All the Ups and Downs: Book Tour and Giveaway: Combustion by Jyvur Entropy

Saturday, May 1, 2021

Book Tour and Giveaway: Combustion by Jyvur Entropy

Tile: Combustion

Author: Jyvur Entropy

Publisher: Lulu

Publication Date: March 24th 2020

Print Length: 360 pages

Genre: Horror

Rachel lives in constant fear that she will burst into flames. She can feel the heat building in her gut.

She keeps buckets of water under the bed. She keeps them to fend off the flames that her body may create.

Autocombustophobia. That's what they say she has.

No one will believe Rachel when she explains that she spontaneously combusted once before. That's why her body is covered in burns.

Rachel's mother is the only one who knows what really happened to her. All she said was that it was an accident, before she disappeared leaving Rachel to live with her grandparents.

When Rachel becomes reunited with her estranged mother, she struggles to uncover the truth behind her injuries. As Rachel spends time with the mother she has never known, she is thrown into a strange world of paranormal obsession, spells, and sage burning.

Long buried family secrets are revealed and Rachel's fear of Spontaneous Human Combustion becomes unmanageable.

There are some terrifying truths to uncover and a man on fire. He stands burning at the foot of her bed.

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Strange images filled her mind. Rachel was not producing them. They were simply appearing there, placed there by something else. Delivered from outer space.

Faces. Flames. A centipede ripping apart. She saw it writhing, as it spontaneously split down its center. It was filled with eggs. Millions of centipede eggs. And then Rachel felt sure that she was filled with centipede eggs, and her belly burned and a crazed itching feeling danced over her, and with that, Rachel was finally able to rip her eyelids apart.

The sight of the darkened room met her. And in that darkness, a creature.

Somehow her eye was able to widen, as she realized the sight before her, but she could not close it. She also could not move. She could not scream. She willed her mouth to open and couldn't. Her vocal cords did respond weakly, and with a mouth shut tight, she heard the broken squeaks creaking from her throat.

Her body frozen in place, imprisoned in a cage of her own muscles and bone, she stared up at him helplessly. The man on fire at the foot of her bed.

She had to scream and wake her sleeping friend. She had to cry out for her grandmother to come. But no matter how she thrashed about internally, her body remained paralyzed. All she could do was look up at the man engulfed in flames.

His mouth opened. A slit appeared in the smoke and crisping redness of burning flesh. And his mouth froze in a wide circle of suffering.

Fear rippled through her body. Rachel fought to move and felt the same resistance that she felt whenever she tried to run in a nightmare where she was being chased. She felt the same tugging on her body, the same alteration of physics.

It opened its mouth then, as if it were going to speak.

Her brain burned. It melted. It scorched. Terror seized her, and it was so strong she was unsure how her body could contain it. It felt too large, too strong to be held within her. She knew that the man on fire was going to speak and she had no idea what she’d do when he did.

But it was then that the episode ended, and finally, miraculously, her fingers twitched and her body jerked upright. The moment her body moved, the man vanished, taking all of his flames and fright with him.

She was left staring at the shadowy scene of an empty room.

Rachel ripped the covers over her head and lay on her side with a thumping heart, pressing her body frantically into the body of her sleeping friend.

She tried to tell herself that it had only been a dream. She repeated it in her mind again and again.

It wasn’t real. I’m not going to spontaneously combust. I am NOT going to spontaneously combust.

But she couldn’t believe it. Because the man on fire had opened his mouth to speak, and she could sense the words he’d been about to say. He’d been about to tell her that her time was limited, that if she didn’t figure out how she spontaneously combusted the first time, it was sure to happen again.

She moaned into her pillow, imagining what his awful voice would sound like.

You burned once. You’ll burn again.

Jyvur Entropy writes horror and romance. She is a pessimist, a chaotic neutral, and a massive fan of Die Antwoord.

Combustion is her most well known work. It premiered on wattpad in 2016, where it went on to collect over 94,000 views, was featured twice by wattpad and longlisted for the 2018 Watty’s.

Jyvur knows everything about the Columbine massacre and buys a new bodice ripper every time she goes to the supermarket.

She is never seen without an iced coffee or yoga pants, because she’s about as basic as it gets.

She runs a moderately successful book blog and she has a baby YouTube channel.

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Mary Reeser is Real, But is Spontaneous Human Combustion?
by Jyvur Entropy

I’m Jyvur Entropy and I wrote ‘Combustion.’ This is my most popular book. It’s a very personal book for me, so I’m forever grateful that the story connected with so many others.

I thought for this guest post, I’d do a bit of a ‘behind the scenes’ sort of thing, and explain the story that my main character, Rachel, is fixated on: the story of Mary Reeser.

Many readers have asked me if Mary Reeser is real. Some have asked me if Spontaneous Human Combustion is real.

To answer the first question, yes, Mary Reeser is real. The story of supposed Spontaneous Human Combustion that Rachel is fixated on is real. Did Mary actually spontaneously combust? Her death, which occurred all the way back in 1951, remains a mystery to this day. At this point in time, Spontaneous Human Combustion is the most reasonable explanation.

And I can see how lovers of the paranormal came to that conclusion. It makes sense, to an extent. I mean, spontaneous combustion can occur in nature (piles of hay and compost can burst into flame-Oh the times I had to rush and put out a mulch fire when I was a manager at Home Depot…) and if piles of compost can spontaneously combust, why can’t people? That’s the general line of inquiry anyway.

Mary Reeser’s death is incredibly mysterious. She is often referred to as ‘The Cinder Woman.’ The evidence from the crime scene doesn’t make much sense. Almost her entire body is gone, save for one foot still in its slipper, a portion of her spine, and her skull. The weird part about her skull is that it was shrunken. Some say her skull was as small as a teacup. Many stories of supposed SHC include the victim’s skull being shrunken.

Add to all of that the absence of any damage to the room around her. All that burned was Mary and the armchair she sat in (do NOT google image search that unless you have a VERY strong stomach. I do not-surprisingly considering what I write-and I regret my choices).

No external fire source was found and far more of Mary was burned than the armchair. This has led many investigators of the paranormal to conclude that the fire came from inside of Mary’s body.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, “There was a layer of soot that ringed the upper part of the apartment walls. It looked very much like what results from a long-burning candle or a kerosene lamp. Electric outlets above this line had melted, but the switches below were intact. An electric clock on a table had stopped at 4:20, presumably a.m. It worked when plugged in elsewhere.”

All of these creepy details are what keep paranormal enthusiasts coming back to this classic story of SHC. While there are a handful of other SHC tales, Mary’s is the most infamous.

So as the human who wrote ‘Combustion,’ do I actually believe Mary Reeser spontaneously combusted? Do I really believe that humans can succumb to the ‘wick effect’ and become, essentially, human candles? Their spine acting as the wick and their fat and organs like the wax of a candle…

I think anyone who knows my views on the paranormal could deduce my true opinion on this cold case.

For those who aren’t familiar with me, I’ll say this…

I think there are other threats in this world far worthier of your fear.