Mark Cain Books In Order

Publication Order of Circles in Hell Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Mark Cain
Mark Cain grew up a service brat. His parents, and the four kids, along with a cat, dog, and two parakeets made up what was frequently the annual trip across the country, while they went to a new assignment for his dad. North Carolina, Oklahoma, Virginia, California, and then back to Virginia. One year, they moved three times in just as many months. His dad finally retired, moved the family to Texas where he started a second career.

Then Mark did what most people do. He grew up and graduated from high school. Then for college, he went to Columbia in New York. Then he headed off to Virginia, which was followed by Chicago for a couple degrees.

Mark had a career in higher education, first working as a librarian, then as an IT manager. He has been divorced once, and married twice. He has a grown son with his second wife.

Somewhere in there, he began writing and publishing his first book in 2000. and that is what he has been doing for quite some time now. Writing. And playing the tuba. Listen for him playing the introductory melodies on his audiobooks.

He got the idea for “Hell’s Super” while walking in Florida with his wife. He was working on an epic fantasy at the time. And in a pretty bad mood. So he turned to his wife and said that he wasn’t feeling that epic at the moment, more snarky. So he started with the attitude of his lead, picked Hell for the setting, and thought about what Hell would be like. He hates home improvement projects, just like his lead.

In 2018, he won the Short Stories by Texas Authors contest, with his story “Fenced In”.

“Hell’s Super” is the first novel in the “Circles in Hell” series and was released in 2013. How can just one damned handyman keep all of Hell running when everything is always breaking, demons and devils are plotting against him, and he is awful at fixing things?

Steve is Hell’s Super. Its handyman. Being Mr. Fixit to the Underworld keeps him and Orson Welles (yeah, that Orson Welles), his assistant, rather busy. Especially since things go on the blink all the damn time down there.

No malfunction has ever created so much inconvenience as the malfunction of Hell’s Escalator, which leads from the Pearly Gates down to the depths of Hades. What is worse: the breakdown seems to be sabotage. Satan calls Steve in to investigate.

However Steve has been distracted these days. He is in love with Flo, this gorgeous and almost saintly figure that has come to Hell by choice in order to ease the damned’s suffering. What is more, she seems to really like him, however romance in Hell? That could never be.

Still, solving the mystery of the Escalator could really score some much needed points with Satan, possibly even a short with Flo. Then again, maybe not.

“A Cold Day in Hell” is the second novel in the “Circles in Hell” series and was released in 2015. Orson and Steve have returned in this cracked sequel. This time around, the guys have to fix Hell’s heating and air conditioning (HVAC) system, which has just failed.

Hell is getting progressively colder, and things are much more serious than demons and devils needing to put their sweaters on. If you have ever used the expression about how it’ll be a cold day in Hell before, then you know that there are metaphysical ramifications involved here.

The HVAC system needs to be fixed before all of Hell freezes over, which is a much worse state than just a touch of frigid weather. Still anything is possible on A Cold Day in Hell. Even a paranormal comedy romance which becomes a wacky love triangle.

“Deal With the Devil” is the third novel in the “Circles in Hell” series and was released in 2015. A kidnapping, a dangerous new devil. Orson and Steve confront another mystery, which involves their closest of friends, as Satan attempts to recruit Steve to the Demon Corps.

The Lord of Hell has got a staffing shortage: there just are not enough demons and devils to torment the ever swelling ranks of the eternally damned. Satan believes Steve is an ideal candidate for the Demon Corps. He is tenacious, smart, and able to dish punishment out whenever the need arises. However while Old Nick attempts to recruit Hell’s handyman in chief, Steve is distracted by a far more pressing issue: Florence Nightingale, his off-again, on-again girlfriend has vanished, possibly was kidnapped.

With just a little bit of help from his friends, like BOOH, the storied Bat out of Hell, he has to solve the mystery of her going missing, manage Hell’s unending flow of maintenance requests, as he fends of a pretty aggressive devil chief of police, not to mention this succubus that is determined to steal Hell’s own Mr. Fixit away from Flo.

“Boomer at Midlife” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2016. A tragedy wrapped in a comedy, bittersweet and bold. You can read it and laugh, or weep, however always with the shock of recognition. Landon Y. Jones, the bestselling author and National Book Award nominee for Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation Walter “Boomer” Stapleton has got good reason to believe that he’s the ultimate stereotype: middle-aged, divorced, tired of his job, involved with a much younger woman, and soon will lose his only kid to college.

He’s a Baby Boomer, one of the anonymous seventy-seven million Americans at or quickly approaching midlife. With his 50th birthday right around the corner, he has finished being a poster child for his generation and is determined to forge a new path despite his progressively shrinking set of life options.

So he quits his job and leaves his family and friends behind in order to move New Orleans so he can play zydeco on his accordion. However what he encounters in The Big Easy leads him even deeper into the realm of uncertainty about who he is and where he truly belongs. From the halls of corporate America to the clubs and sidewalks of New Orleans, this lampoons the self-conscious Baby Boomers in a tale that is at once nostalgic, comic, and melancholy.