The X-Men meets The Hunger Games in this thrilling debut superhero novel!
Tommy Ward just wanted to go through life like everybody else. Go to school, make friends, meet girls, play video games. You know, the stuff normal high school kids do. But Tommy isn’t normal, and the silver collar around his neck lets everybody know it.
Tommy is one of the Gifted, people born with special abilities that are locked down by the collars. But being a Gifted was outlawed after massive terrorist attacks destroyed half the world’s population. Now Tommy’s father is trapped as a participant in a terrible game show, where the only prize is death.
Tommy and his friends vow to save his dad, but without their powers, how will they do it? Tommy is about to find out that everything has a price, and sometimes you have to pay more than you can afford.
Storm Forged is the first novel in The Darkest Storm, a dark superhero series from Falstaff Books.

Patrick Dugan was born in the far north of New York, where the cold winds blow. This meant lots of time for reading over the long winters. His parents didn't care what he read as long as he did. This started with a steady diet of comics and science fiction novels, Heinlein being his favorite in those days.

After two degrees and lots of odd jobs ranging from Blockbuster Video manager to Lab Researcher to running a video game arcade, Charlotte, North Carolina beckoned. Packing up his dog sled he headed for warmer climes and a lot less snow. Still a voracious reader, he read all sorts of great books. Rothfuss, Butcher, Duncan, Sanderson, Hobb, Farland and Feist sparked his imagination and he started writing horribly. Bad short stories and worse novels would follow. Thankfully these are nowhere to be found.

A husband and father of two great kids and one opinionated dog, Patrick works as a software engineer by day before his author shifts on nights and weekends. When he's not writing Patrick enjoys brewing and drinking craft beers, playing anything Blizzard puts out on the PC, watching Science Fiction and Fantasy movies/shows and building things out of wood and metal for use around the house. Patrick's first novel "Storm Forged" was released by Falstaff Books in May of 2018.