I, Death

It’s not “boy meets girl, boy loses girl but rather: “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy’s friends begin dropping like flies.”Peter O’Mallick isn’t just having a bad day; he’s having a bad life.It’s bad enough when your girlfriend suddenly casts you a cold shoulder, your grades are slipping and those around you no longer understand what it’s like to walk in your shoes; but walking around with the innate power to end lives - something Peter begins to realize he has had since birth - takes the angst to a whole new level.And Hamlet thought he had it bad.Encouraged by his guidance counsellor, the suicidal seventeen year old begins to blog about his experiences in order to try to understand this power and himself. The self-directed therapy helps, and strangers who follow his online story virtually befriend him, as it appears that his curse is mostly limited to those he is in close contact with.However, there is one stranger secretly following his story who isn’t there to understand, help or cheer him on; just as Peter begins to understand that being born as a harbinger for death might actually be a blessing rather than a curse, this stranger is intent on finding a way to use Peter’s power for nefarious purposes.

About the Author

Mark Leslie lives in Hamilton, Ontario and has been writing since he first discovered his mother's Underwood typewriter in the spare bedroom closet of the family home at the age of thirteen.His first published short story "The Progressive Sidetrack" (1992) was a Young Adult humor story, and his first published horror story "Phantom Mitch" (1993) received Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow's The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror.Mark's first book was a short story collection entitled One Hand Screaming, which he released in 2004. Since then, he has edited science fiction and horror anthologies such as North of Infinity II (2006), Campus Chills (2009), and Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound (2012). Curious about the paranormal (and still frightened by the monster under his bed), Mark also writes a series of true ghost story books for Dundurn which include Haunted Hamilton: The Ghosts of Dundurn Castle & Other Steeltown Shivers (2012), Spooky Sudbury: True Tales of the Eerie & Unexplained (2013), and Tomes of Terror: Haunted Bookstores & Libraries (2014).When he is not writing, Mark Leslie tacks "Lefebvre" back onto his name and works for Kobo Books as Director of Kobo Writing Life, a platform that allows authors and smaller publishers direct access to publish to Kobo's global company. He divides his free time between playing LEGO and video games with his son, Alexander, tasting regional crafts beers, and getting lost in bookstores and libraries.

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