Spotlight, Excerpt & Interviews: SHADOW SERVICE by Cavan Scott & Corin Howell + Giveaway

SHADOW SERVICE

Title: SHADOW SERVICE Vol. 1: Dark Arts

Authors: Cavan Scott & Corin Howell

Pub. Date: April 20, 2021

Publisher: Vault Comics

Formats:  Paperback, eBook

Pages: 128

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/SHADOW-SERVICE-Vol-1-Dark-Arts

Gina Meyers is a Private Investigator who makes her living in the underbelly of London. She’s also a witch. Not the cutesy kind. The terrifying kind. Witchcraft meets spycraft, when a shadowy government organization abducts Gina.

BLACK MAGIC MEETS BLACK OPS.

Worried your partner is cheating? Need a missing person found?

Gina Meyers is the Private Investigator for you. Sure, she’s a witch who worries that her powers make her more of a monster than the crooks she’s trying to catch, but it’s not like London’s criminal underworld is literally going to hell… is it? Spy craft meets black magic in the shadowy world of MI666.

Collects issues #1 to #5 of the ten issue series.

Authors: Cavan Scott & Corin Howell

Pub. Date: September 28, 2021

Publisher: Vault Comics

Formats:  Paperback, eBook

Pages: 128

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/SHADOW-SERVICE-Vol-2

First Gina was a witch. Then she was a spy. Now she’s a traitor. Spycraft meets witchcraft in the world of MI666

BLACK MAGIC MEETS BLACK OPS.

Betrayed by one of their own, the Shadow Service takes to the dangerous streets of Rome. But can the traitor be brought back into the fold? The chase is on. Spycraft meets witchcraft in the world of MI666.

Collects #6 to #10 of the ongoing series.

Cavan Scott is a UK number one bestseller who has written for such popular worlds as Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Assassin’s Creed, Judge Dredd, Pacific Rim, and Sherlock Holmes. He is the author of Star Wars Dooku: Jedi Lost, The Patchwork Devil, Shadow Service, and is one of the story architects for Lucasfilm’s epic multi-media initiative, Star Wars: The High Republic. He has written comics for Vault, Marvel, DC Comics, IDW, Dark Horse, Vertigo, 2000 AD, and The Beano.

A former magazine editor, Cavan Scott lives in the United Kingdom with his wife and daughters. His lifelong passions include scary movies, folklore, the music of David Bowie, and LEGO. He owns far too many action figures.

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

About Corin Howell:

Red head Comic Artist of spooky, scary, and sexy, and monsters, maidens, and robots. I love cats too. Hometown: Austin, TX

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

CAVAN SCOTT                   SHADOW SERVICE – writer

The Winter Holidays and YOU!

1. What Winter holidays do you celebrate in December and January … and how do you celebrate them?

We celebrate an old-fashioned British Christmas with mince pies, decorations and ghost stories galore!

2. What traditions are old family traditions?

They start with making the Christmas pudding together on Stir-Up Sunday, which is always the Sunday before the beginning of advent. We make the pudding, which is a little bit like a fruit cake but is steamed for hours instead of being baked, breaking out the Christmas music and mulled wine! The pudding doesn’t get eaten until Christmas Day and only after it’s been dowsed in brandy and set on fire. (I’m not joking, this is a genuine UK Xmas tradition!)

3. What traditions are ones that YOU’VE started?

Well, it’s one shared with a lot of Brits, but we watch The Box of Delights on the lead up to Christmas every year. This is a classic children’s TV serial from the eighties featuring all kinds of bonkers folklore and bizarre animated sequences mixed in with the live action. I don’t feel festive until I have at least one episode under my belt. 

4. What sort of activities during the holidays are your favorites?

Definitely eating mince pies. Lots and lots of mince pies, preferably with some mulled cider and curled up with a book of ghost stories. Ghost stories at Christmas are exceptionally traditional in the UK as folklore tells us that the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest on Christmas Eve. My favourite book of all time is A Christmas Carol and I try to read as many of M.R. James’ Ghost Stories for Christmas as I can over each holiday season.

5. What activities do you like the least?

There’s always a point while decking the halls that I vow never to decorate the house ever again. I always love it when we’re done and the house is full of lights though. 

7. What are your favorite holiday memories from adulthood?

Definitely, Christmas Eves when our kids were little. Their excitement was contagious.

8. What are your favorite holiday foods?

The aforementioned Christmas pudding and mince pies. And you can’t beat the traditional Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings. Turkey. Stuffing. Pigs in blankets. Sprouts. (Yes, I even love brussel sprouts!) 

Cooking the Christmas dinner is one of my favourite tasks of the year! It makes me so happy!

9. What makes these Winter holidays so special for you?

Family and friends. Yes, that’s a bit soppy, but it’s true.

Oh, and watching Die Hard and Batman Returns on loop as well.

The Winter Holidays and … GINA – and any other characters you’d like – in SHADOW SERVICE (the first two volumes are featured in the promo)!

1. How do your book’s characters celebrate the holidays?
2. Do they celebrate with family & friends?

Well, up to joining MI666 Gina’s Christmasses were spent eating Christmas dinner with Edwin, her only friend in the world, who also happens to be a shape-shifting, talking rat. Even now, I can’t see the MI666 crew sitting down to share turkey and roast veg together. Plus, as Christmas is a time when ghosts are rampant in the British Isles, they’re probably on duty, saving Christmas from unholy terrors every 25th December. 

1. What do they eat?

Coyle, Shadow Service’s resident infiltration expert, is a ghoul who literally becomes what (or should that be who?) he eats. One year, he was forced to eat a dead stag to infiltrate a pack of were-reindeer that were hunting the Royal Family. This year he’s vowed to stick to brussel sprouts. 

2. If your book’s characters visited during the holidays, how would you celebrate with them?

Well, perhaps I’d swap the traditional turkey for a boar’s head as used to be served during Yuletide when MI666’s spymaster Hex was a boy back in the 1600s. Of course, he still looks like a boy today, being permanently frozen at twelve years old.  He also has a habit of talking to angels, which I suppose is seasonal, although the angels in Shadow Service are more likely to take your head than deliver good tidings. 

Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll suggest they go carol singing… and then change the locks. 

3. Would your character like to say anything to readers for holiday cheer?

Hex would like to remind everyone to make sure there is plenty of holly around the fireplace, especially on Christmas eve, as its a magical defence against frost demons who love nothing better than scramble down the chimney on Christmas eve and possess any child who has stayed up late in an attempt to see Father Christmas in action. This was a particular problem in Britain during the cold war of 1843 where half of London’s child population had to be exorcised in one night, pushing MI666 to the limit.

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will win finished copies of every book featured in the CHILLING HOLIDAYS from VAULT tour, US Only.

1 winner will win eBooks of every book featured in the CHILLING HOLIDAYS from VAULT tour from iBooks, International.

Ends January 17^th, midnight EST.

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Tour Schedule:

Week One:

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