Lush and chilling, with razor-sharp edges and an iron core of hope, this bewitching, powerhouse novel of two girls fighting back against the violence the world visits on them will stun and enchant readers.
Girls have been going missing in the woods…

When Natasha’s sister disappears, Natasha desperately turns to Della, a local girl rumored to be a witch, in the hopes that magic will bring her sister home.

But Della has her own secrets to hide. She thinks the beast who’s responsible for the disappearances is her own mother—who was turned into a terrible monster by magic gone wrong.

Natasha is angry. Della has little to lose. Both are each other’s only hope.

From the author of Ghost Wood Song, this eerie contemporary fantasy is perfect for fans of Wilder Girls and Bone Gap. 
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Praise for Ghost Wood Song:
“A gorgeous, creepy gem of a book.” —Claire Legrand, New York Times bestselling author of Furyborn and Sawkill Girls

"It will make your heart dance." —Jeff Zentner, Morris Award-winning author of The Serpent King and Goodbye Days
"Strikes the perfect balance of atmospheric chills, dark familial secrets, and a yearning for the warm comforts of home.” —Erin A. Craig, New York Times bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows
“Waters' debut features a bisexual lead with both male and female love interests, an atmospheric southern gothic setting, and, for the musically inclined, lots of folk and bluegrass references.” --Booklist
“Haunting and alluring.” --Kirkus

The debut novel from Erica Waters, Ghost Wood Song, has a unique position in YA horror; the first I have ever read which features bluegrass music as a major theme. Hell, how many mid-teens even know what bluegrass is? I just asked my fifteen-year-old daughter and she responded with “that weird hillbilly banjo music that kid from Deliverance played” so perhaps a few might! Shady Grove is named after a famous bluegrass tune and longs to follow in her late father’s footsteps by playing old school bluegrass music and part of the conflict comes from the fact that the other members of her band, including Sarah (who Shady has a thing for), want to play more modern or mainstream tunes. Although Ghost Wood Song was terrific, I doubt it will transfer to the UK teen audience easily, with the combination of bluegrass, family problems and trailer park small town American life distant from our lives on this side of the pond. However, for older teens looking for a slow-burning drama with a strong musical theme and supernatural overtones there is much escapism to be had in these pages.
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Family dynamics play a key part of story after a death in the family, whilst Shady struggles to get over the death of her father, continually returning to one of his favourite songs. She believes that her father’s fiddle had the power to conjure up the dead and is set on finding it and although the supernatural story was interesting, I was more drawn to Shady’s relationships with Sarah and others. The music scenes genuinely sparkled, as they should in novels with this kind of vibe, and I thought Shady was very cool in sticking to her guns and not selling out. Ghost Wood Song also had an outstanding ending and although it will be too slow for some teens, those who enjoy a thoughtful read, with well-drawn characters are in for a treat. AGE 14+

​Tom Holland isn’t a name I see mentioned nearly often enough when listing significant or influential horror directors. I have no idea why, because even the big names must surely envy the mans filmography. Set aside for a moment that he made his directorial debut with one of the best vampire movies ever made (1985s ‘Fright Night’) and kickstarted the ‘Child’s Play’ series (a personal favourite of mine), but he’s directed two of my favourite Stephen King adaptations (‘The Langoliers’ and ‘Thinner’) and has written some downright classics (‘Psycho II’, ‘The Beast Within’, ‘Class of 1984’). Does ‘We All Scream For Ice Cream’ live up to this impressive legacy? Let’s find out!

The episode wastes absolutely zero time kicking things off and offers up some truly weird and gooey effects and an interesting set-up for what’s to come. A young boy and his dad are outside at night. The kid has an ice cream bar in his hand and the dad looks terrified. He starts begging the boy not to eat it.

Odd, right? Just wait, it gets better.

So, the kids not having any of it and takes a bit ol’ bite out of the ice cream. As soon as he does, the dad crumples to the floor in agony. The camera goes back to the kid enjoying his tasty treat while, in the background and out of shot, we hear some agonised screaming and a weird, gooey bubbling noise. The shot switches to an overhead of the kid and his dad.

Well, what was his dad at least. He is now a puddle of melted ice cream (Neapolitan flavour, in case you’re curious). No explanation at all. He was a man, now he is dairy. Yeah, I think I’m going to enjoy this episode.

We’re introduced to the episodes main character via a funeral for the poor guy we just saw last as a vanilla/strawberry/chocolate puddle (Kent, played very briefly by Brent Sheppard). I’m not quite sure how they know he’s dead, given he spontaneously turned into dessert, but this is a strange episode and it doesn’t do to pick at the logic. We learn that Layne (Lee Tergesen) is an old childhood friend of Kents and there is some suggestion that Layne is haunted by a childhood trauma that Kent was involved in. Consider me intrigued so far.

I raved about director Tom Holland in my intro, but there are some major horror heavy-hitters in the writing department as well for this episode. It is based on a novelette by horror lit A-lister John Farris. Carrying the slightly more cumbersome title of ‘I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream’, it was first published in his collection ‘Scare Tactics’ and its heavy Stephen King style and coming of age horror vibes absolutely carry forward into what’s on-screen here. The script has been written by David J Schow. I won’t reiterate the glowing praise I showered on him in my write-up for season one episode, ‘Pick Me Up’ but needless to say, his name on any project is a sure sign of quality.

There is a lot of time spent with Layne as he visits the local bar and we meet his family, but I’ll skip right ahead to the good stuff and tell you about Buster (William Forsythe). We don’t see much of him in the present-day until the end of the episode, but we get to know him pretty well in flashbacks (which are a big highlight). Buster was a kindly ice cream man who drove his van around the neighbourhood. All the kids knew him by his signature clown suit, complete with a rainbow wig and big red nose. He’s cheerful, friendly and an all-around nice guy. When Layne is telling this story to his wife in the present, she asks him what happened to Buster and Layne just replies “He died”. Come on now Layne, stop holding out on us I bet there’s more to it than that.

Sure enough, when another of his childhood friends die a painful death by dairy product transmogrification, Layne gives us the whole story. His group of friends in his youth included the town bully, Virgil, who wasn’t a big Buster fan. Virgil encouraged the group to play a prank on poor Buster, getting some of the kids to distract him while he forces Layne to let the handbrake go on his ice cream truck. Things go to plan, but Buster doesn’t see the truck coming until it’s too late. It seems that Buster has come back for some long-overdue vengeance.

One of the things that I did enjoy about this episode was the grey morality of almost all the characters, including the ‘villain’ and the ‘hero’. I’d go so far as to say that Buster is the most sympathetic character in the episode thanks to the flashbacks. The kids that inadvertently caused his death aren’t bad kids (Virgil being a debatable exception) either and it creates an interesting tension because while we empathise with Buster, you never really go so far as to root for him in the present day, and while the main cast arguably committed a terrible act in their youth and largely avoided any real consequences for it, you never take any real satisfaction from what happens to them when Buster returns.

By now we have a much clearer idea of what Layne is up against. Buster has come back from the dead (and looks a hell of a lot more menacing than the friendly and harmless clown of the flashbacks). Not content to just come after the kids that caused his death, he has waited until they’ve all grown up and have kids of their own. He is then luring these kids out in the middle of the night to give them ice cream and, if they eat it, their parent… turns into ice cream. Sounds a bit silly when I type it out like that. Maybe it is a bit silly… until you see what happens to Virgil.

So far the death scenes have either been off-camera, a bit tame, or a whole lot of ridiculous, but Virgil is the real bad guy of the piece and grown-up Virgil is even more of a dick than he was when he was a kid, so there is something extra special in store for him. Layne comes to warn him about Buster but Virgil seems unconcerned. After all, he doesn’t have any kids.

Or so he thinks.

If you missed any of Richard's previous Revisting The Masters of Horror articles, you can find links to them all here on our handy landing page 
​​
THE MASTERS OF HORROR ​

As of 2007 when ‘Right to Die’ was released, director Rob Schmidt only had one horror movie credit to his name, but it is a pretty impressive one. 2003s ‘Wrong Turn’ has since spawned 5 sequels and a recent remake, kickstarting a brief return to popularity for the ‘backwoods horror’ subgenre. While ‘Right to Die’ may be a little less grim and gritty than ‘Wrong Turn’, Rob Schmidt proves to be an excellent choice to add a little of his trademark grisly realism to an otherwise outlandish tale of wronged spouses and vengeful ghosts.

The episode opens as married couple Cliff (Martin Donovan) and Abbey (Julia Benson) are driving down a lonely stretch of road late at night (I’m tempted to go back and see how many episodes of Masters of Horror start exactly like this. It feels like a lot). We get the sense that they aren’t on great terms, with Cliff making an effort to engage with Abbey, and Abbey being fairly icy and aloof in response. We don’t get a chance to find out what the issue is (yet) as Cliff crashes the car when trying to avoid a fallen tree in the road. He escapes with barely a scratch but Abbey is not so lucky, as the petrol leaking from the car catches fire, setting her alight in front of her anguished husband.

Somehow, Abbey survives but suffers such severe burns that when we next see her she is unconscious and covered in bandages, her lips and eyelids burnt away, her nerves dead and her body all but destroyed. The prognosis from the doctors isn’t good. If a full-body skin donor can’t be found, the likelihood of her surviving is slim.

I just want to pause here to take a second to acknowledge the fact that Rob Schmidt has Martin Donovan playing a dentist in this episode. Who has he cast as his lawyer? Horrors most deadly dentist himself, Corbin Bernsen, star of Brian Yuzna’s slasher classics ‘The Dentist (1996) and its 1998 sequel. Twenty-two episodes in and I’m still spotting all kinds of fun nods like this for horror fans throughout this series.

Not only does the episode feature the actor who gave a generation of horror fans a permanent dentist phobia, but Robin Sydney makes an appearance as Trish, Cliff’s mistress. While she’s not given much to do in the episode outside of a perpetual sultry look to entice Cliff, she should also be a familiar face for genre fans, particularly fellow Full Moon fanatics. She had starred in the schlock horror studios ‘The Gingerdead Man’ and ‘Evil Bong’ prior to ‘Right to Die’ and seems to be a permanent fixture for Full Moon nowadays, starring in multiple sequels for both as well as some appearances in the ‘Puppet Master’ series amongst others. It was fun to recognise a bonafide horror movie personality on the re-watch that I was entirely unfamiliar with when I first saw the episode back when it aired.

Back to the episode, and things take a turn for the supernatural when Abbey passes away, albeit temporarily, in her hospital bed, coming back as a vengeful spirit. She haunts Cliff but takes no steps to hurt him. Cliff’s Lawyer doesn’t fare so well, in a very creative death scene involving an MRI magnet and a fire. Luckily for Cliff, Julia is brought back from the brink of death by her medical team but he knows his respite is only temporary and that, if Julia does die, then she will be coming for him next.

One of the things that stood out for me re-watching this episode, is how effects-heavy it is. I recalled it being (pardon the expression Abbey) a ‘slow burn’ outing, but it has a lot of great scares and big set pieces and it was more action-packed and gory than I remembered. The blood and the violence is largely of the medical variety, making it more grounded and uncomfortable to watch than, say, the over the top tone of episodes like ‘Dreams in the Witch House’ or ‘Deer Woman’. The scene that stuck out the most to me wasn’t even one of the episodes kills, or even of a supernatural nature. It is midway through the episode when Cliff is visiting Abbey at the hospital during a full-body debridement procedure. Aside from being rough to watch, it is more memorable for how realistic it is in depicting an actual medical procedure and how unflinching the camera is in showing it to us. It also serves to make you sympathise even more with Abbey for having to go through this, something which comes at an opportune time as revelations about Cliff begin to come to light. I loved how these events were hinted at throughout the episode but it isn’t until you know what they are that these hints become more obvious (an early scene where Cliff asks Abbey’s doctors if she will ever speak again, a seemingly odd question, but an important one for Cliff, is a great example of this)

As it turns out, Cliff is not the poor grieving husband we think he is. We already know he had an affair, but his treachery runs a lot deeper than that, and as the episode begins to wrap up, we revisit some previous events that are shown in a very different light, none of which bode well for Cliff. Knowing that, when Abbey finally passes away, there is nowhere for him to hide, he decides his only choice is reconciliation, so he takes steps to get a gift for his wife, one that he hopes will begin to make amends. Thinking back to the doctor’s prognosis at the beginning of the episode, there is one thing that may help mend those bridges…

What follows is a scene where Cliff takes Trish to his office, deciding that since no donor for his wife’s new skin has been forthcoming, he will procure some for himself. Drugging Trish with the gas he uses to anaesthetize his patients, she remains alive throughout the procedure of having her skin removed. It reminded me a little of the famous scene in Hannibal, where the titular cannibal feeds Ray Liotta parts of his own brain. Both scenes are almost casual in their extremity and while most of the scene plays out in close up, Schmidt makes sure to give us at least one lingering long shot, just so we can see the damage Cliff has done to poor Trish, who remains blissfully unaware of the horrific thing that is happening to her until she is left only with her face, which Cliff has saved for last.

If you missed any of Richard's previous Revisting The Masters of Horror articles, you can find links to them all here on our handy landing page ​
THE MASTERS OF HORROR ​

Chapter One


The shadow was coming.

Fifteen-year-old Rasha Abadi lay slumped against her headboard, the hem of her duvet clamped in her fists. She dreaded the shadow’s return. For six nights it had come to poison her mind.

Rasha squinted through the nickel moonlight and scoured her bedroom for a sign of its arrival. It was the smallest room in caravan forty-five, and half-mended Oxfam charity electronics littered every available surface. Her clothes dryer aired the previous day’s laundry beside her secondhand desk, which bowed under the weight of school textbooks she’d eagerly consumed. That was where the shadow would appear, just as it had every night the past week.

Her digital alarm clock on her bedside table blinked: 2:03 a.m.

It was time, again.

In the corner, tendrils of viscous darkness coiled into a silhouette not quite animal, not entirely human: a malformed head, a barrel chest, misshapen limbs, and a pinched stomach. It was black – an unearthly deep void unlike anything Rasha had ever seen. The dark was hues of purple and brown in comparison.

The impossible shadow.

Rasha clamped her eyes shut, wishing it away – the shadow sometimes disappeared if she did. Only, with her eyes closed, she was plagued by memories of Syria.

Her bedroom’s plasterboard walls crumbled, and in their place came rubble, fire, and ash: the remains of her family’s apartment. Explosions shook the ground, screams filled her ears, and guilt gouged at her intestines. She reminded herself that she was in Cornwall – three thousand miles from her home city of Homs – and that she’d fled Syria four years earlier, even though her stomach knotted and her heart pounded as if it were happening at that very moment.

You’re fine, she thought to herself, opening her eyes to the shadow. It’s just PTSD, that’s what Dr Hewitt said. You’re with Mum in Gorenn Holiday Park.

The shadow grew so tall its waxen head would soon scrape the ceiling. It couldn’t have been her PTSD; her mind only conjured Syria’s decimation and their haphazard journey to Britain. Until that week, she’d never come across anything like it before. It was a shadow and so didn’t have a body. If it only had a mind, then there was one thing it could be.

A ghost.

In their culture, they didn’t have ghosts, for spirits didn’t stay on Earth. The closest to that nature were demons called Shaytan, creatures with malicious intent.

Could that be it? Rasha asked herself. Did she come back as a Shaytan to punish me?

Rasha called her sister’s name. ‘Milana?’

The shadow stepped forward, and its chest heaved.

Rasha collapsed onto her bed, too scared to cry. Sweat glued her untamable black hair to her face. The shadow didn’t move closer; it didn’t scream with agony or demand Rasha to atone. It did something impossibly worse: it stood rigidly and silently condemned her for what she had done.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rasha cried. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Rasha wept and apologised, slumped against her headboard, as her mind plunged into memories of scorching fires, singed flesh and bloodcurdling cries.

Chapter Two

A panicked shriek.

Rasha sat upright in bed. The shadow was gone, and the room was awash with tepid morning light. Another cry. A flurry of white rushed past the window. Beating wings carried on the air. It was just a seagull telling the world to wake.

She put her head between her knees so that her racing heart would still. Just a seagull . . . Just a seagull . . . Through the gap in her arms, her alarm clock read 6:20 a.m. Rasha wasn’t too sure if she’d slept or fainted. Her adrenaline had waned, and in the shadow’s presence she’d slipped into memories of Syria. Or were they nightmares? It was hard to distinguish the two. She dared not deliberate; it’d only induce another anxiety attack.

Her alarm clock blared at 6:30 a.m. Time to wake Haya. Since their family had been reduced to two, Haya had suffered extreme bouts of physically debilitating depression. It took her a long time to get going in the morning and longer still without Rasha’s support.

She raised herself from bed. Her arms were weak, her chest ached — the aftereffects of another panic attack. A nettlelike sting smothered her body, as it always did when she encountered the shadow.

Rasha left her bedroom for the kitchen, her every other thought plagued by the shadow. She mulled between cupboard and sink to brew a green tea. Its warped, melted body. Own-brand bread sizzled beneath the grill. Singed flesh. The kettle whistled to a steady boil. Milana, crumpled beneath rubble.

Stop it, she thought.

Rasha grabbed a foil sertraline packet from the top shelf and poured a glass of water, assembled a bed tray, and moped to Haya’s room. Rasha’s mother was awake when she entered – it was unlikely she’d slept. Her face was gaunt, as to be expected for someone who had to be prompted to eat. Her thick black hair was neglected and speckled grey. Rasha lowered the tray onto her mother’s side table and climbed into the bed beside her. Haya raised two heavy arms and cradled Rasha, who traced purple scars on her mother’s arm with her hand. Haya had gained those marks by saving Rasha’s life.

Only she and Haya had survived the explosion that fateful night in Homs. Haya had pulled her from the wreckage and burned her left forearm in a fire that shrouded the debris. Her father’s and sister’s bloodied remains eradicated all thought so Rasha remembered little of the following journey. They’d been crammed amongst crates in the back of a truck, hidden in a waterside town house in Calais, and sandwiched amongst other desperate asylum seekers in a shipping container. British border patrollers had cracked open the container and escorted them to a detention centre in Gatwick. Three months, two key workers, and an appeal later, they were granted ‘leave to remain’ and relocated to the village of Gorenn in South Cornwall. Since then, the duo had lived in a routine that Rasha tirelessly maintained to try to find some sort of normality.

‘It’s that time already?’ Haya asked in Levantine, their mother tongue.

Their Syrian friends had often mused how Haya’s daughters were mirror images of her, so when she looked at Rasha’s plump face, warm beige skin, and wide green eyes with adoration and sadness, Rasha wondered whether she was a constant reminder of Milana.

She deliberated telling her mother about the shadow, but Haya barely had enough capacity for what was real.

‘I don’t know if I can do it today,’ Haya uttered.

‘It’s a short day,’ Rasha assured. ‘Mr Keats said one deep clean, three stays. You’ll be done by eleven. Then you can go back to bed.’

‘There’s laundry to do.’

‘I’ve done it. Take your pill, drink your tea, and I’ll get the sink ready.’

Rasha planted a kiss on Haya’s forehead and left the bedroom. She arranged Haya’s work clothes on the bathroom flasket and filled the sink with hot water. Haya held on for as long as she could before she rose to wash; the water would be at the perfect temperature by the time she did.

Rasha changed and avoided the corner where the shadow had been. Within twenty minutes she was in her patched school uniform, sat at the dining room table, munching on a pack of chocolate bourbon creams to suppress her appetite. Glucose, the perfect fuel for the sleep-deprived.

For someone haunted by shadows.

Haya stifled a yawn as she entered, acrylic tabard on, hair wound in a tight bun. With her was the cup of tea and plate of toast, which hadn’t been touched. Haya was a far cry from the woman Rasha remembered in pre-war Syria when she’d worked as paralegal’s secretary. Rasha supposed that Middle Eastern qualifications meant nothing when she wasn’t legally allowed to work under ‘leave to remain.’ It was why Rasha had begged the site owner, Mr Keats, to allow her mother to do cash-in-hand work – she craved a purpose as much as they needed the money.

Haya tutted playfully and offered her hand. Rasha reluctantly gave her the packet of bourbons.

‘All this sugar,’ Haya moaned. ‘Your insides will rot, never mind your teeth.’

‘Yes, Mama.’

‘No sweets before lunch, you hear me?’

‘No sweets before lunch.’

It was time for Rasha to leave, after all. She had four miles of country lanes to walk. She rose and hugged Haya.

‘If I have to eat savoury, you have to eat something.’

Haya nodded.

‘I promise,’ she whispered.

‘Unconditionally,’ Rasha said.

‘Unconditionally.’

Rasha squeezed her tightly, then donned her rucksack and stepped into the spearmint morning. She faltered on the bottom step and wrung the straps of her bag. She contemplated every lesson sat quietly, hoping to be left alone by teacher and student, every solitary break time spent in an empty classroom or toilet cubicle.

Get through it, she told herself. Get through it and get back to the caravan.

Not that solace was found during evenings spent in forty-five, the place she was meant to call home.

She took a deep breath and trudged on. Gorenn Holiday Park was compiled of caravans each within their own fenced ten-by-twenty-metre paddock, all arranged alongside a clean gravel path. Mr Keats’s caravan was at the heart of the holiday rentals, adjacent to the maintenance shed and activities lodge. His family consisted of seven obese tabby cats that milled within their fenced enclosure. Rasha stopped a moment to itch one of their chins, taking in the sea as it frothed and rolled beyond the caravans, letting the cool salt air course through her nostrils and ease her lungs.

‘ ’ere, Rasha,’ came Mr Keats’s voice. ‘What do you know about cats?’

The site manager, a thin man with a whisker-clad face and beady eyes, looked like an inquisitive otter walking on its hind legs. The morning wind threatened to rush under his bathrobe and Monroe him.

‘They like fish, hate belly rubs,’ she replied.

‘They like fish.’ He laughed. ‘Well, ’parently mine dunt. They haven’t touched a thing since yesterday. Gonna ’ave to take ’em to the vets, ain’t I?’

‘Best be on the safe side,’ Rasha said. She nuzzled the head of an obese tabby.

‘Speakin’ of which, keep an eye out on yer walk. There’s been some wrong un’s loitering around here at night.’

‘People?’ Rasha returned. She always struggled with Mr Keats’s thick accent.

‘They ain’t guests, I know that much. Probably lookin’ to pinch gas bottles, so keep yer eyes peeled. Tell your mother, too.’

‘Sure. See ya.’

School started in an hour, so Rasha continued on. Shadows at night, strange people who wandered the caravan site by day. Rasha’s anxious mind couldn’t help but put the two together. For a moment she deliberated taking the school bus but decided against it. She hadn’t taken the school bus in months – crammed into a metal box with no escape from bullies was far from appetising. Into the bending valley lanes Rasha went until the caravan park was a blip behind her. Despite the long walk in all varieties of Cornish weather, she enjoyed the momentary freedom from the concrete and plaster that caged her very existence, where benign livestock plodded along in the fields beside her.

Escaping her thoughts was another matter. The shadow plagued her mind. She didn’t believe for a second that she’d imagined it. Its fathomless depths of black had absorbed all light in the room, whilst its silhouette could have been the decomposed carcass of an unearthly beast. Her imagination could not conjure such an image.

Not that it mattered. Rasha thought too much, and her lungs welded themselves to her diaphragm in anxiety’s havoc.

Her neck prickled, just as it had when the shadow appeared.

Not here, not now. She circled, but the grassy verges either side of her were empty.

Could it be the shadow? No, the shade around her belonged to trees and power lines. Nothing unordinary in the lane. But in the neighbouring field, there was.

Over the hedge to her left, across the pasture by a dilapidated cow shed, Rasha spotted three figures. Hoods hid their faces. A woman and two men. The shortest man consulted a gadget in his hands. Mr Keats had spoken of strange people who skulked around the area. What’s more, they looked straight her way. What else was there to see in the valley but fields and cattle?

They watched her.
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Rasha ran as fast as her legs would carry her and never looked back.

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Death wasn’t an absolute end, but a further form of being.

Deep within the bowels of an abandoned Cornish mine a covert occult group, known as the Network, protects the living from the dead. Their mediums host a plethora of abilities — from telepathy to astral projection — because of their connection to an energy source called the frequency.

Fifteen-year-old Rasha Abadi and her mother are Syrian refugees granted leave to remain in Gorenn Village. The seaside town sprawls with beaches and idyllic coves, but the last thing Rasha finds there is peace. An impossible shadow visits her nightly and infests her mind with memories of the chaos that she and her mother fled in Syria. When she becomes possessed by the shadow, the Network intervenes to save her.

The shadow’s wrath knows no bounds and orchestrates a string of interconnected possessions across the south coast. Having survived the shadow, Rasha eagerly offers to aid the Network’s investigation. They must all act quickly to unearth its motive before it disrupts the balance between the living and the dead, and forges a new world from the embers of their own reality.

No choice will be easy for Rasha when thwarting a monster means becoming one herself.

The Frequency is a paranormal thriller exploring grief in a world where death is just the beginning and where reality can be rewritten. Fans of Stephen King and James Herbert will enjoy this mind-bending, paranormal thriller with LGBTQ+ and POC characters.

This is book one in The Imprint Quintet series, a five-part saga following a rag-tag group of mediums as they attempt to thwart an otherworldly tyrant from unleashing paranormal terrorism.

Werewolves. Berserkers. Kitsune. From the most ancient times, people have told tales of men who transform into beasts. Sometimes they’re friendly and helpful. Sometimes they’re tricksters, playing jokes on their hapless victims. And sometimes, they’re terrifying. The last sound anyone wants to hear while walking through a dark forest under the bright full moon is the howl of the werewolf. Especially when the howl is followed by the sound of something running towards them through the woods.


Were Tales is a collection of scary, thrilling, dark, mysterious, and even humorous tales and poems of shapeshifters, from the talented minds of Jonathan Maberry, Stephanie Ellis, Gabino Iglesias, Laurel Hightower, Eric J. Guignard, Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason, Shane Douglas Keene, Clara Madrigano, Kev Harrison, Beverley Lee, S.H. Cooper, Elle Turpitt, Catherine McCarthy, Alyson Faye, Theresa Derwin, Ruschelle Dillon, Baba Jide Low, H.R. Boldwood, Ben Monroe, Cynthia Pelayo, Cindy O’Quinn, Sara Tantlinger, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Linda Addison, Villimey Mist, Tabatha Wood, and Christina Sng.


S.D. Vassallo had this to say about the anthology. 

Werewolves and other types of shapeshifters have long been my favorite horror and fantasy trope. I enjoy other horror icons as well, such as ghosts, demons and witches, but none of them capture my attention or fuel my imagination as much as the werewolf. Even vampires, as cool as they may be, pale in comparison to the shapeshifter. If you were to ask me to compile a list of my favorite horror novels and movies, some titles you would definitely see are “An American Werewolf in London,” “The Howling,” “Wolfen,” “The Wolf’s Hour” by Robert R. McCammon, and “Cycle of the Werewolf” by Stephen King.


It’s only natural, then, that the first anthology we’re creating for Brigids Gate Press is a collection of stories about werewolves and other shapeshifters. It’s been a dream come true. I’ve had the opportunity to work with talented writers for Were Tales. The stories they’ve submitted feature many different kinds of shapeshifters: werewolves, werebears, werefoxes, and many others, including a wereskunk.


ABOUT BRIGIDS GATE PRESS


My wife and I had a shared dream of running a publishing company one day. In late 2020, we decided dreams shouldn’t wait for a perfect ‘one-day’ scenario. So, here we are. We still dream of the perfect office space with cottage retreat spaces. Some day! While we welcome established authors, our primary focus is promoting the work of new and underrepresented voices in fiction.

‘The dead have highways.’ Even now, thirty or so years on from the first time I read those words, they send a chill down my spine. The omnibus editions of Books of Blood were my initiation into the shocking, sinister yet often beautiful worlds of Clive Barker and as an opener, that line takes some beating. Now an elder statesman of the genre, Barker was at the time horror’s Young Turk and spearhead of the nascent ‘splatterpunk’ movement in horror fiction, which was seen as a rejection of the ‘traditional, meekly suggestive horror story’. At a time when the Video Nasties List seemed to me like the irresistible menu of a restaurant whose doors were forever locked, the Books of Blood were a revelation. To stretch the analogy far beyond breaking, Barker had set up another eatery next door, one whose décor and clientele were decidedly more upmarket, therefore deflecting the squint eye of pearl-clutching eighties censors.  Barker’s cuisine – served rare - was available to all; the only requirements were an open mind and the imagination to keep up with some bizarre and transgressive concepts.

It is impossible to speak in any meaningful way about the entirety of Books of Blood without expanding an article like this to towering, teetering proportions, so my focus will narrow to a single story from the first volume of that collection. In the Hills, The Cities features an unforgettable central image. Twin behemoths, each consisting of the lashed-together population of rival cities, meet in ceremonial combat in the isolated hills of a forgotten corner of Eastern Europe. When laid out in simple terms, it sounds faintly ridiculous, right? You see, Barker’s work often asks something of the reader, and this story in particular demands more than usual. Suspension of disbelief can be a tough hurdle for some readers to clear and with an obstacle this soaring, many might struggle to connect with the narrative, and so abandon it. But to do this would be to miss an incredible story, and the point. The story’s main characters, Mick and Judd, recognise the sheer absurdity of their situation. It is their struggle with disbelief that ultimately sends them into a mad spiral towards their divergent fates.

The horror genre can be perversely conservative. Especially at the time these stories were written, horror more often than not hued to traditional roles and societal norms. Think of the teenagers in so many slasher movies, horny and heterosexual, happy to indulge in some carefully framed missionary-position antics or smoke a little puff – just enough bad behaviour to justify their imminent brutal slaughter. From the off, Barker signals that he has no interest in this squeamishness. We meet Mick and Judd on a road trip through Yugoslavia, and quickly find that they are lovers. Their gay relationship is not flagged as unusual or shocking; their dialogue, like their entire dynamic, is believable in that it is almost completely mundane. Like many couples who only really come to know each while on holiday, they find that cracks between them are widening. In the confined space of their Volkswagen, differences that were perhaps overlooked in the first flush of infatuation become glaringly obvious. An impromptu sexual liaison by the side of the road – naturalistically and explicitly portrayed by Barker - temporarily papers over those cracks, but each has a feeling that their time together is coming to an end. Judd is a journalist with fervent political opinions while Mick is a dance teacher with a love for the arts. All that holds them together now is their mutual physical attraction and a desire to get through this final excursion unscathed.

In the Hills, The Cities is about communism. No, it’s not subtle. It is front and centre in that indelible image – the individuals of an Eastern Bloc city banding together for the greater good at the risk of their own lives. They are living and dying for the city, and are proud to do it. I’m ashamed to say I completely missed this when I first read it at age fifteen. Judd’s hyper-political remarks; the toiling of the locals as they are compelled to work harder and harder; the small lapses that lead to the downfall of the almighty whole – they all went over my head. What struck me – beyond the extraordinary concept of the rival giants – was the delicate way in which Mick and Judd’s relationship is handled. Unlike most horror fiction I had read up to that point, both were protagonist and antagonist. I could sympathise with both of them while also feeling like the other was a bit annoying, and all over the span of no more than twenty-seven pages. The rival cities of Popolac and Podujevo also eschew characteristics like good and evil. Both are simply carrying out a tradition that stretches far into the past, a friendly contest between neighbours, albeit one that has grown in stature and risk over the decades.

We are never told why these cities clash every ten years. In fact, the why is unimportant. The only justification that is given is that it has always been done. This struggle between the traditional (giant combat) and the modern (communism and its tendency to chew up the proletariat) is mirrored in Mick and Judd’s relationship. One wants only to view the hoary, antiquated art of local monasteries while the other wants only to debate the heavyweight political issues of the day. Each has nothing but disdain for the other’s interests, a situation that is tearing them apart.

To our modern sensibilities, the concept of the mysterious secret hidden in the obscurity of darkest Eastern Europe is perhaps a tough one to swallow. In some ways, it harkens back to much earlier horror fiction like that of Lovecraft, where the danger is foreign and unknowable. But Barker is the anti-Lovecraft; where one consistently fails to describe the horrors that assail his characters, the other does not flinch from the smallest detail, however outlandish or nauseating. This story bears all of Barker’s hallmarks, from sadomasochism and bondage to violence and gore, but also liberal springs of poetry. Consider Judd’s reply when Mick suggests a detour to view some more religious art: ‘”I told you, I don’t want to see another church; the smell of the places makes me sick. Stale incense, old sweat and lies…”’

The conclusion of the tale, with the countryside awash in blood and a mad behemoth rampaging through the hills, brings Barker’s surrealism and body horror to a fitting end. Judd, unable to comprehend the insanity that is striding towards him (or, to suspend his disbelief) is struck down. Mick, equally affected by this unimaginable spectacle, is caught up in it. The giants’ downfall is a mirror of that of the lovers, and like the giants, each goes to his end in his own particular way.

I’ve read this story many times over the years. It’s probably the entry in Books of Blood that I’ve read most (although the near-journalism of Down, Satan! is a close second). The care and intricacy that Barker corralled into those twenty-seven pages was revealed gradually over those readings, like a mystery slowly giving up its secrets. I love the believable humanity of the characters, and the otherworldly and bizarre situation they find themselves in. As always, Barker paints his worlds with thoughtful and surprising strokes, and requires the reader to invest enough of themselves that they feel brought along for the ride, not left to passively observe like some gawping onlooker. Perhaps that’s why so many of his stories feel personal to us. But I’m not here to talk about why I love this strange amalgam of fantasy, horror and politics now; let’s get to the origin story.

As a teenager, none of my friends were interested in reading. Cheap booze on the chilly slopes of the local golf course? Yes. Awkward and infrequent dalliances with the opposite sex? Definitely. As part of that group, I was just as enthusiastic and clumsy in my pursuit of these activities as the others. But as far as my contemporaries were concerned, reading belonged in school. Gav’s thing was that he liked to steal cars; Damo’s thing was the heroic intake of pills; Dave drank until he turned into a high street living statue. While I may have dabbled in their personal interests – some more than others – they never dipped so much as a toe into mine. That I was into nerdy stuff like books and all that, was just accepted and never discussed. It was my thing. Then I read Books of Blood, and suddenly I wanted it to become our thing. In my meandering, inadequate way, I described to them the stories I had read. They laughed and agreed that they did indeed sound cool, and then we went off to do something else, probably involving an off-licence and a blue plastic bag.
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The creation of my Barker reading circle was a bust, but the effort revealed to me something else. Here I had found stories that I felt connected to for reasons I could explain – Incredible ideas! Addictive prose! Fountains of gore! – and also for reasons I could not. In fact, these were more than stories; they were a transaction that demanded investment on the reader’s part and rewarded them with unthinkable revelations. That fiction could be a mutual back and forth exchange between author and reader was yet another concept that had failed to occur to fifteen-year old me, but I have no doubt that I felt something like it on a subterranean level. Good fiction grants the reader a measure of ownership. The characters, the plots and the style itself are absorbed so deeply that they can’t help but become a part of you. Like nature’s hero, the noble tapeworm. And like that most excellent of beasts, good stories – once embedded –  are tough to get rid of, even though there are some we would happily live without. Like the one about the massive pig. What the hell was that all about, Clive? I mean, ugh.

Unholy. Unstoppable. Undead.


1983 - From a forgotten World War II bunker beneath modern-day West Germany, an unspeakable evil arises to exact a madman's revenge.


Leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake, this infernal horde advances across Europe nearing London with every jackbooted step. The few who survive ask: can this bloodthirsty hellspawn be stopped?


Or will they fulfil their satanic mission to...


KILL THE QUEEN!


WARNING - CONTAINS SCENES OF:
Graphic sex
Satanism
Drug use
Excessive gore
Ghoul rampage


NEW! The movie adaptation THEY didn't want you to see!
For the first time ever, the FULLY UNCENSORED EDITION!


KILL THE QUEEN! is #1 in the TALES FROM THE GRINDHOUSE series.
Experience BRAND NEW adaptations of the most shocking movies NEVER made - NOT FOR THE NERVOUS!


We open the vault and exhume the stories that were too violent, too horrific and too depraved for their time. Each entry in the series is a blood-soaked stand-alone narrative flung from a time when video stores supplied sick filth to minors, late night movies provided nightmares that would last a lifetime and a sleazy paperback was crammed under every pillow.


Welcome to the Grindhouse. We hope you enjoy these tales, but beware - they are NOT FOR THE NERVOUS!

Alan Power was born in the past, screaming.  He is the author of the Tales from the Grindhouse series, for which he also creates cover art and the occasional imaginary map. He now lives in Scotland with his wife, a host of children and a flyblown horde of mangy street cur dogs that are nevertheless affectionate and mostly tick-free. He screams slightly less these days.
www.talesfromthegrindhouse.net