BROKEN BARRIERS Up for Pre-Order!

The ebook and paperback editions of Broken Barriers are now up for preorder! Look for the book's release on December 1, 2026. The audiobook will be released shortly thereafter. The link will take you to books2read.com, where you can select your preferred retail outlet.

Broken Barriers is the sequel to The House at Black Tooth Pond, but it stands well enough alone if you've not read the first book.

 

BROKEN BARRIERS
The compelling sequel
to The House at
Black Tooth Pond

SIX WEEKS AGO: A series of horrific events rocked the small, mountain community of Aiken Mill, Virginia — a weirdly mutilated body vanishing from the town morgue and numerous prominent individuals going missing without a trace — leaving both local and Federal law enforcement agencies baffled.

NOW: Celeste Muir, a former FBI agent with extensive experience in paranormal phenomena, allies herself with Aiken Mill Sheriff Bryce Parrott to face the unknown forces that have terrorized the town.

Enter Leo Bray. A sinister, grotesque stranger who appears to know more than anyone should about the recent calamities. Every person he contacts first suffers anxiety, followed by hallucinations, and then uncanny visions of other worlds. Other dimensions.

With their every step forward, Agent Muir and Sheriff Parrott encounter ever-more menacing terrors. Who is Leo Bray? What is his connection with the dire events plaguing the community? And what new, vast horror is stirring at Black Tooth Pond — a dark, legend-haunted body of water hidden deep in the surrounding forest?

Time is running out for the people of Aiken Mill.

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Visit Books2Read.com to order from the vendor of your choice here

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BROKEN BARRIERS Cover Reveal

On the heels of yesterday's Distant Early Warning, here's the cover of Broken Barriers, with art by J. Edward Neill (who provided the cover art for both The House at Black Tooth Pond and Deathrealm: Spirits) and graphic design by yours truly.

 

The paperback and ebook editions off Broken Barriers are scheduled for release on December 1, 2026, and should be up for preorder very soon. The audiobook will follow shortly afterward. I will, of course, post that announcement at the earliest opportunity

THE NIGHTMARE FRONTIER Now Available in Paperback!

Please allow me to interrupt the day's more critical issues (over which I've been venting my brain perhaps more than most people want to hear) to inform you that my 2010 novel, The Nightmare Frontier, up until now available in ebook and audiobook format, is now out as a trade paperback from Macabre Ink/Crossroad Press. Back in the day, this one had something of a quiet release and never gained as much attraction as I feel it deserved. It's a novel I'm rather fond of—something of a melange of folk and cosmic horror, set in rural West Virginia. The paperback contains a few general revisions and corrects a handful of errors present in the original release. Here's a little summary for you:

The town of Silver Ridge, West Virginia, has disappeared from the face of the earth.

A vast chasm prevents any living soul from crossing into the community. From above, only an impenetrable layer of mist marks the spot where the town had existed. Inside Silver Ridge, the nightmare is just beginning.

 

Confined by this unimaginable barrier, the townspeople find themselves confronted by the denizens of a distant dimension: horrifying creatures that intend to transform the valley town into an outpost hospitable to their existence. To these extra-dimensional travelers, human beings are nothing more than pests to be exterminated.

Russ Copeland and Debra Harrington are determined to resist… but as they face death to restore Silver Ridge to its rightful place on Earth, they find that their true enemy may not be the incomprehensible invaders, but an insidious evil whose origin is closer to home than they can imagine.

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“REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS LIKE to read a horror novel that actually made you sweat with dread and your hand shake ever-so-slightly as you turned the page? Remember what it was like to feel your heart thud against your chest as the plight of the characters became your own? Stephen Mark Rainey’s The Nightmare Frontier delivers the goods. This is the Good, Real Stuff. From its powerful opening in the jungles of Vietnam to its nerve-wracking finale, this novel never releases its grip on the reader’s nerves, brains, and heart.”—Gary A. Braunbeck, author of In Silent Graves, Things Left Behind, and others

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The paperback—the backcover and interior of which I was pleased to be able to design myself—is only $13.99 and available NOW. Please check it out!

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Order The Nightmare Frontier in Paperback from Amazon.com

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Coming in February 2025: THE HOUSE AT BLACK TOOTH POND

“Welcome to Aiken Mill, Virginia—The Cold Case Capital of the World.”
My new novel, The House at Black Tooth Pond, is scheduled for release by Macabre Ink (the horror imprint of Crossroad Press) in February 2025...and yes, I have the excitement!

AIKEN MILL, VA: A legend-haunted town in Sylvan County, located in a remote mountainous corner of the state. Now, a mutilated body has turned up in the town. During his investigation, Sheriff Bryce Parrott discovers frightening clues that lead him to believe that some inhuman force may be responsible for the killing.

While exploring the darkest corners of Sylvan County, psychology professor Martin Pritchett and his brother, Phillip, happen upon a crumbling, century-old house beside a body of water called Black Tooth Pond. A strange compulsion leads both men back to the house time and time again, but neither can remember any of the events that occur there.

As both Sheriff Parrott and the Pritchett brothers attempt to solve their respective mysteries, their paths begin to converge — paths that lead directly to the ancient, foreboding house at Black Tooth Pond.

Pre-orders will be available very soon. Stay tuned for more... much more!... about The House at Black Tooth Pond!

"Stephen Mark Rainey's talent is on display here like never before. His masterful use of imagery transported me to shadow-haunted Sylvan County. I heard the eerie cry of the whippoorwill, that cry that marks the presence of the evil entity that roams the woods and lurks within the walls of the house at Black Tooth Pond. You will hear it, too."—Mike Davis, The Lovecraft eZine

Cover art by J. Edward Neill; pen & ink rendering by me, circa 1990, of the actual house that is the basis for the setting in this novel.