Here’s a small selection of the horror and genre news that caught our eye during the last week …
Hailey Piper’s debut collection, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, coming 7 May from The Seventh Terrace
Love twisted into horrific shapes, nightmares driven by cruel music, and a world where what little light remains fractures the sky into midnight rainbows in eighteen stories tracing the dark veins of queer horror, isolation, and the monstrous feminine. The universe unwinds to the tune of a malicious ice cream truck jingle in ‘We All Scream’. ‘The Law of Conservation of Death’ dictates that a ghost pursue his prey across her every reincarnation. Superstitions thrive even in the distant future and across the stars when a colony shuttle mounts a witch trial in ‘Hairy Jack’. And try to ‘Forgive the Adoring Beast’ as it scavenges a world of dead gods for tokens of bloody affection. Including two new short stories and a never-before-published novelette, Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy digs deep inside us and clings to the beating nightmare heart you always knew was there. Available for pre-order now in eBook and with the paperback format to follow, you can guarantee your copy here.
She Who Rules The Dead, the debut novel from Maria Abrams, coming 15 April from Weird Punk Books
Henry has received a message: he needs to sacrifice five people to the demon that’s been talking to him in his nightmares. He already has four, and number five, Claire, is currently bound in the back of his van. Too bad Claire isn’t exactly human. She Who Rules the Dead reads like a Tales From the Crypt collaboration between Kathe Koja and Joe R. Lansdale, but retains Abrams’ powerful and unique voice. Don’t miss it! Ali Seay, author of Go Down Hard, says “I fucking loved this book! Just when I thought I knew where it was headed–I was wrong. And I love to be wrong. A thrilling ride. I want more!” Coming 15 April, you can pre-order your copy right now, here.
Coming 31 August from author Gareth Brooks and Self Made Hero, The Dancing Plague
Set in 1518, and told from the imagined perspective of Mary, one of the witnesses, The Dancing Plague tells the true story of when hundreds of Strasbourg’s inhabitants were suddenly seized by the strange and unstoppable compulsion to dance. Prone to mystic visions as a child, betrayed in the convent to which she flees, then abused by her loutish husband, Mary endures her life as an oppressed and ultimately scapegoated woman with courage, strength, and inspiring beauty. As difficult to interpret now (as a psychological reaction to social injustice?) as it was then (as a collective demonic possession?), the story of the “Dancing Plague” finds suitably extraordinary expression in the utterly unique mixed-media style Gareth Brookes has devised to tell it. The pioneering blend of his trademark “pyrographic” technique with sumptuously colorful—and literal—embroidery perfectly reflects, in a beautiful work of art, the enduring fragility of our human condition—from “choreomania” to coronavirus. Available for pre-order now, you can pick up your copy here.
Writer Catherin McCarthy’s second short fiction collection coming 27 April, available for pre-order now
Welcome to Wales, land of mists and megaliths, where mythical creatures and ancient spirits lurk in the strangest of places. This collection of 10 supernatural stories offers a flurry of folklore, a gathering of ghosts, and even a cosmic cave creature. Author Catherine McCarthy’s second collection invites the reader on a regional journey, evoking a sense of quiet horror from the cosmic to the Gothic. Coming 27 April, you can pre-order the eBook now, with a paperback edition coming soon.
KEV HARRISON
