Here’s a small selection of the horror and genre news that caught our eye during the last week …
Two writers. 12 Stories. Personal experiences. Imaginations running riot. Horror explored and realised. Difficult and challenging. Interconnected but unconnected. Troubled families. Terrifying transformations. Ghostly wraths. Descent into madness and murder… these are the voices of the night. From Paul Edwards (Mourner’s Woods) and Frank Duffy (Distant Frequencies) comes this haunting collection. Laird Barron says: “Frank Duffy approaches the dark night of human existence from oblique angles and with a craftmanship akin to Thomas Ligotti and the late, great Joel Lane.” Out today in eBook and coming soon in paperback, you can pick up your copy, here.
Great British Horror 5: Midsummer Eve, the new anthology from Black Shuck Books, available for pre-order now
Featuring authors such as C. C. Adams, Lisa Morton, Robert Shearman and more, Midsummer Eve is the fifth entry in Black Shuck Books’ Great British Horrors, series of anthologies. Following on from previous years, there are ten brand new stories from British writers, and one from an international guest. Coming October 2020 in hardback, you can pre-order your copy for £20, here.
Darkness has risen to engulf the city. A series of brutal killings have gone largely unnoticed by the people, engulfed in their routines and their dead end lives. Feeling at the end of her tether, one detective stumbles upon a connection and a path that she has no choice but to go down. Flanked by fellow officers who have no interest in seeing her do anything other than fail, she stands as the only line of defense against an enemy that previously only existed beyond the furthest reaches of the worst of nightmares… From author Chad A. Clark (A Shade For Every Season) comes this brutal new novella. Released in eBook today and available in paperback soon, you can get your copy right now, here.
Since 2005, Valancourt Books has unearthed and republished almost 500 lost and neglected works from the 1760s through the 2000s, and now for this long-awaited fourth volume of the acclaimed Valancourt Book of Horror Stories series, the editors of Valancourt Books are proud to present 15 more great horror tales — all by Valancourt authors — from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. This volume features five brand new stories that have never appeared elsewhere, two rare foreign stories translated to English for the first time, and eight more scarce and seldom-seen tales. The stories in this volume will take you inside the vivid dreams of a woman who can kill in her sleep; to the set of a reality show where contestants may be transformed into specimens of beauty—or into freak show monsters; to a hotel where guests are besieged by a powerful hurricane—and by something even more terrible and deadly. You will read of the bizarre and macabre adventures of a man seeking a skeleton in 1960s London as a gift for his medical student cousin—and his quest’s shocking outcome. You will learn how a simple grammar mistake can lead to a terrible and untimely end for a traveler in Venice. Released 13 October, you can pre-order your copy right now, here.
It has been some years since Jonathan and Mina Harker survived their ordeal in Transylvania and, vanquishing Count Dracula, returned to England to try and live ordinary lives. But shadows linger long and, the older their son Quincey gets, the deeper the shadows at the heart of the Harker family. Whilst, on the Continent, the vestiges of something forgotten long is finally beginning to stir. Evil never truly dies… and some legends live forever. In Dracula’s Child, the dark heart of Bram Stoker’s classic is reborn, capturing the voice, tone, style and characters of the original yet with a modern sensibility. Fans of Dracula and contemporary horror will revel in this new eerie tale. Available 22 September, in paperback, eBook and audiobook, you can pre-order your copy now, here.
KEV HARRISON