New Release – Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout

Vampire Apocalypse: Fallout

Author: Derek Gunn

Publisher: Black Death Books

Release Date: October 1st, 2009

ISBN-10: 0979988195
ISBN-13: 978-0979988196

Author Website

Fallout is Derek Gunn’s latest book in is his Vampire Apocalypse series, and it’s now available from Black Death Books in a trade paperback edition. In this military/post-apocalyptic series the Vampires rule. Humanity is enslaved in a nightmare world where those who are still alive are bred as food for the vampires and the entertainment for the vicious thralls who guard them.

This installment sees vampires pitted against vampires and the thralls use this war to their advantage. But the small band of human survivors holds a secret of immeasurable power – a coating for bullets that can kill the vampires. The thralls want it and the vampires must destroy it. But first they have to find them. Across the country another power struggle threatens them all and the doomsday clock continues to tick relentlessly towards Armageddon. On top of all that there is a traitor in the human community and the small matter of a potential nuclear catastrophe…

“Gunn weaves a terrific tale…breathtaking well-plotted action” – Apex Science Fiction Digest

“…an incredibly original piece of fiction that keeps the reader turning the pages.” – Horror-web

“Action from beginning to end…I am shocked by how much I enjoyed this story.” – Horror World

New Release – Ghostly Tales of Route 66: From Arkansas to Arizona

Ghostly Tales of Route 66: From Arkansas to Arizona

Author: Connie Corcoran-Wilson

Publisher: Quixote Press

Release Date: October 2nd, 2009

ISBN-10: 1571665684
ISBN-13: 1571665684

Author Website

This second volume picks up where the first left off, in Oklahoma, and stops in Arizona. At 2,448 miles long, Route 66 is more than just a road; it is Americana. Along the many stops, there are plenty of ghost stories worth retelling and photographs that add authenticity.

You’ll get more than just your kicks on Route 66. You’ll get plenty of frightening, true tales of World War II POWs housed at Fort El Reno, of a young girl and her mother struggling to survive, of a doomed Commandant at Fort El Reno who took his own life. Learn more about the true stories of the Mother Road in this slim volume from Quixote Books.

Join the author as she travels the Mother Road, Route 66, boldly going where (a) few women have gone before, not unlike John Cusack’s character Mike Enslin in the film 1408. It’s not the Dolphin Hotel’s Room 1408 (from Stephen King’s short story), but there are plenty of suitable candidates to contend with that scary location. Lots of haunted theaters, homes, abandoned buildings, military installations, cemeteries, and playgrounds are haunted, according to the locals, who were only too happy to share their stories and personal interactions with the ghosts haunting the places where they live and work along Route 66.

Ghostly Tales of Route 66: From Arkansas to Arizona [the second volume in a planned trilogy] also includes a worthy story from Fort Smith, Arkansas — a route that was a precursor of the Mother Road.

This newly-published volume takes readers through Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, New Mexico and all the way to the Arizona border. There are stories from the Cadillac Ranch (Amarillo, TX), a chilling tale from McClean, Texas, and several stories that recreate the history and hauntings of Fort El Reno, Oklahoma, gathered during an actual ghost tour on the grounds, November 15, 2008. All the stories are accompanied by actual photographs of the sites.

Whispers about Ghostly Tales of Route 66: From Arkansas to Arizona…

“An unusual way of telling these tales is what sets this book [Volume I] apart from others of its kind; there is a journalistic approach to the facts as they are known, along with a sort of recreation of them akin to an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. It’s easy to see the appeal they can give to the stories when one sees the texture it provides.” - Cemetery Dance Magazine

“I attended the First Annual Route 66 Festival at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis October 3, 2008 and one of the vendors was Connie Wilson. I picked up the book Ghostly Tales of Route 66 and, after starting the book, I couldn’t put it down! I read it through in one sitting! The tales of hauntings and ghosts along Route 66 are very interesting. They keep your attention. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in hauntings and paranormal subjects (and Volume II has actual photos to add to the enjoyment). In addition to being a great read, Ghostly Tales of Route 66: From Arkansa to Arizona opens up a broader choice of places to explore while traveling Route 66.” – Old Route 66 Blog

New Release – Shades of Blood and Shadow

Shades of Blood and Shadow

Author: Angeline Hawkes

Publisher: Dark Regions Press

Release Date: August 30th, 2009

ISBN-10: 1888993685
ISBN-13: 978-1888993684

Author Website

The palette of history and horror mingle in the hues of crimson blood and blackest death. The ghosts of the past mourn for lives unfinished, vengeance unfulfilled, and loves lost. The heart beats in a cacophony of anticipation and fear, echoing with the memory of those that once were, once danced, once believed. Hues of fear, of woe and dying, shades of death, of blood and shadow. Fallen women, queens, and angels. Angry men, ghosts, and devils. Life is woven in a tapestry of joy and sorrow; painted in the colors of pain, and triumph, and love. What artistry is found within the soul every man – some perfection, some wretched – painted words and pictures of things glorious and of things unspeakable.

Shades of Blood and Shadows by Angeline Hawkes is the second book in the New Voices of Horror series and represents an excellent short story collection from this Bram Stoker Award nominated writer. From ancient Mayans to the horrors at Chernobyl, she pulls you into the hearts and minds of fiendish creatures and tortured man. History offers up the wayward and monstrous in this collection of ghoulish hues.

Table of Contents:

• Samhain
• The Relic: Father Santiago’s Bones
• All Becomes As Wormwood
• The Heir
• Opportunity
• The Highwayman of Epping Forest
• Last Breath
• Incident Beside the Striped Tent: What the Fruit Seller Saw
• The Piper of Glamis Hill
• El Reptil Rey
• The Tour Guide
• The Woeful Tale of Fiona MacLean
• Fallen

Whispers about Shades of Blood and Shadow…

“…every story is unique, and every story works. Angeline Hawke’s writing is sharp, elegant and satisfying in the most deliciously dark way.” - Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Zombie CSU and Patient Zero

“Angeline Hawkes writes with the fatalistic poetry of unstoppable history gone disturbingly wrong.” - John Everson, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Covenant, Sacrifice, and The 13th

“…Angeline Hawkes conducts an orchestra of creatures that are both bloody and sexy. You won’t forget this tour through historical horror; it’s sumptuous smorgasbord for beasts craving variety.” - Gregory Lamberson, author of Johnny Gruesome and Personal Demons

New Release – Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance

Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance

Author: D. Harlan Wilson

Publisher: Shroud Publishing

Release Date: August 1st, 2009

ISBN-10: 098198942X
ISBN-13: 9780981989426

Author Website

Life in Dreamfield, Indiana, is a daily harangue of pigs, cornfields, pigs, fast food joints, pigs, Dollar Stores, motorcycles, pigs, and good old-fashioned Amerikan redneckery. The decidedly estranged yet complacent occupants of this proverbial smalltown go about their business like geriatrics in a casino … until their business is interrupted by a sinister gang of outsiders. Angry, slick-talking, and ultraviolent to the core, Samson Thataway and the Fuming Garcias commit art-for-art’s-sake in the form of hideous, unmotivated serial killings. When an unsuspecting everyman’s wife is murdered by the throng, it is up to Felix Soandso to avenge her death and return Dreamfield to its natural state of absurdity.

Whispers about Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance…

“A bludgeoning celluloid rush of language and ideas served from an action-painter’s bucket of fluorescent spatter, D. Harlan Wilson’s Peckinpah is an incendiary gem and very probably the most extraordinary new novel you will read this year.” – Alan Moore, author of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell

“D. Harlan Wilson’s latest romp of a book, Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance, proves that Wilson is either a genius or a madman, in all likelihood a crazed hybrid of both. A book that will delight Wilson’s fans and mortally shock the uninitiated.” – Eric Miles Williamson, author of Welcome to Oakland and East Bay Grease

New Release – Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues

Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues

Editor: Loren Rhoads

Publisher: Scribner

Release Date: September 29th, 2009

ISBN-10: 1439124663
ISBN-13: 978-1439124666

Editor Website

A collection of the editor’s favorite pieces from the cult nonfiction magazine Morbid Curiosity.

For ten years, Morbid Curiosity was a one-of-a-kind underground magazine that gained a devoted following for its celebration of absurd, grotesque, and unusual tales – all true — submitted from contributors around the country and across the world. Loren Rhoads, creator and editor of the magazine, has compiled her favorite stories from all ten issues in this sometimes shocking, occasionally gruesome, always fascinating, anthology.

This quirky book is filled with tales from ordinary people — who just happen to have eccentric, sometimes peculiar interests. Ranging from the outrageous (attending a Black Mass, fishing bodies out of San Francisco Bay, making fake snuff films), to the more “mundane” (visiting a torture museum and tracking real vampires), this curiously enjoyable collection of stories, complete with illustrations and informative asides, will entertain and haunt readers long after the final page is turned.

Whispers about Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues…

“A truly compelling collection of human oddities that pays pitch-perfect tribute to the magazine that first spawned them.” – Monica Kuebler, Rue Morgue Magazine

“Nietzsche famously said that if you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you. Here the abyss is poking back at you with a very sharp stick. Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues — a testament to all that ever was great about the underground press — will crack through your armor, pry under your scales, and break through your numb envelope of reality to remind you what you’re really made of. You’ll shudder and cringe and laugh along the way, but the sheer gravity and humanity of every true story in this book will more than satisfy your morbid curiosity: it will change how you see the world for good. Until you die, anyway.” – Michael Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Goreletter

“It’s a cliché that truth is stranger than fiction, but this compendium of real-life accounts of the bizarre, horrific and just-plain-freaky proves it. From cavorting around the Far East looking for natural hallucinogens to getting trapped in the remains of a WWII gas chamber to working in an animal experiment lab to the unflinching account of an apparently fatal car vs. biker accident, Morbid Curiosity Cures The Blues is a lot like said accident — once its astonishing stories of life beyond the mundane catch your eye, you simply can’t look away. This is a collection you’ll never forget.” – John Everson, author of Sacrifice and The 13th

Book Trailer…

New Release – Personal Demons: The Jake Helman Files

Personal Demons: The Jake Helman Files

Author: Gregory Lamberson

Publisher: Medallion Press

Release Date: October 1st, 2009

ISBN-10: 1605420727
ISBN-13: 978-1605420721

Author Website

Ex-NYPD homicide detective and recovering drug addict Jake Helman gets a shot at redemption when he is hired as the director of security for Tower International, a powerful genetics company owned by reclusive billionaire Nicholas Tower. But what’s inside the massive glass sphere inside the Tower’s secretive laboratory, and who are the strange people who appear outside the building each morning? Jake must take on ghosts, a demon, and a serial killer who steals the souls of his victims to learn the chilling answer, and the fates of heaven and hell hang in the balance.

“Personal Demons is a great debut… a hell of a novel…” – SFReader

“Lamberson’s ability to twist a scenario and offer up descriptive, shiver-inducing murders makes Personal Demons a unique noir that quickly becomes a gripping must-finish.” - Rue Morgue Magazine

“Lamberson has delivered an irresistible, scary, action-packed novel full of intrigue and deep thoughts on life and death.” - The Horror Fiction Review

New Release – Dare to be Scared 4: Thirteen More Tales of Terror

Dare to be Scared 4: Thirteen More Tales of Terror

Author: Robert D. San Souci

Publisher: Cricket Books / Carus Publishing

Release Date: October 1st, 2009

ISBN-10: 0812627547
ISBN-13: 978-0812627541

Author Website

In this new addition to the popular series, author Robert D. San Souci and illustrator David Ouimet join forces to present 13 deliciously frightening tales. Powerful and suspenseful original stories that reveal all kinds of secrets. In “Snow Day,” a boy discovers that big magic involves a big-time payout. “Fairy Godmother” uncovers the true source of a family’s fortune. What’s behind the closed doors of the “Principal’s Office” becomes all too clear to one disgruntled student. Something lurking on the railroad tracks at dusk becomes a real threat in “Heading Home.” And the eerie fate of a youngster becomes all too clear in “Moonrise.”

Robert D. San Souci’s compelling prose and David Outimet’s unique scratchboard illustrations make this an unforgettable journey through the realm of ghosts and ghouls and other beings that dwell on the borderlands where the everyday world and the supernatural blend.

New Release – Writers Workshop of Horror

Writers Workshop of Horror

Editor: Michael Knost

Publisher: Woodland Press

Release Date: August 1st, 2009

ISBN-10: 0982493916
ISBN-13: 978-0982493915

Author Website

Writers Workshop of Horror is a collection of articles and interviews on the craft of writing horror with some of the biggest names in the horror and dark fiction genres. The book focuses solely on honing the craft of writing horror. It includes solid advice, from professionals of every publishing level, on how to improve one’s writing skills.

Table of Contents:

• Elizabeth Massie – Once Upon a Scary Time: Creating Effective Beginnings
• Michael Laimo – Middles: The Meat of the Matter
• J.G. Gonzalez – The Grand Finale
• Gary A. Braunbeck – Connecting the DOTS
• Tim Waggoner – And Horror the Soul of the Plot
• Scott Nicholson – What’s The Point and Who’s On First: Character POV
• Thomas F. Monteleone – We don’t get too many strangers around here… Or: Using Dialogue to Tell Your Story
• G. Cameron Fuller – A Claustrophobic Locked in an Isolated Room: The Power of Setting and Description in Horror Fiction
• Rick Hautala – The Hardest Three: Tone, Style, and Voice
• Michael A. Arnzen – Stripping Away the Mask: Scene and Structure in Horror Fiction
• Jonathan Maberry – Fight And Action Scenes In Horror
• Tom Piccirilli – Exploring Personal Themes
• Mort Castle – New Fiction Blend: History, Fantasy, Horror
• Jeff Strand – Adding Humor to Your Horror
• Joe R. Lansdale – Cross Reading
• Brian Keene – Time, and How to Make It
• Deborah LeBlanc – A Face by Any Other Name
• Ramsey Campbell – The Height of Fear
• Michael Knost – The Aha! Moment
• Jason Sizemore – Be a Conformist: A Guide to Manuscript Formatting
• Lisa Morton – CUT! Or, Why Writing Horror Screenplays is REALLY Scary
• Gary Frank – It’s All About the Series: An Interview with F. Paul Wilson
• Tim Deal – It’s All About the Work: An Interview with Tom Piccirilli
• Michael Knost – It’s All About the Craft: An Interview with Ramsey Campbell
• Lucy A. Snyder – It’s All Part of the Fun: An Interview with Clive Barker
• Jack M. Haringa – The Agnotology of Horror; Or: Lies the Internet Told You
• Robert N. Lee – How Stephen King’s Writing Advice Broke My Heart and Smashed My Dreams
• Brian Yount – Top Ten Things an Editor/Publisher Hates To See

Whispers about Writers Workshop of Horror…

“Packing more knowledge and sound advice than four years’ worth of college courses . . . It’s focused on the root of your evil, the writing itself.” — Fangoria Magazine

“A veritable treasure trove of information for aspiring writers—straight from the mouths of today’s top horror scribes!” — Rue Morgue Magazine

“Writers Workshop Of Horror belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who is serious about their writing. Entertaining, informative, and just plain old fun, this book will not only make you want to write more, it will give you the tools to write better. This should be mandatory reading in creative writing classes.” — Horror World

Book Trailer…

HWA Announces Plans for Biennial Solo Events

NEW YORK, NY, August 25, 2009 — After record attendance at its recent Stoker Weekend in Burbank this past June, the Horror Writers Association announced today that it would be hosting a stand-alone convention every other year, beginning with a partnership with World Horror Convention in Brighton, England, in 2010 and an East Coast solo event in 2011. Panels, author signings, pitch sessions with publishers, networking opportunities, and the annual Bram Stoker Awards Banquet are just a few of the popular convention features that will be on tap when the venerable HWA brings its yearly gathering to the eastern half of the United States —its first time since 2006.

On the decision to step out on its own, HWA President Deborah LeBlanc says, “Due to the overwhelming, positive response we received at this year’s Stoker Weekend, the HWA’s Board has decided to take yet another step towards the organization’s overall growth and development.”

LeBlanc goes on to say that the organization’s “current plans are to hold a stand-alone Stoker event every other year, and for those events to occur on a rotating basis across North America from the West coast to the East coast, and in the Midwest. This every-other-year format is the perfect balance that will allow us to partner with other conventions, like WHC, in alternate years, while still maintaining individuality on par with HWA’s rising visibility and status in the publishing industry. It will also allow members from various parts of the country easier access to organizational gatherings, while keeping an open door with the World Horror Convention, which allows options for gatherings with international members.”

THE HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION (HWA) is a nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of those who write it. HWA was formed in the late 1980’s with the help of many of the field’s greats, including Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, and Joe Lansdale. Today, with over 400 members around the globe, it is the oldest and most respected professional organization for the much-loved writers who have brought the reading public the most enjoyable sleepless nights of their lives.

New Release – Blanket of White

Blanket of White

Author: Amy Grech

Publisher: Damnation Books

Release Date: September 1st, 2009

ISBN-10: 1615720170
ISBN-13: 978-1615720170

Author Website

A new collection of 14 short stories by Amy Grech, including two new tales.

True love knows no bounds. A young boy learns the perils of hunting fare game firsthand. Murderous twins help their dear mother into and out of trouble. A nuclear fallout survivor finds sustenance in an unlikely place.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Michael McCarty
• Blanket of White
• Ashes to Ashes
• Come and Gone
• Rampart
• Prevention
• Raven’s Revenge
• Perishables
• Cold Comfort
• Damp Wind and Leaves
• Initiation Day
• Russian Roulette
• Crosshairs
• Apple of My Eye
• EV 2000

 Whispers about Blanket of White…

“Blanket of White by Amy Grech is a stark and surreal fever dream, brimming with disturbing images and ideas. These tales claw at your heart and haunt your soul.” — Jeremy C. Shipp, Author of Vacation, Sheep and Wolves, and Cursed

“Creepy and chilling. In this collection Grech provides her readers with fascinating tales that explore the nasty underbelly of murder, treachery, electronic vampires, revenge and much more.” — Lisa Mannetti, Author of The Gentling Box, Winner of the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel

“What makes Blanket of White stand out from other collections is the emotional response to common themes: death and sadness, love and sex, loss of innocence, and twisted family relationships. These are some very powerful stories that wrench at the human heart and plumb the darkest depths of the soul. Bravo.” — Nate Kenyon, Author of Bloodstone, The Reach, and The Bone Factory