Dark Regions Press new book announcements

Phantom Navigation by Robert Frazier



Click here to read more about Phantom Navigation

23 chromosomes from one parent, 23 from the other. 46 inescapable parts to a recipe. In Robert Frazier's case, his father was a cryptographer at Bletchley Park during WWII, and his mother was a landscape painter who studied with Emile Albert Gruppé. Thus the mystical science of deciphering gibberish into plain text meshes with a penchant for impressionistic imagery in Phantom Navigation. Within his first poetry collection in ten years, Frazier maps half-a-hundred works collected from a long career in publishing. Join the 3-time Rhysling-award-winner as he explores the intersection of science and art with a vengeance.

"As honest as wheat, as spectacular and absorbing as a dream, Phantom Navigation is an explosion of creativity from one of America's finest poets. Robert Frazier's breadth of vision is extraordinary."
- Lucius Shepard, author of The Dragon Griaule

"A little Ginsberg, a little Eliot, a little Coleridge, and a lot of storytelling in the sfinal way, yet it is poetry, pure poetry, down to its pretty little ionized toes. How can anyone who loves poetry and sf/fantasy resist this new
collection by the master himself. That's it! Don't resist! Resistance is futile."
- Jane Yolen, author of Things to Say to a Dead Man

"Robert Frazier writes knowing, evocative, poignant, and allusive poetry. His images and metaphors, in addition to startling with their aptness, create clear pictures of alien situations and phenomena, a remarkable skill. Further, this book showcases Frazier's talents in nearly fifty disciplined individual performances."
- Michael Bishop, author of The Door Gunner, and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy

The Dark Side of Heaven by Gord Rollo



War can do terrible things to the hearts and minds of even the best of men, but for U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Tyrone Banks the senseless deaths and unnecessary violence in Vietnam have beaten him down and smothered the compassion and good that was once inside of him. Grief stricken and suicidal; the extreme guilt over the awful things he’s done pushes the young Marine beyond his breaking point until death feels like his only remaining option.

Rather than eating a bullet, Tyrone volunteers for Tunnel Rat duty hoping to finally find release but instead of his carefully planned honorable death, what the Marine finds down in the dark is a backdoor to Purgatory, a secret entrance into the afterlife where he’ll get one last chance to right all the terrible wrongs that constantly haunt him. It won’t be easy, though. Nothing worthwhile ever is. If Tyrone thought the things lurking in the jungle of Vietnam were bad, what’s waiting for him on the dark side of Heaven is worse.

Much, much worse…


"With THE DARK SIDE OF HEAVEN Rollo turns his considerable talents toward military horror and the result is as unique as it is impressive. Like nothing fans have read from him before, Rollo weaves a chilling tale of a young Marine straddling the thin line between horror and fantasy, damnation and redemption, and ultimately, life and death. Highly recommended for fans of both horror and dark fantasy."
- Jimmy Z. Johnston (Horror Web)

"Rollo is the best new horror writer I have come across in years. if he continues to horrify us with his brutal and amazing tales of the macabre, then I believe we have a new master of horror on the rise."
- The Horror Review

Read more...

The Dark Side of Heaven by Gord Rollo is now available on the DarkRegions.com website.

Is Chris Morey the only person checking this thread now?

I only ask because some of the cover art is *spectacular*.

OReillysRose said:

Is Chris Morey the only person checking this thread now?

I only ask because some of the cover art is *spectacular*.

Click to expand...

I sure hope not! Thank you, I'm glad you like some of our covers. We actually just launched the new website, if you want to give it a look: DarkRegions.com

Click here to read more about Tales of the Weak & The Wounded by Gary McMahon

The sound of shuffling footsteps across the old cell floor…

A soft voice like a strange tune echoing along the empty corridors…

Dim lights in the windows of the abandoned asylum…

Discarded case files that flip open to reveal the dreams of broken minds…

Welcome to a place where the boundaries of fact and fiction meet.

Acclaimed author Gary McMahon raids the archives of a notorious derelict mental asylum called the Daleside Institute to bring you stories of madness, horror and emotional trauma. In locations as diverse as suburban Germany, the London Underground, an Italian seaside resort and the inhospitable polar icecap, you will meet damaged people with broken lives. Here are terrifying accounts of love, hate, death and madness…

These are the Tales of the Weak and the Wounded


About the Author

Gary McMahon’s short fiction has been reprinted in both THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR and THE YEAR’S BEST FANTASY & HORROR. He is the British-Fantasy-Award-nominated author of the novels Hungry Hearts from Abaddon Books, Pretty Little Dead Things and Dead Bad Things from Angry Robot/Osprey and The Concrete Grove trilogy from Solaris.

Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O'Neill coming Tues, Feb 28th



Click here to read more about Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O'Neill

Winner of the 2009 Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Collection.

Nine stories of dark science fiction and fantasy take us through the underbelly of San Francisco's most notorious district known as the Tenderloin.

Best known for his strong sense of place and uniquely vibrant characters. O'Neill brings the gritty underside of the city to life with nine interwoven stories of broken lives, missed dreams, and all that can go wrong with both reality and fantasy among the down and out. The city itself opens wide to swallow all comers with the temptation of its secrets and sins, while O'Neill brings dignity and humanity to a set of characters often overlooked in both society and fiction.

"Haunting, lyrical and often uncomfortably realistic, this slim collection of eight short stories plunges the reader into the darker side of San Francisco. Altered states of consciousness-minds changed by grief, chemistry or too much hard living-are everywhere. In Magic Words, an advertising executive pays a homeless woman a high price for transient success. Poignant and plausible almost to a fault, Tombstones in His Eyes twists the horrors of drug addiction into something harder, sharper and scarier. In the Apotheosis of Nathan McKee, a brokenhearted father's descent into insanity-or is it merely invisibility?-makes normalcy seem all too tenuous. The best story of the bunch, 5150, documents the final moments of a worn-out cop about to retire. O'Neill's deft, authentic prose resonates with the weight of sad reality, erasing the line between knowledge and fear." - Starred review - Publishers Weekly

About the Author


Gene O'Neill is best known as a multi-award nominated writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction.

O'Neill's professional writing career began after completing the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 1979. Since that time, over 100 of his works have been published. His short story work has appeared in Cemetery Dance Magazine, Twilight Zone Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and many more.

O'Neill has had many occupations besides writing including postal worker, contract specialist for AAFES, college basketball player, amateur boxer, United States Marine, right-of-way agent, and vice president of a small manufacturing plant. He also holds two degrees from California State University, Sacramento and University of Minnesota. He currently writes full time and lives in the Napa Valley with his wife, Kay.

Crustaceans by William Meikle now available and in stock



The novel Crustaceans by William Meikle is now available on the DarkRegions.com website in a Deluxe Signed Hardcover and a Trade Paperback edition (first 100 copies signed by the author). The book is already in stock and shipping to customers.

Click here to read more about Crustaceans by William Meikle

From Scottish writer William Meikle comes a novel that is a welcome return to those tomes of pure enjoyment that we read with guilt in our early teens, in the tradition of James Herbert’s THE RATS and Guy N. Smith’s NIGHT OF THE CRABS.

It begins with a dead whale on a Boston shoreline--not in itself an unusual occurrence. But the things that claw their way out of the blubber are very unusual indeed. A cast of giant crabs, evolved over centuries, descends on a small coastal town and, having feasted, make their way to the city using the sewer system. Soon they are swarming around Manhattan, hunted and harried by a SWAT team tasked with ridding the city of the menace...before the menace gets big enough to rid itself of the city.


About the Author



William Meikle is a Scottish writer with over a dozen novels published in the genre press and over 200 short story credits in thirteen countries. He is the author of the ongoing Midnight Eye series among others, and his work appears in a number of professional anthologies. His ebook THE INVASION has been as high as #2 in the Kindle SF charts. He lives in a remote corner of Newfoundland with icebergs, whales and bald eagles for company. In the winters he gets warm vicariously through the lives of others in cyberspace, so please check him out at WilliamMeikle.com


Publisher


Dark Regions Press
P.O. Box 1264
Colusa, CA, 95932
support AT darkregions.com

Big beasties fascinate me

Some of that fascination stems from early film viewing. I remember being taken to the cinema to see The Blob. I couldn't have been more than seven or eight, and it scared the crap out of me. The original incarnation of Kong has been with me since around the same time. Similarly, I remember the BBC showing re-runs of classic creature features late on Friday nights, and THEM! in particular left a mark on my psyche. I've also got a Biological Sciences degree, and even while watching said movies, I'm usually trying to figure out how the creature would actually work in nature -- what would it eat? How would it procreate? What effect would it have on the environment around it?

On top of that, I have an interest in cryptozoology, of creatures that live just out of sight of humankind, and of the myriad possibilities that nature, and man's dabbling with it, can throw up.

Then there's Guy N Smith, who the book is dedicated to. Guy's killer crabs are remorseless, relentless and the kind of killing machine you can't help but love.

All those things were going round in my head when I first sat down to write the short novel Crustaceans.

As I started I only knew one or two things -- that there would be whales involved somewhere, and that the Crabs would be in the tunnels and sewers under the city. After some fascinating research into the history of excavations and tunneling I made a start.

I worked out a full ecological profile and lifecycle for my "beasts" but most of that went by the board as the plot took over. It went quickly, and I found myself enjoying it immensely. It runs in my head like a movie, and I'd love to see it on the big screen one day, or as a comic book. That's how I think of it -- big, brash and bloody.

It's definitely horror, but it's also Science-fiction, in a very 1950's B-Movie kind of way, a creature-feature if you like. It runs in my head like one of those lurid early technicolor monster movies, and readers will have fun thinking of it that way themselves.

Back to Guy N Smith again. This book began life as a possible collaboration with Guy which, for several reasons, didn't pan out. But the Crabs are all his, and without his original books, this one would never exist. (Indeed there are a few allusions in the book to the originals, a wee homage on my part.) I'd just like to thank Guy, for the inspiration and, more than that, for the fun he's given us in his books over his years of writing.

Dark Regions Press is proud to announce that the novel Isis Unbound by Allyson Bird was awarded Superior Achievement in a First Novel during the Bram Stoker Awards on Saturday, March 31st. The novel is currently in stock and available in two collectible hardcover formats: Isis Unbound by Allyson Bird

The Harmony Society by Tim Waggoner



The novel The Harmony Society by Tim Waggoner will be available on the DarkRegions.com website on Tuesday, April 17th.

Click here to read more about The Harmony Society by Tim Waggoner

Reality and nightmare. Past and present. Sanity and madness. For Nathan Bennett, there is no longer any difference between them - not since the Harmony Society came into his life. Now, as his world begins to collapse around him, Nathan must travel the strange and dangerous roads of the Nightway in search of the Dark Angel - a being of great power that the Harmony Society desperately wishes to control. But even if Nathan reaches the Angel first, what waits for him at the end of his long, dark road: salvation . . . damnation . . . Or both?

This novel is compelling, frightening, packed with haunting dreamlike imagery, and rich with imagination.
- Gary A. Braunbeck, author of Stoker-nominated author of THINGS LEFT BEHIND, THE INDIFFERENCE OF HEAVEN, and GRAVEYARD PEOPLE: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories, Vol. 1.


About the Author



Tim Waggoner wrote his first story at the age of five, when he created a comic book version of King Kong vs. Godzilla on a stenographer's pad. It took him a few more years until he began selling professionally, though. Overall, he has published more than twenty novels and two short story collections, and his articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest and Writers’ Journal, among other publications. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University’s Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program. He hopes to continue writing and teaching until he keels over dead, after which he wants to be stuffed and mounted, and then placed in front of his computer terminal.

The Harmony Society by Tim Waggoner

We are happy to announce that The Harmony Society by Tim Waggoner is now available and in stock on the DarkRegions.com website: The Harmony Society by Tim Waggoner - Dark Regions Press - Horror books, Horror novels, Fantasy books, Horror fiction, Dark fiction, Poetry collections and more!

The White Room by Rick Hautala



Click here to read more about The White Room by Rick Hautala

Heading for Hilton, Maine, to spend the summer restoring his old childhood home, Tim and Polly Harris and their young son, Brian, encounter more than they had bargained for when human bones are found at a nearby construction site, Brian nearly drowns, and Polly encounters a mysterious young girl whom no one else can see and an evil force bent on their destruction.

“Rick Hautala’s writing shines with dedication, hard-earned craft, and devotion.” - Peter Straub

“Rick Hautala is a modern master of horror. He breathtakingly captures the things we fear, and love. With love, humanity, and a chilling eye, Hautala makes our hearts race.” - Matthew J. Costello

“Rick Hautala proves each time out that he understands and respects the inner workings of the traditional horror novel as well or better than anyone writing. He brings his own brand of ice and fire and blood to his work and he never forgets to entertain the reader.” - Joe R. Lansdale

“Writes about the dark side of life as if he has lived there for centuries.” - John Coyne

“One of the most consistently reliable horror novelists ... [Rick Hautala] is adept at creating a chilly, unnerving atmosphere, particularly with his unconventional ghost stories.” - Don D’Ammassa, Science Fiction Chronicle


About the Author



Rick Hautala is best known as a speculative fiction and horror writer. He graduated from the University of Maine in 1974 where he received a Master of Art in English Literature. Rick arrived on the horror scene in 1980 with many of his early novels published by Zebra books. He has written and published over 90 novels and short stories since the early 1980s. Many of his books have been translated to other languages and sold internationally. Cold Whisper, published in October, 1991 by Zebra Books, Inc. was also published in Finnish as Haamu by Werner Soderstrom Oy, Helsinki, Finland, in August, 1994. Recently he has published many of his works with specialty press and small press publishers like Cemetery Dance Publications and Dark Harvest. His novel The Wildman (2008), was chosen to be Full Moon Press' debut limited edition title.

Urn & Willow by Scott Thomas



Urn & Willow by Scott Thomas, fifth entry in the Ghost House imprint, features eleven interior illustrations by artist Erin Wells. The book is now available in two collectible signed hardcover editions on our website at DarkRegions.com

Click here to read more about Urn & Willow by Scott Thomas

Ghostly tales of 18th and 19th century New England

The hour is late, and wind whispers at the window. Autumn leaves have taken wing and a breeze troubles the candle flame. Something from the past has returned and walks the moonlit night. Something dead.

The door may be bolted and the fire may be warm, but the ghosts in Scott Thomas's URN AND WILLOW will find you. They wait patiently within the covers, inviting you to visit the lonely chamber where three sisters starved to death, and the small town where the devil's hoof prints steam in the snow, and a house where the rooms mysteriously multiply and are inhabited by otherworldly creatures. Come inside and visit the haunted seasons of the past.

Here are three of eleven interior illustrations by artist Erin Wells within Urn & Willow by Scott Thomas. Click on the images for larger versions:



About the Author



URN AND WILLOW is Scott Thomas’s 8th short story collection. Others include QUILL AND CANDLE, THE GARDEN OF GHOSTS, and OVER THE DARKENING FIELDS. He has seen print in numerous anthologies, such as EXOTIC GOTHIC 4, THE YEAR’S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR # 15, OTHERWORLDLY MAINE, and THE SOLARIS BOOK OF NEW FANTASY. The author of the novel FELLENGREY, his work also appears with that of his brother Jeffrey Thomas in PUNKTOWN: SHADES OF GREY and THE SEA OF FLESH AND ASH. Scott and his girlfriend Peggy live in coastal Maine.

Dark Melodies by William Meikle, a new supernatural collection based on music



Dark Melodies by William Meikle, a new supernatural collection with tales all based on music will be available on the DarkRegions.com website on Tuesday, June 19th.

Click here to read more and view the expanded full-cover artwork for Dark Melodies by William Meikle

Music can transport you. It can bring sunshine on a cloudy day and lift your heart in times of trouble. But there is another side, a darker side, to music. Allow yourself to be open to a different melody, and who knows where the dance will take you.

In this collection you will follow the music into dark places, down dark passageways, where dark melodies play.


"William Meikle's stories capture the reader's imagination and takes it on a whirlwind of a roller-coaster ride that will leave you breathless come the last page." - Ginger Nuts of Horror

"I have become a big fan of Mr. Meikle, his books are always good and he is one hell of a storyteller." - Famous Monsters of Filmland

"In a literary world of mediocrity, William Meikle stands out as an author of almost arcane talents." - J Kent Holloway, author of Primal Thirst

"William Meikle's short stories and novels are shining examples of what is missing in horror fiction today: atmospheric in style, old-school in character, with an intriguing story to be told." - David Wynn, Mythos Books


About the Author



William Meikle is a Scottish writer with over a dozen novels published in the genre press and over 200 short story credits in thirteen countries. He is the author of the ongoing Midnight Eye series among others, and his work appears in a number of professional anthologies. His ebook THE INVASION has been as high as #2 in the Kindle SF charts. He lives in a remote corner of Newfoundland with icebergs, whales and bald eagles for company. In the winters he gets warm vicariously through the lives of others in cyberspace, so please check him out at WilliamMeikle.com

Round 4 of our ongoing Horror Books Raffle (Six New Collectible Book Prizes)



We are excited to announce that Round 4 of our ongoing Horror Books Raffle has begun with over $400 in six all new prizes. It's free to sign up, just go to: HorrorBooksRaffle.com


The prizes are...

1st Prize: Take The Long Way Home by Brian Keene (Signed and Numbered Hardcover Edition)

2nd Prize: The Complete Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale (Signed Collectible Edition)

3rd Prize: The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World by Brian Keene (Signed and Numbered Edition)

4th Prize: Nightingale Songs by Simon Strantzas ($99 leather-bound signed Deluxe Hardcover edition with slipcase)

5th Prize: The Gaki & Other Hungry Spirits by Stephen Mark Rainey ($99 leather-bound signed Deluxe Hardcover edition with slipcase)

6th Prize: The Engines of Sacrifice by James Chambers ($99 leather-bound signed Deluxe Hardcover edition with slipcase)


Best of luck to all who enter, and please share the link to the raffle website with your friends, family and co-workers. The more folks who enter, the more free books we can give away.

Good luck!

Cold to the Touch by Simon Strantzas



The critically acclaimed collection Cold to the Touch by Simon Strantzas is now available once again from Dark Regions Press in all-new collectible editions, including an introduction by author Reggie Oliver, new cover artwork and six interior illustrations by J.D. Busch and a new afterword by author Simon Strantzas.

Cold to the Touch is available in a leather-bound signed by both author and artist Deluxe Lettered Hardcover with slipcase edition and a Trade Paperback edition.

Click here to read more about Cold to the Touch by Simon Strantzas

There is a cold that cannot be imagined, a chill so deep it turns blood to ice, cracks flesh, tears meat from bone. It is the horror of our own reality, the terrifying curse of our own survival. Can you feel it creeping down your spine?

Simon Strantzas, author of the mesmerizing Beneath the Surface and brilliant Nightingale Songs, brings his critically-acclaimed and long out-of-print collection back to find a whole new audience. In these thirteen strange and dark tales, you will find vacationers on the edge of forever, lonely pilgrims searching for answers, the dying reminded of all they have lost and all they have yet to lose. Strantzas's fiction is a haunting echo across the barren Arctic tundra, and once you hear its howl you will never forget the sound.


"Simon Strantzas is an important new writer of weird fiction, a position solidified by the release of his new collection, Cold to the Touch, from Tartarus Press. What I admire most about this collection, besides the fine writing, is how these stories defy a simply summarization. This fiction goes far beyond the simple scares of most horror. A mystery defying the usual explication of plot lies at the heart of each one, giving us much to chew on long after the story has ended. Cold to the Touch is a great reading experience."
— Steve Rasnic Tem

"[T]he second collection by the author, with thirteen stories, six of them new, all of them quite powerful and dark."
— Ellen Datlow

"Cold to the Touch is a delightfully chilling gallery of the ghoulish, the nightmarish, and the weird. With this follow-up to the excellent Beneath the Surface, Strantzas continues to impress."
— Laird Barron


About the Author



Simon Strantzas is the author of the critically-acclaimed Cold to the Touch and Nightingale Songs. His first collection, Beneath the Surface, has been called "one of the most important debut short story collections in the genre". Strantzas's stories have appeared in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Cemetery Dance, and Postscripts. In 2009, his work was nominated for the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction. He lives in Toronto, Canada, with his wife and an unyielding hunger for the flesh of the living. For more information, please visit SimonStrantzas.com

New Moon on the Water by Mort castle



Dark Regions Press is excited to be launching New Moon on the Water by Mort Castle on Tuesday, August 14th. Mort Castle is the author of over 350 short stories and a dozen horror books. He is also the co-editor of the 2012 anthology Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury and the editor of On Writing Horror: A Handbook by the Horror Writers Association. With stunning cover artwork from three-time Bram Stoker Award winning artist Vincent Chong and thirteen never-before-printed tales, New Moon on the Water will be a highly sought after and collected volume.

Read more about the book here: New Moon on the Water by Mort Castle - Collection of Horror Stories from editor of Shadow Show

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In a smoky, after hours jazz joint where almost nobody ever dies, or the ranch house next door owned by a monster, or a high rise elevator in which raging terror awaits the next passenger, these brilliant stories discover a world you thought you knew--and a darker one you will never forget. With 13 stories never before collected, NEW MOON ON THE WATER is Mort Castle's first new collection in a decade, presenting the best short fiction of the writer deemed a "horror doyen," "the Charles Dickens of horror," and "the master of contemporary horror."

"Mort Castle is one of the best short story writers in the horror field today. More than that, he's one of the best short story writers around, period. . He writes short stories that make a point, stick in your memory, remain with you long after you've put down the book in which they appear." – Robert Weinberg, Novelist, Editor of World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award recipient


ABOUT THE AUTHOR



Mort Castle is a horror author, editor, and a writing teacher with more than 350 short stories and a dozen books to his credit. His novels include Cursed Be the Child and The Strangers, optioned for the screen by Whitewater Films, and cited on the list of "Ten Best Horror-Thriller Novels" published in Poland in 2008 by Newsweek.pl. Castle edited the essential reference work Writing Horror and the expanded and revised later edition On Writing Horror for the Horror Writers Association (Writer's Digest Books). In 2012, William Morrow published Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, the anthology he co-edited with Sam Weller.


MEDIA CONTACTS
Chris Morey
chris AT darkregions.com
DarkRegions.com

Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala



Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala is now available on the DarkRegions.com website in two premium hardcover editions. It includes twenty-four stories from the Lifetime Achievement Award winning best-selling author of the million-copy seller Night Stone, Rick Hautala.

The book features an original wrap-around cover and eight original interior illustrations by award-winning artist Glenn Chadbourne.

Click here to read more about Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala



“Rick Hautala’s writing shines with dedication, hard-earned craft, and devotion.”
—Peter Straub

One of 2012’s HWA Lifetime Achievement Award Winners, Rick Hautala has a writing career that spans more than three decades. From Moondeath, his first novel published in 1980, to the republication of his best-selling novel The White Room (DRP, 2012) and his forthcoming “Little Brothers” novella Indian Summer (CD Publications, 2012), his novels and short stories have entertained millions of readers around the world.

Now comes Glimpses, a career-spanning “best of” collection that brings together twenty-four stories, including eight from each of Rick’s critically-acclaimed collections Bedbugs and Occasional Demons, and eight previously uncollected stories.

And Glimpses delivers what it promises—quick glimpses into the deepest shadows of our lives, around unfamiliar corners of streets we think we know, and down the darkest alleys of strange cities where readers will have to face their worst fears and their most unnerving nightmares.

Of course, Glimpses wouldn’t be a Rick Hautala collection if it didn’t included gorgeous original artwork—a wraparound cover and eight new illustrations—from award-winning artist Glenn Chadbourne.

So whether it’s in a haunted schoolhouse or an abandoned lighthouse, an iron bridge that spans a fast-moving river or a World War I battlefield, prepare yourself because you never know what you may catch a glimpse of … and by then, it may already be too late.



“Rick Hautala is a modern master of horror. He breathtakingly captures the things we fear, and love. With love, humanity, and a chilling eye, Hautala makes our hearts race.”
—Matthew J. Costello, author of Vacation and Home

“Rick Hautala proves each time out that he understands and respects the inner workings of the traditional horror novel as well or better than anyone writing. He brings his own brand of ice and fire and blood to his work and he never forgets to entertain the reader.”
—Joe R. Lansdale, author of the Hap and Leonard books and Edge of Dark Water

“Writes about the dark side of life as if he has lived there for centuries.”
—John Coyne

“One of the most consistently reliable horror novelists ... [Rick Hautala] is adept at creating a chilly, unnerving atmosphere,particularly with his unconventional ghost stories.”
—Don D’Ammassa, Science Fiction Chronice

“A master of contemporary horror and suspense.”
—T. Liam McDonald, Cemetery Dance



About the Author

Under his own name, Rick Hautala has written around thirty novels, including the million-copy best seller Nightstone, as well as Winter Wake, The Mountain King, and Little Brothers. He has previously published two short story collections: Bedbugs and Occasional Demons. He has had over sixty short stories published in a variety of national and international anthologies and magazines.

Writing as A. J. Matthews, his novels include the bestsellers The White Room, Looking Glass, Follow, and Unbroken.

His forthcoming books from Cemetery Dance Publications include Indian Summer, a new “Little Brothers” novella, as well as two novels, Chills and Waiting. He recently delivered The Star Road, a science fiction novel co-written with Matthew Costello, to Brendan Deneen at Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s due to be published in 2013.

With Mark Steensland, he has written several screenplays, included the multiple award-winning short film Peekers, based on the short story by Kealan Patrick Burke; The Ugly File, based on the short story by Ed Gorman; and Lovecraft’s Pillow, inspired by a suggestion from Stephen King.

Born and raised in Rockport, Massachusetts, Rick is a graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with a Master of Arts in English Literature. He lives in southern Maine with author Holly Newstein. Combined, they have five sons, all of whom have grown up and (mostly) moved out, leaving the house frighteningly quiet.

In 2012, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers’ Association.

Most of his books and stories—and all of them, soon—will be available in all major e-book formats from a variety of e-publishers. For more information, check out his website The Rick Hautala Web Site.

Click here to read more about Notes from the Shadow City by Bruce Boston and Gary William Crawford

“In Notes from the Shadow City, Crawford and Boston distill a bleak dystopian vision. Alone or together, and utilizing poetry, prose, and photographic images, they have crafted a guidebook, a Baedeker to the same outliers as chronicled by Dostoyevsky, Kafka, and Orwell, where shadows are more real than the gnomons that cast them, and the predominant colors come from the stripped-down underside of the rainbow.”
—Robert Borski, author of Blood Wallah and Other Poems

“Like grim guides of the underworld, Boston and Crawford lead you into a terrifying landscape of tragedy and tyranny. At times morbid, despairing, inspiring, and hauntingly beautiful, the Shadow City etches itself into your mind with lonely, tormented characters and their tragic fates.”
—Anders Monsen, Editor, Prometheus

“Boston’s and Crawford’s voices meld beautifully to create dark music. Notes from the Shadow City will echo in your nightmares.”
—Linda D. Addison, Bram-Stoker-Award-winning author of Being Full of Light, Insubstantial

“To say that reading Notes from the Shadow City is a delight might be misleading; to say that it is unsettling, disconcerting, provocative, and remarkable is to scratch the surface of the shadows and begin to reveal the genius beneath.”
—from the introduction by Michael R. Collings, author of The House beyond the Hill


About the Authors



Bruce Boston lives in Ocala, Florida, once known as the City of Trees, with his wife, writer-artist Marge Simon, and the ghosts of two cats. He is the author of fifty books and chapbooks, including the novels The Guardener’s Tale and Stained Glass Rain. His poetry and fiction have appeared in hundreds of publications, including Asimov’s SF Magazine, Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and The Nebula Awards Showcase. One of the leading genre poets for more than a quarter century, Boston has won the Bram Stoker Award for Poetry, the Asimov’s Readers Award for Poetry, and the Rhysling Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, each a record number of times. His fiction has received a Pushcart Prize and been a finalist for the Bram Stoker Novel Award and the Micro Award for flash fiction. For more information, and links to work online, visit Bruce Boston -- Speculative Fiction & Poetry.

Gary William Crawford

Gary William Crawford (born 1953) is an American writer and small press publisher. He is the founder and editor of Gothic Press, which since 1979 has published books and periodicals in the field of Gothic literature. From 1979 to 1987, Crawford produced six issues of the journal Gothic, which features articles on Gothic fiction from 1764 to 1986. Later, the press published the horror poetry magazine Night Songs. In recent years, the press has published The Gothic Chapbook Series, which features pamphlets of fiction, poetry and scholarship. He has numerous poems, stories, and articles in the small press. Crawford has recently begun the online journal, Le Fanu Studies, about ghost and mystery story writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu, and is compiling Internet databases on Le Fanu, Fritz Leiber, Ramsey Campbell, Walter de la Mare and Robert Aickman.


Click Here to download the PDF press release for Notes from the Shadow City.