News & Blog

Monica Kuebler, Rue Morgue Magazine‘s managing editor and resident bibliophile, has a new online venture called Library of the Damned that features a welcome focus on horror literature instead of the usual movies and video games. It soft-launched with a few news items in September, including an announcement about the release of In the Shadow of the Axe, but now that October has arrived the site has launched for real with a month-long series of author interviews called “31 Days of Halloween” — and the very first author she interviews is yours truly!

Swing by the site to learn which scene in a horror novel scared me the most, what I consider the all-time scariest horror story, and more! Here’s a sneak peek, which you can click to take you to the interview:

It’s very rare that the written word truly frightens me. I think, for me, real fear relies on other parts of the brain than reading does: visual or aural stimuli, mostly. A glimpse of movement from the corner of my eye or an incongruous sound will scare me a lot more than words on a page, probably because I can have some control over the images those words put in my mind, even if that control is limited, while sights and sounds are completely out of my control.

Monica will be featuring a new horror author every day for the rest of the month. I’m deeply honored she chose to start with me. Here’s wishing Library of the Damned long life and much success!

I told you it was coming soon! My new novel, In the Shadow of the Axe, is now available in an e-book edition from Crossroad Press! Here’s a description:

The year is 1847, and Kasch Möllhausen has returned to the small German mountain village of Helmburg in disgrace. Kicked out of the Swiss boarding school where he was unforgivably abandoned by his father, Luther Möllhausen, his humiliating homecoming is further complicated by the news that Luther has died. Worse, Kasch learns that the father he has come to despise instructed the village elders not to inform Kasch of his death or invite him back for the funeral.

But not everyone hates Luther as much as Kasch does. To the people of Helmburg, Luther was a hero. Shortly before Kasch was born, Luther led an uprising against the Necromancer, a mysterious figure who lived in a castle high in the mountains and preyed mercilessly upon the villagers. It was Luther who struck the final blow and put an end to the Necromancer’s reign of terror.

But Kasch finds Helmburg is still a haunted village. The ghosts of the Necromancer’s victims have begun appearing at night, and the old survivors of the uprising are being killed one by one, their bodies chopped to pieces. With the help of Hahn Gehrig, the elderly village doctor, and Liese Maentel, Kasch’s childhood love, he sets out to discover if the Necromancer is still alive — which would prove once and for all that his father was no hero — or if someone else is responsible for the murders, a madman living among them with no conscience or mercy. The terrifying truth he uncovers will change Helmburg forever — because the past leaves a long shadow, and the axe has only just begun to fall.

Includes an Introduction by multiple award-winning author Laird Barron (Swift to Chase) and the bonus short story “(F)Earless.”

A print edition of In the Shadow of the Axe will be available shortly, but the e-book edition can be purchased right now at the following online stores:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

If you are a reviewer for a magazine, newspaper, website, podcast, etc., and are interested in receiving an electronic review copy of In the Shadow of the Axe, please feel free to contact me. Please note: I am only looking for professional review outlets at the moment. Goodreads reviews, Amazon reviews, social media reviews, and personal blog reviews are certainly welcome, but I can’t give away copies to readers at this time.

Thanks, everyone, and I hope you enjoy my new novel!

Coming soon. Very, very soon. Watch this space for more information.

“The Rest is Noise” is now available to read for free on the Nightmare Magazine website! So is an author spotlight Q&A with yours truly.

The entire issue is available for purchase as an e-book for just $2.99, and of course you can subscribe to Nightmare Magazine for just $23.88 a year. Check out the website for more info.