine and almost killed myself several times. I’ve done some stuff I shouldn’t write about, but I’ve never been to jail, thankfully. Much of this time, I was a drunk.
I’m not proud or embarrassed by any of this. There’s a line from a song by The Brian Jonestown Massacre, “I know myself. I feel no shame. No shame at all.” That’s a good motto to live by. What I have NOT done is won any book awards. I’ve never been on the NY Times bestseller list. I’m not on anyone’s list to invite to a book fair. I will not be making an appearance at Thanksgiving. But you know what, there’s a lot of crap in the book world and the NY Times has no idea what a good story is. And at the end of the day, that’s what I want to do - tell a good story.