Here’s a small selection of the horror and genre news that caught our eye during the last week …
Available for pre-order now, Guests by Kealan Patrick Burke
After the death of the woman who raised him and the realization that the girl he loves will never love him back, young Mark Callahan decides it’s time to leave the small harbor town of Miriam’s Cove for good. All that remains is one last shift at The Windcrest Hotel, a seaside resort that has seen better days. Tonight, with a ferocious winter storm bearing down on them, there are few staff and fewer guests, until a last-minute booking takes everyone by surprise. There’s a small yellow tour bus bound for The Windcrest and soon the hotel will find itself under siege by something much worse than the storm. Available for pre-order in eBook format, with a paperback to follow, you can guarantee your copy of Guests on the release date of 1 January, here.
Available now on Godless, The White, by Matt Micheli, from D & T Publishing
Uninvited and unwelcomed, Dan’s estranged mother Margo shows up at his doorstep moments before a freak snowstorm hits their small Texas town. The arctic storm comes fast and hard, trapping Dan and his wife, their teen daughter, and her boyfriend inside with the malicious old woman who seems hell-bent on destroying everything her son and daughter-in-law have built together. Long-buried family secrets are exhumed, causing tensions to flare and tempers to erupt. As things spiral out of control and anger consumes the household, inside is Hell. But outside in the snow there is something far more sinister. Something full of rage. Something violent. And that something has a taste for blood. Available now on Godless and at other stores later in December, you can get your copy here.
New from Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Gemma Amor, Christmas at Wheeldale Inn
Christmas Eve. A horse-drawn coach battles its way through a terrible snow storm, travelling the old Roman road that cuts across Wheeldale Moor. The carriage bears the miserable burden of Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, a formerly well-to-do couple now fleeing London and the threat of debtor’s jail, for Mr. Wilcox has been imprudent with the family fortune. Not that Mrs. Wilcox cares much for money. She is still grieving a great loss, a loss that cannot be replaced with any number of riches. As the weather worsens, the carriage is overturned, with deadly consequences. Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox find themselves out in a freezing storm, lost, injured and penniless upon the moors. Salvation comes in the form of Wheeldale Inn: the highest public house in Yorkshire. An isolated sanctuary, yet a peculiar one. The Innkeeper seems welcoming enough, but oddities abound: a corpse, a silent son, a surfeit of victuals, and memories that come and go at a whim. As the intrepid guests settle in, they realise all is definitely not as it seems at Wheeldale. Both husband and wife are forced to confront truths about themselves, their past, their present, and their future in the most terrifying of ways. Will Christmas Day be a happy one for the Wilcox family, or will Wheeldale disrupt their lives so completely there is no coming back? Available now in paperback and eBook editions, you can grab your copy here.
Out now from Crystal Lake Publishing and editor Joe Mynhardt, Shallow Waters: Special Christmas Edition
Nothing stays buried under the Christmas tree this year! Not with eighteen scary tales of flash fiction filled with yuletide goodness. From editor Joe Mynhardt and eighteen authors including William Meikle, Theresa Derwin, Vivian Kasley, Kenneth W. Cain and many more, this special festive edition of Shallow Waters gathers together eighteen flash fiction horrors about the holiday season which are sure to keep you awake at night. Available in eBook edition only, you can grab your copy here, now.
Arriving 29 December from writer Erica Schaef and Brigids Gate Press, This Cold Night
Following the death of a loved one, Rachelle Collins visits Ferguson Estate, an expansive country mansion which holds many fond memories, and one sinister secret, within its walls. Throughout the course of a single, terrifying night, Rachelle must confront horrors, both psychological and tangible, to prove just how far she is willing to go to keep her family together. Available to pre-order in eBook for a promotional early price of 99c, with a paperback edition to follow, you can guarantee your copy here.
Out now from writer Eddie Generous and Severed Press, Where the Dinosaurs Roam
Forced from their apartment, Hannah Laurie and her children, Skylar and Gabe, head north to seek cheaper housing, unaware Hannah’s deadbeat ex has put them in danger from a morally bankrupt biker gang. Chasing up the highway, Hannah crashes, forcing them to flee on foot. The family spots hope for refuge in the form of a cabin deep in the woods, cordoned off by a rusty fence, unaware the safety they’d hoped to find is not on offer within the cabin. Instead, they find a foggy doorway at the bottom of a bunker.
Anywhere seems better than where they are, and they rush through the mysterious doorway to find oddity mounted atop oddity on the far side. Giant birds, giant bugs, giant dinosaurs…there’s no turning back, and the family must outsmart and outlast the maniacs and the beasts if they have any hope of leaving this impossible terror in their dust. Where the Dinosaurs Roam is a high-octane dino grindhouse featuring mounting screams, savage creatures, and buckets of blood. Available now in eBook and paperback editions, you can grab your copy here.
Out now from writer C. S. Humble and Dark Hart Books, All the Prospect Around Us
Book Two in the Black Wells series. A mysterious symbol seen on the sign of a homeless panhandler leads two young men down into the darkest secrets of Black Wells, Colorado, and toward a harrowing, supernatural event that will threaten the life of one and the soul of the other. Available now in paperback and eBook editions, you can pick up your copy here.
KEV HARRISON
