Modern Myth Trilogy

*2024 IPPY Bronze Medalist - West Pacific Fiction* An R-rated King Arthur story with a classic Hollywood rise-and-fall twist, David Schulze's critically acclaimed second novel is quintessentially grand, using three perspectives and two different writing styles to tell a story spanning twenty-two years, featuring dozens of characters along both coasts, and yet its message cannot be more grounded and relatable: in this messy modern world we live in, is there ever really a right choice? Boston: Whitman University Junior Year is at an end, and screenwriting major Jacob Andrezj returns from a revelatory semester abroad to find his life just as he left it: a devastating wreck. A family made dysfunctional thanks to a messy divorce two years prior. His friend group--his sole source of comfort in such chaotic times--too busy with their own lives to even bother trying to fix his. But just when it seems there's no hope, Jacob crosses paths with an older man that seems too good to be true... and his life is changed forever. Los Angeles: The Factory Whale just got into town, and what better way to launch his film career than with an internship at The Factory, the development company of the Oscar-winning producer known only as "The Professor." But the internship--not to mention Los Angeles as a whole--turns out to be very different than what Whale had been expecting. His future suddenly hanging in the balance, Whale quickly learns how far he's willing to go to win the job. Los Angeles: Not That Nutty Productions By all definitions, Drew Lawrence has the perfect life. Head of Production at one of the most profitable studios in town. Perfect physique. Constant love and praise from all the LA lemmings. But underneath that perfect sunny exterior is a man trapped in a hellish state of mind, an insecure beast drowning in alcohol, cocaine, steroids and problematic sex, with his only lifeline, his boss and supposed best friend Theo Landreth, actively enabling and campaigning to keep him down and dependent. But one devastating phone call is enough to motivate Drew into ending the cycle, to finally break free from the toxic Hollywood prison he's always called home--no matter the cost.

Paris, 1941. William Gunnison, a British Private trying to keep a low profile in Nazi-occupied France, accidentally kills an old American man he mistakes for a German officer. The old man's butler Jacques, now alone in Paris with a secret the Nazis could kill him for, begs William to help him safely escape Paris. All he needs to do is deliver Jacques's letter of instructions to a man named Victor hiding in New York City, a letter he will refuse unless William uses the password: "Olive Branch." Desperate to redeem himself for killing the old American - among other things - William agrees to desert the British army at the height of World War II and deliver the letter that saves Jacques's life... but what William assumed to be a simple journey from Paris to New York proves to be anything but, forcing the young Private to outmanoeuvre not just the Nazis and Allied forces, but ghosts of his past as well. Utilizing David Schulze's trademark brand of complex characters, busted genre tropes, and mile-a-minute plot twists, OLIVE BRANCH is a unique wartime mystery combining suspense, contemplation and tragedy, exploring themes of messy ethics, the limitations of the human spirit, and mankind's life-or-death need for companionship.