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

Distant Early Warning: BROKEN BARRIERS....

I am excited to announce that have delivered the final files for Broken Barriers, my sequel to The House at Black Tooth Pond, to Crossroad Press, so it should be up for pre-order very soon. The release date hasn't been set yet, but I anticipate it for later this year or very early next. The image above is one I created for the book's interior, and I will post the cover (featuring art by J. Edward Neill) as soon as it's up for pre-order.

 

Here's a little teaser...

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 horrifically 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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Read More About BROKEN BARRIERS
at stephenmarkrainey.com

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“Stephen Mark Rainey is the only writer whose prose ever gave me an actual thrill of fear. In Broken Barriers, he takes us back to the town of Aiken Mill for his own style of combined Lovecraftian and Appalachian horror. The plot hurtles along, gripping the reader with damn near unbearable tension as the characters scramble to make sense of the horror overwhelming the sleepy college town. I sure stayed up way too late, unable to turn the pages fast enough.”

—Matthew Carpenter, The Lovecraft eZine

“The cry of the whippoorwill is not what it seems, investigators are baffled, and the town of Aiken Mill—often known as ‵the cold case capital of the world´—holds ancient, terrifying secrets. Cosmic horror readers will devour this sequel to The House at Black Tooth Pond.”

—Mike Davis, The Lovecraft eZine

“A new novel from Stephen Mark Rainey is always cause for celebration, and Broken Barriers, a direct sequel to The House at Black Tooth Pond, does not disappoint. Rainey’s story is full of subtle wit and creeping dread, sitting somewhere near the intersection of Twin Peaks, The X-Files, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and The Kingdom of Nye. I had a blast.”

—K. L. Young, author of The Secret Language of Spiders and others

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