Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck - Paperback

by Dale E. Basye (Author), Bob Dob (Illustrator)

In his second novel in the popular series Heck, Dale E. Basye takes Milton and Marlo Fauster on a journey that is as full of clever, dark humor and laugh-out-loud silliness as the first.

Welcome to Rapacia, where the greedy kids go.

When her brother, Milton, escapes the otherworldly reform school Heck in a soul balloon made of old clothes, Marlo is the only Fauster child left to take the blame. Bea "Elsa" Bubb, the Principal of Darkness, sends her straight to Rapacia, the circle of Heck where greedy kids are tormented by glimpses of a just-out-of-reach, glittering shoppers' paradise called Mallvana. Marlo soon falls under the sway of Rapacia's vice principal, a grinning metal rabbit known as the Grabbit that seems to have plans of its own. Marlo is torn between wanting to find a way out and wanting to do . . . whatever the Grabbit asks her to do.
Meanwhile, back on the Surface, Milton has his own problems. He is determined to get in touch with Marlo and help her find a way out of Heck. But it's hard to concentrate when his body and soul don't seem to hold together the way they used to. Will Milton ever reach Marlo? And if he does, will they both end up as pawns in the Grabbit's mysterious game?

Author Biography

Dale E. Basye has written stories, screenplays, essays, reviews, and lies for many publications and organizations. He was a film critic, winning several national journalism awards, and published an arts and entertainment newspaper called Tonic. He was also the driving musical force behind a series of bands, very few of which sported names suitable for a respectable Web site. To be perfectly frank (or whoever), if any of those bands had been any good, you would probably be reading this biography on the back of a CD instead.

Here's what Dale has to say about his second book: "There is a time where you don't fully know what you have, though there is no lack of models, celebrities, and the inexplicably famous rubbing your face in what you don't have. You'd give anything to have what they have, and that yearning gnaws at you from the inside as if you had swallowed a small, vicious shrew--which, to the best of your knowledge, you haven't. Heck is like that. And no matter what anyone tells you, Heck is real. This story is real. Or as real as anything like this can be."

Dale E. Basye lives in Portland, Oregon, where he must, on a daily basis, wage life-or-death struggles with grizzly bears, nettled beavers, and inconsistent Wi-Fi signals.