Dinosaur Lake III: Infestation
(Dinosaur Lake #3)
by Kathryn Meyer Griffith
Published December 31st 2014
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Suspense, Fantasy
Blurb:
Chief Park Ranger Henry Shore has
dealt with and fought real live dinosaurs at his beloved Crater Lake National
Park for over six years. With the help of his rangers, a few brave FBI friends
and army soldiers he’d been victorious over a prehistoric lake creature and years
later some particularly fiendish, and clever, specimens of the flying variety. He
and his newspaper publisher wife, Ann, thought their park was finally rid of
the monsters and they could reclaim their tranquil life in a place they cherished.
Not so. For suddenly across the park new and even more malevolent mutant species
of dinosaur begin to appear and create havoc, attacking the park’s visitors and
threatening its peace. And this time the primeval scourge isn’t confined to
just their park. The creatures have moved into the nearby towns, across the
western United States and up into Canada. They are so much more aggressive,
smarter and hungrier than any that have come before and the infestation is
spreading further and faster than Henry and Ann can even imagine. This time
there’s no easy way to defeat the dinosaurs. There’s too many of them and
they’re too devious. This time it’s full out war and the victor will someday claim
Earth.
Dinosaur Lake
Guest Post:
Dinosaur Lake Series Backstory
Of all my 22 novels my Dinosaur
Lake series (Dinosaur
Lake, Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising, Dinosaur Lake III: Infestation–and
coming soon: Dinosaur Lake IV: Dinosaur Wars) has the strangest story
attached to its creation, death and rebirth…20 years later…of any of them.
Not so much because, as a few of my books, it took so
long to write or publish, but because in 1993 it was contracted, edited and the
final galleys had been proofed by me for a 5th paperback book release from
Zebra (Kensington Publishing) after 3 earlier novels with Leisure Books. I even
had a stack of the full-color, printed and embossed covers; it was only weeks
before it was to go to the bookshelves (in those days the brick & mortar
stores were still king, no Internet or ebooks). I strongly believed it’d be my
breakout book. You know, the book that’d make my career and launch me into the
stratosphere with Stephen King and Anne Rice? How wrong I’d be. But, hey, I
thought who wouldn’t love a tale of a cunning but malevolent rampaging
prehistoric dinosaur living in Crater Lake, Oregon, and the Park Ranger who,
along with a ragtag gang of heroes who’d try to stop it? I mean, I’d always
loved anything about dinosaurs…dinosaur books, playing with those little
plastic figurines and watching old stop-action dinosaur movies of the 1950’s
and 60’s…who hadn’t? Apparently someone. My new editor at Zebra.
By 1994, after four novels with them, I’d lost my sweet
editor there and a new one took her place…and over the next year he didn’t like
anything I wrote for him and later that year Zebra unceremoniously dropped me
and my book (Predator…which never came out but still lingers to this
very day like some weird ghost book in every computer on the global Internet)
only six weeks away from going to the bookstore shelves. When we were editing
the book and deciding on the title and the cover, I’d begged the new editor not
to call it Predator (his choice as they hadn’t liked my American Loch
Ness Monster title), bad title since there was a popular movie out of that
name and the movie, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, was nothing about a dinosaur,
and the cover was awful, an empty boat on a lake…what!!! Having that book-my
first ever-dumped like that was a crushing experience, let me tell you. I had a
stack of finished, printed covers and my final edits were done! But nothing my
agent or I could say or do would change their minds. They said they were
cutting their horror lines and setting adrift a lot of their mid-list horror
authors because horror (in 1994) was on the decline. The new
editor-that-didn’t-like-my-writing explained: “And no one wants to read a book
about a dinosaur.” Yeah, sure. And six months later Jurassic Park the book came
out! We all know how that story ended, don’t we? People loved the book, the
movies; they loved dinosaurs.
I’ll never know the real reason they cut the book but
that male editor never bought another book from me…which was another weird
thing because when I’d met him in New York (I went for a Horror Convention) in
the summer of 1993 he’d taken my husband and I out to lunch and gushed over me
and said how much he’d loved my last release WITCHES. Hmmm.
Anyway, I got to keep my advance but the book was
officially dead. It never came out. I grieved. I was so disgusted I stashed it
in a drawer somewhere and tried to forget it. Until now. After I’d finished
revising and rereleasing all my new/old 15 books (and besides paperbacks
they’re in ebooks for the first time ever) from Eternal Press/Damnation Books
in June of 2012 I remembered about my American Loch Ness Monster novel, took it
out and reread it.
Whoa, like a lot of my older novels now years later I
could see what was wrong with it and how to fix it. Back then I hadn’t seen the
head-hopping I did or the awkward phrasing, stiff or overly dramatic dialogue,
repetitive words and other things I’ve learned since to recognize and stay away
from. Of course, computers help make the editing so much easier. I think I’d
done the original book on my electric typewriter. Anyway, telling myself the
dumping of that book had been a turning point in my writing life-sending me in
the wrong direction for a long time apparently…I couldn’t sell a book for eight
long years after that-I decided to rewrite and finally release it. In fact, I
was going to do something that twenty years ago would have been unheard of and
frowned on…self-publish the book myself. With Kindle Direct. For the first time
in forty years I was walking away from the traditional publishers and going on
my own. Thank you J.A. Konrath’s blog! I figured I could sell the Kindle eBook
a lot cheaper and, thus, use it to introduce (as enticement) more readers to my
writing and perhaps, if they liked it, they’d buy more of my other novels,
novellas and various short stories. It could work, right? So here it is,
re-titled, rewritten, updated and with an amazing new cover I love by Dawne
Dominque… Dinosaur Lake. I hope my readers will like it.
P.S. July 1, 2016 Update: So far Dinosaur Lake and its two
sequels Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising and Dinosaur Lake III: Infestation have outsold ANYTHING
I've ever written. Dinosaur Lake has 279 reviews (4.1 star average) at
Amazon. Dinosaur Lake IV: Dinosaur Wars is now being written and should be done by Jan. 2017. AND...now
I have ALL my 22 novels self-published everywhere.
Take a look! eBooks here: http://tinyurl.com/ld4jlow
*Audible.com audio books here: http://tinyurl.com/oz7c4or
My Review:
Chief Park Ranger Henry Shore is back and fighting bigger,
meaner, and smarter and more dinosaurs. Henry has been a ranger at Crater Lake
for thirteen years. He loves his park and hopes to live and work there until he
retires. He thought that when he fought dinosaurs six years ago that that would
be the end of them but how wrong he was. Yeah six years ago Henry his wife Ann
and his rangers fought dinosaurs on land when it was all over they thought
their lives would get back to normal but that was not to be the case just ask Ranger
Elle Stanton who went over the rim of the crater in a trolley that was pushed
by one of the flying variety.
Now just four months later they are back! They were really
hoping that their lives would now start getting back to normal but the
dinosaurs have other plans for the humans. They are back with a vengeance and
they plan on taking over the world. They want to be at the top of the food
change and they just might be seeing how they are very smart. They hide from
the humans and plan out their attacks. They attack the humans by throwing
whatever they can find at the humans.
Henry’s son-in-law Justin a paleontologist who has helped
Henry fight dinosaurs on more than one occasion is afraid that Crater Lake may
not be the only place that dinosaurs are appearing so he does a little
investigating of his own. What he finds out is very scary. What he fears is
happening dinosaur sightings are appearing all over the world.
Oh man I have loved reading Dinosaur Lake III: Infestation.
I loved reading about all the dinosaurs running around stomping all over the
lake and the city planning and attacking the humans not that I want to see
anyone get hurt but Kathryn is not of the same mind she sure doesn’t mind
killing off any of the characters. While reading Dinosaur Lake you sort of feel
as if you have ESP. Why? Well Kathryn paints a picture in your head that makes
you forget everything around you and you think you are right there with Henry,
Ann, Justin and everyone else fighting dinosaurs and running for your life.
Will their lives ever be back to normal and what is normal
exactly? In the end who will win and take over the world? Will the humans
prevail or will the dinosaurs rise up and take over and rule the earth once
again? I can’t wait to read the next book in the series. I hope I don’t have to
wait too long.
Dinosaur Lake (3 Book Series)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Since childhood I’ve been an artist and
worked as a graphic designer in the corporate world and for newspapers for
twenty-three years before I quit to write full time. But I’d already begun
writing novels at 21, over forty-four years ago now, and have had twenty-two
(ten romantic horror, two horror novels, two romantic SF horror, one romantic
suspense, one romantic time travel, one historical romance, two thrillers, and
four murder mysteries) previous novels, two novellas and twelve short stories
published from Zebra Books, Leisure Books, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press,
Damnation Books/Eternal Press. But I’ve gone into self-publishing in a big way
since 2012; and upon getting all my 22 books’ full rights back for the first time
in 33 years, have self-published all of them. My Dinosaur Lake novels and
Spookie Town Mysteries (Scraps of Paper, All Things Slip Away and Ghosts
Beneath Us) are my best-sellers.
I’ve been married to Russell for thirty-eight
years; have a son and two grandchildren and I live in a small quaint town in
Illinois. We have a quirky cat, Sasha, and the three of us live happily in an
old house in the heart of town. Though I’ve been an artist, and a folk/classic
rock singer in my youth with my brother Jim, writing has always been my
greatest passion, my butterfly stage, and I’ll probably write stories until the
day I die…or until my memory goes.
2012 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS *Finalist* for her
horror novel The Last Vampire ~ 2014
EPIC EBOOK AWARDS * Finalist * for her thriller novel Dinosaur Lake.
Novels and
short stories:
Evil Stalks
the Night, The Heart of the Rose, Blood Forged, Vampire Blood, The Last Vampire
(2012 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS*Finalist* in their Horror category),
Witches, The Nameless One erotic horror short story, The Calling, Scraps of
Paper (The First Spookie Town Murder Mystery), All Things Slip Away (The Second
Spookie Town Murder Mystery), Ghosts Beneath Us (The Third Spookie Town Murder
Mystery), Egyptian Heart, Winter’s Journey, The Ice Bridge, Don’t Look Back,
Agnes, A Time of Demons and
Angels, The Woman in Crimson, Human No Longer, Four Spooky Short Stories
Collection, Forever and Always Romantic Novella, Night Carnival Short Story,
Dinosaur Lake (2014 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS*Finalist* in their Thriller/Adventure
category), Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs
Arising and Dinosaur Lake III: Infestation.
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