Welcome to GhoulieTales...
The home of Author Kevin Gould!
My love of words and writing started almost from the time I first began to read. Over the years, I’ve gone from reading other people's words to writing my own. Please check out my Author Portfolio below to discover more about my work.
About Me
I am a christian, husband, proud father of two amazing and talented young adults, retired U.S. Air Force veteran, total comic book geek, and current corporate training professional with a passion for writing. I have known for a long time that I want to write for a living and never found the time for it due to busy family and work schedules. Our kids are both grown now and my wife is killing it in her own business, so I decided that now is the time. My love of writing began at a very young age, but it was having children that really got my thoughts flowing and my imagination spinning out of control. My family is my inspiration, my motivation, and my reason for doing everything I do. This is me!
BODY OF WORK
Garden Ghoulies: The Savior of Faldoon
(Book one of a three part series)
In this story, a young boy named Abraham Lincoln Horowitz, a bullied kid from Buffalo, New York with an unsatisfying home life visits his grandma in Chipper Hollow for the summer in hopes of having a normal, relaxed, fun vacation in the woods, and ends up experiencing the single greatest adventure of his young life. Finding an subterranean realm called Faldoon, Abe meets a species of creatures called the Ghaoultica, as well as his new amazing friends, Joe, Lita, and Ozzie. His mission: To save the Ghaoultica and Faldoon by helping them defeat the evil Valdrick and his foul henchmen, the Falcrin. Along the way, he finds that he is worth more than the bullies say he is, that he is more blessed than he thinks he is, and that he has a hero inside of him that he never knew was there.
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You can currently find "Garden Ghoulies: The Savior of Faldoon" on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online in paperback and hard cover formats.
Here's a little snippet of Garden Ghoulies: The Savior of Faldoon for your reading pleasure:
Chapter 1: Abe
The sun always seems brighter, the air fresher, and the grass greener in Chipper Hollow. The birds chirp happily during the day, the owls hoot loudly at night, and the stars sparkle bolder and more brilliantly than anywhere else in the world. It is the most beautiful place I have personally ever seen. Of course, that’s probably not saying much since I haven’t really been anywhere else… but I have seen a lot of places on TV! I love it there and I would live there for the rest of my life if I could. Who am I? You might ask. Well, I’m Abe Lincoln. Abe Lincoln Horowitz, that is. Had you fooled for a minute there, didn’t I? I’m 12 years old, but people say that I’m really small for my age. My mom measures me every month, and last week she said I just passed four feet tall. I think it was my puffy black morning wake-up hair that just pushed me over the top. She always tells me I need to eat more to “put some meat on my bones” too, which I think is funny because I feel like I never stop eating. My big sister, Haddie, and I live in Buffalo with Mom and Dad. That’s in New York… if you didn’t know. We spend all of our summers in Chipper Hollow with our Grandma Jean though. I consider it more my home than my real home. Chipper Hollow is in New York too, but it is way different. Grandma has an amazing house out there on 36 ½ acres. I am not sure what that means exactly, but believe me… it’s huuuuge! Her house is right in the middle of all that land, so she is really far away from all of her neighbors. I mean, I think she has neighbors because you wouldn’t even know they were there. She has a beautiful creek running right through her land too. It’s actually big enough to be a river, but Grandma calls it a creek. Whatever it is—creek, river, lake, puddle—it doesn’t matter because it’s super cool. It’s like, I don’t know, 20 feet across or something, and it’s pretty deep. It’s super clear and there are always lots of big fish swimming around. Grandma says they are called bass and steelhead, but I wouldn’t know because I am not a fisherman… like, at all. She tried to take me fishing once and it was way too boring for me. Grandma’s place always makes me think of those scenes in movies when the camera is way up in the air looking down on a big jungle or forest and all you can see are trees everywhere. It is the most perfect place to play hide and seek, or Black Ops Soldiers, which is my absolute favorite. It used to be more fun to go out and do that stuff because Haddie would play them with me, but she says she is too old for those kinds of games now, and it’s really hard to play hide and seek by yourself. She is four years older than me, and she says now that she is 16, she can’t be seen playing “kids” games anymore. C’mon! Nobody can see anything that happens out here anyway!
Haddie doesn’t even really talk to me anymore when we’re at home in Buffalo either, which can make life pretty lonely sometimes. She is too busy going out with her friends, texting, talking about boys, texting, and doing whatever else teenage girls do… and did I mention texting? Yuck. I mean, girls are alright, but there seems to be a lot of drama and I am just not into all that. We are headed out to Grandma’s house for the summer again tomorrow. I am thrilled, but Haddie doesn’t want any part of it this year. But, you see, Mom and Dad send us out to Grandma’s so that they can go and travel the world, which has been hitting Haddie harder and harder every year. For a while, it seemed like she was getting a lot closer to Mom, and she was so much happier—she actually treated me nicely, but she went right back to her old self when Mom told her they were leaving again and that she couldn’t go with them. Anyway, this year, they’re going to Morocco. They have been there before, but they would rather spend time away from us than with us. At least, that’s the way it feels whenever Dad gets any time away from work. Not Mom really… she spends as much time with us as possible, but Dad is a different story. He is an ontra-penner, or something like that. He started some kind of business that helps people ship their stuff faster and easier than they could before… that’s what Mom says anyway. I guess it means he makes a lot of money, but it also means that he is busy all the time too. At first, I thought his job was like being a superhero or something like that, but sometimes things just don’t work out the way we want them to, ya know? At least not for Haddie and me they don’t. Whatever his job is, I think it means that he isn’t allowed to spend time with his kids either because we don’t see him unless he is coming back from, or leaving for, one of his trips. Even when he is home, he leaves before we get up and comes home after we go to bed. Sometimes I am not sure how I feel about that because he isn’t really very nice to us when he is around anyway. I was super excited when he came out to play catch with me once, but his phone rang about five pitches in and that was the last time we saw him for about a month. He grabbed his bag and headed off to Taiwan. He didn’t even look at me on his way out the door. Anyway, that means that Haddie doesn’t have a choice. She says that she should be able to stay at home alone because she is 16 now and grown-up enough to be trusted to do things by herself. Mom and Dad disagree… and so do I. So, Haddie is throwing a fit. A teenager size fit, which is ridiculously loud and obnoxious. I can hear her slamming doors and throwing things around all day and night. I gotta just brush it off though because I am too excited for Grandma’s house.
We have one day of school left, and I can’t wait to get out of here! Don’t get me wrong though, I like school a lot… at least the learning part of it. I can’t get enough of learning, especially in English class, which is my absolute favorite. I love to read, and I get made fun of a lot because of it. The kids at school call me nerd and doofus, and I don’t ever know what to say back. I just don’t say anything at all when they do it, but I think that might make it worse. I guess I’m used to it though because I get that constantly from Haddie at home too. I get bullied a lot. I don’t know if it’s my size or what, but it’s been happening my whole life. Right now, it’s this one kid named Jesse—the school bully—who picks on me more than anybody else. It happens every day. EVERY DAY! Some days he hits me, but most days he just calls me names and does his best to make me feel terrible about myself. It’s on those days that I wish he would just hit me. I used to have friends, but they were all afraid that they would get beat up too if they hung out with me, so they stopped being my friends. I don’t know what to do about it. My best friend, Todd, left me earlier this year, but I didn’t blame him for that after what happened. Jesse was having a worse day than normal, so he decided to take it out on me. When Todd got there, Jesse had me upside down in a trash can and was poking a big stick down at me. I was screaming, so Todd yelled at him to stop, which made Jesse turn on him. He wound up like a baseball player, started running, and swung that big stick at him, hitting him right in the head. He hit him so hard that he cracked his cheekbone. It would have been a lot worse if Todd hadn’t gotten his arms up as far as he did to try and block it. I couldn’t see any of this because I was head-down in a trash can, but this is what I heard after Ms. Johnson pulled me out of there. Todd had to have a bunch of surgeries to get his face fixed right. I have always felt bad for that, but he hasn’t talked to me since and I don’t even know what to say to him to try and make it right. We used to spend all of our time together. We have known each other since… well, before I can even remember. Our moms knew each other in college and were always good friends, but… not anymore. The upside is that having no friends just gives me more time to read, I guess. That’s about all I do now, other than watch movies. I do that a lot too. Anything that takes me away from reality. So, I read at home, at lunch, at recess… whenever I have free time really, and even sometimes when I don’t. I have been caught more than a few times reading when I should be listening or working in class. I have nothing else to do now though, except when I am in Chipper Hollow. I am so excited! Only one more day! Mom is taking us to Grandma’s after we get out of school today. Dad never goes with us. He says he has too much “important” stuff to do. Man, I wish the day could be over now! Ugh… Jesse is going to make this last day horrible though. I just know it.
I woke up this morning ready to go and get the day over with. I was up way before Mom came to wake me and I was downstairs eating breakfast when Dad stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee. He is NOT a morning person. “I see you’re ready for school early today, Abe,” he commented while yawning and putting the coffee into the machine. “Sure am! It’s a beautiful day, Dad… and it’s Grandma day! Whoo-hoo!” He flinched as I spoke and just grunted something I couldn’t understand in reply. I guess I was probably a little loud. He mumbled something as he walked away about not even being able to tell if it is a beautiful day yet because it hasn’t even started, and then he stumbled back out of the room. I finished my breakfast, grabbed my lunch and my backpack, and I was out the door faster than a cheetah after its prey. The bus wasn’t supposed to get there for another half an hour or so, but I wanted to be there when it arrived. Well, now I have lots of time to wait, which is just giving me more time to think and get more restless. Sometimes it’s not a good idea for me to have too much time on my hands to think. This one time, I got grounded from TV and books because I was throwing my baseball up in the air as high as I could outside, and it ended up in the windshield of the neighbor’s car. I guess I threw it pretty high. I ended up getting so bored that I decided to take the DVD player apart to see how it worked. I just knew I could put it back together again. Um, in case you were wondering… the answer is no, it never got put back together. Mom had to buy a new one, which was bad because ours was pretty old and had the DVD player on one side and a VHS player on the other. They don’t even sell those anymore, so Dad went off the deep end with that one. I got two weeks more grounding after that. Well, I don’t have a DVD player with me this morning, so I think it will be ok. I figured I would sit on the edge of the lawn closest to the bus stop so I can plan out my time at Grandma’s house while I wait. It’s supposed to be a really hot summer, so I think I’m going to spend a lot of time down by the creek. I have three lists going for different things I want to do when I hear Jonathan yell, “Hey, Abe, wake up, man! The bus is here!” Jonathan is one of my old friends that left me when Jesse got a bit too much. I bounce up like a spring and sprint to the bus. I sit down in the only completely empty seat at the back and watch the trees go by. Nobody wants to sit next to me the whole ride as usual, so I sit there alone and finish my lists for Grandma’s house. The ride is uneventful like normal and we are at the school before I know it. I step off the bus and head straight over to my locker so that I can start the day. Today is homeroom, which means… “Hey, Abe Stinkin’, where do you think you’re goin’?”
Garden Ghoulies: Valdrick's Revenge
(Book two of a three part series)
A cry for help, friends in danger, and with SO much standing in his way, Abraham Lincoln Horowitz is called upon again to save his friends, in book two of Garden Ghoulies, a magical, exciting... sometimes harrowing, tale of adventure, friendship, and self-discovery. Mystical creatures lurking around every corner, new heroes being introduced and discovered, and this time, Abe's sister Haddie learning about HER amazing inner strength! Valdrick has escaped... taking Joe as his prisoner, and Abe can't get there nearly fast enough! Accompanied by Lita, Ozzie, and their new friends Lou, Levi, Arnold, and Smokey, this unstoppable crew sets out on an adventure that leads them into the unknown in order to stop Valdrick's dastardly plan for revenge against Faldoon, and to save their friend from certain doom.
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"Garden Ghoulies: Valdrick's Revenge" is not yet published.
Here's a little snippet of Garden Ghoulies: Valdrick's Revenge for your reading pleasure:
Chapter 1: Spilled Beans
“Abe! Abe! Gone Valdrick! Escaped he! Please help now co…” is the last thing flashing through my mind before I black out and hit the ground. The slapping definitely wakes me up, but my friend Jesse’s horrible breath as he yells in my face finishes the job, for sure. “Abe! Abe! Wake up! You ok, dude?!” he yells, as he smacks me around and pulls at my eyelids to try and wake me up. “Man, you went down like a sack-a-potatoes!” A faint light creeps through my eyelids as I attempt to shake off the nausea and dizziness I am feeling. It’s like that feeling you get when you give yourself a big ol’ blood blister… and then look at it. My head is foggy and painful, and my stomach is tied in a knot. As I start to become more conscious, and instinctively try to jump up from the piece of school lawn that I have now apparently claimed as my own, Mrs. Garza, the school nurse, suddenly appears and firmly presses her hand against my chest to keep me down on the ground. “Your friends here say you hit the ground pretty hard, Mr. Horowitz. You are going to have to stay here for a minute for me.” she explains, while pulling down on my eyelids and shining a flashlight in my eyes. Still feeling a little ill, it feels like it’s burning straight into my soul. “How do you feel, Mr. Horowitz? Are you feeling sick?” she interrogates, as she sets the flashlight down and places her fingers on the back of my neck. “I was, but I’m feeling better now. Thanks Mrs. Garza.” Gazing up at the canopy of trees above me as Mrs. Garza’s fingers survey the back of my head and neck, in search of damage, I notice that I can’t sense Joe any more… or Lita and Ozzie for that matter. What is happening?! Like, normally I can feel them, which I guess comes with being able to speak to them in my head, but I can’t even do that any more. “Ok, Mr. Horowitz, you seem fine other than that lump on the back of your head. Go ahead and sit up, slowly.” I didn’t even notice while I was laying there, but most of the school was gathered around me, whispering and pointing. I look around, holding the back of my head, remembering that Athena got picked up by her Dad right before I passed out. Chuck and Jonesie are kneeling in front of me with concerned looks on their faces, though, and Jesse is right next to me, opposite Mrs. Garza, holding my arm to help me sit up.
“Are you ready to stand up?” asks Mrs. Garza. “Yeah, I think so.” I groan, as I start to make my way to my feet, with Jesse and Mrs. Garza’s support. The crowd surrounding me erupts into cheers as I get my feet under me and start to feel steady… and then everyone leaves.. “How embarrassing. Thanks, guys.” I grumble, putting my hand up in the air to show my appreciation for their support, and to wave them away at the same time. “Let’s get you to my office to take care of some paperwork really quick, Mr. Horowi…” Mrs. Garza says, until she’s cut off by Haddie running up and hugging me. “What happened, Abe? Are you ok?” she cries, as she pulls away from me, holding my arms and looking me up and down. Haddie and I have gotten much closer in the last year. I’m not sure what did it, though. It could be the fact that she’s a senior now and is trying to be more responsible, that she’s seen changes in me and doesn’t see me as the “dweeb” she used to, that I treat her with more respect because I’m more confident in myself, or maybe a little bit of all of those things. Who knows, but whatever it is, I like it. It has made life at home a lot more bearable… and fun actually. We play games and watch tv together now. We laugh and pick on mom together, which is all in love, of course. I would even go as far as saying we are friends now. As soon as Haddie is finished speaking, Chuck, who has a big crush on Haddie, quickly steps in, trying his darndest to squeeze in between us and in his best brave and confident voice declares, “He just fell down. I tried to catch him, but it all happened so fast. He’s ok, though. I saw everything.” “Ok, Chuck. Thanks for the rundown. I’ll take it from here.” she retorts, with a big eye-roll and hair flip to go with it, which I am sure sent ol’ Chuck into heart palpatations. She then turns and says, “Thank you for taking care of him, Mrs. Garza. Is it ok if I take him home right now? Can he do the paperwork with you tomorrow?” Mrs. Garza has been working for the school for a long time, and clumsiness runs in our family, so they know each other pretty well. “No problem, Haddie. I’m glad you showed up when you did. Abe, come see me before class starts tomorrow morning. I hope you feel better soon.” Mrs. Garza tells us as we begin making our way back to the car, my… and Haddie’s, entourage trailing behind. I am still a little wobbly from the fall, and the confusion of all that just happened, so Haddie supports me on the way to the car, helps me in, and gets me settled before jumping into the driver's seat. Jesse taps really hard on my window just as she fires up the engine, so I roll down the window. “I’ll come by later and see how you’re doin’ Abe Stinkin’.” he says with a wink, and a light punch on my shoulder.
I just throw him a quick cool guy nod and punch him back as Haddie quickly pulls away from the curb, leaving Jesse standing there waving and looking concerned. “So, what the heck happened, Abe?” Haddie questions as we pull up to the stop sign at the end of the street. “Shoot, I don’t know, Haddie! I wish I could tell you. I just… uh… felt dizzy, and then I woke up on the ground.” I exclaim, trying not to let on more than I have to about what really caused my embarrassing lawn dive in front of the entire school. However, our newfound closeness in the past year has had an unfortunate side-effect… she can tell when things are wrong with me, whether I am just not feeling well or I am really freaking out and just hiding it well… or not so well, I guess. That doesn’t happen often though, because I have a terrible poker face. So, in true Haddie fashion, she yells, “C’mon, dude! You know exactly what happened, I can see it all over your face! Spill it!” Well, at least I’m not dweeb anymore. This is not good, though. I can’t tell her what happened! I mean, that will mean that I have to tell her everything… like, everything. I CAN’T do that! The problem is that she’s just going to keep hounding me if I don’t, so I decide to try to stall, “I’m not feeling good and don’t want to talk about it right now, Haddie. I promise I’ll talk to you about it later. Ok?” “Yeah, I guess that’s alright… but you better tell me, ok?!” she says with a half smirk on her face as she reaches out and tousles my hair. “I’m just glad you’re alright, kid.” “Thanks Haddie. Me too. That was kinda freaky. I’ve never felt that way before… it was kinda like I was floating outside my body when I woke up. Is that weird?” I asked. “Not at all, Schnabey. Remember when I thought I broke my finger a few months ago? Well, I know exactly how you feel… I passed out and woke up feeling the exact same way. I bet you didn’t know that.” she says, and then lowers her voice to a whisper and cups the side of her mouth to almost inaudibly say, “It’s because I told Mom not to tell anybody, so don’t you go spreading the word around.” Then she throws me a quick wink. She started calling me Schnabey about a month ago. She only does it sometimes, and I have no idea where it came from, but I like it anyhow. At this point, feeling like the conversation is dwindling down, she asks, “Is your head ok? Do you mind if I turn the radio up a little?” Well, a little for Haddie is 11 out of 10 for most people, but my head is not hurting, so I tell her to crank it up, and we ride the rest of the ride home rockin’ out.
Haddie pulls up into the driveway in record time and tells me to wait in the seat while she gathers her stuff and comes around. “I’m fine, Haddie. Really.” I proclaim, but she puts her hand on my chest and says, “Dude… I’m serious. Wait here.” “Ok… Ok…” I quickly blurt out, not able to stop myself from grinning as she struggles to grab up all of her stuff and pull herself up out of the car. I can’t help but think sometimes what a difference a year can make. Last year she would have left me out on the lawn for the squirrels to pick up and drag off, never to be seen again, and now this. The car door flings open just as I am finishing my thought, and Haddie reaches in and grabs my backpack, straps it to her front, and grabs my arm to help pull me out. Mom must have been looking out the window and watching when we pulled up because I hear a loud shriek come from the house, the front door fling open and hit the wall, and hard, fast footsteps that get louder and louder and before Haddie gets a chance to pull me up out of the car, Mom yells, “ABE! ABE! ARE YOU OK?! WHAT HAPPENED?!” She pushes past Haddie, who yells, “C’mon Mom! I got this! It’s ok!”, kneels down next to the car, and starts checking me out from head to toe. “Are you hurt? What is going on?” she frantically asks me, not letting me even get a word in between throwing questions at me. All the while, she’s looking me over, and running her hands over my head, face, arms, chest… inspecting me as she goes. “I’m fine, Mom. I just had a little accident. No big deal.” I tell her calmly, while rolling my eyes, trying to keep her from calling an ambulance and getting me rushed right in the operating room. She can get a little crazy like that sometimes. Haddie is standing behind her making faces at me and laughing silently, which throws me into a fit of laughter, too. I start cracking up, which actually helps. “Oh, you guys! Were you just messing with me?! You can’t do that to me!” Mom yells excitedly as she gets up and pretends to storm angrily into the house, turning to give us her fake angry face as she closes the door behind her. Haddie and I just sit there laughing until she suddenly gets super serious again, “Now, tell me what’s going on, Schnabey. Seriously. This isn’t cool. I can tell something’s wrong. What is it?” she asks pleadingly. I am so torn here. I can tell that she’s hurting and honestly wants to help, but I also don’t think that she would understand even if I did tell her. She’d probably try to get me put me in the dang looney bin!
I am still sitting in the car with my legs hanging out, so I take a deep breath, exhale, swing my legs around, reach for the door, and say, “Get in, let’s talk.” I close the door as she runs around to the driver’s side and jumps in. I have her immediate and focused attention as soon as she gets into the car. She’s staring right into my soul as I take another deep breath and begin to speak. I start off with arriving at Grandma’s house last summer and going out to play in the forest. “You know that big tree in the forest that I like to climb? You know, I call it the Tree of Aberün?” I ask, to which she reaches up and rubs the front of my head, and replies that she knows it all too well. The last time she came out there with me was when we were playing hide and seek, and I whacked my head on one of the lower branches really hard… so hard that I got knocked out! I was running from her and not looking when WHAMMO! I went right into the branch and then down to the ground. I knew she wasn’t very upset about it back then because she kept laughing at me. We’re in a better place now, though. I continue by telling her about how I found the tree that day, dying and withered, and then how the leaves had turned black like ash and disintegrated as soon as I touched them. I told her about the ground lighting up as I walked and how the light under my feet spread out like shattered glass with each step I took… bigger and darker as I got closer. She still seemed interested, and she even leaned in a little bit closer, so I continued. I explained how it sent electrical shocks through me when I touched it and how when I looked in the tree for the stuff I left in it, all I saw was a bottomless pit inside… nothing but darkness. I continue, still watching her for “This dude is crazy!” vibes, by telling her about going back that night, falling into the ground, and not being able to get back out. Then onto the craziest part. I pause first and ask Haddie, “Are you doing ok? Should I keep going?” “Keep going. I’m good.” she replies gently. So, I go on to tell her about meeting the Ghoulies, about Joe, Lita, and Ozzie and our adventures, about meeting the king and queen, and about how Valdrick and his Falcrin henchmen tried to destroy them and take over Faldoon. At this point, I am super excited and I am jumping in my seat as I talk, so I stop and take another breath. Haddie has now sat back a little bit more, but she’s still very focused on me. She grins a little bit when she notices that I stopped to calm myself down. As soon as I felt a little more chill, I told her about having to get the paltoum from the drack, the fight with the Kilgrom, the crocto, the smelly Quomac, and the big battle with Valdrick and the Kilgrom. She gets a tear in her eye as I tell her about the king’s death and me receiving the ghaoultep, and then I finish off telling her that no time had passed for her while all of this happened.