A Book Release Without a Book

Friend and fellow author, Richard Dansky, from Durham, NC, has a new novel release (Ghosts of Smoke and Flame), so last evening, he had a book release party at Bond Brothers Beer Co. in Cary, NC. Brugger and I decided to attend the event, and since Cary's a good couple of hours from here, we made a day of it in the Raleigh-Durham area. We left Martinsville shortly after noon, grabbed a couple of geocaches, and stopped for a late lunch at Ted's Montana Grill in Durham, which has long been one of my favorite dining destinations when I've been geocaching out that way. Ted's has bison. Lots and lots of delicious bison. So, yes, I had a bison burger. Brugger, however, is not so enamored of bison and had a beef burger. But she loved it, and that's what counts.

She had some shopping to do, so I dropped her off at Streets at Southpoint shopping area and went after a number of caches nearby. After all this, we made our way in the direction of Cary and discovered a nice wine bar called Maximillian's, which was very near our destination, so we each had a glass of wine. And from there, it was off to Rich's event.

Only problem was that he had no books! The copies he'd ordered from the publisher had not arrived on time, so we were forced to simply enjoy a party and his company. Heavens, I tell you! Bond Brothers has some very good beer, though I took it pretty easy since I would eventually have to drive us back to Martinsville. We had a really fine time all around, and Rich will surely have copies at Scares That Care AuthorCon VI next week, where we'll be doing readings together. I shall grab a copy then.

 

We snagged a late, light dinner at Scratch Kitchen & Taproom, right around the corner from Rich's party, which was enjoyable; worth a return whenever we night be in the area again. 

 

You can order Richard Dansky's Ghosts of Smoke and Flame here. And if you're planning to be at AuthorCon VI, I hope to see you!

Coming Soon — AuthorCon VI in Willamsburg

It's less than two weeks to Scares That Care: AuthorCon VI in Williamsburg, VA, and I'll be there with a passel of scary, fun, cosmic goodies, including The House at Black Tooth Pond, Blue Devil Island, Gods of Moab, and many others. This year, I'll be set up in the main ballroom. I'll also be on a handful of panels and doing a reading with Richard Dansky. Here is my schedule:

 

Friday, February 27
7:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m., Cosmic Horror 2026, with Ben Farthing, Amanda Headlee, Thomas R. Clark, Todd Keisling, Mary SanGiovanni, and Tommy B. Smith (2nd Floor, Room 18)

 

Saturday, February 28
11:00 a.m.–11:45 a.m., Reading with Richard Dansky (Second Floor, Room I)

12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m., Folk Horror, with Jonathan Gensler, Jennifer McMahon, Thomas R. Clark, Tony Evans, and Bitter Karella (Second Floor, Room 17)

 

Sunday, March 1
12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m., Vintage Paperbacks, with Sidney Williams, Mark Sieber, Phrique, Jason Cavallaro, Craig Brownlie, and Bitter Karella (Second Floor, Room 18)

 

I can't wait to see bunches and bunches of you there!

A DISTURBANCE OF SHADOWS: From Creepy to Creepier

Sidney Williams' newest novel, a fairly short one titled A Disturbance of Shadows, begins on an intriguing note: Bryn and Reyes, on a trip to investigate a ghostly legend for their paranormal podcast, end up with their vehicle disabled, are found by a man who appears genuinely helpful, and are led to Lovegrove Farm, where help appears imminent. However, the house itself has a haunted history, which involves Aleister Crowley, so they turn their efforts from their original story to the house. As things begin to turn truly weird, it becomes clear they may have bitten off more than they can chew.

Sidney Williams has an engaging authorial voice, and I loved following the characters as they make their way down increasingly intriguing—and menacing—corridors. We have some quirky (and a few dangerous) characters, a smattering of genuine surprises, and a powerful climax. A Disturbance of Shadows is a solid, well-crafted story, and I quite enjoyed it. My only real caveat is that the text is typo-heavy, occasionally enough to distract me from the narrative. Cleaning those up would help the reading flow.

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A Disturbance of Shadows by
Sidney Williams at Amazon.com

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Do or Do Not. There Is no Try.

Neither Brugger nor I feel any great affinity for Valentine's Day, but we do enjoy it as an annual opportunity for a night out that we probably wouldn't bother with otherwise. I know, really romantic, right? This isn't to say we haven't had some superb Valentine's outings in years past; we certainly have, such as at GIA and Imperial Koi in Greensboro, The Celtic Fringe in Reidsville, The Third Bay in Martinsville, and many others. (We've had our share of miserable ones as well, such as in 2020, when a seriously impaired young man—who has since died, evidently of a drug overdose—smashed into my car.) We opted to stay local last night, so we made reservations at TAD Tavern here, which has been around for a couple of years, and we've visited it on a few prior occasions.

 

I cannot tell you how much we want to love TAD Tavern. It's one of the few reasonably upscale restaurants in town, the atmosphere in the place is lovely, and we've had good food there. Unfortunately, on every one of our visits, we've had issues ranging from serious staffing shortages, unavailable menu and drink items, and an only sporadically manned bar. We pretty much expected not to have a zippy dinner last night because it was quite crowded, but sadly, all three of the above issues raised their ugly heads, which really took some of the zip out of our experience.

 

It took 30 minutes after being seated to get a couple of glasses of water, 45 minutes after ordering to receive our bar drinks (they did not even have the fixings—gin & vermouth—to make a martini), and 90 minutes to get food (we'd kept our order simple, realizing it might be a very long night—chicken tenders for both of us). I know the servers were trying hard, but they were hopelessly inadequate to handle the crowd. Since TAD Tavern promoted the hell out of their Valentine's night dinner, we'd really hoped that the place would finally come through with flying colors. Alas.

All that said, the food was very good, and this experience beat the hell out of having your car smashed for Valentine's Day. Still, given the fact that after a couple of years, the issues we've dealt with in the past have not improved (quite the contrary), I can't help but fear that TAD Tavern will be unable to fulfill their promise of becoming a top-notch restaurant. Trust me, I want to be proven wrong, and we may yet give them one more chance. I know they're trying, but as a certain Jedi knight once said, "Do or do not. There is no try."

 

Cmon, guys—let's DO. 

Be Wiched to Save the Day

This morning, the timer on the coffeemaker was one minute from going off when — ZZZZT! POW! — out goes the power. We're having major winds, with gusts up to 55 mph, and they hit us early.

If you've had the misfortune of experiencing morning Mark before he's had coffee, you are aware that this is a horrid state of affairs. After several hours in this state, we hauled ourselves into town and found coffee, plus a really fine breakfast, at Be Wiched, in Uptown Martinsville. Thus, I am marginally alive again. Be Wiched owner Kathy Kitzmiller also owns a brand-new boutique — The 9th House — and today was its grand opening. There were mimosas and other treats, so Brugger was ecstatic about finding such a cool place in town.

Happily, we made the best of an increasingly uncomfortable situation, and the power came back on a short time ago. It's freezing out there, and it was getting that way inside. So, we're hoping the wind dies down, and we don't go dark again tonight. Temp is supposed to be 13° F, with a wind chill below 0°.

Ironically, we're about to have a generator installed, but alas, too late to help us this go-around.

 

Last night, though, was an enjoyable time. Lately, we've been spending Friday afternoons at Hamlet Kitchen, right up the street from us. They have a good selection of their own wines, and some decent food you can get for take-out. Last night, we spent an enjoyable couple of hours with some wine. Our regular hostess brought us a couple of glasses with "personalized" napkins — a party theme for Brugger (naturally!) and a semi-humorous Hemingway quote for me (even more naturally!). For afters, we watched Alien: Covenant, which really isn't a favorite, but we've been watching others in the Alien franchise, so we figured we otter.

 

In the immortal words of the late, great Dr. Franklin Ruehl, it was better than a slap in the belly with a wet trout.

Sylvan County's Voice of Love, Wisdom, and What All

Know what? I feel compelled to inflict this on you. When we were kids, my brother and I made tape recordings of a little fictitious radio station, WDUM, and on it, we did a show called "Mother Bell" which consisted primarily of prank phone calls. It occurred to me the other day that I should include Mother Bell as a podcast in the sequel to The House at Black Tooth Pond, tentatively titled Broken Barriers.. Prepare to be inflicted upon.

The Mother Bell Podcast
Sylvan County’s Voice of Wisdom, Love, and What All

Hello, children! This is Mother Bell, back with you on a chilly Sunday evening, hoping that come tomorrow, you survive your daring leap back into the workweek. I myself have had the loveliest weekend, and I trust you did too. My son, Scott, and his wife, Bethany, and my two grandchildren, Johnny and Mary Lynn, visited me yesterday, and I can’t tell you what it means to me that they give so freely of their time and energy in my old age. Without them, I could not get by. Oh no, I could not! And I know, many of my friends and neighbors are envious of this, and even some of you, too. But that’s okay. Y’all just envy away. Someday or another, everybody’s gonna get what’s coming to ’em.

Speaking of, whatever is coming, ain’t nobody knows, but I’m here to tell you things here in our town are spooky. It’s like, not so long ago, all these people from here vanished under 'mysterious circumstances.' So, what about our good ol’ sheriff, huh? Well, he and his people did their investigation stuff and such for a while, and then...they up and threw up their hands. Well, that’s what I heard. Then the FBI comes along, and they do their FBI stuff and such, and then they throw up their hands and go away.

I ask you, children, what is going on here?

Imma let you in on a secret. A lot of y’all know that I live up on Copper Peak, and in my lifetime, I have seen devils flying around up here. These are real, true devils, not just bad people who’ve never had the Lord in their hearts. I know, nowadays, we prefer to think that the devil is nothing more than the evil that human beings do, but I’m here to tell you, it’s not like that. These are the most frightening things you could ever imagine, and sometimes you can even smell ’em. Sometimes, that’s the only way to know they’re nearby.

And listen. They’re not just up on Copper Peak. Oh, no, they’re all around in this old, old part of the country, lurking and skulking in the dark shadows.

So, I’m telling you, children, keep the Lord in your hearts and be vigilant. Be careful of these devils. If you see them, they may well see you. And if they do, you’d better be wearing the Lord’s armor, else they may not pass you by. I keep my armor on day and night, and I surely do thank the Lord every day for His protection and His mercy.

We gonna talk more about this in a bit, but right now, I’m gonna put on one of my all-time favorite praiseful songs, “This Is the Day That the Lord Has Made,” sung by the incomparable Mr. Fillmore Skillman, for you to contemplate and enjoy. And while I’m gone, let it be known, like I always tell you: you won’t see me, but Imma see you, because I’m gonna be around, children. So, bye-bye for now, and I’ll be back in five.

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