Michael Thomas Perone is an award-winning author who has written for The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, Long Island Voice (a spinoff of The Village Voice), and The Island Ear (now titled Long Island Press), among others. Online, he has written for Yahoo!, WhatCulture!, and other websites that don't end with an exclamation mark.
His expertise on critical writing in the music industry has been cited on Wikipedia and featured in national press kits. Perone's debut novel, the action-adventure Danger Peak, was the recipient of The Fall 2022 BookFest Award in the category of Young Adult – Action and Adventure and The 2022 Firebird Book Award in the category of Magical Realism. It was also a finalist of The 2022 American Fiction Awards in the category of Inspirational and an Honorable Mention in both The 2022 New York and Hollywood Book Festivals.
His follow-up, the coming-of-age/sci-fi mindbender Déjà View, was the recipient of The Spring 2024 BookFest Award in the category of Young Adult – Literary and Coming of Age, where it received First Place, and The 2024 Firebird Book Award in the category of Coming of Age. It was also a finalist of The 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Award.
His short story collection, The Electric God and Other Shorts, was the recipient of The Spring 2025 BookFest Award in the category of Short Stories and The 2024 Firebird Book Award in the same category, where it received First Place.
Michael works as a Senior Editor and lives on Long Island with his wife and two daughters.
Published Works:
The Electric God and Other Shorts
A small town becomes obsessed with television—to the point of madness. A cheerful innocent confronts the harsh reality of the world and is forever changed by the experience. A struggling author begins receiving strange messages on the paper he uses to write. A bullied, brilliant teen is put through the wringer of his high school and comes out the other side insane. A detective of the future discovers he may be investigating his own untimely demise—and that of the world's.
These and one more dark fable await you from the imaginative mind of the award-winning author Michael Thomas Perone. Part fractured fairy tales, part nightmare fuel, The Electric God and Other Shorts follows characters who struggle to remain sane in an insane world and features stories that will keep you up at night, wondering what might be lurking in the shadows.
Published 2024 by Wheatmark.
Deja View
Twelve-year-old Bobby Dalton doesn't want to grow up. All his life, he has relied on the imaginary games of childhood with his best friends Joe and Max to get him through the tough times. But this all changes when his Seventh-Grade class buries a time capsule to commemorate the end of the 1980s. Now Bobby is being haunted by visions: ghostly doppelgangers of himself, his friends, and others. He calls them, "Déjà View".
Are these visions real, or has his imagination finally gotten away from him? And if they're real, what do they want? Bobby needs to figure this all out to survive his childhood—and his life. From the author of the award-winning Danger Peak, Déjà View is a darkly funny coming-of-age dramedy with a sci-fi twist, cranked up to eleven. But even more, it's at once a pulse-pounding thrill ride and a haunting portrait of paranoia, mental illness, and the unbearable sadness of growing up.
Published 2023 by Wheatmark.
Danger Peak
What's on top of Danger Peak?
That's what 13-year-old Robert Kin and his two best friends, wisecracking and loyal Chris and sweet but put-upon Rinnie, want to find out in their small suburban town of the late 1980s.
The three teens are members of the motorbike-racing club the Wild Boars, and with the unintentional help of their eccentric technology teacher Dr. Howard (who prefers to be called "Doctor," not "Mister," thank you very much), they build Robert a better, faster, and stronger dirt bike—piece by piece.
Haunted by flashbacks of his older brother Danny, who died trying to scale Danger Peak the year before, Robert becomes obsessed with conquering the magical mountain. For the respect of his friends and school, and with the aid of his improved Action Bike, he discovers what lies beyond the peak of the mountain—and maybe even beyond the bounds of Earth itself.
Filled with humor, adventure, and, most importantly, heart, Danger Peak is an inspiring story about what it takes to achieve your dreams—and what it means to feel alive.
Michael Thomas Perone is an award-winning author who has written for The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, Long Island Voice (a spinoff of The Village Voice), and The Island Ear (now titled Long Island Press), among others. Online, he has written for Yahoo!, WhatCulture!, and other websites that don't end with an exclamation mark.
A small town becomes obsessed with television—to the point of madness. A cheerful innocent confronts the harsh reality of the world and is forever changed by the experience. A struggling author begins receiving strange messages on the paper he uses to write. A bullied, brilliant teen is put through the wringer of his high school and comes out the other side insane. A detective of the future discovers he may be investigating his own untimely demise—and that of the world's.
Twelve-year-old Bobby Dalton doesn't want to grow up. All his life, he has relied on the imaginary games of childhood with his best friends Joe and Max to get him through the tough times. But this all changes when his Seventh-Grade class buries a time capsule to commemorate the end of the 1980s. Now Bobby is being haunted by visions: ghostly doppelgangers of himself, his friends, and others. He calls them, "Déjà View".
What's on top of Danger Peak?
