No April Fools here! Take a gander below at this month's roundup of anticipated horror releases for April 2022.
Publication date: February 22nd, 2021 Her Grandfather took her father’s life, and now Jess wants revenge. Heir to a multi-verse kingdom Jess...
Guest Post || The Inspiration of Cats by VK Tritschler
Publication date: February 22nd, 2021
Her Grandfather took her father’s life, and now Jess wants revenge.
Heir to a multi-verse kingdom Jess should be the most powerful woman in the world, able to keep her loved ones safe and bring peace to the realms. But with her newfound powers, came newfound dangers.
Jess is determined to protect the people she loves. To keep her sister, mother and boyfriend Peter safe, she sends them away, where her enemies can’t find them. When, Peter’s parents find out she’s the offspring of their mortal enemy, they are determined to keep them apart forever.
Going alone is perilous, and it’s hard to tell the difference between friend and foe. Determined to bring down her maniacal Grandfather, Jess is just beginning to realize the depth of her ties to those around her and the strength they bring to her.
Will she become the great protector or is she more like her Grandfather than she wants to admit?
the inspiration of cats
by VK Tritschler
Recently I received an emergency phone call from a lady I know locally who helps rescue cats. She had picked up two barely born kittens, one with an injured leg, and since I was one of the few people she knew who had bottled fed newborns before, and she wanted to know if I would help out. Of course, I replied instantly. Who doesn’t want to help a small creature in need?
I had forgotten how hard work they are. The two hourly feed, the unenviable task of wiping their wriggling backside, and the replacement of bedding to keep it clean and warm. There were moments in the small hours of the night when I am warming up the bottle yet again, I wondered about my sanity. It was similar to when I get a story stuck in my mind keeping me awake at night.
Unfortunately, due to the injuries of her sibling only she survived, so we name her Uno. As I write this, she is chasing her tail across the lounge floor in the later afternoon sunshine. She has escaped the tragedy of growing up as a feral and will never know how lucky she was.
She is a beautiful black cat, which through the sunlight you can see the flecks of her true tiger self. And watching her at play I begin to daydream of another of my great entertainments. Magical creatures.
Last year I wrote a couple books (with the third due out next year) about werepanthers in Australia. There was a show on local television about people who believed they had seen these big cats in various locations and held grainy photos or imagery to prove their point. Fascinated with the idea, I wrote a series in which werepanthers are a set of shifter packs who reside here and are occasionally spotted by accident. The beauty of these creatures is they had blended capabilities, part human and part beast. Which allowed me as an author to explore beyond the mere human capacity of my characters.
More recently I expanded on magical worlds, with idea of a multiverse. My characters now not only held extraordinary abilities, but they could move through worlds which were limitless. And I just loved writing it! There are mermaids, and royalty, scientists, and adventures. It was one of the most freeing stories I have ever written because the only boundary was my imagination. I remember at one point almost losing myself in the pleasure of a new world and the creatures that could exist there.
As an author allowing your imagination free reign is both rewarding and challenging. Uno is now sleeping through the night, curled into a little back ball with tiger sized dreams rushing through her head. But sadly, I cannot join her, for my own mind is drawn into the next great adventure already,the twists and turns unravelling in my mind before they join together on the page.
Perhaps a new world will emerge that is ruled by cats?
However, I feel like perhaps I have seen that firsthand already.
VK Tritschler is the definition of very busy. Having both a fulltime job, a growing family and a career as an author she has a lot going on both around her and in her imagination. She lives on the amazing Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, having moved there from her hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand. Her family consists of a very patient husband, two rampant boys, and too many pets to mention.
She has a wonderful set of amazing writers who support her in the form of Eyre Writers, and in return, she offers crowd control services for the Youth section who are the future best-selling Australian authors.
Her first book “The Secret Life of Sarah Meads” was released in 2018 and since then she has participated in the NYC Writing Challenge, the Clunes Booktown, and helped organise and run the Eyre Writers Festival. Next came the paranormal anthology of "Magic & Mischief" with her story "Vital Impetus" which came out in July 2020.
After this, "The Risky Business of Romance" was released in October 2020 - a romantic suspense set in rural South Australia, and Trade Secrets is a rom-com based in Adelaide came out in December 2020. "A Town Called Nowhere" a paranormal romance about were-panthers set in rural Australia, was released in April 2021, with the second book out in October 2021.
Ever available to her readership you can find her at:
the inspiration of cats
by VK Tritschler
She has a wonderful set of amazing writers who support her in the form of Eyre Writers, and in return, she offers crowd control services for the Youth section who are the future best-selling Australian authors.
Her first book “The Secret Life of Sarah Meads” was released in 2018 and since then she has participated in the NYC Writing Challenge, the Clunes Booktown, and helped organise and run the Eyre Writers Festival. Next came the paranormal anthology of "Magic & Mischief" with her story "Vital Impetus" which came out in July 2020.
After this, "The Risky Business of Romance" was released in October 2020 - a romantic suspense set in rural South Australia, and Trade Secrets is a rom-com based in Adelaide came out in December 2020. "A Town Called Nowhere" a paranormal romance about were-panthers set in rural Australia, was released in April 2021, with the second book out in October 2021.
Ever available to her readership you can find her at:
Today's mini-reviews are anthologies Chlorophobia and Wild Violence and collection The Corpse Garden by S.H. Cooper. A group of explor...
Mini Reviews || Chlorophobia, Wild Violence, and The Corpse Garden
Today's mini-reviews are anthologies Chlorophobia and Wild Violence and collection The Corpse Garden by S.H. Cooper.
A group of explorers stumble upon a new species of plant in the depths of the rainforest. A novel virus drives humankind to flee the Earth. A killer fog rolls in off the sea, decimating everything in its path. Eco-horror is one of the hottest and most relevant subgenres around in 2021, and inside this anthology you'll find punchy, eye-catching flash fiction and poetry by no fewer than fifty talented authors. Plants, animals, weather phenomena… It’s time for Mother Nature to fight back.
Contributors:
Allison Floyd, Armand Rosamilia, Ashley Van Elswyk, Birgit K. Gaiser, Charlotte Reynolds, Chloe Spencer, Clay F. Johnson, Clint White, Corey Farrenkopf, Corey Niles, Cormack Baldwin, D.R. Roberts, Danielle Davis, Elecia Page, Freydís Moon, G.B. Lindsey, Hannah Hulbert, Hazel Ragaire, Ian A. Bain, Isaac Menuza, J.R. Handfield, Jameson Grey, Jasmine Arch, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Jennifer Shneiderman, Katherine Silva, Keely O'Shaughnessy, Lerah Mae Barcenilla, Lindsay King-Miller, Lucas Carroll-Garrett, Maggie D. Brace, Marisca Pichette, Micah Castle, Michael Bettendorf, Nico Bell, Nikki R. Leigh, Philine Schiller, Rose Taylor, Sally Hughes, Sam Lesek, Samuel Best, Sanaya Deas, Sara Crocoll Smith, SJ Townend, Sonora Taylor, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Steven Lombardi, Tonya Walter, Victoria Audley, Zé Burns
My Thoughts...
Wild Violence is the third anthology from Blood Rites Horror, and with a theme of nature and wildlife, this time we're bringing you eleven bursts of gut-wrenching, pulse-shredding horror from twelve fantastic authors. From big cats to poisonous plants, forests harbouring dark secrets to bloodthirsty insects acting on instinct, lovers of violent, descriptive horror will find something to chew on here.
Publication date: April 11th 2021 by Blood Rite horrorAdd to Goodreads
My Thoughts...
A collection of fourteen short horror stories that chronicle obsession, loss, and why you should be afraid of things that go bump in the night. From a young boy with with an unhealthy fixation on what could go wrong to a man who can't accept that his wife wants to leave him, traipsing through The Corpse Garden certainly isn't for the faint of heart.
My Thoughts...
It's time again to check another box on the Scaredy Cat Bingo Challenge which consists of 25 reading prompts on a bingo board. Not p...
It's time again to check another box on the
which consists of 25 reading prompts on a bingo board.
Not playing yet?
Jump in anytime here.
Today's prompt:
Let's Summon Demons
Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. What starts as a minor cold quickly becomes spontaneous fits of violence and aggression, even death. And when a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, nearly more threatening than the illness itself, Meiko and her daughter team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate, and it becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot, a demon from the stories of Meiko’s childhood, hell-bent on infiltrating their already strange world.
When Cynthia Rothschild’s best friend, Annie, falls head over heels for the new high-school librarian, Cyn can totally see why. He’s really young and super cute and thinks Annie would make an excellent library monitor. But after meeting Mr. Gabriel, Cyn realizes something isn’t quite right. Maybe it’s the creepy look in the librarian’s eyes, or the weird feeling Cyn gets whenever she’s around him. Before long Cyn realizes that Mr. Gabriel is, in fact . . . a demon. Now, in addition to saving the school musical from technical disaster and trying not to make a fool of herself with her own hopeless crush, Cyn has to save her best friend from the clutches of the evil librarian, who also seems to be slowly sucking the life force out of the entire student body! From best-selling author Michelle Knudsen, here is the perfect novel for teens who like their horror served up with a bit of romance, plenty of humor, and some pretty hot guys (of both the good and evil variety).
Can one small boy defeat evil? Can he harness the power of science, faith, and love to save the world as we know it?
Bursting with imagination, The Gates is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy. It is about a quirky and eccentric boy who is impossible not to love, and the unlikely cast of characters who give him the strength to stand up to a demonic power.
Strange noises in the apartment.
Impulsive behaviour.
Intense dreams.
It wasn't like everything went wrong all at once.
Shoplifting.
Fighting.
Blackouts.
In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. They plan to bring Hell to Earth. But even Ku Kluxes can die.
Standing in their way is Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters, a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan's demons straight to Hell. But something awful's brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up.
1986 The teenage daughter of a wealthy Vietnamese family loses her way in an abandoned rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father and is forever changed.
2011 A young, unhappy Vietnamese American woman disappears from her new home in Saigon without a trace.
The fates of these two women are inescapably linked, bound together by past generations, by ghosts and ancestors, by the history of possessed bodies and possessed lands. Alongside them, we meet a young boy who is sent to a boarding school for the métis children of French expatriates, just before Vietnam declares its independence from colonial rule; two Frenchmen who are trying to start a business with the Vietnam War on the horizon; and the employees of the Saigon Spirit Eradication Co., who find themselves investigating strange occurrences in a farmhouse on the edge of a forest. Each new character and timeline brings us one step closer to understanding what binds them all.
Part puzzle, part revenge tale, part ghost story, this book takes us from colonial mansions to ramshackle zoos, from sweaty nightclubs to the jostling seats of motorbikes, from ex-pat flats to sizzling back-alley street carts. Spanning more than fifty years of Vietnamese history and barreling toward an unforgettable conclusion, this is a time-traveling, heart-pounding, border-crossing fever dream of a novel that will haunt you long after the last page.
Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there's only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god--and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it.
Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she'll also need to regain control of her body and destiny. If she fails, the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good.
When the police are called to an affluent home in the middle of the night, they learn that a seemingly normal fourteen-year-old boy has attacked his family. The boy exhibits signs of demonic possession, and even more troublingly, he knows too much about the Sweet Sixteen killings. Father Jason Crowder, a young priest assigned to the case, must marshal his courage in order to save the boy and the entire city from the forces of evil.
But this is a darkness mankind has never encountered before. It craves more than blood. And it won’t rest until it possesses Father Crowder’s soul.
This volume brings together the original novella that started it all—Exorcist Road—and an all-new full-length novel (Exorcist Falls) for a shattering experience in supernatural terror.
Maxwell Oliver is supposed to be enjoying the summer before his senior year, spending his days thinking about parties and friends. Instead he's taking care of his little sister while his mom slowly becomes someone he doesn't recognize. Soon he suspects that what he thought was grief over his father's death might be something more...sinister.
When Maxwell and Vera join forces, they come face to face with deeply disturbing true stories of cults, death worship, and the very nature that drives people to evil.
College grad Bailey Chen has a few demons: no job, no parental support, and a rocky relationship with Zane, the only friend who’s around when she moves back home. But when Zane introduces Bailey to his cadre of monster-fighting bartenders, her demons get a lot more literal. Like, soul-sucking hell-beast literal. Soon, it’s up to Bailey and the ragtag band of magical mixologists to take on whatever—or whoever—is behind the mysterious rash of gruesome deaths in Chicago, and complete the lost recipes of an ancient tome of cocktail lore.
I don't know about you but I'm so excited for some of this month's new releases. Paranormal, sci-fi, creatures, apocalyptic...th...
It's time again for another box on the Scaredy Cat Bingo Challenge , which consists of 25 reading prompts on a bingo board. Not playing...
Today's prompt:
under the sea
under the sea
Deep Blue Sea. The Shallows. Cold Skin.
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