Hell Holes: A Slave’s Revenge [Series Blog Tour]

When demonic aliens kill his father and transport 15-year-old Paul Chapman, his sister, and mother to Hell as slaves, he learns just how far he’ll go to survive, get revenge, and regain his freedom.

Welcome to the August 31st stop on the blog tour for A Slave’s Revenge (and the Hell Holes series) by Donald Firesmith with Silver Dagger Book Tours. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

Please note that this post contains affiliate links, which means there is no additional cost to you if you shop using my links, but I will earn a small percentage in commission. A program-specific disclaimer is at the bottom of this post.

About the Book

A Slave’s Revenge
Hell Holes Book Four
by Donald Firesmith

Published 1 August 2021
Magic Wand Press

Genre: Science Fiction, Paranormal Horror
Page Count: 455
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When demonic aliens kill his father and transport 15-year-old Paul Chapman, his sister, and mother to Hell as slaves, he learns just how far he’ll go to survive, get revenge, and regain his freedom.

After killing his father, a marauding band of alien demons captures 15-year-old Paul Chapman, his mother, and his twin sister. Taken as slaves and food to Hell, a planet orbiting a nearby star, their survival is extraordinarily difficult and far from certain. As the years pass, Paul learns he only has two choices: live as a powerless slave or die as food for his masters. How much must Paul collaborate with his demon masters to survive?

Hell Holes 4: A Slave’s Revenge is a prequel to the first three books in the series. Paul Chapman, its protagonist, is also a character in Hell Holes 3: To Hell and Back.

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To Hell and Back
Hell Holes Book Three
by Donald Firesmith

Published 30 October 2020
Magic Wand Press

Genre: Science Fiction, Paranormal Horror
Page Count: 378
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The beautiful young photojournalist, Aileen O’Shannon, is not who she seems. For centuries, she has been a demon hunter, a sorceress who has tracked and killed small bands of demons that occasionally crossed into our world. But that changed when she joined Dr. Jack Oswald’s expedition to study one of hundreds of huge holes that mysteriously appeared overnight in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle.Instead of small sporadic incursions, hordes of demons now pour from these hell holes like water from a sieve. With bombing little more than a losing game of whack-a-mole, Earth’s armies are unable to destroy the portals. When Jack suggests a desperate plan, he is drafted to join Aileen and a team of other sorcerers and Army Rangers to travel to the demon homeworld. Once there, they will unleash a plague virus and set off a nuclear bomb to destroy the portal complex. It’s a suicide mission. But Aileen has given Jack’s wife her word to bring him back safely, and the demons have already killed three men under her protection. Just how far will Aileen go to avoid losing another?

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Demons on the Dalton
Hell Holes Book Two
by Donald Firesmith

Published 15 May 2016
Magic Wand Press

Genre: Science Fiction, Paranormal Horror
Page Count: 221
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When hundreds of huge holes mysteriously appeared overnight in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle, geologist Jack Oswald picked Angele Menendez, his climatologist wife, to determine if the record temperatures due to climate change was the cause. But the holes were not natural. They were unnatural portals for an invading army of demons. Together with Aileen O’Shannon, a 1,700-year-old sorceress demon-hunter, the three survivors of the research team sent to study the holes had only one chance: to flee down the dangerous Dalton Highway towards the relative safety of Fairbanks. However, the advancing horde of devils, imps, hellhounds, and gargoyles will stop at nothing to prevent their prey from escaping. It is a 350-mile race with simple rules. Win and live; lose and die…

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What Lurks Below
Hell Holes Book One
by Donald Firesmith

Published 5 August 2015
Magic Wand Press

Genre: Science Fiction, Paranormal Horror
Page Count: 116
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It’s August in Alaska, and geology professor Jack Oswald prepares for the new school year. But when hundreds of huge holes mysteriously appear overnight in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle, Jack receives an unexpected phone call. An oil company exec hires Jack to investigate, and he picks his climatologist wife and two of their graduate students as his team. Uncharacteristically, Jack also lets Aileen O’Shannon, a bewitchingly beautiful young photojournalist, talk him into coming along as their photographer. When they arrive in the remote oil town of Deadhorse, the exec and a biologist to protect them from wild animals join the team. Their task: to assess the risk of more holes opening under the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and the wells and pipelines that feed it. But they discover a far worse danger lurks below. When it emerges, it threatens to shatter Jack’s unshakable faith in science. And destroy us all…

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Book One Excerpt

Though the sun had finally dipped behind the rounded mountains of the Brooks Range, the temperature remained well above freezing, leaving the ground moist from the morning’s rains. It was quiet except for the soft sound of the breeze blowing through the short shrubs and sedges that covered the tundra of the North Slope.

An arctic fox silently patrolled his territory. He sniffed the ground, following the scent of a female that had passed by earlier that evening. She had brushed against a bearberry bush, and he stopped to breathe in her enticing smell. She was in heat, and he hoped to father her second litter of the season.

Though the fox occasionally heard the distant rumble of big rigs driving north along the Dalton, carrying supplies to Deadhorse and the oil fields around Prudhoe Bay, he paid them no mind. The humans were several miles away, and unlike wolves and wolverines, they posed no threat.

The fox abruptly stopped, turning his head to the side in puzzlement. He heard a faint hum that seemed to come from the ground below him. It was a new sound, one that he had not heard before. It rapidly increased in volume until it became a piercing, high-pitched whine, far beyond the dull hearing of the humans in their trucks. In agony, the fox rolled on the ground, desperately pawing at his ears in a vain attempt to stop the pain. He yipped and whined, adding his voice to the faraway howling of wolves.

The sound suddenly stopped, replaced by a deep rumble as the ground beneath the fox began to shake. Slowly, foot by foot, a huge circle of tundra the size of a large pond began to push itself above the surrounding tundra. Carrying the fox upward, it rose until it reached the height of a caribou’s antlers. Along its circular boundary, loose wet dirt and ragged patches of plants fell off, forming a ring-shaped pile that surrounded the rising ground.

With a sharp jerk, the massive cylindrical plug of earth underneath the fox stopped rising and began sliding downward. No longer incapacitated by pain, the terrified fox sped across the quivering ground, running for his life as it continued its unrelenting collapse. He ran toward the edge, arriving just as the ground beneath him slipped below the short ring of loose and muddy soil that marked its circumference. With a desperate leap, the fox jumped up, landing on the ring’s slippery slope as the ground continued its collapse into the rapidly deepening crater. He slipped, sliding perilously backwards before desperately pawing his way back up and over the top. Once down on the solid ground surrounding the huge hole, he ran away as if he were chased by a pack of starving wolves.

The frightened fox was several hundred yards from the hole when the rumbling stopped. Still running for his life, he did not see the brilliant blue burst of light that shot skyward out of the huge crater. But he did see dozens of similar blue beams briefly light up the northern horizon. As suddenly as they appeared, the lights winked out. The fox did not stop until he had placed several miles between himself and the pit. Silence returned to the North Slope, while the scent of sulfur and decay filled the air above the newly formed hell holes.

About the Author

Donald Firesmith is a multi-award-winning author of speculative fiction including science fiction (alien invasion), fantasy (magical wands), and modern urban paranormal novels.

Prior to recently 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 son Dane, and varying numbers of dogs and cats.