This Is Horror

News Round-up Week Ending 25 June 2021

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

Coming 7 July from Demain Publishing, The Samaritan, the third instalment in the A Quiet Apocalypse series by Dave Jeffery

The disease known as ‘MNG-U’ has staked its claim on humanity and ended the world. Those who survive have been robbed of their hearing, deafened in this quiet apocalypse. But in the city of Cathedral, they have found sanctuary. Inside the walls, the meagre populace relies on harsh governance to keep them safe. Outside the walls they depend on Samaritans, search teams who scour the Wilderness for both resource and threat. Bound by an oath to maintain and defend their city, Samaritans are the line separating Cathedral from disorder and ruin, a mandate they pursue ruthlessly and without question. Until now. On a routine recon, one Samaritan will find himself injured and alone and in desperate need of guidance. Where loyalties between the oath made to his beloved city will clash with promises from his past. Now he must question everything he knows, including his own purpose. Because, lost in the Wilderness, redemption is about to become the only way to stay alive. Available to pre-order in eBook, with the paperback edition following soon, you can pre-order your copy now, here.


Immortelle, the new novella from writer Catherine McCarthy and Off Limits Press, released 15 July

When Elinor’s daughter, Rowena, is found poisoned and dead in an animal trough, Elinor is sure the local parish priest is to blame. A ceramic artist by trade and influenced by her late grandmother’s interest in supernatural magic, Elinor crafts an immortelle for Rowena’s grave and attempts to capture the girl’s spirit in the clay model of a starling. Soon she is inundated with requests for immortelles and the more immersed in the craft she becomes, the greater her powers grow. As the dead share their secrets with grieving Elinor, she learns the sordid truth of what happened to her beloved daughter and plots a revenge so hideous, it must be kept a secret forever. Available to pre-order in paperback and eBook, you can guarantee your copy now, here.


Wings in the Darkness a standalone Damocles Files novella, out now from writers Anthony Watson and Benedict J. Jones

DAMOCLES: A secret organisation working from The Ministry of Information in London during World War Two. Its mission to combat the occult machinations of the Axis forces. Wings in the Darkness is a standalone novella which tells of Damocles’ attempts to locate and secure an ancient artefact before it falls into the hands of their opponents. A thrilling story of military action and supernatural horror. This standalone novella, released ahead of the novel to come in late July, is available in eBook now, here.


Tales of Dread and Dismay, the debut short fiction collection by Jed Vesper, out now

Volume 1 of Tales of Dread and Dismay contains 5 ghost and horror stories from the fertile imagination of Jed Vesper. Ranging from the shiveringly shocking to the uncomfortably uplifting, all these tales will deliver frights into the reader’s mind, the residue of which will live on long after the final story has been read. Stories ranging from the supernatural to the terrifyingly real will keep the reader awake long into the night, wondering just what it is that taps at the window after midnight, and just who it that lingers outside the bedroom door, in the darkness… With a second volume to follow soon, you can pick up Tales of Dread and Dismay in eBook format, here.


KEV HARRISON