About the Author

W.J. Grupe Jr. grew up in the eighties, the decade that gave us some of the greatest movies and music of our time. If you don’t agree, you should probably stop reading now. Born in 1970 he spent many a Saturday watching Looney Tunes, and the collective works of Hanna Barbera including Space Ghost, The Herculoids, Quickdraw McGraw and The Super Friends. Then in 1977 something magical happened, his parents bought an Atari 2600.

The next several years video games were his obsession. He spent hours jumping pits, shooting aliens, eating power pellets, and slaying dragons. He became the best in every game. Well, not every game, his brother had Space Invaders, his brother-in-law had Circus Atari, he had everything else.

Reading was not a favored pastime until middle school, when he discovered the works of David Eddings, and Ian Fleming. From there he moved onto Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Robert Jordan, and the list went on and on. More of a loner he spent his days reading in the library. One of the only picture of him in his yearbook was of him doing just that while sitting on a window radiator.

Grupe graduated from St. John’s University in 1992 with a degree in Paralegal Studies. He started writing in college after a creative writing course. From then on you would never see him without a notebook. He wrote a combination of short stories and novels, none of which ever published.

He met his soul mate in college and they were married in 1993. Their daughter Kristina was born in 1995 and Son Will in 1999. For the next few decades, he focused on his career in a consumer products manufacturer. Until one day at his niece’s wedding he was inspired with the origin story of his first novel. Since then, the writing bug had him squarely in his clutches.

His first novel Awakening was the first in the Tainted Wars series. A supernatural thriller, combining his two favorite genres. While he is focusing mostly on it, he is also working on a techno-thriller series as well.