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!

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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OUR SHADOWED PAST III on Terror at Collinwood

A couple of weeks back, Bob Issel and I appeared on Penny Dreadful's Terror at Collinwood podcast to talk about his latest Dark Shadows volume, Our Shadowed Past III, which he and I spent several weeks producing, back in August and September (see "Our Shadowed Past III Is in the Works," September 16, 2025). Penny Dreadful—a.k.a. Danielle Gelehrter—has been running this Dark Shadows–themed show for I don't know many years now, and I've had the honor of appearing on it numerous times. This time around, Bob and I get into the nuts and bolts about how Our Shadowed Past III was conceived, developed, and produced, and how so many Dark Shadows fans contributed meaningful essays, stories, artwork, and photographs to bring Bob's most ambitious publishing project to life.

 

The book itself is 256 big-ass pages in full, bloody color, with hundreds of photographs of countless events and fan gatherings, with an entire section devoted to those at Seaview Terrace in Newport, Rhode Island, which served as Collinwood in the original Dark Shadows TV series (1966–1971).

 

We had a great time on the podcast, and our thanks to Penny Dreadful for seeing fit to inflict Bob and me upon an unsuspecting world.

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Our Shadowed Past III on Terror at Collinwood!

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OUR SHADOWED PAST III Is in the House

During the month of September, I spent my days hard at work designing, laying out, and creating graphics for one of the most intensely detailed projects I've ever undertaken: the third in a series of books about the legendary TV series, Dark Shadows, titled Our Shadowed Past, created by the legendary Bob Issel, Dark Shadows devotee and mastermind of many evil things. (See "Our Shadowed Past III In the Works," September 16, 2025). It's a 256-page volume of essays by fans, interviews with show's stars, fan fiction, and—as the book's centerpiece—a retrospective of the many fan gatherings, all organized by Mr. Issel, at Seaview Terrace, a.k.a. Collinwood, in Newport, Rhode Island. There's also a detailed look at Dark Shadows: Sanctuary, which would have been the fourth Dark Shadows audio drama I wrote for Big Finish, had things not gone south prior to its production.

This book is a big, sturdy monster, with around 750 photos throughout, about half of which comprise the Seaview Terrace retrospective section. Alas, I've never been to any of the Seaview gatherings. Brugger and I were planning to go last year, but HBO tossed a monkey wrench in that plan—see "A Weekend in Providence," November 19, 2024 for details. But the in-depth essays and photo albums from the gatherings are so detailed and immersive, it really makes me feel as though I were a part of it all. We're still hoping we can get there for a gathering at some point, though the Carey family, who owns Seaview, has put it up for sale (at a cheap $29.5 million). We'll just have to see how things pan out in the coming days.

If you're even a casual Dark Shadows fan, I don't think you could ask for a better, more compelling volume to draw you into the world of Collinsport, Maine, and the big house on the hill known as Collinwood.

 

Our Shadowed Past III, like its predecessors, is a very limited edition, so few copies will be available beyond those who pre-ordered the book. However, I can't recommend this big honking love letter to Dark Shadows highly enough, so if you are interested in a copy, email Mr. Issel at bobubas59@gmail.com right now, and I mean NOW. You'll not regret it.

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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Release Day—THE HOUSE AT BLACK TOOTH POND

It's here—release day for my newest novel, The House at Black Tooth Pond! Now available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

“Welcome to Aiken Mill, Virginia—The Cold Case Capital of the World.”  

A mutilated, unidentifiable body has turned up in this legend-haunted town in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. During his investigation, Sheriff Bryce Parrott uncovers a series of frightening clues that lead him to believe that some inhuman force may be responsible for the gruesome murder.

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 dark 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.

The word on the street...
"Author Stephen Mark Rainey takes the abandoned house in the woods trope and turns it inside out as the walls of the House at Black Tooth Pond close in on the reader page by page, scene by scene. Rainey tells a dark, claustrophobic story bursting with atmosphere, with just enough dread to keep horror fans satisfied, and mystery to whet the appetites of thriller fans."—Michael Laimo, author of Dark Ride, Missed Connection, The Demonologist, and others

"Stephen Mark Rainey's The House of Black Tooth Pond dwells at the intersection between the traditional haunted house story and tales of cosmic dread, expertly combining both into a frightening, genre-bending novel that both thrills and chills.—Peter Rawlik, author of Reanimators, Reanimatrix, The Book of Yig

"What T.E.D. Klein did for Lovecraftian horror set in upstate New York and NYC, Stephen Mark Rainey does for the rural South."—Leverett Butts, author of Guns of the Waste Land

"Stephen Mark Rainey's talent is on display here like never before. His masterful use of imagery transported me to Sylvan County. I heard the eerie cry of the whippoorwill, the cry that marks the presence of an 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, Lovecraft eZine

"I read The House at Black Tooth Pond in one sitting—it was that exciting and that frightening. Think of a traditional haunted house story but on LSD."—Carson Buckingham, Hellnotes

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Buy The House at Black Tooth Pond
(ebook, paperback, and audiobook)

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My rendering of the actual structure on which "The House at Black Tooth Pond" is based

The Gods of Moab Now Available in Paperback!

The Gods of Moab is a novella I wrote in 2012, and since then it's been available only as an ebook. I've had enough queries over the years about whether I might consider releasing it as a paperback that I finally decided to just jump in and do it. So... 'tis here!

  

"A pleasant New Year's Eve outing becomes an experience in otherworldly horror when two close-knit couples discover a shocking secret in the darkest corners of the Appalachian mountains. At an opulent mountain inn, Warren Burr, his fiancee, Anne, and their friends, Roger and Kristin Leverman, encounter a religious zealot named John Hanger, who makes it his business to bear witness to them of his peculiar... and disturbing... faith. His efforts rebuffed, Hanger insidiously assumes control of the couples' technological devices, leading them to stumble into unexpected, surreal landscapes... landscapes inhabited by nightmarish beings that defy explanation and rationality. To return to the world they thought they knew, Warren and his friends must not only escape the deadly entities that pursue them but somehow stop John Hanger's nightmare-plague from spreading to the outside world."

The Gods of Moab is a frightening novella by Stephen Mark Rainey, acclaimed author of Balak, Blue Devil Island, Other Gods, The Nightmare Frontier, and editor of the award-winning Deathrealm magazine and best-selling Deathrealm: Spirits anthology.

"After devouring The Gods of Moab in one short sitting, this novella has not only become my favorite work by the author, it has become one of my favorite reads of the year. Rainey balances his supernatural frights with the natural, and it works beautifully. From the first page to its mind-bending final sentences, The Gods of Moab will have readers wide-eyed and enthralled." —TTZuma, HorrorWorld

 

I plan to have copies available at my Magnolia & Main Booksigning on July 20; at NecronomiCon in Providence, RI, August 15–18; and the Spencer-Penn Centre Local Authors Booksigning Event on September 21. You know I'll post updates as necessary!

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Order The Gods of Moab from Amazon.com here!

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Distant Early Warning Alert:Scares That Care Presents AuthorCon III!

It's coming up on the horizon — Scares That Care Presents AuthorCon 3 — happening at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Williamsburg, April 12–14, 2024. It's one of the best gatherings of horror/fantasy/science-fiction authors and fans on the planet, and I'll be there at the Crossroad Press table in the hotel's Promenade area, with plenty of copies of Fugue Devil: Resurgence, Deathrealm: Spirits, Blue Devil Island, my various Ameri-Scares titles, and many others on hand.

AuthorCon 3 includes hundreds of authors, a massive dealers' room, and top-notch programming. This year's guests of honor are Carver Pike, Aron Beauregard, Daniel J. Volpe, Kristopher Rufty, Eric LaRocca, Grady Hendrix, Paul Tremblay, John Langan, Valancourt Books, Michael Cisco, L. Marie Wood, Bryan Smith, Clay McLeod Chapman, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Chesya Burke, and R.J. Benetti.

Hope to see you there.

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Visit the Scares That Care Presents AuthorCon 3 Website

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The Second Shooter by Nick Mamatas

Enigmatic characters, conspiracies on top of conspiracies, and mysteries within mysteries make author Nick Mamatas's The Second Shooter one of the most engaging books I've read this year. Investigative reporter Mike Karras, on the hunt for the elusive "second shooter" — a shadowy but ubiquitous figure at countless mass-murder scenes — finds himself embroiled in one web of intrigue after another as he closes in on the truth behind the reports of countless, disparate witnesses.

Enterprising and tenacious, Karras embeds himself in various families and groups of witnesses, whose bizarre personalities — and fantastic ideas about what's "really" behind the second-shooter phenomenon — endlessly complicate his quest. To top things off, Karras ends up facing a formidable personal nemesis in the form of conspiracy theorist and podcaster Chris Bennett, whose far-out ideas make Alex Jones sound like Walter Cronkite and whose reach extends into literally every aspect of Karras's life.

As one might expect from this author, no thread in The Second Shooter leads you quite where you expect — I would even say a long way into "who'd have bleepin' thunk it?!" territory.

Mamatas's assured authorial voice makes The Second Shooter a gripping, noirish story that doesn't let go even when it soars clean over the top. Four and a half out of five Damned Rodan's Dirty Firetinis.

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Pick up The Second Shooter by Nick Mamatas
at Amazon.com

Fugue Devil: Resurgence — The Hardback Is in the House

At last, the hardcover edition of Fugue Devil: Resurgence is in the house!

Samaire Wynne, owner of Black Raven Books, came by last week to show it off. I’ve gotta tell you, this is one gorgeous book, with excellent graphic design inside and out. And, if I may say so, I think the stories within offer a few lovely chills and thrills.

The hardcover is $52, which includes shipping. You can order an autographed copy directly from the Black Raven site here: Fugue Devil: Resurgence at Black Raven Books (Scroll to the bottom of the page for the ordering link.) There are also ordering links for the paperback ($15.99) and ebook editions ($7.99).

And if you’ve been kind enough to read the book, please, please leave a review, particularly at Amazon.com. Every review does count, and, love the book or hate it, all are most appreciated.

It’s a Party! FUGUE DEVIL: RESURGENCE Book Release

Old writer dude and Samaire Wynne, owner of Black Raven Books

For me, this was a most anticipated day — the release party for Fugue Devil: Resurgence at Rioja! A Wine Bar, in Greensboro. Some weeks ago, Ms. B. and I visited Rioja, as we are often wont to do, and got to talking to Jake Assaf, the owner, about my upcoming book. He suggested we have a book release party at Rioja, and this struck us all as just about the best idea ever. Books! Wine! Food! Party! Many happy peoples! Wine! So, we settled on June 4 as the fateful day, and there has been plotting ever since.

Jake, owner of Rioja, took this photo of Ms. B.
and me just before the festivities commenced.

Samaire Wynne, good friend and the owner of Black Raven Books, came down from Martinsville, VA, for the event. My daughter, Allison, was in town, so she came too. I made up a bunch of appropriately themed tickets and scrounged up some door prizes, which included a couple of bottles of wine and a number of my earlier books — including Blue Devil Island, The Monarchs, West Virginia: Lair of the Mothman, and others. Things were scheduled to get started at 4:00 p.m., and — sure enough — the traffic flow began right on time. Before we knew it, Rioja was completely filled up, and we had wine, food, and books flowing all over the place. Naturally, I was hoping we'd have a good turnout since it meant significant sales for both us and for Jake, and we were so not disappointed. As far as I could see, Jake was hopping great guns the entire time, and we sold bundles of books. Everyone in the place seemed to enjoy themselves, and Ms. B. and I got to see many friends, old and new, from just about every sphere of personal influence — former officemates, geocachers, writers, artists, supper club mates, friends of friends... you name it.

After all these years and a lot of books, this was the first release party I've put on, and it will definitely go into the record books as successful. Now, whether I'll be fired up about doing this kind of thing for future books, who the heck knows? But for Fugue Devil: Resurgence, a big ol' party was just the ticket.

After the event, Brugger, Samaire, Allison, friends Terry & Beth, and I headed over to nearby World of Beer to snag some dinner. The place was a madhouse, at least at first, and we spent most of the next three hours waiting for drinks, waiting for food, waiting for service in general. We enjoyed the food, but the experience was far from fully satisfying, especially since the place cleared out quite a bit long before we were ever served. I've generally enjoyed the place, so I'm sure we'll give them another shot. I really hope they'll do better because, as near as we could tell, they could have and should have done better this time around.

So, a little sad we ended on a less-than-stellar note, but the high from the book event isn't going away anytime soon. 'Twas indeed lovely.

Devaluing a book for friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott)

Friends Mark and Kelly... Do they know what they're in for? Probably not....

Chad has already given the book a look. Tina has not.

Shiny happy people... or something

The crowd moves in.

Friend and former co-worker Heather happy to have snagged a copy. Little does she know....
Photo by James Lyons

Door prize tickets