At the beginning of the adventure chronicled in The Mark of the Spider, the protagonist, nature photographer Sebastian Arnett, would definitely say, There is no such thing as ghosts. Or demons. Or a true black orchid.

You’ll have to read the book to see whether he changes his mind about the demon thing. He will never change his mind about black orchids, however.

‘Cause there ain’t no such thing as a black orchid.

There is a Black Orchid perfume. A Black Orchid comic book character. A double mystery by Rex Stout. A Black Orchid movie starring Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn and an earlier one from 1953.  There are Black Orchid music albums and an Australian goth band.

But no black orchid flower.

As Celeste Booth notes on the OrchidPlantCare.info Web site:

There are two shades, however, that orchids do not naturally blossom in: a true blue or a true black. They simply do not have the genetic makeup to make these pigments. There are some varieties of purple orchids that look very blue, but upon close inspection are really a shade of purple. Similarly, black orchids have an extremely rich pigmentation that looks almost black but is not a true black color.

So what’s that black orchid pictured on the cover of The Mark of the Spider?

Dracula vampira orchid. Photo: Eric Hunt

It is a deep purple bloom of the Dracula vampira species. And how cool is the name?

I sent several photos of dark (but not black) orchids to my book designer (Damon Freeman of Damonza.com), and he liked this one best. I agree.

What drew me to the idea of a black orchid?

Obviously, it’s not original to me. Black connotes something dark, mysterious, potentially dangerous. And orchids are complex, incredibly beautiful plants. The two words combined — black orchid — convey the dangerous allure that I needed to entice my protagonist into doing something he normally would never do.

And since I plan to write more than one Sebastian Arnett adventure, I wanted an intriguing name for the series. Black Orchid was an obvious candidate, and my son suggested that the series be chronicles.

And so they are, the Black Orchid Chronicles.

Order your copy of The Mark of the Spider: A Black Orchid Chronicle from Amazon today and start enjoying.

The mark of a spider? Big red bump obviously.

Or not. (Look at the cover of my Mark of the Spider.)

But which spider left its mark? I mean, what kind of arachnid?

This question arose (over and over and over again) as I wrote The Mark of the Spider.

A black widow (Latrodectus mactans)? Everybody knows this is the deadliest spider ever. (Except it’s probably not. It’s in the top ten, but likely not the most dangerous.)

A tarantula (spider family Theraphosidae)? Every horror movie uses these nasty looking creatures, but they rarely rank among the ten most dangerous. (See here, here, here and here.)

A Digression

In general, among the 43,000 species of spider throughout the world, the ones to avoid have funnel, recluse, widow or wolf in their names. So the black (and other) widow spiders are nasty brutes, as you would expect with a name like widow.

Depending on your source, these are the most dangerous, venomous spiders in the world.

• Funnel-web Spiders (family Dipluridae)
• Brazilian Wandering Spider (Phoneutria)

For my money, the nastiest looking is the Goliath Birdeater Tarantula (Theraphosa blondi), which is about the size of a dinner plate. This is it:

Goliath Birdeater, which is about the size of a dinner plate. Photo: Wonders World.

Imagine what it would look like in person, if it were black — and 10 feet tall.

But I digress.

BOT (Back on Topic)

My spider is black with hairy legs. It has no eyes, that I can see, and it is tiny enough to crawl unnoticed into a human ear and large enough to imprison a tall man inside its telephone pole-sized legs. And angry. Very angry. And vindictive.

That’s my spider.

I couldn’t find that in nature. So, the spider in The Mark of the Spider exists in my mind, and yours. That should make you shudder.

The Mark of the Spider, Book 1 of the Black Orchid Chronicles, is available on Amazon in digital and trade paperback (5.5 x 8.5″, 334 pp.) formats.

Enjoy it today; review it tomorrow.