News Round-up Week Ending 13 October 2023

October 13, 2023
7 mins to read

Here’s a small selection of the horror and genre news that caught our eye during the last week …

Coming 31 October from writer Tiffany Morris and Stelliform Press, Green Fuse Burning

After the death of her estranged father, artist Rita struggles with grief and regret. There was so much she wanted to ask him-about his childhood, their family, and the Mi’kmaq language and culture from which Rita feels disconnected. But when Rita’s girlfriend Molly forges an artist’s residency application on her behalf, winning Rita a week to paint at an isolated cabin, Rita is both furious and intrigued. The residency is located where her father grew up.

On the first night at the cabin, Rita wakes to strange sounds. Was that a body being dragged through the woods? When she questions the locals about the cabin’s history, they are suspicious and unhelpful. Ignoring her unease, Rita gives in to dark visions that emanate from the forest’s lake and the surrounding swamp. She feels its pull, channelling that energy into art like she’s never painted before. But the uncanny visions become more insistent, more intrusive, and Rita discovers that in the swamp’s decay the end of one life is sometimes the beginning of another. Available for pre-order now in eBook and paperback editions, you can guarantee your copy here.

Available now from Edo Van Belkom and Stark Publishing, Death Drives a Semi: 25th Anniversary Edition

Keep one eye on the road ahead and another on the rearview mirror. Because, like the legendary phantom semi of this book’s titular story, these stories will creep up on you and overtake you without warning.

Edo van Belkom twists his unique perspective and droll, black sense of humor into twisted observations of the sad, violent, and ironic sides of life in this special 25th anniversary release of a compilation of his most beloved horror stories.

With a voice and range that has drawn comparisons of Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson and Stephen King, van Belkom takes the reader down a most unique highway that breaths new life into classic horror tropes, all the while maintaining the essence of the best of a combination of “The Twilight Zone” and the old E.C. horror comics of the 1950s. Available now in eBook and paperback editions, you can grab your copy here.

Arriving 24 October from writer Ross Jeffery and Clash Books, I Died Too, But They Haven’t Buried Me Yet

Henry’s daughter was fourteen when she went missing and he’s been burying pieces of her ever since. Each totem Henry places in the ground is a memento mori of his daughter’s life that he’s desperate to forget. Surviving with the guilt of his possible role in her disappearance, and more than likely her death, Henry is unable to move forward.

All is not lost though, when a stranger appears at Henry’s grief counselling group with a dark and disturbing proposition for him. “Have you ever tried to make contact with your daughter, to see if she’s passed?”

What follows is a tale of deception and possession like no other. With thriller pacing and words that bleed off the page, Ross Jeffery delivers a terrifying nightmare of how grief can climb inside and bury itself in the human heart. Available for pre-order now in paperback, with other editions to follow, you can guarantee yours here.

Out today from author Michael David Wilson and Cemetery Gates Media, House of Bad Memories

Denny just wants to be the world’s best dad to his baby daughter, but things get messy when he starts hallucinating his estranged abusive stepfather, Frank. Then Frank winds up dead and Denny is held hostage by his junkie half-sister who demands he uncovers the cause of her father’s death.

Will Denny defeat his demons or be perpetually tortured for refusing to answer impossible questions? Available now in eBook and paperback editions, you can pick up your copy here.

Arriving 31 December from editors Eric J. Guignard and Leslie S. Klinger, and Dark Moon Books, Phantasmagoriana Deluxe

First published in 1812, Fantasmagoriana has become one of the most seminal ghost-story anthologies of all time.

Originally collected as a French translation of eight German-language tales, Fantasmagoriana famously led to the creation of such works as the horror-classic novel Frankenstein, the short story “The Vampyre” (a progenitor to the fantasy vampire genre), the novella “Ernestus Berchtold; or, The Modern Oedipus,” the poem “Manfred,” and more.

In 1813, the anthology was partially translated into English as Tales of the Dead, excluding three of the original stories while adding in one new, and inspiring an even wider audience to delight in stories of the ghostly and macabre.

Now, for the first time, both Fantasmagoriana and Tales of the Dead have been combined into one English-language volume, in this beautifully presented showcase by Dark Moon Books! Available for pre-order now in eBook, hardcover and paperback editions, you can guarantee your copy here.

Out now from author Otto DeFay and Psychotoxin Press, The New Adventures of Horror Clown

Welcome to the show! Murder and Mayhem! Chaos and Carnage! Torture and Titillation! Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls! Intoducing the most committed circus performer you’ll ever meet. A clown who takes his work seriously. And his work is killing people. Lots of them. Available now in eBook and paperback, you can grab your copy here.

KEV HARRISON

This Is Horror