Donald Firesmith
donaldfiresmith.com
2023
Donald Firesmith is a multi-award-winning author of speculative fiction including science fiction (alien invasion), fantasy (magical wands), horror, and modern urban paranormal novels and anthologies of short stories.
Prior to retiring to devote himself full-time to his novels, Donald Firesmith earned an international reputation as a distinguished engineer, authoring seven system/software engineering books based on his 40+ years spent developing large, complex software-intensive systems.
He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his wife Becky, his daughter Sera, and varying numbers of dogs and cats.
Hell Holes: A Slave's Revenge
The multi-award-winning prequel to the Hell Holes series of alien invasion novels, A Slave’s Revenge, is an epic tale of love, loss, friendship, and survival under the most hellish of conditions. Action-packed and with a strong emotional core and relatable characters, A Slave’s Revenge is a moving story about the power of the human spirit, not merely to survive but to overcome extreme adversity and achieve redemption. If you enjoy science fiction books like The Hunger Games and Divergent that stay with you long after you finish them, you will love Hell Holes: A Slave’s Revenge.
A typical Alaskan teenager, Paul’s greatest joy is hunting and fishing with his father. But when alien demons attack his family’s isolated cabin, they shatter Paul’s comfortable life. After killing his father, the demons enslave Paul, his mother, and his twin sister and teleport them to a desert world in the Demonic Empire. Once on the planet Hell, the captives’ survival is far from certain, and they face a terrible choice. They can either live as useful slaves or be immediately slaughtered as food for the merciless demons.
With his demon masters demanding their slaves’ absolute obedience to their brutal human overseers, Paul soon learns to hide his burning hatred and desire for revenge behind the stoic expression of a servile slave. But as the years slowly pass, Paul adapts to survive, first as a field slave and then as a gladiator. Will he live long enough to take his revenge, or will Paul’s years of slavery rob him of his will to resist and cost him his humanity?
The Secrets of Hawthorne House
The Secrets of Hawthorne House is the story of an unlikely friendship, the clash of two radically different cultures, hidden magic, and a search for the lost Hawthorne treasure.
Fifteen-year-old Matt Mitchell was having the worst summer imaginable. His misery started when his mother died in a senseless car accident. Matt’s grieving father, unable to remain in the family’s seaside cottage, moved Matt and his twin sister as far as possible from the ocean they loved.
But their relocation to the small town of Hawthorne, Indiana only made Matt’s life more difficult. Three bullies at his new high school dedicated themselves to making him miserable. To top it off, Matt heard that the recluse living in the dilapidated Victorian mansion next door was none other than Old Lady Hawthorne, the town’s infamous witch and murderer of wayward husbands.
But when Old Lady Hawthorne’s niece and her three children moved in next door, something extraordinary happened. Matt met Gerallt, the strange boy destined to become his best friend. And when Gerallt divulged the Hawthornes’ family secret, it changed Matt’s life forever.
A Cauldron of Uncanny Dreams
A Cauldron of Uncanny Dreams is a multi-award-winning anthology of creepy short stories and poems that are best read late at night when you’re all alone. If you enjoyed episodes of the TV series The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Tales of the Unexpected, and Are You Afraid of the Dark, then this book is for you.