MIKE MOLASH
Where there is no imagination there is no horror.
Arthur Conan Doyle
In 1889 London, Dr. Henry Jekyll has built a life of hard-won respectability—an immaculate medical practice, a flawless reputation, and the fraying discipline to keep his violent past buried. But when a mysterious aristocrat arranges for the renowned painter Basil Hallward to capture his portrait, something inside the image stirs. Hallward’s brushes render a likeness too perfect, too knowing—revealing truths Jekyll has never spoken aloud. Then the portrait begins to change.
As the painting’s scar deepens, Henry’s own nights blur into blackouts: torn clothing, blood under his nails, and memories he can’t place. A voice from his past stalks him from the shadows. Doors knock without hands. Something hunts him through London’s fog—something that might be himself. When a young girl falls prey to a violent man, Henry must confront whether he is meant to save her… or if the part of him that longs for justice wants something far darker.
As Henry’s grip on humanity thins, he turns to a friend for help, Arthur C. Doyle. What began as a vain attempt to appease the ghosts of his past, now threatens to destroy himself and everyone he loves.
My newest creation
BOOKS
I want you to believe...To believe in things you cannot.
-Professor Abraham Van Helsing
Up and coming...
I specialize in unique fiction that weaves together gothic elements and real historical contexts. Each book is an adventure waiting to unfold.
Oneironauts
1986, The Cold War is in full swing, Chernobyl, Space Shuttle Challenger, Haley's Comet has just passed over the Earth. The next morning, random people didn't wake up. They were not dead, just asleep.
Dr. Neil Lundgren, head of Dream Theatre, a company he hopes will allow the world to see into people's dreams and heal night terrors, is recruited by a large corporation called Archer Biopharm. He and his team are sequestered and make a shocking discovery.
Tawnya Lundgren searches frantically for her father while being chased by the criminal underworld.
Will she find her father in time? Will Neil's team be able to save the "dreamers" and the world from a horrific fate? I don't know either... I'm still working on it.
Alphonse Frankenstein
Every man carries the seed of a monster within himself. Alphonse is a man whose life began in luxury, until a fire took everything from him ats a young boy. His family perished, their love extinguished. Raised by his mysterious and cold uncle, he is trained and recruited to be a field agent in Switzerlands Secret Service. The story is set in the early 1700's in Geneva and across Bavaria. Cults and conspiracies abound, but it feels like something dark has it's claws in Alphonse. Terrible deaths occur around him, the people he trusts the most betray him. A mysterious group called Neuenfang threatens the political stability of the entire region. Can Alphonse unravel the clues in time to stop it? This storyline will be presented over a three book series.
There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape.
-Frankenstein’s monster
Morning comes brittle and cold. We breakfast in quiet politeness, then retreat to the library where the canvas waits, blank and expectant. The scent of oil and turpentine mixes with the coal smoke. Basil places his brushes in order with the precision of a surgeon.
I smooth my black coat, settle into the high-backed chair, the comforting weight of a great tome on my knee—Harvey’s Treatise on the Circulation of the Blood. A physician’s symbol. A scholar’s comfort.
“No. That book is but a prop. We wish to paint Henry Jekyll, not the scholar you present.”
I select instead a journal from my first months of school. Unimpressive, yet deeply personal. And once seated, the new companion feels true. We?
He begins. The first strokes whisper against the canvas. His eyes are merciless. They roam over my face, dissecting, measuring, recording. Not once do they blink. The man is entranced.
I force myself to hold steady, but inside my stomach churns. His gaze is not like other men’s. It is not the polite glance of a patron, nor the idle appraisal of a stranger. It is surgical. He is peeling back the layers of me, skin, sinew, marrow, until there is nothing left but the raw machinery of thought, and beneath that, the things I keep hidden even from myself.
“Late night, hmm? Doctor.” The words fall soft from his lips, no judgment in tone, yet they strike like a hammer. “The brushes see more than the eye.”
I stiffen. Does he see the redness of my eyes, the faint tremor of my hand from wandering where I should not? Does he know how close I came to giving in to the rage last night in the slums?
“What do you mean, ‘the brushes see’?”
“Hold still, please,” he says nothing more, but the silence thickens. I swallow against the weight of it.
-Exerpt from The Picture of Henry Jekyll
LATEST INSIGHTS
I'd love to meet you at the 10th Anniversary StokerCon in Pittsburg, PA Thursday, June 4th-7th 2026. Feel free to reach out on my contact page. I've query'd several agents and hope to hear from some by then. If not, I hope there will be folks at the Con that are listening to pitches.
You know honestly I think there's a Dracula, a Wolf Man, and a Frankenstein's Monster in all of us. They are sides of our own character so that's why I think we can relate to them in terms of a 'I know how that feels' kind of thing.
-Richard Roxburgh