Boo Books and Trying To Be So Quiet

Well.
 
I'd planned to do a brief blog post today about some new reviews for my Boo Books novella Trying To Be So Quiet - and I still am going to mention that - but they've been slightly overshadowed by the sad news from Alex Davis that Boo Books is to close. Boo Books have released some fantastic books and I'm proud to have been part of their rosta. And I'd like to thank Alex for all his hard work and encouragement, and wish him good luck with his future ventures.
 
The good news is that Boo Books titles are all still available as we speak, and I can personally recommend Andrew David Barker's The Electric and Dead Leaves, the Haunted anthology, and, based on her reading at Edge-Lit, Tracy Fahey's collection The Unheimlich Manouver.


Oh yeah, and those Trying To Be So Quiet reviews:
 
"If you like your quiet, stealthy, and throat-achingly sad, this one is for you." Tracy Fahey
"A must read, wonderful.", Yvonne Davies, Terror Tree


Trying To Be So Quiet is available as a hardback and ebook (UK | US). 

Edge-Lit 5 / The Thirteen Signs

I'll be at Edge-Lit 5 at the Derby Quad on Saturday 16th July. I'll be part of the Boo Books launch event, where I'll be talking about, and reading from, Trying To Be So Quiet, alongside Tracey Fahey who will be doing the same from her forthcoming collection The Unheimlich Manoeuvre. The launch takes place at 11am, which means I'll then have the rest of the day free for socialising, buying books, and attending panels and launches. Hope to see a few of you there - say hello!

One event I'll definitely be attending is the legendary Edge-lit raffle, hosted by Sarah Pinborough and Conrad Williams. Can't wait for the irreverent, abusive and foul-mouthed descriptions of the prizes... even though one of my books is up for grabs this year. *Gulp*


In other news, I'm pleased to say my story Hooked will be appearing in the anthology The Thirteen Signs, in which each author has written a story based on a sign of the zodiac. Mine was Pisces; just for the record, I hate all that astrology bumpkin, a view I've tried to subtlety work into my tale...

The anthology is edited by Dean M Drinkel and the full lineup is below:

The Order Of Aries - Mark West
Come Join The Blood Parade - Lily Childs
Seven For Eight - Romain Collier
Carapace - Raven Dane
Leo - Tim Dry
Solomon Carson And The Death Of A Virgin - Trevor Kennedy & Robert E. Tate
Leeber - Christine Dougherty
The Scorpion Dance - Amelia Mangan
One in Twelve - Steve Byrne
A Sorrow Of Sweet Pipings - Jan Edwards
Ganymede - Emile-Louis Tomas Jouvet
Hooked - James Everington
Worshipping The Snake- Dean M Drinkel

Shouting About Trying To Be So Quiet

More reviews for Trying To Be So Quiet recently which have made my day.

Des Lewis conducted one of his fabulous 'real time reviews' here, concluding with

"This work felt both devastating and uplifting to me. But how can that possibly be? And a great ghost story, to boot."

Anthony Watson praised by the production design and the story itself on his Dark Musings site.

And even one of my favourite current writers, Gary McMahon, had some kind words to say about it on Facebook:

"A small, quiet, poignant novella about grief and significance... No noise, no fuss, just good, honest writing about the things that matter. Recommended."

If any of these reviews have piqued your interest about TTBSQ, you can order it here.

"What loss actually feels like... "

Many thanks to the author Gary Fry for his advance review of Trying To Be So Quiet which is out very soon. Gary's an author whose work I enjoy and admire very much, so I was very pleased (not to mention surprised) that he has such good things to say about it:

 "I really enjoyed this short, condensed novelette, which is packed full of bitterness and yearning, defeatism and aspiration. It’s what loss actually feels like... It’s a fine piece of work."

You can read the whole review here (and while you're there, do yourself a favour and buy one of Fry's books too). Trying To Be So Quiet is available to preorder from Boo Books now.

Recommendation: Dead Leaves by Andrew David Barker

Dead Leaves is a new novella from Andrew David Barker, whose story of a haunted cinema, The Electric, turned a lot of heads last year (including mine).

The two books have a number of similarities, both being coming of age tales and both having a cinematic connection. But Dead Leaves is a darker and in some ways more cynical tale; it is set in Derby during the time of the early 80s 'video nasty' scare. Scott, Paul and Mark have finished school and are adrift, on the dole, the only options for employment seemingly the same dead end jobs they've seen their parents suffer with. All three of them love horror films but there's one none of them have seen: so they resolve to seek out the ultimate video nasty, the ultimate horror film: a VHS copy of The Evil Dead.

Their pursuit of this MacGuffin drives the story; as in The Electric, this is a story which underneath the plot is about friendship and growing up - the dynamics of the changing relationship between the three protagonists are expertly portrayed by Barker. But the portrayal of young adulthood is less idealistic than in his previous book, in part due to the grimmer backdrop of mindless tabloid censorship and the realities of Thatcher's Britain. Friendship feels more fragile, something which can be torn apart by an adult world that doesn't care for such things. This added grit, along with the shorter length and tighter focus, means that for me Dead Leaves more than equals The Electric. Which is saying something.

But there's hope and optimism too; their search for The Evil Dead allows the three friends to project their own meaning and values onto a world they seem to have no place in. A love letter to the horror genre and what it means to people, without being a horror story itself, Dead Leaves is, in short, absolutely fantastic.

You can preorder it from Boo Books, including a special limited edition in a VHS style case.

Announcement! Trying To Be So Quiet from Boo Books

News!

Delighted to say that Boo Books are to release my novella Trying To Be So Quiet, a story about ghosts and grief and how we manage to go on despite the fact of death. When Alex from Boo Books emailed me to say he wanted to take it on, he said it reminded him of Sarah Pinborough's superlative The Language Of Dying which is one of the best, and most surprising, things anyone's said about my writing so far.

The e-book edition of Trying to be So Quiet will be out at the end of October, followed by a limited edition hardback in Feb 2016, which will include artwork and bonus content and a cuddly toy*

Here's a picture of myself and Alex sealing the deal:

* actual contents may vary

Recommendation: The Electric by Andrew David Barker

A brief post about a book I wish I had the time to write more about, The Electric by Andrew David Barker. I picked up a copy of this at last year's Edgelit, after many people had recommend it to me. And I can see why - The Electric is a wonderfully written supernatural coming of age story, about a group of three teenagers who find a strange, abandoned cinema near their home town. But despite being long shutdown, there still seem to be films shown at The Electric, and to a very niche audience...

The book genuinely captures the feeling of being a teenager, on the cusp of adulthood, and all that that entails. In tone, this is similar to Stephen King's The Body or the work of Ray Bradbury. The author's love of cinema really comes across as well, although you don't need to be a film buff to thoroughly enjoy a book as good as this. The only minor irritant I had with it was that sometimes the scares associated with the supernatural elements of the plot seemed a bit nebulous, but this is one of those stories that isn't really about the ghosts anyway but about growing up, friendship and the pain of nostalgia. 

And, like all the best movies, it's a bit of a tear-jerker as well. Recommended.

Favourite Short Stories of 2014

I've been keeping a list of the best short stories I read this year - they weren't all necessarily published this year, but they're all relatively recent. I read a lot of short stories, so although there's nearly a hundred below that doesn't mean I've not been very strict in selecting what to include. Each story had to impress me enough to make a note of it in the first place, and then still seem as impressive when I whittled the list down for this post.

I've tried not to include too many stories from any single author or from any specific book; in all cases I've listed the publication I read the story in, not necessarily where it was originally published.

Last year I had a few emails from readers saying they discovered some new stories from the 2013 list, so I hope that's the case this time. And a big cheesy thank you to all the authors & publishers, for the inspiration, exhilaration (and not a little envy) your stories gave me.

Nina Allen: Seeing Nancy (The Mammoth Book Of Ghost Stories By Women)
Stephen Bacon: Apports (Black Static #36)
Stephen Bacon: I Am A Creation Of Now (Peel Back The Sky, Gray Friar Press)
Stephen Bacon: The Trauma Statement (Peel Back The Sky, Gray Friar Press)
Richard Farren Barber: Bus Routes Through the Sticks (The Horror Fields, Morpheus Tales Publishing)
Richard Farren Barber: Where The Stones Lie (The 13 Ghosts Of Christmas, Spectral Press)
Jasper Bark: How The Dark Bleeds (Stuck On Your & Other Prime Cuts, Crystal Lake)
Laird Barron: Nemesis (Primeval: A Journal Of The Uncanny #1) 
Simon Bestwick: A Kiss Of Old Thorns (The Condemned, Gray Friar Press)
Michael Blumlein: Success (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Eric Brown: The Disciples Of Apollo (Ghostwriting, Infinity Plus)
Eric Brown: The Man Who Never Read Novels (Ghostwriting, Infinity Plus)
Pat Cadigan: Chalk (This Is Horror chapbook)
Chloe N Clark: Mud (The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society Feb 2014)
Chloe N Clark: Who Walks Beside You (Supernatural Tales #25)
Ray Cluley: The Festering (Black Static #36)
Ray Cluley: Water For Drowning (This Is Horror chapbook)
Ray Cluley & Ralph Robert Moore: The Space Between (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Undertow)
Erin Cole: Between Feathers & Furs (February Femme Fatales)
MR Cosby: Necessary Procedure (Dying Embers, Satalyte Publishing)
MR Cosby: Turning The Cups (Haunted, Boo Books)
Anthony Cowin: The Brittle Birds (Perpetual Motion Machine)
KT Davies: Zombie Worms Ate My Hamster (Worms, Knightwatch Press)
Kristi DeMeester: Like Feather, Like Bone (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Paul M Feeney: The Weight Of The Ocean (Phrenic Press)
Gary Fry: Biofeedback (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Terry Grimwood: Red Hands (The Exaggerated Man & Other Stories, The Exaggerated Press)
Terry Grimwood: Soul Masque (Spectral Press chapbook)
Stephen Graham Jones: The Elvis Room (This Is Horror chapbook)
Rachel Halsall: The Conch (Hauntings, Hic Dragones)
Frances Hardinge: Slink-Thinking (La Femme, NewCon Press)
Hannah Kate: Lever's Row (Hauntings, Hic Dragones)
Holly Ice: Trysting Antlers (La Femme, NewCon Press)
Jane Jakeman: Adoptagrave (Supernatural Tales #16)
Carole Johnstone: Scent (The Bright Day Is Done, Gray Friar Press)
Carole Johnstone: Stomping Ground (The Bright Day Is Done, Gray Friar Press)
Joel Lane: Like Shattered Stone (Joel Lane Archive, Spectral Press)
Emma Lannie: There Is A Light & It Never Goes Out (After The Fall, Boo Books)
VH Leslie: Namesake (Black Static #36)
VH Leslie: The Quiet Room (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Undertow)
Alison Littlewood: The Dog's Home (The Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)
Livia Llewellyn: Furnace (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Sean Logan: The Tagalong (Supernatural Tales #27)
Johnny Mains: Aldeburgh (Frightfully Cosy and Mild Stories for Nervous Types, Shadow Publishing)
Usman T Malik: Ishq (Black Static #43)
Nick Mamatas: And Then, And Then, And Then... (Innsmouth Free Press)
Amelia Mangan: If I Were You (X7, Knightwatch Press)
Amelia Mangan: These Blasted Lands (After The Fall, Boo Books)
Helen Marshall: Death & The Girl From Phi Delta Zeta (Gifts For The One Who Comes After, Chizine)
Helen Marshall: In The Year Of Omens (Gifts For The One Who Comes After, Chizine)
Helen Marshall: We Ruin The Sky (Gifts For The One Who Comes After, Chizine)
Laura Mauro: When Charlie Sleeps (Black Static #37)
Gary McMahon: For The Night Is Dark (Knightwatch Press chapbook)
Gary McMahon: The Ghost Of Rain (Tales Of The Weak & Wounded, Dark Regions Press)
SP Miskowski: This Many (Little Visible Delight, Omnium Gatherum)
Alison Moore: Eastmouth (The Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)
Alice Munro: Queenie (Penguin chapbook)
Scott Nicholay: Eyes Exchange Bank (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Thana Niveau: And May All Your Christmases (The 13 Ghosts Of Christmas, Spectral Press)
Thana Niveau: Stolen To Time (From Hell To Eternity, Gray Friar Press)
Antony Oldknow: Ruelle Des Martyrs (Supernatural Tales #26)
Jonathan Oliver: Baby 17 (British Fantasy Society Journal #11)
Reggie Oliver & MR James: The Game Of Bear (The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror #21)
Stephen Palmer: Palestinian Sweets (La Femme, NewCon Press)
Sarah Pinborough: Collect Call (The Mammoth Book Of Ghost Stories By Women)
John Llewellyn Probert: The Secondary Host (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Iain Rowan: The Grey Ship (52 Songs, 52 Stories)
Iain Rowan: Waiting For The Man (52 Songs, 52 Stories)
Nicholas Royle: Dead End (X7, Knightwatch Press)
Nicholas Royle: The Reunion (The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror #21)
Lynda E Rucker: Beneath The Drops (The Moon Will Look Strange, Karoshi Books)
Lynda E Rucker: The Moon Will Look Strange (The Moon Will Look Strange, Karoshi Books)
Karen Runge: The Philosopher (Pantheon July 2013)
Daniel I Russell: Following Orders (Phobophobias, Western Legends Publishing)
Ray Russell: Company (Supernatural Tales #16)
Eric Schaller: To Assume The Writer's Crown: Notes On The Craft (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Undertow)
Robert Shearman: Granny's Grinning (The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror #21)
Robert Shearman: It Flows From The Mouth (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Undertow)
Angela Slatter: Home & Hearth (Spectral Press chapbook)
Phil Sloman: P Is For Pathophobia (Phobophobias, Western Legends Publishing)
Michael Marshall Smith: Author Of The Death (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Elizabeth Stott: Touch Me With Your Cold, Hard Fingers (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Simon Strantzas: The Nineteenth Step (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Cameron Suey: East (After The Fall, Boo Books)
Adrian Tchiakovsky: Lost Soldiers (The 13 Ghosts Of Christmas, Spectral Press)
Steve Rasnic Tem: The Night Doctor (The Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)
Stephen Volk: The Magician Kelso Dennett (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Mark West: The City In The Rain (Strange Tales, PenMan Press)
Mark West: A Quiet Weekend Away (Strange Tales, PenMan Press)
Conrad Williams: The Jungle (Nightjar Press chapbook)
Neil Williamson: Amber Rain (The Ephemera, Infinity Plus)
Mercedes M Yardley: Black Eyes Broken (Little Visible Delight, Omnium Gatherum)
Rio Youers: Outside Heavenly (The Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)