Review: Faithless by Hunter Shea

cover of Faithless by Hunter SheaFaithless by Hunter Shea
Flame Tree Press (October 19, 2021)
304 pages; $24.95 hardcover ; $14.95 paperback ; $6.99 e-book
Reviewed by Janine Pipe

Faithless is the latest novel by Hunter Shea from Flame Tree Press and, yet again, he knocks it out of the park. I don’t hide the fact that Hunter is my favorite writer (alongside Glenn Rolfe) but there is a very good reason for this—he never fails to deliver.Continue Reading

Infinity Dreams by Glen Hirshberg: Coming Soon in Trade Paperback and eBook Formats!

We’re very pleased to announce we’ll be publishing Infinity Dreams by Glen Hirshberg, which is already very deep in production and will be coming this December in trade paperback and eBook formats!

About the Book:
There are people who collect coins, baseball cards, flashlights. They trade and sell them at conventions, flea markets, antique malls.

Those are not the people Nadine and Normal (a.k.a. The Collector) serve, and those places are not where you’ll find them.

Their quests have led them to decidedly less familiar characters and locales:

  • A music obsessive who gives a little more than fandom—and takes a little more than music—from the artists he loves.
  • A bouquiniste stall along the Left Bank of the Seine that has remained locked—for good reason—for 150 years.
  • A box full of View-Master reels showing tiny photographs of places—some of which don’t exist.
  • A former Nazi-in-training, haunted—to the point of life-crippling paralysis—by a taste.

But now, Nadine lives sequestered in the Northern California woods, caring for the Collector, who has slid into early-onset dementia. One day, against her better judgment, she accepts an interview request from a young journalist. Who might not be a journalist. He has come for their stories.

Or maybe for something else.

Meanwhile, down the coast, in the cities, a wildness has gotten loose, and the world is tilting out of true, and the boundaries between reality and dream are not just blurring but melting.

But is that for better or worse? And who gets to say?

Welcome to Infinity Dreams, a novel-in-stories about dreaming your life, and living in dreams, and the permeable limbo we insist on calling reality.

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Read more and place your order while our supplies last!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and enthusiasm!

Review: Rookfield by Gordon B. White

cover of Rookfield by Gordon B. WhiteRookfield by Gordon B. White
Trepidatio Publishing (October 15, 2021)
108 pages; $12.95 paperback; $5.95 e-book
Reviewed by Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann

An unusual horror story set during a global pandemic, Rookfield hits close to home.

A man named Cabot, seriously lacking in self-awareness and full of privilege, is looking for his son and estranged wife in a small town called Rookfield. Leana apparently fled to the small town under marital duress. It’s suggested that perhaps Cabot and Leana didn’t see eye to eye when it came to the ways they would be handling the pandemic and the protection of their son’s health and safety.Continue Reading

MURDER HOUSE DVD Available For Ordering Today!

Cemetery Dance in association with Sympatico presents
MURDER HOUSE
A SHORT FILM BY RICHARD CHIZMAR & BILLY CHIZMAR

Every small town has a haunted house located within its borders. If not haunted by things unseen and unknown, then a place borne of violent tragedy. Some of these houses become legendary and enter the national conscience. The Amityville Horror in upstate New York comes to mind. Tonight is the five-year anniversary of the Cavanaugh family massacre, and for the first time in several years someone will dare to enter the belly of the beast in Edgewood, Maryland–the Murder House.

Written and Directed by RICHARD CHIZMAR & BILLY CHIZMAR
Starring TATIANA HARMAN, JOSEPH YATES & JERRY LAREW
Produced by BRANDON LESCURE
Running time: 38 minutes

Exclusive DVD Bonus Features: The MURDER HOUSE script. Still photographs. A Conversation with Richard Chizmar & Billy Chizmar.

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Read more and place your order while our supplies last!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and enthusiasm!

Review: Stars, Hide Your Fire by Kel McDonald and Jose Pimienta

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cover of Stars, Hide Your Fire by Kel McDonald and Jose Pimienta

Stars, Hide Your Fire by Kel McDonald and Jose Pimienta
Iron Circus Comics (October 5, 2021)
162 pages; paperback $15; $9.99 e-book
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Andrea and Darra live in a dead-end Massachusetts town, making their way through high school with hopeful (but slim) dreams of escape. Everything’s going according to plan until a chance encounter with an otherworldly spirit named Carmen changes everything! Carmen promises Andrea eternal life, but a mysterious young boy named Liam shows up claiming he had also made a deal with Carmen, and it didn’t go well . . . 100 years ago. Liam must convince his new friends of Carmen’s evil nature before Andrea is tricked into a supernatural bargain that will upend her new life before it even starts in Stars, Hide Your Fire written by Kel McDonald and illustrated by Joe Pimienta.Continue Reading

Gwendy’s Trilogy Three Book Hardcover Set in Slipcase!

We’ve had collectors asking us for years now if we will produce a slipcase to house a complete set of the Gwendy’s Trilogy together, and now that the third book is headed to the printer and we’re in the home stretch, we can officially tell you the answer is YES!

To celebrate, we’re producing a very limited set of Gwendy’s Button Box, Gwendy’s Magic Feather, and Gwendy’s Final Task with brand new “matched” dust jackets, and they will be be housed all together in a brand new collectible slipcase!

These new Slipcased Matched Collectors Sets are only available for preorder for a limited time only, and once they’re gone, they’re gone for good! There will be no additional printings! (The slipcase is also available separately for anyone who already has the Gwendy books and just needs the slipcase.)

Priced at just $99, this set is really a bargain when you add up the retail prices of all three books AND a slipcase, and we don’t expect these to last long at all! Order today, so you don’t miss out!

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Read more and place your order while our supplies last!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and enthusiasm!

Review: Sleepless by Romy Hausmann

cover of Sleepless by Romy HausmannSleepless by Romy Hausmann
Flatiron Books (October 19, 2021)
336 pages; $23.99 hardcover; $13.99 e-book
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

Nadja Kulka was convicted of a serious crime as a child, did her time, and is doing her best to move on. She lives a quiet, lonely life, happy for even the slightest attention given her by the closest thing she has to a friend — a woman named Laura. Laura’s been keeping to herself lately, but when something in her life goes horribly wrong, she runs to Nadja for help.

Soon, Nadja finds herself entangled in the violent aftermath of an extramarital affair gone wrong. Nadja, Laura, and Laura’s husband, Gero, all have their own agendas and objectives, and it all comes to a head with life-altering consequences.Continue Reading

Review: Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi

cover of Boys in the Valley by Philip FracassiBoys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi
Earthling Publications (Halloween 2021)
$50 limited edition 
Reviewed by Dave Simms

Earthling Publications has set the highest bar for the Halloween season for close to two decades, bringing the best reads for the best of months. Boys in the Valley might very well be the publisher’s crowning achievement. Thank you Paul Miller for finding these diamonds in the dark and allowing horror aficionados to revel in the shadows of the highest quality of horror.

Everyone loves a great, apt comparison when seeking out the next great read, and some have likened this novel to Lord of the Flies. While that does connect, other titles set the stage for the crushing dread that is Philip Fracassi’s stunner. Imagine John Carpenter’s The Thing, John Farris’ Son of the Endless Night, and the hit television show Evil. Fracassi paints a bleak yet electrifying setting in St. Vincent’s Orphanage for Boys during a stifling winter in the turn of the century Pennsylvania wilderness that isolates the denizens of the home even further from civilization.

While Boys in the Valley is true horror, it also achieves what the best novels of the genre achieve: it transcends boundaries and explores the human nature and the heartfelt relationships that embrace readers before pulling them into the depths of their own personal emotions. Fracassi delves into this treatise on faith with a deft hand, choosing to embrace relationships rather than the hardcore restraints of organized religion. The plot delves into friendship, loyalty, coming of age, and peer pressure just as much as the impurity of evil itself, which further embroils the reader in the author’s grasp.

As for the story itself, Peter struggles with his looming decision to enter the priesthood for the most typical of reasons: the brotherhood of belonging that he’s never embraced versus the allure of Grace Hill, the farm girl he has grown up adoring. The relationships between the orphaned boys is also typical, as rivalries grow and fade, the young are taken in by the older, the warm-hearted are pitted against the jaded and numb. Father Andrew serves as the voice of compassion and reason while mentoring Peter amidst the harsher personalities who rule the home while harboring repressed hostilities under cover of religion.

When a group of men arrive at the orphanage, Peter watches his world disintegrate. Everything stable he’s held tight for years crumbles as one of the men is seemingly possessed. That evil is a virus which slowly spreads among the buildings, first attacking the boys psychologically and then disintegrating them from within.

Fracassi takes his time building the dread while keeping an eye on a steadily building pace that is akin to descending lava from a volcano. He uses Peter as a gauge of morality and humanity as the entity(ies) ravage the community, separating the boys akin to William Golding’s tale but with the paranoia of Carpenter’s classic. Boys in the Valley is both vicious and heartfelt, a story of crumbling innocence suffocating the relationships that should be sacred.

It’s a beautiful novel that should be — will likely be — remembered as one of the best of the young decade. A harrowing and unforgettable debut novel from Fracassi that should not be missed.

Review: Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

cover of Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra KhawNothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Tor Nightfire (October 19th, 2021)
128 pages; $19.99 hardback; $10.99 e-book
Reviewed by Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann

It’s one of the most beloved horror tropes: A group of friends travels to an abandoned building rumored to be haunted. The friends are either going to film a documentary, or just see what happens when they attempt to spend the night.

Horror ensues.Continue Reading

Review: The Thicket by Noelle West Ihli

cover of The Thicket by Noelle West IhliThe Thicket by Noelle West Ihli
Dynamite Books (July 2021)
307 pages; $15.41 paperback; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Janine Pipe

The Thicket is, in a nutshell, a slasher story set at Halloween. That very fact alone ticked many boxes and I was not disappointed. We seem to be riding a new wave of all things slasher right now, with the popularity of Fear Street reigniting the flame for us ’90s kids, and hopefully a new generation of fans has been born. There is something just cozy for me about this particular sub-genre; it allows for tropes and formula. Basically, you (usually) know what you’re getting with this subject matter.Continue Reading

Night Time Logic with Sarah Langan

Night Time Logic with Daniel Braum

Night Time Logic is the part or parts of a story that are felt but not consciously processed. Those that operate below the conscious surface. Those that are processed somewhere, somehow, and in some way other than… overtly and consciously. The deep-down scares. The scares that find their way to our core and unsettle us in ways we rarely see coming…

In this column, which shares a name with my New York-based reading series, I explore this phenomenon, other notions of what makes horror tick, and my favorite authors and stories, new and old with you. Today in my conversation with Sarah Langan we go “beyond the door” and into the “void”… an abyss that could be the darkest of them all and might not be the one you were initially expecting. Continue Reading

Review: Attack from the ’80s edited by Eugene Johnson

ad for Attack from the '80s

Attack from the ’80s edited by Eugene Johnson
Raw Dog Screaming Press (Fall 2021)
hardcover $29.95
Reviewed by Dave Simms

Nostalgia can be horrific and, in this case, also incredibly fun. With over twenty tales thrown back into an era where horror bled out of every corner of the literary universe, Attack from the ’80s culls some of the best writers today, many of whom suffered through the decade to carve deep into the psyche.Continue Reading

Review: Monstrum Poetica by Jezzy Wolfe

cover of Monstrum Poetica by Jezzy WolfeMonstrum Poetica by Jezzy Wolfe
Raw Dog Screaming Press (September 2021)
130 pages; paperback $12.95; $5.99 e-book
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Jezzy Wolfe is an author of dark fiction, with a predilection for absurdity. A lifelong native of Virginia Beach, Jezzy lives with her family and quite a few ferrets. Her poems and stories have appeared in various ezines and magazines. Her newest collection of poetry is Monstrum Poetica.Continue Reading

Review: The Smallest of Bones by Holly Lyn Walrath

cover of The Smallest of Bones by Holly Lynn WalrathThe Smallest of Bones by Holly Lyn Walrath
Clash Books (September 28, 2021)
90 pages; $14.95 paperback
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Holly Lyn Walrath’s poetry and short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, Liminality, and Analog. She is the author of Glimmerglass Girl (Finishing Line Press, 2018), winner of the Elgin Award for best speculative chapbook, and Numinose Lapidi, a chapbook in Italian from Kipple Press. Her newest collection is The Smallest of Bones, a collection of minimalist poems that deal with the body and the horrors found within.Continue Reading

Heart-Shaped Box: The Deluxe Special Edition by Joe Hill Announced!

Heart-Shaped Box: The Deluxe Special Edition
by Joe Hill

New Signed & Slipcased Limited Edition from Lividian Publications!
Includes Special Bonus Material, the “Lost” First Chapter, 19 Full-Color Illustrations, and more!

We’re pleased to report we will be getting copies of the new Lividian Publications signed and slipcased Limited Edition hardcover of Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill!

This deluxe edition includes a brand-new foreword by Josh Malerman, an introduction by Joe Hill that has only previously appeared in the UK, bonus features including “Jude Confronts Global Warming” and the “lost” first chapter of the novel, along with “Traveling the Night Road with Joe Hill: On Heart-Shaped Box” by Mathias Clasen, the acclaimed Danish scholar of horror fiction and an associate professor in literature and media at Aarhus University.

In addition, this gorgeous volume will feature an incredible nineteen full-color illustrations by François Vaillancourt, printed on an acid-free glossy stock to retain the richness of the artwork and tipped into the book.

The Lividian Publications special edition of Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill is already rolling at the printer and will be published in the first quarter of 2022.

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Thank you, as always, for your continued support and enthusiasm!