Here’s a small selection of the horror and genre news that caught our eye during the last week …
Arriving 6 August from E.C. Hanson and Big Swede Publishing, The Stepney Green Killer
A killer starts attacking women for no apparent reason. A retiree begins to conduct her own investigation. A high school student needs to complete his Senior Project to graduate. How is it all connected? Even they don’t know until it’s far too late. A novella told from three perspectives, The Stepney Green Killer is bound to make you laugh, shudder, and cry. Available to pre-order now in eBook, with a paperback to follow, you can guarantee yours here.
Out now from writer Christopher Golden and Graphic Audio, Hellboy: A Plague of Wasps
Hellboy has accompanied his girlfriend, Anastasia Bransfield, on a trip to Brazil to help colleagues who are conducting an archaeological dig in the jungle.
While they’re having coffee, a colleague arrives…through a public square, sick and sluggish and in agony. He falls, and wasps begin to come out of his mouth. When he bursts open, more wasps emerge—his insides are full of a labyrinthine, gray, papery nest.
It becomes clear that something sinister and supernatural is at play here. This Original Dramatized Audiobook continues the story from Hellboy in Love. Written exclusively for GraphicAudio and produced with a full cast of actors, immersive sound effects and cinematic music, you can pick up your copy in a variety of digital formats here.
Coming 25 July from writer David J. Schow, artist Andres Esparza and Storm King Productions, Usher Down, the latest in John Carpenter’s Night Terrors series
Dana, a young woman who used to help the police find dead bodies, is driven off a jogging path by a vision of a demonic scarecrow and caught in raging floodwaters. Lightning rips a tree out of a pond and tears a hole in the earth, and Dana is swept down into a massive cavern. When the firefighters pull her out, she tells them astounding news. There’s a house down there. A big one: the House of Usher, described as fiction by Edgar Allan Poe. The house is enormous, ripped into two separate wings (“like the Titanic”) and covered over by a freak layer of ash and lava. And it’s structurally sound, explorable. “It’s the 19th century down there.”
As the only person who has been down and come out alive, Dana is recruited by government agent Bernice to join an expedition down into the insane wreck of a mansion. The house, like the Titanic, lies in two great pieces, one dry and one flooded. But soon the explorers learn that the house is haunted not just by ghosts, but by time itself, and sometimes the shape of the house alters with sudden violence. And the most dangerous spirit in the House of Usher is intent on using the expeditioners to unlock a powerful secret. Available for pre-order now in paperback, you can guarantee your copy here.
Available 18 July from author Emma E. Murray and Medusa Publishing Haus, Exquisite Hunger
Exquisite Hunger is the debut chapbook by Emma E. Murray, featuring cover art and illustrations by author and artist Caitlin Marceau.
For fans of New French Extremity film, Nekromantik, and Angst, Exquisite Hunger tells the story of a woman caught between desire and repulsion.
When an unnamed narrator encounters her perfectly beautiful neighbor Carly, she gives in to her worst impulses, culminating in an unforgettable conclusion. A sapphic culinary masterpiece with a cannibalistic twist, Exquisite Hunger is not to be missed.
Professionally printed on glossy paper and bound by saddle stitch, you can pre-order your copy here now.
Arriving 19 July from writer Colin Leonard and Brigids Gate Press, Country Roads
Something is outside; in the fields, by the ditches, on the roads. Something old and cruel and vicious.
When Luke Sheridan moves out of Dublin city to rural Kilcross with his wife and baby, he imagines the worst part will be his extended commute to work. They can look forward to enjoying the countryside and being part of a small community. After all, his old friend Declan Maguire lives in the house next door and is a Garda in the nearest town.
But Declan’s devilish attitude towards drink, drugs and women means trouble is never far from his door. And worse, gruesome murders and the appearance of sinister figures at night mean the countryside is becoming a very dangerous place to live. Country Roads—don’t go outside alone. Available for pre-order now in eBook, with a paperback to follow shortly, you can guarantee yours here.
Available 3 August from author Katherine Silva and Strange Wilds Press, The Wild Fall
I
t has been ten years since the Merging, since the Woods began taking over the world, since ghosts returned to haunt their loved ones. Liz Raleigh has hidden in the New England wilderness with Hank, his daughter, Evie, and their small group, trying to eke out a small but normal life. Though Liz longs to forget the time she spent attached to her best friend and lover, Brody’s ghost, she finds herself pursued by a shadow of his former self and dreams of a life they could have lived together had he not died.
The Woods and the wolves that live inside them continue to threaten the group’s existence, looming closer every day. Liz feels drawn to them, to the feeling that deep inside the trees is a way to end the reign the Woods have over the world. What’s worse is that they seem different inside, darker and emptier than when she visited them years before.
Hope comes in the discovery of a self-sustained community, Onyx River: a place run by wind and solar power where other colonies have supposedly fled to with the opportunity to live life the way they used to. Upon arrival, however, they find the place abandoned and, after tragedy strikes, they realize this place might not be as promising as they once believed. Both Liz and Evie will face not only their worst fears but the ones they couldn’t even imagine were lurking in the woodland oblivion. Available for pre-order now in eBook, with a paperback edition to come, you can guarantee your copy here.
Coming 1 August from author Anthony Ferguson and IFWG Publishing, Rest in Pieces
A grieving gator-man enacts a terrible revenge on the killer who wronged him. A cab driver struggles to eke out a living in a post-apocalyptic world plagued by sex-crazed zombies. A serial killer’s desires are impeded by his arachnophobia. A would-be thief encounters an unexpected obstacle in a very protective sex doll. A jilted lover finds that black magic ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. A middle-aged bachelor finds his aging mother mysteriously reinvigorated. A young soldier discovers horrors worse than the enemy in Vietnam. Rest in Pieces is the debut collection of short stories from Australian Shadows Award winner Anthony Ferguson. Spanning over fifteen years, this infernal showcase contains the best of Ferguson’s published short fiction and four brand new tales. Available for pre-order now in paperback, with other formats to follow, you can guarantee yours here.
KEV HARRISON
