Gothic Horror Novella On Sale!

DOWN BY THE DARK WATER is currently on sale at Amazon for less than a buck or a quid 🙂

Amazon US  |  Amazon UK  |  Amazon CA |  Amazon AU

To-Read List: Goodreads

Jane Forsyth wants a new life—far, far away from her cold mother and recently-buried father. Working as personal assistant to a wealthy recluse seems ideal: fresh air, beautiful surroundings on a remote Scottish island, and time to recover from the trauma of nursing her abusive father. But when she arrives at gloomy, ghost-ridden Cardrossan House she finds a family even more dysfunctional than her own.

Her employer, Sebastian Holt-Manning, is drowning in whiskey, his wife has left him, and he treats his only child, Emilia, as if she doesn’t exist. It’s only her budding relationship with the lonely, mercurial teenager that convinces Jane to stay. The neglected Emilia requires a friend—and who better than Jane to mentor her through the hazards of a distant mother and a cruel father.

When Mrs. Holt-Manning’s body is discovered on the banks of the Black Loch, Jane becomes obsessed with the clues she believes point to murder. With Emilia leading her deeper into the shadowy secrets of the family and servants, Jane pursues the elusive facts. But even the strength she used to survive her parents may not be enough to save her from the terrible truths she discovers on the shores of the dark water.

New Short Story Available!

My writing life continues, slowly and steadily (very slowly; somewhat steadily). My latest published short story is “A Prince of New England.” It’s a sad wee tale, probably best described as grit lit, with not a solitary drop of my usual spec fic.

It’s been published in Issue 4 of God’s Cruel Joke Literary Magazine, a publication dedicated to the “intersection of the profound and profane.” You can read Issue 4 for free online or purchase a print copy from Amazon.

I’d wish you happy reading, but…that’s not gonna happen. Unhappy reading, then. Enjoy 🙂

Update and a New Story

It’s me again, the laziest blogger who ever blogged. Though in my defence I did have another horrendous health issue that knocked me off my game for a while. But here I am, back in the writer’s saddle as per frickin’ always, editing a novel, writing a novella, and subbing a bunch of short stories, one of which I managed to sell while trying not to keel over dead. Success, I believe.

My short story, “The Rarest of Species,” is available in Issue 13 of the science fiction and fantasy magazine, Wyldblood, and involves mysterious shenanigans on a desolate Scottish island. Print and e-version is available from the publisher, as well as Amazon.

It’s Been a Minute…

Yeah, long time, no see. My excuses include: cancer, pandemic, and a job that almost killed me. Started writing again last year, just for fun, and recently started submitting again. So, I have a new short story for those who might be interested.

“Mothers’ Daughter” appears in Issue 4 of Dream of Shadows. It’s available on Amazon. $2.99 for the Kindle edition, $5.99 for the paperback edition, and free if you’re a member of Kindle Unlimited. It’s also available via Amazon UK.

This story is a revenge tale. And it’s dark. Oh so very, very dark. So be warned.

The Nice Girl/Horror Writer Dichotomy: Guest Post from Sara Jayne Townsend

“What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?”

As a child, I had very definite ideas about what girls were supposed to be like and what boys were supposed to be like. I wasn’t very fond of boys – they were loud and noisy and rough. I was a girly girl, into dresses and dolls and I didn’t like getting dirty.

Everything changed around puberty, and it wasn’t just because boys suddenly got more interesting. In grade eight, we were given an assignment in English class to write a horror story. And in the school library, I picked up a book called DIFFERENT SEASONS that featured four novellas by a chap called Stephen King. I liked the book so much, I went hunting for other things by the same writer. That led me to CARRIE. The rest is history. From then on, I was hooked on horror. I devoured it throughout high school – the gorier the better. And suddenly, the girl who as a child couldn’t even watch a creepy TV show without having nightmares for weeks was writing some very nasty horror stories.

By this time, we were in the middle of the 1980s. My generation of women were growing up with the likes of Joan Collins as role models – women with big hair and big shoulder pads and six-inch stilettos, who knew what they wanted and weren’t afraid to go out and get it. The boundaries of gender were becoming blurred. My junior high school (mixed) obliged all students to take both Industrial Arts (wood and metal working) and Family Studies (cooking and sewing). I was actually hopeless at all of it. Writing horror stories, though – that I seemed to be good at.

In high school, where I was able to drop both Industrial Arts and Family Studies (and Physical Education, which I was also hopeless at), I started to get interested in the clubs and societies the school had to offer. I joined the Dungeons and Dragons Club. I found I really enjoyed playing.

It was after I left school, though, than I began to run into gender barriers more and more often. Girls don’t play D&D. Girls don’t play video games. Girls don’t write horror stories, apparently. Anyone who says that is clearly too ignorant to realise that FRANKENSTEIN, arguably the first modern horror novel, was written by a teenage girl.

There are plenty of women horror writers out there, but too often ‘best of’ lists of horror writers are populated exclusively by men. And I still meet people who are surprised when I tell them I’m a horror writer. “But you seem so nice,” they say.

Maybe being nice is not the way to go. Since women horror writers don’t get their voice heard often enough I think we have to learn to shout a lot louder. Maybe then more people will notice we’re out there.

***

SUFFER THE CHILDREN

Orphaned at eighteen, Leanne’s life is adrift in a sea of grief and drug use. She washes up on the shore of estranged relatives, the Carver family, struggling with loss of their own. The transition from her South London council estate to her new home in the Surrey middle-class suburbs is difficult for Leanne.

But beneath the respectable veneer of the quiet neighborhood, something terrifying lurks. Displaced and troubled teenagers are disappearing. Leanne recruits her cousin Simon and his girlfriend Carrie to help get to the bottom of the sinister mystery. Can the three of them stop a creature of unimaginable evil before Leanne becomes a target?

***

Sara Jayne Townsend is a UK-based writer of crime and horror, and someone tends to die a horrible death in all of her stories.  She was born in Cheshire in 1969, but spent most of the 1980s living in Canada after her family emigrated there.  She now lives in Surrey with two cats and her guitarist husband Chris.  She co-founded the T Party Writers’ Group in 1994, and remains Chair Person.

She decided she was going to be a published novelist when she was 10 years old and finished her first novel a year later.  It took 30 years of submitting, however, to fulfill that dream.

Her latest release is SUFFER THE CHILDREN, a supernatural horror novel that is available now from MuseItUp Publishing

Learn more about Sara and her writing at her website and her blog.  You can also follow her on Twitter and Goodreads, and buy her books from Amazon UK and US.

 

 

Hometown Horror: An Interview With Luke Walker

It is with great pleasure that I welcome author Luke Walker back to this blog. He’s been a regular visitor over the years and, as a passionate aficionado of the horror genre, has written several excellent guest posts on such topics as women in horror, short fiction in horror, British horror, and more. I urge you, after reading this interview and buying his latest novel, to check out his contributions.

 

Dooley: Congratulations on your latest release, Luke. Tell us all about it!

Luke: Hometown is a horror about a group of friends who’ve grown apart after the suicide of a mutual friend a few years before the start of the story. She haunts them in various ways and they gather in their hometown (funnily enough) to try and work out what’s going on. Once they’re all together, they’re transported to another side of that town – the underside of it where it’s permanently night and the population are a mix of human and inhuman monsters. Realising they’re trapped in the physical manifestations of their friend’s pain, they have to do whatever it takes to stay alive and get out. At the same time, the wife of one of the friends is searching for him, unaware that someone is looking for her. Someone who knows all about pain and causing it.

I came up with the characters in an older book (which was terrible) several years ago. A while back, I got to thinking about them and wondered what they’d be up to now. Putting that with a dark tale of regret, grief and a fair bit of blood got me to Hometown.

Dooley: Do you have any interesting writing quirks?

Luke: I don’t think so. I treat it like a second job so I’m at my desk at set times and aim for a decent word count with each session. As long as I’ve got a drink and some tunes, I’m good to go. I’ve discovered I do have certain areas I go back to in my fiction (friendship, people trying to right wrongs, bad things happening to good people for no reason), but no real quirks. Which probably means I have loads. I just don’t know it.

Dooley: What is your favorite part of writing a book?

Luke: There’s almost always a certain point in writing a book where you realise what the real story is, and that’s often not the idea you came up with. For example, Hometown was meant to be little more than a nasty tale of monsters and people being trapped with them. 20K or so into the first draft, I saw there was something more to it than that: how truly terrible regret is and how powerful friendship can be. Plus some really horrible goings on.

When a story falls into place and everything clicks, that’s the best part of writing a book.

Dooley: What is your biggest fear?

Luke: Dentists. Next question.

Dooley: Are you currently working on any other projects?

Luke: I’ve just finished editing my most recent book. Once I’ve got a bit of feedback on it and made any changes and fixed my mistakes (there are always mistakes), I can get it ready to submit. In the meantime, I’ve gone back to a couple of older books to give them a spit and a polish. After all that, I’m starting a new book. It’s titleless at the moment which is no big deal. The title comes when it comes. This one is about a group of cannibals in the aftermath of a nuclear war. It’s an alternate history thing set after a mid 80s conflict. With a lot of blood, I imagine.

Dooley: What are the last three books you read?

Luke: I recently finished Joe Hill’s NOS 4R2 which was superb. I meant to read it a couple of years ago and never got round to it. A very enjoyable tale all round. Susan Hill’s Dolly was a bit of a disappointment to be honest. She’s done some great stuff but that one fell a bit flat for me. Tim Lebbon’s first thriller The Hunt was another winner. Lebbon usually writes horror or fantasy and I highly recommend him. The Hunt is obviously different to his usual work and worth anyone’s time.

I’m currently reading Duncton Wood by William Horwood which is an old-fashioned (in a good way) fantasy story of moles in an English wood. I’m also re-reading Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan prior to reading the sequel World War Moo. As you can probably tell, it’s not one to be taking too seriously but is still a great read. Funny, violent and silly at the same time.

Dooley: Where can we find you online?

Luke: My website is www.lukewalkerwriter.com, my Twitter is @lukewalkerbooks, my Good Reads is https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2924729.Luke_Walker

Feel free to drop by anywhere and say hello. I don’t bite. Or eat brains.

Hometown on Amazon UK

Hometown on Amazon US

 

 

 

Call for Sci-Fi Romance Short Stories: Issue 12

THEME FOR ISSUE 12: General…let your imagination go wild!

Length: 2,000 to 7,500 words.

Payment: 2.5 cents/word (US) paid upon publication, promotional biography with two links, and a complimentary quarter-page advertisement.

Deadline for Issue #12: 15 August 2016.

Rights sought: Six-month exclusive world digital rights from date of publication; non-exclusive thereafter.

Other info: One short story will be published per issue. Please send only edited and polished work. Due to time constraints, we are unable to give personalized feedback on rejected stories.

Stories that tie-in to a previously established world will be considered, but story must stand alone.

All sub-genres of science fiction will be considered.

Any heat level, from sweet to erotic, will be considered. Original, previously unpublished fiction only. No fan fiction, please.

Story should meld the Science Fiction and Romance genres, and must have an upbeat (HEA/HFN) ending. Not quite sure what we’re looking for? Read our original fiction in previous issues. Read also our Fiction Editor’s take on why YOUR story got rejected.

No multiple submissions. No stories that have previously been rejected by us. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please inform us if the story is placed elsewhere.

Submit here! Standard manuscript format, please.

It’s the Blue Moon Blog Hop!

Hi, everyone. I’m delighted to be participating in the Blue Moon Blog Hop, organized by the wonderfully efficient Pippa Jay.  The theme is BLUE, and that just happened to fit perfectly with three of my books. Why am I so enamored with BLUE, you ask? Well, let me explain.

Three definitions of BLUE:

– A color between green and indigo on the spectrum

– Melancholy, sad, or depressed

– A movie joke or story with sexual content

In my trio of BLUE books, Earth is ruled by the aristocratic Blues, led by the self appointed Dictator. Earth is their base, but the planet is slowly dying. Now, the Blues must extend and consolidate their power into the rest of the inhabited galaxy.

 

In the first book, Blue Galaxy, a young aristocratic woman, Sola de la Vega, is being sent to an arranged marriage with a Blue warlord on a colonized planet in the Outer Rim. The pilot of the ship that will carry her there, Javan Rhodes, former war hero turned alcoholic space flotsam, has the misfortune to fall in love with the woman, who turns out to be nothing like the demure young Blue she presents herself to be. There is melancholy and sadness, oh yes. And quite a bit of sexual content *grin*

 

The twist and turns of Blue Galaxy, all told from the perspective of Captain Rhodes, leads directly into the second book, Blue Nebula, where the adventures continue from the point of view of Sola de la Vega. Swashbuckling of various kinds occur, secrets are revealed, hearts are broken, and the very uncertain future of the galaxy becomes a battle ground. The wily old Dictator of Earth has set a series of events in play that Sola and Javan must overcome, not just for the future of their relationship, but for the very survival of Planet Earth.

 

Well, that’s what the power players are up to. Back on Earth, as the Blues start to flee the dying planet, the ordinary people must go to extreme lengths to afford their own evacuation. The story continues in Blue Yonder as factory worker and part time prostitute, Isabel Visconti, is on the brink of escape when her old friend, Daniel Mourneau, shows up to beg a dangerous favor, one that could lead to an unimaginably horrible future for her. But how can she abandon her dearest friend?

 

Well, that’s my Blue trio. You can enter to win  a grand prize of books and giftcards via Rafflecopter.  I’m also giving away three sets of my Blue trio to three randomly selected commenters on this blog. I’m in a three kind of mood *grin* The seven other authors in the hop have blue obsessions of their own. Hop on over to read the rest of the contributions to the Blue Moon Blog Hop. Have fun!

A New Story and an Interview

Illustration by Sue Babcock

Well, I guess it’s time for an update.

My short story, The Trail of Stars, has been published in Issue 28 of Liquid Imagination. You can read  my story here. It’s SciFi with a Horror twist. I hope you enjoy. Each story comes with an original piece of artwork by Sue Babcock.

I was recently interviewed by author Sara Jayne Townsend for her regular Monday’s Friend  series. Check it out!

Call for Submissions: Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly Issue 11

THEME FOR ISSUE 11: Alien Love

Length: 2,000 to 7,500 words.

Payment: 2.5 cents/word (US) paid upon publication, promotional biography with two links, and a complimentary quarter-page advertisement.

Deadline for Issue #11: 15 May 2016.

Rights sought: Six-month exclusive world digital rights from date of publication; non-exclusive thereafter.

Other info: One short story will be published per issue. Please send only edited and polished work. Due to time constraints, we are unable to give personalized feedback on rejected stories.

Stories that tie-in to a previously established world will be considered, but story must stand alone.

All sub-genres of science fiction will be considered.

Any heat level, from sweet to erotic, will be considered. Original, previously unpublished fiction only. No fan fiction, please.

Story should meld the Science Fiction and Romance genres, and must have an upbeat (HEA/HFN) ending. Not quite sure what we’re looking for? Read our original fiction in previous issues. Read also our Fiction Editor’s take on why YOUR story got rejected.

No multiple submissions. No stories that have previously been rejected by us. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please inform us if the story is placed elsewhere.

Submit! Standard manuscript format, please.