“A rip-roaring adrenaline ride that will leave you breathless. You can practically taste the gasoline. D’Lacey is a man on a mission; I’d get out of the way.” Adam Millard, author of Skinners and Dead Line

“Like nothing you’ve read before. A frenetic, blistering bullet train of white-knuckle reflex.” Dread Central

“A breathless race to the finish line of oblivion.” Starburst Magazine

I know I speak for Michael Wilson – editor and owner of This Is Horror – when I say we’re incredibly proud of these early responses.

We launch on 8th June at Waterstones in Coventry, where I’ll be joined by Adam Nevill and Jasper Bark for another brilliant This Is Horror event. If you can’t wait that long, you can pre-order right now – but honestly I’d really love to see you in Coventry on the day!

The mass-market paperback is smaller and therefore has more pages. The paperback version is the one with the foil laid into the cover art and, to my mind, is the more presentable version. There’s a difference in price of course – £8.99 for the paperback against £4.62 for the more compact format.

On Amazon it’s easy to confuse the two so make sure you know what you’re paying for and that you get the version you prefer.

For US readers, mass-market paperback is the only physical version of Black Feathers on sale.

However, the book is also available in CD, audio download, and is a DRM free e-book if you purchase from The Robot Trading Company

Happy reading, whatever you choose…

Reblogged from David Gaughran:

• 

Writing is a glamorous occupation - at least from the outside. Popular depictions of our profession tend to leave out all the other stuff that comes with the territory: carpal tunnel syndrome, liver failure, penury, and madness.

Okay, okay, I jest. I love being a writer. Sharing stories with the world and getting paid for it is bloody brilliant. It's a dream job, and like any profession with a horde of neophytes seeking to break in, there are plenty of sharks waiting to chew them to bits.

Read more… 1,861 more words

It’s almost a month since the launch of Black Feathers – book one of the two-part Black Dawn series.

Some happy-stats of how it’s gone so far:

• 750 shelf adds on Goodreads
• Over 40 very positive online reviews, including Publishers’ Weekly
• Great magazine reviews in SciFi Now and SFX
• Made the Buy One, Get One Half Price shelves in WH Smith
• Made the 3 for 2 promotion in Blackwell’s
• Number 5 in the fiction chart in Blackwell’s, Edinburgh
• Over 1200 views of the trailer

Following the London Book Fair I heard from my agent that Blood Fugue is still selling well. It recently received high praise from the BFS and This Is Horror, if you’d like to find out more.

The contract to re-print MEAT and Garbage Man has been amended giving Andrews UK worldwide rights in English. This will make both titles available in e-book and print in America, Canada and Australia for the first time. The e-book will be enhanced with media content and watch out for the brand new cover art – can’t wait to see it!

I’ve been on three recent podcasts – This Is Horror, NOObs on a Plane and Scrolls – talking about projects old and new as well as being grilled in-depth about Splinters.

Finally, my This Is Horror chapbook Roadkill has gone on sale.

For the moment, I’ve got my head down making The Book of The Crowman shine with Black Light. I probably won’t make much noise until that job’s done…

My initial reaction when I returned home was a numb inability to write, coupled with a desperate sadness at losing a supportive learning environment. I wasn’t surprised by either of these feelings, because it’s a common side-effect of attending Clarion West, and we’d been warned it might happen.

I still felt the urge for a creative outlet, but for a time words would not come. So, I took up my camera and started taking photographs in earnest, and I also returned to drawing, something I’ve enjoyed since I was a child.

Working on this different set of creative muscles gave my writing muscle the chance to recover from exhaustion, and eventually I could exercise it again. Now, photography inspires my writing while simultaneously satisfying a different creative compulsion.

August in Ireland is when mushrooms begin to emerge (although it varies year from year depending on the weather conditions). I love macro photography, so I started focusing on these incredible life forms as photographic subjects.

Bringing a camera on my walks with my dog has added an extra dimension to my daily foray into the woods: I’m always searching for an image to frame.

When looking for mushrooms to photograph, I generally find that the difficulty is spotting the first one. Then it is as if the veil has been pulled from your sight, and suddenly you see them everywhere.

After years of taking photos of mushrooms in my local area I have a virtual map in my head of where they tend to colonise. Although, they are always surprising me by cropping up in a new location.

One of my favourite varieties is the Shaggy Ink Cap. Last year this duo sprouted across the road from my house. I noticed them as I was driving home, and pulled over the car quickly. I hopped out – leaving my dog perplexed in the back seat – and snapped a couple of pictures quickly.

A lot of the time you are taking images under the shade of a canopy of leaves and shrubs, and up close to the rich humus mushrooms love, which presents the challenge of shooting photographs in low-light conditions. And we are not always blessed with sunlight during what’s optimistically called summer in Ireland.

I don’t pack a lot of equipment with me. I don’t own a DSLR for instance. I’ve always opted for a portable camera I could slip into a bag or a pocket, and pull out quickly when I needed it.

These days I take a lot of my photographs with my mobile phone camera, as it’s on me all the time. ‘The camera you carry is the camera you use’, is a version of a mantra you hear often among photographers.

Mushrooms appear quickly and can disappear just as fast. The main axiom I follow is: ‘Take the shot when you see it’. You may not have the opportunity again.

It turns out to be a good philosophy for life too.

Maura McHugh lives in Galway, Ireland, and writes comic books and prose. Her latest collection is Twisted Fairy Tales, which is available to buy in the USA.

My sincere and heartfelt thanks to Horrod and Harris for their awesome work.

BLACK FEATHERS MASTER NEW H264 from HORROD AND HARRIS on Vimeo.

Daniele Serra’s wonderful event artwork.

The Edinburgh launch, (30th March, 3-5pm, Blackwell’s) a combined event with Horror giant Gary McMahon and Zombie godfather David Moody, has sold out of seats – no wonder, considering the cannibalistic Jasper Bark is hosting the evening – but extra tickets have been printed for standing room.

Please e-mail events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk with the subject line ‘This Is Horror Event’ or call 0131 622 8218 for your free ticket.

***

The London launch (5th April, 6.30-9pm, Big Green Bookshop) is also free, with snacks and beverages provided. There’s no need to book for this one. I’ll do a brief talk and short reading and spend the rest of the evening chatting with whoever turns up.

I have to admit, I’m pretty excited about these two evenings and can’t wait to see the book finally ‘fly’ – it’s been a long time in the making.

My sincere and heartfelt thanks to the organisers:

Ellie Wixon of Blackwell’s, Edinburgh for inviting me and for publicising the event so brilliantly; Michael Wilson for flying the ever-popular This Is Horror banner over the launch and bringing in such big names; Simon and Tim for turning their shop into a BIG PARTY!

SciFiNow Review

- thanks for sharing, sir!

Since my last round up another swathe of great reviews have come in for Black Feathers. As you can see from the countdown to the right, there’s less than a month to go until UK publication (and less than three weeks until the American release)!

The final printed copies arrived at Angry Robot HQ this morning – gorgeous or what?

My thanks this week go to Jason for his BoneBreaker post, Horror Fiction Review, Bane of Kings (for The Founding Fields) and the wonderful woman I know only as ‘karen’ who put this awesome response on Goodreads, resulting in forty shelf adds! Karen, you are awesome!

This Is Horror are also having a big Joseph D’Lacey week with a written, in depth look at Splinters and a two-part podcast on the project. Part one was very difficult to listen to for me, as three horror experts carved a Y-shaped incision into the book and completely dissected it. Still, the verdict was good and the podcast contains another chance to hear Richard Kellum reading the infamous Son of Porn (adult content).

I have two Black Feathers launches coming up and will dedicate a full post to those in the next few days.

Have a lovely weekend!

It was all champagne and laughter,
Real love, real ales and beers.
By morning all the fizz went flat,
I’d seen the curry in your ears.

You’d hid it well the night before
Beneath your flowing silken locks
But you’ve got lughole biriyani
And some chutney in your socks.

There’s passanda in your pockets
And chapatis in your pants.
The vindaloo that’s in the loo
May spoil this new romance.

When I saw you in that beer tent,
I never thought to worry
That you’d stuff naan bread up your nose
And plug your ears with curry.

There’s bhoona in your brassiere,
Tandoori ‘twixt your toes.
Where you keep your hot Madras
Shiva only knows.

You truly are a spicy lass
That could be my good luck.
Let’s go share a takeaway
And then a nice hot Bombay duck.