If you could speak to the dead, what would you say?
On the dark streets of Chicago, a gruesome serial killer is hunting for a very specific kind of prey. With the powers of the afterlife at her beck and call, can a homicide detective overcome the challenge of finding an invisible enemy before he kills again?
For a special sneak preview, click “Start Chapter 1” to begin reading Burner – the thrilling first novel in The Affinity Series.
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A World Where the Dead Don’t Always Leave
Homicide detective Kim Phillips isn’t like the other officers of the Chicago Police Department. She’s quiet, isolated, and she can speak with the dead. Born with the ability to see into and interact with the afterlife, she is a Burner: a person tasked with hunting down dangerous spirits and sending them to the other side.
When Kim exorcises the ghost of a young girl, she’s dragged into a new and unsettling case, one where people like Kim are being killed. The only problem? There’s no connection between the victims, and no proof that they were murdered in the first place. Kim has to catch the killer before he finds his last victim and unleashes an unknown evil on the world.
Burner, the first book in the Affinity Series, is a dark exploration of how life and death are only separated by a single breath and how even those with power can be powerless.
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Meet the Characters
Kim Phillips
I think I get along better with ghosts than I do with living people, sometimes. Ghosts, at least, I can tune out. Drop out of Second-Sight, and they're gone, or at least the quiet ones are. People, though, they're harder to avoid. Doesn't mean I don't like them, just that they're complicated. Messy.
Being a cop makes it a little easier. There are expectations for police. To protect and serve, right? I know what people are going to ask of me, what they need me to do. And that's to catch bad guys, to find killers and lock them up. I'm good at it. My case closure rate is consistently high, I get most of my paperwork in on time, and I get along fairly well with the rest of the department.
And when I'm not working a case, I hunt down ghosts that are Turning, and I Burn them into the afterlife. Sure, there are other Mediums out there, other Burners, but I feel like I need to do my part. I've been given a gift. A difficult and sometimes burdensome one, sure, but a gift nonetheless. And if I can stop a ghost from tearing a place up or burning it down, then I've paid that gift back, at least a little.
Doesn't leave me much time for a social life, but that's overrated. I've got Priya, I've got my work. What else do I need?
Priya Rachamalla
It's been a long time since I was alive. Nearly as long as I was alive, now that I stop and think about it. But that's okay. Everyone dies, even Mediums. As a bonded partner, I've been given a second chance. I strengthen Kim, bolster her powers, and she stops me from losing my humanity, from Turning. It's a partnership, an equal exchange between the two of us. I should know. I nearly Turned, once. All I remember is darkness and an unrelenting anger that nearly drove me to murder.
But then came Kim, and an offer to become her partner. She saved me. And now, I do what I can to save her.
No matter what the cost.
Riley Cross
I don't know, Phillips is okay, I guess? We worked together before. She's a little messy, a little unorganized, but she gets shit done. She works hard, cares an awful hell of a lot. So yeah, she's a good cop.
Now that Medium stuff? I've never really gotten it, you know? I'm completely Mundane, no connection to the afterlife whatsoever, so it's all been kind of, I don't know, like a card trick to me. Some people can do it, it looks cool, but it's not real. With murder investigations, you need something real to catch killers. It takes elbow grease, putting shoe leather to pavement. Solid evidence, not someone walking in, talking about mystic energies and ghosts and bullshit.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Phillips is like that. She's got her head on straight, does the hard work and uses that mystical crap. It just makes her a little weird, is all.
From an early age, J.S. Lenore has always been passionate about books and storytelling, but it wasn’t until high school that she started writing her own stories. Starting with fan fiction, Lenore found some minor success writing under the handle p1013. Burner, the first book in the Affinity Series, is her first foray into novel-length fiction. Set in Chicago, where Lenore was born and raised, it’s a dark tale about life and death, the ways that people define themselves, and how our histories can impact our futures.
J.S. Lenore now lives in Indianapolis with her husband, daughter, three cats, and zero ghosts.