Gothic WWII Weirdness

Feeling free from not having a solid timeframe for this particular novel, I am working on a dense story full of the horrors of WW2 in an underground world that may or may not have existed during the time of the Nazi regime.

Obviously supernatural cats don’t exist apart from childhood anime and fantasy movies, but there may certainly have been an occult component to the machinations of the Nazis.

This novel explores such a possibility, and I don’t mind posting the prologue from this novel from the perspective of the character Puffin Dee, who isn’t the main character but crosses paths with Mondspiegel Sevenstar, a supernatural cat who has a fondness for occult relics. The concept of the novel is a mirror world between this one and a magical realism twist to WW2 against a gothic aesthetic.

The main character is a college student during a time when fascination with the occult was blossoming in the American West and in the European West. This historical viewpoint isn’t always mainstream knowledge, so I wanted to explore this fascinating time and the beliefs of some of the secret societies that were made at the start of the 20th century and into its middle chapters.

Puffin is nothing like the main character, being a bit of a womanizer and an all-around scoundrel of a man, so writing his character has been a fun little experiment. He’s vulgar and tells you how it is.

“Christian writers can’t write that!” I don’t care what boxes people want to make for “Christian” writers. A story is a story, and it’s going to dart across the pages the way it needs to be told.

I’m a bit of an occultaholic when it comes to learning the superstitions and beliefs of the spiritual world from many angles.

Being a believer in Christ doesn’t mean I don’t understand the depths of the secret teachings of many traditions.

The influences for this novel are a bit all over the place.

Gothic fantasy, occult underpinnings, the dark aesthetic of the night, psychopomp mythology, and history.

I’m currently working on six novels in various stages of the writing process. One of them comes out near the end of this month; another I will push to Q2.

I suppose I might consider them all shadow drops at this point.

This one will be on the longer side, so I’m using smaller line spacing to fit more words on the page.

I’d like to get this one out there by Winter 2026 (Q4, not this year’s Q1 Winter).

The novel doesn’t take itself too seriously until it does.

There will be black comedy and horror elements here, with some Lovecraftesque creatures. I’m not a fan of the guy’s racism, but he created some out-there beings for sure.

Here’s a sample of the prologue of the novel, showing some of the tone I’m going for, though the major story content will be third-person limited and these snippets where Puffin narrates are interspersed between those chapters.