John R. Mabry
author / songwriter / spiritual director
Books—Fiction
ON MONDAY THE BOXER HOWLED / Veterinarian Casey Gibbons came to Gold Valley, California, for a fresh start—with her Boxer, Scout, and very low expectations. After a career scandal she didn’t deserve and a marriage that imploded, quiet days at a small-town clinic feel like mercy. Until Scout starts howling. When Casey follows the sound, she finds her closest friend dead—and the police are too quick to call it an accident. / Casey knows bodies. She knows injuries. And she knows her friend didn’t just fall. / As she digs deeper, Casey uncovers her friend’s secret investigation into a local puppy mill with powerful ties and plenty to hide. The more questions she asks, the more dangerous things become. Gold Valley’s charm begins to crack, and someone wants Casey to stop sniffing around. / With Scout at her side and an unexpected connection growing with a thoughtful man she would never, ever date, Casey must uncover the truth—before she loses more than her second chance... // Lisa is a huge mystery buff, and so we decided to collaborate on a mystery series—a dog-themed cozy mystery, to be exact. This is the first book in the series. "Ann Russell" is a nom de plume composed of Lisa's middle name and my middle name, both misspelled. It's a fun romp! / To read On Monday..., click on ​​https://books2read.com/boxermonday
THE WHERE, THE WHO & THE WHAT: A GNOSTIC SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL / What if the Gnostic myth were true? What every everything you thought was real...wasn’t? / Seth St. John is a young man with problems: He is recovering from religious trauma that has left him with crippling Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, he works a dead-end job and lives on top ramen, his best friend is crashing on his couch, his girlfriend is pressuring him to make a commitment, and his landlord has ordered him to get rid of his dog. He feels like he’s on a hamster wheel, with no end in sight and no real meaning in his life. When he receives an invitation to join a secret society, he sees a lifeline to something...more. But he has no idea just how much the secret society’s “secrets” will make his world, his reality, and his sanity unravel. Grounded in the universe described by the gnostic text The Apocryphon of John, Seth discovers that there are dark powers controlling his world, and that he and everyone he knows is hurtling toward a sinister end... The Where, the Who & the What is a science fiction novel, yes. But it is also a book about religious abuse, about annoyingly stubborn friendships, and about resisting the powers inside us and outside us that seek our undoing. / Available in paperback and ebook.
Ash Wednesday (2022) / What if you knew exactly how you would die—what if everyone in town did? A small town is torn apart by the arrival of mysterious statues depicting the deaths of the townsfolk. Peg, a frail and uncertain pastor, scrambles to deal with the grief and chaos of the community, while her estranged daughter, a headstrong Wiccan and Deputy Sheriff, investigates why the statues are appearing at all—which brings her face-to-face with mindless, cosmic evil from beyond the stars. / Buy in paperback or ebook.
The Worship of Mystery (2018) / Awarded BOOK OF THE YEAR in the category of Speculative Fiction by the Bisexual Writer's Association. / Four chaplaincy students attend a mysterious alien ritual. Four lives are shattered beyond recognition… Jun Battacharya’s final tour of duty sends him to a desolate planet where a mining accident forces him to launch his students into their work without any training. An invitation arrives from an alien priest native to the planet, inviting Jun and his student to their most sacred ritual. Unable to decline, they attend the ritual—which shatters their lives, each in very different ways. Jun struggles to keep his students safe, even as their lives descend into chaos, leading each of them to an encounter with Mystery that will heal them or kill them…or others. In the tradition of Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and Michael Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things, J.R. Mabry’s The Worship of Mystery goes to the farthest points of known space to explore the dark regions of the human heart. / Buy in paperback or ebook.
The Berkeley Blackfriars / An unhinged tycoon. A lodge of evil magicians. A plan to steal every child from the face of the earth. Fr. Richard Kinney is having a crappy week. He’s not at all sure he’s the best leader for the demon-hunting Berkeley Blackfriars, his boyfriend has just broken up with him, and his last exorcism did not go well. Kat Webber is in over her head. After discovering her brother’s comatose body in the midst of a demonic ritual, her heart sinks as she realizes he was up to something sketchy, maybe even evil. Reaching out to the Blackfriars for help, Kat and Richard uncover a lodge of evil magickians who make every avocado in the world disappear, then every dog. It’s a race against time as Kat and the Blackfriars try to stop the magickians from eliminating their next target-every child on earth. Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Preacher, The Dresden Files, the Mercy Thompson series—and most especially Charles Williams—will love these spine-tingling yet humorous supernatural suspense novels. / Buy in paperback or ebook.
The Red Horn Saga (co-written with Mickey Asteriou) / Only one thing keeps an ancient evil at bay. And now that thing is gone… Through the power of the Prison Stone, the summoners succeeded in banishing the Dark Lord from the Universe. Lost for a thousand years, the Stone has once more been found… The life of a gentle haffolk is thrown into chaos when he is chosen to carry the Stone from one dwarf world to another. But when the Stone is stolen, his every hope is dashed… An angry prince, humiliated by this father the king, raises his hammer over the Stone, intent on releasing the ultimate power—a power that will prove his father wrong, a power that will raise him to the place of honor he deserves, a power that will mean the doom of every living thing… The Red Horn Saga is an epic fantasy that skillfully blends high fantasy, steampunk, Cthulu, and space opera. The magic is unpredictable, the spaceships run on coal, and no power known to dwarf, elf, or man can stop the carnage. Only a hero small enough can save us now. / Buy in paperback or ebook.
The Oblivion Saga (co-written with B.J. West) / It isn’t a war—it’s a massacre. Mindless mechanical aliens are destroying everything in their path. And their path is heading straight for Earth… The Prox don’t even notice us. They are simply devouring and reclaiming every scrap of metal they encounter. They have destroyed several colonies, killing everyone and leaving only wreckage in their wake. Captain Jeff Bowers is a shell of a man, reduced to solo missions where he can’t piss anybody off. He is spying on the Prox when his ship crashes and he dies…kind of. When he wakes up he discovers he has a new body—and mysterious powers that could save the Earth…or end all life as we know it. If you love Star Trek and Starship Troopers, you simply cannot pass up this adventure. / Buy in paperback or ebook.
Jesus Stories (2016) / Have you ever wanted to hang out with Mary and Joseph, or Jesus and the disciples? What would it have been like to be a y on the wall, or hiding unnoticed in a corner as some of the most familiar and beloved scenes played out?In this intriguing collection of short stories (and one novella), John R. Mabry allows us to do just that. With vivid and often delightful prose, he brings these compact Gospel stories to expanded, breathing life. Teeming with conflict, emotion, and humor, these stories reveal the humanity behind the Bible’s characters like nothing you’ve read before. / Buy in paperback or ebook.
What Child is This? A Christmas at Bremmer’s Novel (2014) / Welcome to the Sleepy town of Munich, Michigan, home to Bremmer’s Christmas Super-Shoppe, the second largest Christmas store in the world. When an abandoned baby is left on the loading dock at the height of the seasonal rush, the indecisive but soft-hearted manager and a madcap cast of employees scramble to care for her. As the town Sheriff copes with deep personal loss, he finds grace in solving the mystery of the baby’s origin. The new Lutheran pastor—Munich’s first female clergyperson—feels rejected by her parishioners, but discovers her purpose and worth as she lends her wisdom and guidance to the crisis. / Buy in paperback or ebook.
Brief Grislys: An Anthology of Horror Stories of 1,000 Words or Less (editor and contributor; 2013) / The idea was simple: tell the scariest story you can, in less than 1,000 words. It sounds easy, but it isn’t. A thousand words sounds like a lot until you start writing. In this collection, a wide variety of writers—some professional, many previously unpublished—try their hand at the tricky balance of suspense and brevity. / Buy in paperback or ebook.
