Something Stirs

THEATER MACABRE Limited Edition & Trade Paperback

kpatrick — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:42:57 +0000

The good folk at Bad Moon Books have announced preorder information for my collection THEATER MACABRE, scheduled for release in July. Previously only available as a digital title, Bad Moon will be releasing the collection in two states: a signed limited edition hardcover ($30.00) and a trade paperback ($17.95). The book features nineteen stories, a lot of them uncollected until now, and wonderful Barkeresque cover art by newcomer Jake Spooner.

Synopsis:

A hooded figure wanders a lonesome road waiting for a special someone…A criminal returns home to face old memories and new nightmares…A man awakes to find himself living in a mirror image of reality…and diners at a restaurant find themselves confronted with a terrifying revelation about who and what they are…These are among the nineteen nightmarish tales that await you in the THEATER MACABRE…

Table of Contents:

Head in the Clouds
How the Night Receives Them
The Acquaintance
Ravens
Keepsakes
Long Distance
The Wrong Side of the Bed
The Tradition
Turrow
Not Quite Ghosts
They See You When You’re Sleeping
Stirrings
From the Wall, a Whisper
Visiting Hours
Outside the Theater
A Letter from Phoenix
Outside
Eight Minutes
912

Preorder your copy here.

The Paperbacks (kealanpatrick.wordpress.com)

New Release: THE NOVELLAS

kpatrick — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:13:41 +0000

For the bargain hunters among you, or those who balk at paying $2.99 for a novella, my new release THE NOVELLAS may appeal to you. It collects together four of my longer stories, THE TENT, YOU IN? SELDOM SEEN IN AUGUST, and MIDLISTERS for the more than reasonable price of $4.99. (Buying each book separately would cost you $10.00.)

Featured in this book are:

THE TENT

The perfect getaway…

The perfect place to hide…

Hocking Hills, Ohio is an oasis for campers, hikers, nature enthusiasts, and for those who just want to get away and lose themselves in the wild.

And as long as you follow your guide’s advice and stay within the permitted areas, you can expect to survive the night.

Because deep within the dark woods, something insidious awaits, something few have ever seen, something ancient, unknowable, and insatiable.

If you go down to these woods today, you won’t live to see the sunrise…

YOU IN?

For years the Wickerwood Inn has stood abandoned, home to nothing but dust and the trapped echo of past celebrations…and tragedy.

For a down on his luck ex-gambler, the inn’s reputation is a thing of myth, and certainly not reason enough to turn down the first paying job to come his way in months. The inn will soon be renovated in preparation for a new lease on life. So tonight, from midnight till six, Peter Haskins will watch over the machinery.

And he will soon discover that there is something else in the hotel with him, something that needs no new lease on life, for it has never died.

And never will.

SELDOM SEEN IN AUGUST

Wade Crawford is not a good guy. He’s a bank robber and a ruthless killer, and now three people are dead and Wade is on the run. With the cops hot on his heels, he breaks into a seemingly ordinary house in a seemingly ordinary neighborhood to hide and wait on word from his partner.

But this neighborhood is far from ordinary. Indeed it has a very specific purpose, and soon Wade will discover that life in prison would be preferable to the hellish torment Seldom Seen has in store for him.

MIDLISTERS

Meet Jason Tennant, a writer of violent horror novels whose career is mired firmly in a maddening swamp of frustration somewhere north of nowhere and south of success. He is a midlister, those thankless souls who labor in the shadows of sometimes better, sometimes luckier writers, and it’s starting to take its toll.

Meet Kent Gray, wildly popular author of a string of so-called “sex-fi” novels. He’s wealthy, handsome, and the object of Jason Tennant’s professional jealousy.

Welcome to Baltimore, Maryland, and the Aurora Science Fiction & Horror Convention, where these two men, midlister and bestseller, will meet for the first time, and the midlister motto “Better Read Than Dead” will be put to the ultimate test.

Available now at Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk

New Release: THE TENT

kpatrick — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 21:57:33 +0000

THE TENT

The perfect getaway…

The perfect place to hide…

Hocking Hills, Ohio is an oasis for campers, hikers, nature enthusiasts, and for those who just want to get away and lose themselves in the wild.

And as long as you follow your guide’s advice and stay within the permitted areas, you can expect to survive the night.

Because deep within the dark woods, something insidious awaits, something few have ever seen, something ancient, unknowable, and insatiable.

If you go down to these woods today, you won’t live to see the sunrise…

A brand new novella from the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of THE TURTLE BOY and KIN.

Available now on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, B&N, and Smashwords.com. Available via all other vendors soon…

THE SEVEN: Brian James Freeman

kpatrick — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:51:15 +0000

Continuing my interview series THE SEVEN, in which I invite some of my favorite authors to answer seven questions about their most recent projects, today’s guest is an old friend of mine, author, editor, publisher, and entrepreneur Brian James Freeman. Brian is not only a wonderful author in his own right, he has also been instrumental, via his work at Cemetery Dance Publications, in bringing some of my own work to print. In light of all he’s got going on lately, I thought it a good idea to invite him along to share the news of his achievements.

* * *

Q. What is your most recent release?

For the book line at Cemetery Dance Publications, I’m currently neck deep in production on Doctor Sleep by Stephen King and twenty other terrific books we’ll be publishing this year.

For Cemetery Dance magazine, we just announced our “End of the World” special issue, which includes short stories by Simon Clark, Kaaron Warren, and a fine author named Kealan Patrick Burke. There’s also an excerpt from Brian Hodge’s new novella, The Weight of the Dead, and non-fiction including The Stand: Trivia From the End of the World.

For Lonely Road Books, I’m working with Guillermo del Toro to publish the last two volumes of The Strain trilogy.

For my own writing, I’ve just published revised trade paperback and eBook editions of my novella Blue November Storms. This new edition features a revised version of the text, an exclusive introduction by Ray Garton in which he explains why you should never (ever!) go into the woods, 20 original illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne, a beautiful new cover painting by Vincent Chong, a bonus interview with Chadbourne about his artwork, and a new afterword I wrote explaining how the story got written in the first place.

Finally, in March I launched two new websites devoted to highlighting high quality horror and mystery eBooks at the best prices available – sometimes even free. Authors I’ve featured include Stephen King, William Peter Blatty, Clive Barker, Robert McCammon, Richard Matheson, Dean Koontz, Joe Hill, Dan Brown, Michael Koryta, and many others.

The websites are:

http://www.eHorrorBargains.com

http://www.eMysteryBargains.com

Q. What inspired these projects?

The new edition of Blue November Storms has been a long time in the works because readers kept asking if there was a way to read the book without paying the high prices for the Limited Edition on the secondary market. It was fun to revisit that world again one more time and this gave me the chance to fix a few problems.

The Bargain eBook websites were a spontaneous project after a poster on the Cemetery Dance Forums pointed out that Swan Song by Robert McCammon was available for a ridiculously low price like $2.99. I realized I had been missing out on some incredible deals and other readers probably had been, too.

Q. What is the primary theme you’ve chosen to explore with this project?

Blue November Storms explores classic “man vs. nature” territory while touching on how secrets from our teenage years can still come back to haunt us as adults.

Q. Of everything you’ve written to date, which project has been the most difficult for you?

It’s a jive answer, but all of them. Even the short stories. I’m never happier than when I’m writing and editing, yet at the end of the process I wonder if I’ll ever manage to do it again.

Q. Which title would you suggest as a good introduction for newcomers to your work, and why?

Definitely The Painted Darkness. It’s a novella that hits on a lot of the themes and motifs I like to explore in my work.

Q. What are your thoughts on the burgeoning digital market?

I’m extremely excited about the possibilities for authors and publishers to reach new readers. Obviously, I’m a fan of heavily discounted eBooks as a reader, but I also worry about whether the way eBook prices have been driven so low will affect the ability of all but a few authors to make a living with their work. You have to sell a lot of 99 cent eBooks to pay the mortgage. Of course, most traditionally published fiction authors haven’t been able to pay the mortgage from their writing in a long time, either. So I embrace the fact that the marketplace is changing and I look forward to seeing where we’re headed.

Q. What’s up next for you?

I have a novel that’s been in the works for seven or eight years now that I’d like to finally put to bed. I always have a lot of projects going at Cemetery Dance and Lonely Road Books, of course. And I hope to keep expanding the eHorrorBargains.com network to new genres this summer.

Thanks, Kealan! This has been fun!

THE PAPERBACKS

kpatrick — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:53:57 +0000

Due to a large number of requests from readers, I have over the past few months made a number of my out-of-print titles available again as affordable trade paperbacks. These titles are Stage Whispers: The Collected Timmy Quinn, Ravenous Ghosts, The Number 121 to Pennsylvania & Others, Master of the Moors, Currency of Souls, and Kin. Slated for the future is Nemesis: The Death of Timmy Quinn, the concluding novel in the Timmy Quinn series. The books are currently available through Createspace, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

Thus far there’s been a terrific response to these, which ensures I’ll continue to offer more titles in the future. If there’s any book in particular you’d like to see available again, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

And if you have, like so many others, moved from paperback to digital, remember that all of these titles and more are currently available for your e-reader in a variety of formats (see the sidebar of this page). Paul at Thunderstorm Books also still has some copies of the signed limited edition of Nemesis in stock.

Book Cover Designs

kpatrick — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:22:27 +0000

I usually don’t talk about my book cover design work here, not for any other reason than that I usually forget, and generally keep it separate from my publishing news, but I thought I’d share with you some of the most recent cover designs I’ve worked on. Let me know what you think! You can see the full gallery at my Facebook design page here.

Cemetery Dance eBook Reissue of KILL WHITEY by Brian Keene

Cemetery Dance eBook reissue of SHADES by Geoff Cooper & Brian Keene

Festa-Verlag German edition of NIGHT SHOW by Richard Laymon

Paperback & digital re-release of my novel CURRENCY OF SOULS

Paperback & digital release of THEIR LAST DYING ACTS by R. Thomas Riley

eBook edition of FLIGHT by R.A. Evans

eBook Cover for PALADIN AND THE CONCRETE BLONDE by Jason Ridler

eBook and paperback cover design for SINGULARITY by Joe Hart

See more cover designs here.

THE SEVEN: Graham Joyce

kpatrick — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 21:39:23 +0000

Continuing my interview series THE SEVEN, in which I invite some of my favorite authors to answer seven questions about their most recent projects, today’s guest is the inimitable Graham Joyce, who I first discovered through his horror novel DREAMSIDE, and his coming-of-age novel THE TOOTH FAIRY, the latter of which ranks as one of my favorite horror/dark fantasy novels of all time.

* * *

Q. What is your most recent release?

A. SOME KIND OF FAIRY TALE

Q. What inspired the project?

A. A walk in the ancient bluebell woods of Leicestershire in the English Midlands. The bluebell was the original national flower before the rose was adopted. It is a flower associated with fairy-lore and there are injunctions against picking or trampling the flower. One would incur the wrath of those who dwell amidst the bluebells. One day I was walking amongst the bluebells – though carefully keeping to the paths in between – and the idea for this story came streaming out. The scent was overwhelming and with the scent came the idea of recasting a very old tale in a new way.

Q. What is the primary theme you’ve chosen to explore with this project?

A. Lost youth.

Q. Of everything you’ve written to date, which project has been the most difficult for you?

A. REQUIEM. I don’t find any books “easy” to write, but some do come out like loaves from a baker’s oven. Others fail to rise or are misshapen or to continue the metaphor stick to the sides of the baking tin. You have to spend much longer time fixing up. I was half way through REQUIEM and it wasn’t working. The story was partly about misogyny and I realised my female protagonist had to become male. You can’t have women on a journey to discover how misogynistic the world is: they already know that all too well. So she became a he; but I had to go right back to the beginning and rethink all of it.

Q. Which title would you suggest as a good introduction for newcomers to your work, and why?

A. THE TOOTH FAIRY is a good intro because it is first properly ambiguous novel I did. Readers either like that ambiguity or they don’t. THE FACTS OF LIFE is one where I started to get my writing somewhere near where I would like it to be.

Q. What are your thoughts on the burgeoning digital market?

A. My thoughts are that no-one anywhere has a clue what publishing will be like in the next five or ten years and that we may as well embrace the uncertainty. People will always want to hear stories regardless of whatever technology is packaging them.

Q. What’s up next for you?

A. I’m just completing a summer ghost story set in the 1970s, a watershed period for British politics and a time when we had an astonishing invasion of ladybirds (ladybugs for my US friends). It’s called THE YEAR OF THE LADYBIRD.

Science fiction and fantasy of the year (telegraph.co.uk)
Some Kind of Fairy Tale (nochargebookbunch.com)

Bram Stoker Awards: Preliminary Ballot Announced

kpatrick — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 19:23:52 +0000

NOVEL

Bodner, Hal – The Trouble with Hairy (Phantom Hollow Publishing)
Clines, Peter – 14 (Permuted Press)
Ethridge, Benjamin Kane – Bottled Abyss (Redrum Horror)
Everson, John – NightWhere (Samhain Publishing)
Faherty, JG – Cemetery Club (JournalStone)
Jordan, Lee F. – Coronation (Black Rose Writing)
Kiernan, Caitlin R. – The Drowning Girl (Roc)
Little, Bentley – The Haunted (Signet)
McKinney, Joe – Inheritance (Evil Jester Press)

FIRST NOVEL

Boccacino, Michael – Charlotte Markham and the House of Darklings (William Morrow)
Coates, Deborah – Wide Open (Tor Books)
Day, Charles – The Legend of the Pumpkin Thief (Noble YA Publishers LLC)
Dudar, Peter – A Requiem for Dead Flies (Nightscape Press)
Gropp, Richard - Bad Glass (Ballantine/Del Rey)
Hatchell, Dane – Resurrection X: Zombie Evolution (Post Mortem Press)
Holm, Chris – Dead Harvest (Angry Robot)
Jones, K. Trap – The Sinner (Blood Bound Books)
Soares, L.L. – Life Rage (Nightscape Press)
Sterbakov, Hugh – City Under the Moon (Ben & Derek Ink Inc.)

YA NOVEL

Bickle, Laura – The Hallowed Ones (Graphia)
Bray, Libba – The Diviners (Little Brown)
Burt, Steve - FreeK Show (Burt Creations)
Collings, Michaelbrent – Hooked: A True Faerie Tale (Createspace/Amazon Digital Services, Inc.)
Lyga, Barry – I Hunt Killers (Little Brown)
Maberry, Jonathan – Flesh & Bone (Simon & Schuster)
McCarty, Michael – I Kissed A Ghoul (Noble Romance Publishing)
Stiefvater, Maggie – The Raven Boys (Scholastic Press)
Strand, Jeff – A Bad Day for Voodoo (Sourcebooks)
Waters, Daniel – Break My Heart 1,000 Times (Hyperion Book CH)
Wilson, Connie Corcoran – The Color of Evil (Quad Cities Press)

LONG FICTION

Burke, Kealan Patrick – Thirty Miles South of Dry County (Delirium Books)
Faherty, JG – The Cold Spot (Delirium Books)
Giglio, Peter – Sunfall Manor (Nightscape Press)
Ketchum, Jack, and Lucky McGee – I’m Not Sam (Sinister Grin Press)
Malfi, Ronald – The Mourning House (Delirium Books)
McKinney, Joe, and Michael McCarty – Lost Girl of the Lake (Bad Moon Books)
Miskowski, S.P. – Delphine Dodd (Omnium Gatherum Media)
O’Neill, Gene – The Blue Heron (Dark Regions Press)
Prentiss, Norman – The Fleshless Man (Delirium Books)
Thompson, Lee – When We Join Jesus in Hell (Darkfuse)

SHORT FICTION

Bailey, Michael – “Bootstrap” (Zippered Flesh: Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad, Smart Rhino Publications)
Boston, Bruce – “Surrounded by the Mutant Rain Forest” (Daily Science Fiction)
Breaux, Kevin James – “The Journal of USS Indianapolis Survivor: Stefanos ‘Stevie’ Georgiou” (Zombie Jesus & Other True Stories, Dark Moon Books)
Cushing, Nicole – “A Catechism for Aspiring Amnesiacs” (Lovecraft eZine, March 2012)
Lake, Jay – “The Cancer Catechism” (Dark Faith: Invocations, Apex Book Company)
McKinney, Joe – “Bury My Heart at Marvin Gardens” (Best of Dark Moon Digest, Dark Moon Books)
Ochse, Weston – “Righteous” (Psychos, Black Dog and Leventhall Publication)
Palisano, John – “Available Light” (Lovecraft eZine, March 2012)
Snyder, Lucy – “Magdala Amygdala” (Dark Faith: Invocations, Apex Book Company)

SCREENPLAY

Hill, Susan, and Goldman, Jane – The Woman in Black (Cross Creek Pictures)
Kim, San Kyu – The Walking Dead, “Killer Within” (AMC TV)
Minear, Tim – American Horror Story: Asylum, “Dark Cousin” (Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision, Ryan Murphy Productions)
Olynyk, Signe – Below Zero (Twilight Pictures)
Ross, Gary, Suzanne Collins, and Billy Ray – The Hunger Games (Lionsgate, Color Force)
Sanchez, Eduardo, and Jaime Nash – Lovely Molly (Amber Entertainment, Haxan Films)
Whedon, Joss, and Drew Goddard – The Cabin in the Woods (Mutant Enemy Productions, Lionsgate)

ANTHOLOGY

Beebe, Eric – Fear the Abyss (Post Mortem Press)
Castle, Mort, and Sam Weller – Shadow Show (HarperCollins)
Gallows Press – Tales from the Yellow Rose Diner and Fill Station (Gallows Press)
Guignard, Eric J. – Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations (Dark Moon Books)
Miller, Eric – Hell Comes to Hollywood (Big Time Books)
Salter, Richard – World’s Collider (Nightscape Press)
Scalisi, Patrick – The Ghost IS the Machine (Port Mortem Press)
Scioneaux, Mark C., R.J. Cavender, and Robert S. Wilson – Horror for Good: A Charitable Anthology (Cutting Block Press)
Swanson, Stan - Slices of Flesh (Dark Moon Books)

FICTION COLLECTION

Cain, Kenneth W. – These Old Tales: The Complete Collection (CreateSpace Distressed Press)
Carroll, Jonathan – Woman Who Married a Cloud: Collected Stories (Subterranean Press)
Castle, Mort – New Moon on the Water (Dark Regions)
De Winter, Corrine – Valentines for the Dead (Shadowfall Publications)
Hand, Elizabeth – Errantry: Strange Stories (Small Beer Press)
Hirshberg, Glen – The Janus Tree (Subterranean Press)
Lane, Joel – Where Furnaces Burn (PS Publishing)
LaSart, C.W. – Ad Nauseam (Dark Moon Books)
Oates, Joyce Carol – Black Dahlia and White Rose: Stories (Ecco)
Onspaugh, Mark – Christmas Ghost Stories (Createspace)
Yardley, Mercedes M. – Beautiful Sorrows (Shock Totem)

NON-FICTION

Aisenberg, Joe – Carrie: Studies in the Horror Film (Centipede Press)
Amazing Kreskin, The, and Michael McCarty – Conversations with Kreskin (Team Kreskin Productions LLC)
Collings, Michael – Writing Darkness (CreateSpace)
Klinger, Les – The Annotated Sandman, Volume 1 (Vertigo)
Matthews, Araminta Star, Rachel Lee, and Stan Swanson – Write of the Living Dead (Dark Moon Books)
Morton, Lisa – Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween (Reaktion Books)
Paffenroth, Kim, and John W. Morehead – The Undead and Theology (Pickwick Publications)
Perry, Dennis R., and Carl H. Sederholm – Adapting Poe: Re-Imaginings in Popular Culture (Palgrave MacMillan)
Phillips, Kendall R. - Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film (Southern Illinois University Press)

POETRY

Addison, Linda, and Stephen M. Wilson – Dark Duet (NECON eBooks)
Boston, Bruce, and Gary William Crawford – Notes from the Shadow City (Dark Regions Press)
Collings, Michael – A Verse to Horrors (Amazon Digital Services)
Dietrich, Bryan D. - The Monstrance (Needfire Poetry)
Ong Muslim, Kristina – Grim Series (Popcorn Press)
Simon, Marge, and Sandy DeLuca – Vampires, Zombies & Wanton Souls (Elektrik Milk Bath Press)
Turzillo, Mary A. – Lovers & Killers (Dark Regions)

The following will not appear on the Preliminary Ballot. As there are only
five works, they will proceed directly to the Final Ballot.

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Bunn, Cullen – The Sixth Gun Volume 3: Bound (Oni Press)
Moore, Terry – Rachel Rising Vol. 1: The Shadow of Death (Abstract Studio)
Thornton, Ravi – The Tale of Brin and Bent and Minno Marylebone (Jonathan Cape)
Wacks, Peter J., and Guy Anthony De Marco – Behind These Eyes (Villainous Press)
Wood, Rocky, and Lisa Morton – Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times (McFarland)

THE SEVEN: Nancy Collins

kpatrick — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 17:03:19 +0000

Continuing my interview series called THE SEVEN, in which I invite some of my favorite authors to answer seven questions about their most recent projects, today’s guest is the wonderful Nancy Collins, author of the beloved Sonja Blue series of non-sparkly vampire novels. Sunglasses After Dark, the first of the Blue novels, is a rip-roaring good time, and her collection, Knuckles & Tales, released some years ago via Cemetery Dance Publications, and currently available via digital, remains one of my favorite single-author collections of all time.

* * *

Q. What is your most recent release?

A. My most recent release of new material is ABSALOM’S WAKE: A Serial Adventure On The High Seas. The first two installments are now available from Biting Dog Publications in ebook format on all platforms. It’s a dark fantasy set about a whaling vessel in the 1840s.

Q. What inspired the project?

A. I’ve been doing genre mash-ups since before they became popular. I wanted to combine horror/dark fantasy tropes with various ‘defunct’ adventure genres, such as westerns, Jack London style Yukon stories, swashbucklers etc. Absalom’s Wake is my tribute to the maritime novels of the 19th century, such as Melville’s Typee, Billy Budd and, of course, Moby Dick.

Q. What is the primary theme you’ve chosen to explore with this project?

The primary theme in Absalom’s Wake is the danger of ignorance, superstition, and hubris, especially when you’re trapped on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

Q. Of everything you’ve written to date, which project has been the most difficult for you?

I would have to say that was the Young Adult vampire series I wrote for HarperCollins, which came out in 2008-2009. It was called VAMPS, which stood for Vampire American Princesses, and can best be described as a cross between Gossip Girls and Twilight. I had to learn a completely new way of story-telling (at least for me). I learned a lot, but it was a rough education. I rewrote the first book in the series six times, from scratch.

Q. Which title would you suggest as a good introduction for newcomers to your work, and why?

I would recommend Sunglasses After Dark, simply because that is my first novel, and it is the book that introduces my signature series character, Sonja Blue. It also won the HWA’s Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Society’s Icarus Award.

Q. What are your thoughts on the burgeoning digital market?

Well, I’m invested enough in its expansion to have my own epublishing imprint: Hopedale Press. I think the digital market has a great deal of potential, especially now that Big Publishing is essentially turning its backs on genre writers who don’t sell like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. If the Big 4 want to ignore entire genres in favor of mass market Best Sellers, it’s up to writers and the small press to take up the slack.

Q. What’s next for you?

Well, I’m finishing up MAGIC AND LOSS, the 3rd book in my Golgotham urban fantasy series. After that I’ll be tackling KILL CITY–the first Sonja Blue novel in 10 years. I’m currently holding an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to finish the book and make it available in both physical and digital editions. The campaign ends 11:59pm PT on Wednesday, January 16th.

Remember: Only YOU Can Prevent Sparkling Vampires.

Check out Ms. Collins’ ongoing e-serial Absalom’s Wake at the Biting Dog Press website, and click here to learn more about how you can contribute to the Indiegogo campaign for Kill City, the new Sonja Blue novel.

* * *

Book Review: BREED by Chase Novak

kpatrick — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 01:50:51 +0000

Thank the marketing department for the intrigue generated by this one. It certainly has an excellent hook: “A couple struggling to have a child, undergo treatment to have one, but once their kids are born, the unlucky siblings begin to realize that there’s something amiss with their parents.” It seems like a nice twist on a familiar theme, but alas, it isn’t. The writing is excellent, the pacing serviceable, and yet the whole novel feels broken somehow. Good ideas go unexplored, characters who spend a lot of time in the foreground still somehow never have time to fully develop. There’s nary a sympathetic character in the bunch, so it was hard to really care what became of any of them. The descriptions are lavish and detailed, almost too much so. There are sections of the book that feel as though the author was transcribing straight from Architectural Digest.

As for the story, what could have been a white-knuckle creeper fails to rise above cliche, reading more like a non-horror writer’s idea of original. Worse, it seems a little self-congratulatory at times, when anyone familiar with the genre will know pretty much every beat pages before it happens. Also off-putting is the glee with which Novak puts his upper-class characters through the ringer, the implication being that they deserve their fate purely because they’re rich. Whether or not the author intended it to come across that way, it does, and it’s an unpalatable idea. Not that the middle- or lower-class fare much better. Breed is a novel full of unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to one another, with no suspense to tether the whole thing together. Rather, it reads more like a book written with the big screen in mind, which makes the news of the recent film deal no surprise.

Overall, the prose was excellent (if at times a little showy and overwrought), the premise intriguing enough to keep me from giving up on it (though more than once I felt tempted), but there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before, and much better. A disappointment.

Summit to ‘Breed’ adaptation with Burr Steers (variety.com)
Summit Acquires Horror-Thriller Novel ‘Breed’; Burr Steers To Write And Direct, David Heyman Aboard As Producer (deadline.com)

Something Stirs

THEATER MACABRE Limited Edition & Trade Paperback

Related articles

New Release: THE NOVELLAS

New Release: THE TENT

THE SEVEN: Brian James Freeman

THE PAPERBACKS

Book Cover Designs

THE SEVEN: Graham Joyce

Related articles

Bram Stoker Awards: Preliminary Ballot Announced

THE SEVEN: Nancy Collins

Book Review: BREED by Chase Novak

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