Here’s a small selection of the horror and genre news that caught our eye during the last week …
Out now from writer Caitlin Marceau and Dark Lit Press, This is Where We Talk Things Out
This Is Where We Talk Things Out by Caitlin Marceau, author of Palimpsest: A Collection of Contemporary Horror, follows the gut-wrenching journey of Miller and her estranged mother, Sylvie, who have always had a tense relationship. After Miller’s father dies, she agrees to a girls’ vacation away from the city to reconnect with the only family she has left. Although she’s eager to make things work, Miller can’t help but worry that her mother is seeing their countryside retreat as a fun weekend getaway instead of what it really is: a last-ditch effort to repair their relationship. Unfortunately, that quickly becomes the least of Miller’s problems. Sylvie’s trapped in the past and if Miller’s not careful, she will be too. A cross between Stephen King’s Misery and Stephanie Wrobel’s Darling Rose Gold, This Is Where We Talk Things Out explores the horror of familial trauma, mother-daughter relationships, and what happens when we don’t let go. Available now in eBook and paperback, with an audiobook to follow, you can grab your copy here.
Nathan has always been haunted by what he calls “deaders,” frightening, disfigured creatures—once human but now hungry and relentless ghosts. After a séance to banish them goes awry, Nathan escapes high school to start over at Waxman University in idyllic Garden City, Montana. But when young men begin to go missing from campus, Nathan finds that the deaders have returned, more frightening and hungrier than ever. With the help of the mysterious Theo, Nathan seeks to learn the truth behind the disappearances. But something worse than the deaders begins to haunt Nathan . . . something with glowing yellow eyes and giant wings. As reality grows thin, things emerge from the cracks. Is Theo what he seems? Or could he be some kind of monster? Will Nathan learn the truth before he vanishes into the darkness? Available for pre-order now in paperback, with other editions to follow, you can guarantee your copy here.
In the twilight of March 21, 1955, eight people take cover in their local general store while a thundering torrent and flash flooding threatens life and livelihood alike. None of the eight are everything they claim to be. But only one of them hungers for human souls, flesh, and blood. An overflowing waterway destroys their only path of escape. The tiny band of survivors is forced to confront themselves and each other when a peculiar stranger with a famous face tries to pick them off one by one. Can the neighbors survive the predator in their midst as well as the 100-year flood that drowns the small town of Lost Hollow? Or will they become victims of the night the townsfolk all remember as Hell Spring? Available now in hardcover, paperback and eBook formats, you can grab your copy here.
In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies. For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed. In the frozen north, the Institute’s body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron’s castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again. Available now in hardcover, eBook and audiobook, you can grab yours here.
Monsters. Mayhem. Minimum Wage. Marble Springs is a town with a hundred missing persons cases, a lake harboring a blood-thirsty monster, and a second-generation serial killer on the loose. When undervalued city employee Abe Barret begins to see the dead, he discovers the loss of his family is linked to these unsolved disappearances, and he only has days to solve it before his time is up. There are a lot of ways you can go in Marble Springs, and none of them are pleasant. Welcome to the City of the Dead! Available to pre-order now in eBook, with a paperback edition to follow, you can guarantee your copy here, now.
KEV HARRISON