Don’t hurt Jane. You may live to regret it. Bullied by her abusive father, Jane always felt different. Then the lonely child found a friend in a mysterious dark lady who offers her protection—a lady she calls her “angel”. But that protection carries a terrible price, one to be paid with the souls of those Jane chooses to suffer a hideous and eternal fate. When Jane refuses to name another victim, the angel reveals her most terrifying side. Payment must be made in full—one way or the other.
~~~~~~~~
I am delighted to announce that my latest novella - Dark Avenging Angel - will be published by Samhain on August 4th. As its title suggests, this one focuses on the theme of vengeance.
The chance to 'get even' with people who hurt us badly is something many of us must have wished for at some stage in our lives.
All I can say is - be careful what you wish for...
Dark Avenging Angel is available for pre-order now:
Glenn is one of my friends and fellow authors at Samhain and, following hot on the ghostly heels of his last scary novella, Abram's Bridge, he has a new book out on April 7th called Boom Town. I've read it, loved it and you can read my review later, but for now, I asked Glenn to share some of his thoughts with us, so here is his take on novellas in general and the genesis of his latest work:
My latest piece
with Samhain Publishing is called Boom Town.
Boom Town is a Horror/Sci-Fi story
based off the strange underground “booms” the town of Clintonville, WI
experienced back in 2012. The story is centered on a UFO sighting over the
fictional town of Eckert, WI. Thirty years after the strange craft blasts a
hill in town with a large blue beam that caused an earthquake felt for miles,
the nightly booms begin. Residents, waiting on an explanation, are on edge and
may soon discover that there is reason to fear. Two pre-teens are the first to
discover the blue ooze when they stumble upon a busted water pipe poking up
from the ground at the sight of the latest tremor. Horror ensues.
Boom Town is a
novella (my second for Samhain Horror). There’s something special about taking
a story that could be much bigger and keeping it packaged in such a short,
tight format. That’s not to say there’s not more to Boom Town…but that’s for
another day. I wanted this to be a novella, because novellas are fast becoming
one of my favorite things. Novels are still the best, but let me talk about
this a little more.
For me, the
novella has replaced the short story. I used to read short stories between
novels; sort of a breather before entering that next grand adventure. Now, with
a number of independent publishers releasing so many quality novellas, I’ve
found these bigger short stories.
The first two
companies that come to mind are Dark Fuse and Samhain. Authors like William
Meikle, JG Faherty, Hunter Shea, and more are taking the time to craft these
special little pieces. They’re packing fully developed characters into
intriguing situations and cutting out all of the filler material that some
novelists tend to get carried away with. Don’t get me wrong, there are still
novellas that miss the mark altogether, but the ones that get it offer a
spectacular mix of all the things we love about a novel without the “come on,
get back to the story” bit. There’s no space to waste and you can read them in
one sitting.
If you’ve been
reluctant to try one of these babies I would suggest getting over it and diving
in to one tonight. Let me make some
suggestions:
I strongly advise
you to give the novella a try. Writers too…take the Pepsi Challenge! Can you
give us a bigger story without the fat?
I bet, if you put your mind (and red pen) to it, you might surprise
yourself. I hope
you’ll start your novella adventure with Boom Town, but if ghost stories are
more your speed, maybe start with my first novella, Abram’s Bridge.
Here's some more information about Boom Town:
Terror from below!
In the summer of 1979, Eckert, Wisconsin, was the sight of the most unique UFO encounter in history. A young couple observed a saucer-like aircraft hovering over Hollers Hill. A blue beam blasted down from the center of the craft into the hill and caused the ground to rumble for miles.
Now, thirty years later, Eckert is experiencing nightly rumbles that stir up wild rumors and garner outside attention. The earthly tremors are being blamed on everything from earthquakes to underground earth dwellers. Two pre-teens discover a pipe out behind Packard’s Flea Market uprooted by the “booms” and come into contact with the powerful ooze bubbling from within. What begins as curiosity will end in an afternoon of unbridled terror for the entire town.
"...Stephen King-lite. (Boom Town) is quick, punchy and goes places you may not see coming before the final page is swiped or turned." - Horror After Dark
"Boom Town is quick and entertaining read that harkens back to the 1980's brand of small town (or intimate invasion) alien pieces. Like a reader’s digest version of Late Night Horror Television presentations (every region had one, for me it was "Fright Night Theatre") of "Invaders From Mars", "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "Night of the Creeps" or "Xtro"” – Zachary, Mouths of Madness Podcast
“Rolfe weaves a wonderful tale of big, bad things happening to a small, good town. A sure winner!” – Hunter Shea, author of Island of the Forbidden and The Montauk Monster
Now, here's my promised review:
"Alan Packard lives in a ramshackle house with his higgledy piggledy Flea
Market on the ground floor. His is an unfulfilling life, more of a
difficult day to day existence in a town which achieved notoriety among
ufologists back in 1979. Now, the town is back in the news. There have
been unexplained seismic rumblings, apparent mini earthquakes and a
feeling that all is not right with the Wisconsin town. However
meaningless Packard’s existence, it didn’t need the invasion of the
awful blue slime that took over his house…and more.
Kim and Brady
are two pre-pubescent kids. Best friends. Both from homes that have
known tragedy and heartbreak. These two will grow up together. Probably
date soon. That is until the day Brady discovers the broken pipe and the
bubbling blue ooze…
I love horror and I love sci-fi. Put them
together in a well-crafted blend and I am a happy reader. Boom Town
proved to be just such a blend. I read the story in one sitting as I
couldn’t put it down. I had to know what happened. It contained all the
elements of mystery, suspense, scares, cliffhangers and a cast of
characters who worked. I believed them. I rooted for them. I feared for
them. This is a fast, satisfying read and I highly recommend it."
Glenn Rolfe is an author, singer, songwriter and all around fun loving guy from the haunted woods of New England. He has studied Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University, and continues his education in the world of horror by devouring the novels of Stephen King and Richard Laymon. He and his wife, Meghan, have three children, Ruby, Ramona, and Axl. He is grateful to be loved despite his weirdness.
He is the author of the ghost/mystery/thriller novella, ABRAM'S BRIDGE (Samhain Publishing, Jan. 2015) and his latest novella, a Horror/Sci-Fi mash-up, BOOM TOWN (Samhain Publishing). A full-length novel, BLOOD AND RAIN, will come out this Fall from Samhain Publishing and THINGS WE FEAR, a novella, is set to publish from Samhain in 2016.
His debut novel, THE HAUNTED HALLS (James Ward Kirk Publishing, 2014), is available now, as well as his short story collection, SLUSH (Alien Agenda Publishing, 2014).
When I read the fabulously scary Angel Manor recently, I was hooked. I knew I had to invite the author - Chantal Noordeloos - to be a guest on my blog. I gave her free rein to write about anything that took her fancy. Here's what she chose and I'm so glad she did. I'll never look at a bowl of chili in quite the same way ever again...
Horror and comedy have a lot in common.
Stop looking at me like that, I see you
raise your eyebrows at me. Let me explain.
Both genres are a lot more sensitive to
personal preference than most other genres. With every horror or comedy I’ve
discussed, someone has always said “it didn’t scare me” or “Not my kind of
humor.”
I’ve never heard anyone say whilst
discussing romance or science fiction, for example, ‘why, that’s just not
romantic’, or ‘that’s just wasn’t science fiction enough’. Maybe I’m wrong,
maybe people say that every day, just not to me.
Anyway… I’m digressing. (Bear
with me, I do that a lot).
So… ehm, where was I? Oh right, comedy…
Making someone laugh isn’t easy, any
comedian will tell you. Humor is so specific; what you find funny can bore the living daylights out of me, and vice
versa.
Fear is the same way.
Let me use Angel Manor as an example (yes,
I am shamelessly plugging my own book, and what you don’t know is that this
text is riddled with subliminal messages that will get you to buy my books).
*coughs* What was I saying? Oh right, Angel
Manor. I’ve written a lot of short horror stories, some were just dark and
creepy, whilst others were downright disgusting. I like to play around with a
lot of different ideas. But writing short stories is different to writing a
novel. Tension is easy to maintain if it’s only 4000 words, if the word count
is 112,000, it’s a whole new kettle of fish.
My personal preference in horror is to have
a good mixture between action and character development. I decided to be rather explicit on the ‘gore’.
To me it suited the setting and the story, so I ran with it. I’ve had a really
wide range of responses to my more explicit scenes, they got under the skin of
some readers. Someone actually wondered what was ‘wrong’ with people for
wanting to read something this nasty. I’ve had comments that readers were
afraid to turn off the lights after reading the book. One person told me they
had nightmares, and another person told me they didn’t dare reading it at
night. At the same time there were readers who would shrug and scoff, making
sure to tell me that they didn’t find what I wrote scary at all.
And there you have it… different strokes
for different folks.
It’s not up to me to decide what is scary
or not. Don’t get me wrong, I would like to scare the heebie-jeebies out of my
readers (well, when I write horror anyway), but if I only focus on that, I
would get a lot of disappointed readers, because I honestly wouldn’t know how
to scare ‘everyone’.
That’s why I concentrate on the story, and
leave it up to the reader what emotions they take away from the book. To me,
writing horror isn’t any different than writing any other genre, I focus on the
same elements.
I’m in the mood for a metaphor, so let’s
compare a horror novel to a bowl of chili con carne. (I’m doing this because
I’m hungry, just go with me on this, okay?) The plot is the protein, the mince,
sausage, bacon… whatever you want to put in your particular chili. There will
be layers, so different proteins. The main characters are the beans and the
minor characters are the vegetables. Some like a lot of vegetables and
different beans in their chili, some like to keep it simple. The horror
elements the spices and chili to add a bit of a distinct flavor to the dish.
It’s this flavor that makes all the difference. Let’s say graphic description is
like a habanera chili. You can add as much or as little as you like. If you put
a lot of habanera in your chili, it will be hot. Serving it to different people
you’ll get different reactions. Some will like the spice, some’ll think it’s a
little too spicy, or even far too hot, and others believe that you made the
chili too mild. So all you can hope for is that the chili that’s underneath the
spice is tasty enough for most to at least sort of like it. Those who prefer to
eat really hot chili can still enjoy the flavor of a well constructed one, but
they’ll always wish you added more habanera. The only people you will probably
alienate are those who don’t like chili at all.
Now, let’s stop talking in food metaphors. I’m
sorry I let my stomach rule the metaphor in this one. The point is: write a
good story. It still won’t please everyone. You can’t please everyone. No matter how hard you try, no matter how
much you want to, there will always be people who won’t like your work. The
personal preference in horror and comedy just make it more likely that you
stumble across people who don’t like your work.
There is no universal joke that everyone in
the world will enjoy, and there is no universal fear. One of my friends called
comedy the ‘ugly redheaded child of the writing world’, and I think horror is
probably the creepy kid who eats his own boogers. They are often misunderstood.
Luckily for snot eater and unattractive
ginger, they are still loved by many.
Now, I shall leave you to ponder over your
personal horror or comedy preference, while I go and cook some chili. I have a
strange craving for it.
Thank you, Chantal! I really enjoyed your visit, so please stop by again soon. In the meantime, here are some internet haunts where we can connect with you:
