This paranormal fantasy, romance novel takes place in Myrtle Beach, surrounding areas
When you listen to Gail Z. Martin talk about the characters in her books, it’s as if they come alive.
That’s the same goal she has for the settings of her fictional novels, and in Martin’s latest work, she brings a ghost-filled Myrtle Beach to life.
“I want my books to have the city be a character in and of its own right, and I really love it when readers say ‘Oh, I feel like I was there,’” said Martin, whose most recent book, “The Rising,” the third entry in her “Badlands” series, is based along the Grand Strand.
The Badlands series — which lists the author as Morgan Brice, an alternate name Martin uses when writing novels with explicit sex in them — is a sequence of urban fantasy tales that brings together murder, paranormal activity and a same-sex romance in local places such as Myrtle Beach and Georgetown.
The series centers around Simon Kincaide, a psychic medium, and Myrtle Beach homicide detective Vic D’Amato. The two meet when D’Amato runs out of options while stuck on a case he can’t crack, and soon they fall in love despite the fact D’Amato is skeptical of his mate’s profession and struggles to believe in his paranormal abilities.
“Badlands” was the first in the series and “Lucky Town,” a novella, was the second.
In “The Rising,” which was released Feb. 14, Kincaide and D’Amato are tasked with solving a series of murders that have a paranormal twist while the Grand Strand braces for a vicious winter storm that is coming ashore.
“We’ve got everything from pirate ghosts to a haunted plantation and an old family with lots of secrets and a big storm coming in, and it’s all coming to a head,” Martin said.
While the Grand Strand as a whole serves as the setting for much of the Badlands series, specific parts of the area are either mimicked or serve as the inspiration for places and events creatively altered in the books. For example, Kincaide lives in a 1950s-style bungalow a few blocks off the beach that truly exists here.
“I could point to the one in Myrtle Beach that I patterned it after,” said Martin, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, but has vacationed in Myrtle Beach for approximately 20 years.
Kincaide also has a make-believe business called Grand Strand Ghost Tours that is a few shops down from the Gay Dolphin on Ocean Boulevard, and the haunted plantation in the series is patterned after Georgetown’s Hobcaw Barony and Hopsewee Plantation.
“I always find when I’m working with urban fantasy — modern-day world plus magic — I like picking places, cities that I’m familiar with, that I’ve visited a lot, that I’ve lived in, that I’ve traveled to frequently because that lets me get — not just the details of the city right — it lets me get the vibe right because cities have a different feel,” she said. “You know, New York is not Chicago or Boston.”
Martin, who has a laundry list of books she’s written over the years, said that all her time vacationing in her “favorite beach town” made Myrtle Beach a perfect fit for one of her series.
“It was one that I felt confident that I could impart that vibe to while adding my own elements with all of the supernatural, magic and creatures and all of that — but still drawing on what makes Myrtle Beach Myrtle Beach,” said Martin, whose books are available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and other places in eBook, audio and paperback.
Martin said the Badlands series is open-ended and will continue as long as readers continue to enjoy the books.
“I want to give you a thrilling, good mystery ghost story with a nice dose of romance,” she said. “If you like mysteries, if you like your mysteries with a supernatural element with some monsters, with some creatures, if you like the TV show ‘Supernatural’ or any of the shows like that then it’s probably a shoo in for you.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2019 at 7:46 PM.
