Review: Hearts Strange and Dreadful by Tim McGregor

cover of Hearts Strange and Dreadful by Tim McGregorHearts Strange and Dreadful by Tim McGregor
Off Limits Press (February 15, 2021)
276 pages; $16 paperback; $6.99 e-book
Reviewed by Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann

My favorite book series for the longest time was “The Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. These books were set in the American Midwest in the late 1800s.
Hearts Strange and Dreadful transports us to New England in 1821 and I, for one, could not have been more eager to make the trip back in time to this familiar era.Continue Reading

Billy Summers by Stephen King: A Brand New Novel About A Killer For Hire!

Billy Summers
by Stephen King

A Brand New Novel About A Killer For Hire!

Stephen King’s JUST ANNOUNCED new novel is called Billy Summers, and it concerns a killer for hire who is the best in the business, but he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first, there is one last hit…

Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?

How about everything.

Part war story, part love letter to small town America and the people who live there, Billy Summers features one of the most compelling and surprising duos in Stephen King fiction, who set out to avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man. It’s about love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one last shot at redemption.

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Read more and place your order while our supplies last!

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

Revelations: The Horror Radio of Quiet, Please!

Banner for Revelations, the column written by Kevin Lucia for Cemetery Dance

I apologize for my absence. This past summer I had major reconstructive surgery on my foot. Unfortunately, it took a lot out of me. However, I’m ready to resume my exploration of the works of horror which have played a role in my development as a writer, so I hope you’ll rejoin me on this journey.

For those new to this column, it began several years ago as I began reflecting on an experience which sent me on a quest through the works of horror writers who came before me. Up until then, I’d been a faithful reader of the Holy Trinity: Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Peter Straub. Also, whatever Leisure Fiction was putting out at the time. However, after that fateful evening with F. Paul Wilson, Tom Monteleone, and Stuart David Schiff, I began searching out writers who had previously been only names to me, and nothing more.Continue Reading

Review: Devil’s Night: Bite-Sized Horror for Halloween by Pippa Bailey and Myk Pilgrim

cover of Devil's Night Bite-Sized HorrorDevil’s Night: Bite-Sized Horror for Halloween by Pippa Bailey and Myk Pilgrim
Pugnacious Press (May 2020)
111 pages; $9.99 paperback; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Anton Cancre

I generally don’t spend time talking about the personalities of writers when reviewing their work. Here, though, personality is the point of the whole thing. Pippa Bailey and Myk Pilgrim have established themselves as playful, boisterous members of the horror community over the years they have been a part of it. They walk that line between the dark and the heart and the weird little dancey places in between very well and it comes across clearly that this is just who they are.Continue Reading

Things I Didn’t Know My Father Knew: The Best Short Stories of Peter Crowther

We’re pleased to announce we’ll be publishing Things I Didn’t Know My Father Knew: The Best Short Stories of Peter Crowther later this year, and with the low print run and Pete’s devoted following, we don’t expect this one to last long at all!

About the Book:
The newest collection by acclaimed British horror master Peter Crowther, these stories are the very best of his incredible short works of horror and suspense:

  • Things I Didn’t Know My Father Knew: An unusual visitor rolls into town one day under cover of a thick fog . . . just to touch base with someone he maybe once knew.
  • All We Know of Heaven: A small boy finds the answer to his and his father’s dilemma in the legend of King Arthur and his mystical sword, Excalibur.
  • Tomorrow Eyes: A Runyonesque gambler discovers the strangest set of dice you ever saw being rolled on a cloth.
  • Some Burial Place, Vast and Dry: The lonely survivor of a long-ago space mission receives a visit from a hauntingly familiar UFO.
  • The Musician of Bremen, GA: Cal Williston, who can play the best version of ‘Moonlight In Vermont’ since Chet Baker teamed up with Gerry Mulligan.
  • Boxing Day: A small-town crook about to fall under the spell of London rediscovers his wife.
  • Keepsakes: PI. Koko Tate pays his mom a visit on Mother’s Day.
  • Too Short A Death: A modern-day poet meets the long-deceased Weldon Kees’s greatest literary creation.
  • Eater: The cops at an off-the-beaten-track late-night precinct house have got more than they bargained for in one of the cells.
  • Sitting Pretty: An armchair fashioned out of the wood from the original cross provides a comfort of sorts down the ages.
  • Dark Times: Two old men tamper with the dark arts and open a gateway that threatens the destructions of the world.
  • Jewels in the Dust: A couple jaded with their life together are visited by their collective histories.
  • And, in Songs of Leaving, the imminent impact of a county-sized piece of space debris brings to the remnants of humanity a multitude of old friends to witness the fall of mankind.

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

Review: The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell

The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell
Flame Tree Press (February 16th, 2021)
256 pages; hardcover $24.95; $14.95 paperback; $6.99 e-book
Reviewed by Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann

“The Three Births of Daoloth” series is a trilogy that was previously released in hardcover, limited editions by PS Publishing. Now, the series is getting a reprint by Flame Tree Press and is poised to get a whole new fanbase for this epic, cosmic horror story.Continue Reading

Horror Habits: Kealan Patrick Burke

banner reads Horror Habits

Author Kealan Patrick Burke
Kealan Patrick Burke

I’ve always been curious about how creators create. As a creator myself, I know it’s not some magical process where you just sit there and the muse descends from the clouds and bestows upon you a complete story, film, painting, etc. It’s hard work, and the process differs for everyone. 

Horror Habits is an interview series that lifts the veil on the writing process for writers of dark fiction. No, your favorite horror writer isn’t sitting in some gloomy castle, penning their masterworks under candlelight (hit me up if that is how you work, though!). They’re sitting at their laptops, plugging away on a word processor, and possibly eating trail mix along the way. From outlining to music choices, this series will give you some insight as to how some of today’s best horror writers get their words to the page. First up: Kealan Patrick BurkeContinue Reading

Review: Last Dance by Hanna Schroy

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cover of Last Dance by Hanna Schroy

Last Dance by Hanna Schroy
Iron Circus Comics (January 2021)
200 pages; $11.99 paperback
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Hanna Schroy is a cartoonist and illustrator living in Austin. She has participated in a multitude of self-published anthologies including Girls! Girls! Girls! curated by Alex Perkins and Thicker Than Blood curated by Mengmeng Liu. She is a long-time dance enthusiast and recent amateur gardener. Her newest endeavor is the middle-grade graphic novel Last Dance.Continue Reading

Review: Eight Cylinders by Jason Parent

cover of Eight Cylinders by Jason ParentEight Cylinders by Jason Parent
Crystal Lake Publishing (November 2020)
124 pages; $10.99 paperback; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann

Fast cars are not my thing. That whole Fast and Furious movie franchise? Nope. Never saw those. The cover of this book with that muscle car tearing through a desert landscape and the title Eight Cylinders doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. What does appeal to me is this slim (just over one hundred pages) novella is written by Jason Parent and published by Crystal Lake Publishing. I’m a big fan of both. Crystal Lake consistently publishes quality horror and Parent has a unique storytelling style that I enjoy. Last year, I celebrated his short story, “Russian Dollhouse” from the Midnight in the Graveyard anthology.Continue Reading

Interview: Discussing Damage and Dread with Kevin Quigley

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photo of author Kevin QuigleyMassachusetts pop culture scribe and novelist Kevin Quigley’s career began in 1996 at the age of twenty-one when he established his own Stephen King fan site, Charnel House. There he wrote about King’s work in all its various shapes and forms. From there he went on to pen articles and books on King (such as Ink in the Veins: Writing on Stephen King and The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Trivia Book, which he co-wrote with Hans-Ake Lilja and Brian James Freeman) for Cemetery Dance Publications. In addition, he has contributed essays to other writers’ works, such as Stephen Spignesi and Michael Lewis’ Elton John: 50 Years On, Brian James Freeman’s Reading Stephen King, and Anthony Northrup’s forthcoming Stephen King Dollar Baby: The Book, just to name a few. He has also written a book-length study of Blitzen Trapper’s 2008 album Furr. Despite these impressive accomplishments, Quigley’s true passion is writing fiction.

Quigley has only published two novels, I’m On Fire and Roller Disco Saturday Night, although he claims to have written another thirty that are unpublished. At this point in his fiction career, it’s his short fiction that he’s best known for. His short stories have appeared alongside the likes of Stephen King, Peter Straub, Ramsay Campbell, Richard Chizmar, and Clive Barker in the anthologies Shining in the Dark (edited by Hans-Ake Lilja) and Halloween Carnival: Volume Five (edited by Brian James Freeman). He has published two impressive short story collections (both with Cemetery Dance), This Terrestrial Hell (2012) and Damage and Dread (2020). His stories are masterful and cover a lot of ground in terms of scope and tone.

With this in mind, I sat down to talk with Kevin Quigley about his fantastic new collection Damage and Dread and all things writing.Continue Reading

Dead Air: The Company of the Mad – The Stand Podcast

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logo of The Company of the Mad podcast2020 was a hell of a year to be reading Stephen King’s 1978 novel, The Stand….never mind devoting an entire podcast to it.

Jason Sechrest thought the same thing — in fact, he was reading it when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. He took to Twitter with his thoughts about the book, and with a dream about examining it in detail in a podcast, and before he knew it he’d assembled an amazing lineup of co-hosts: director Mike Flanagan, author Tananarive Due, and journalist/author Anthony Breznican. The result is a six-episode podcast that is entertaining, informative, and incredibly timely. (You can WATCH The Company of the Mad: The Stand Podcast at TheStandPodcast.com, or LISTEN on Apple Podcasts here.)

With the final episode set to go live on January 20, Sechrest took a few moments to talk to Cemetery Dance about the origins of the project, and what he and his mad company learned along the way.Continue Reading

Dead Air: Unboxing Jeff Terry

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photo of Jeff Terry holding a knife
Jeff Terry

I was waiting on my copy of the Gift Edition of The Shining from the Cemetery Dance “Stephen King Doubleday Years Set” to arrive, so I thought I’d search for some unboxing videos so I could see what people thought about it — and to get a closer look at the finished product. One of the first ones I found was by a guy named Jeff Terry.

I hit the play button, and was greeted by some dude in what appeared to be a basement. The wall behind him was of grey brick, and a poster of Pennywise the Dancing Clown leered over the guy’s shoulder. The guy was wearing a black jacket, a set of enormous skull rings, and had a skull-shaped bottle of liquor on the table in front of him. He talked for a minute or two, and then proceeded to open the box containing the book, using one of the biggest damn knives I’ve ever seen.

I was hooked.Continue Reading

Review: Velocities by Kathe Koja

cover of Velocities by Kathe KojaVelocities by Kathe Koja
Meerkat Press (April 2020)
200 pages; $13.69 paperback; $7.49 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms

Kathe Koja has long been regarded as one of the true artists in dark fiction, weaving horror into stories and novels that blur the lines of genres and realities. From her Stoker winning The Cipher back in 1991, she has upended what’s to be expected from the genre. Of course, she’s also diverted on occasion into historical fiction, young adult, suspense, and simply plain weird fiction over the years. In Velocities, some of her best has been collected, ranging from “Pas De Deux” from 1995 to “Urb Civ” from 2019 — a stunning array of styles and stories that, while accessible, reach into surreal corners of our reality and others, almost as if creeping down into the hole in The Cipher itself.Continue Reading