Horror novels never really die. They do sometimes go out of print, then find new publishers and (rather like the monsters within their pages) are resurrected to give you sleepless nights all over again.
Attend the tales of The Lamplighters and The Jack in the Green. Both are back in shiny new ebook editions from Crossroad Press.
I have been teasing the covers on my social media for a little while, and now it is time to unleash these beasties.
Feast your eyes, f(r)iends.
The Lamplighters was my debut novel, and had the honour of being selected as a Finalist in the Bram Stoker Awards for ‘superior achievement in a first novel’. It introduces the character of the Skin Mechanic (who will return in a new edition of my prequel novel The Skintaker soon) and goes something like this:
Life on Meditrine Island is luxurious…but brief.
Marla Neuborn has found the best post-grad job in the world—as a “Lamplighter” working on Meditrine Island, an exclusive idyllic paradise owned and operated by a consortium of billionaires. All Lamplighters have to do is tend to the mansions, cook and clean, and turn on lights to make it appear the owners are home. But the job comes with conditions. Marla will not know the exact location of the island, and she will have no contact with the outside world for the duration of her stay.
Once on the island, Marla quickly learns the billionaire lifestyle is not all it is made out to be. The chief of security rules Meditrine with an iron fist. His private police force patrols the shores night and day, and CCTV cameras watch the Lamplighters relentlessly. Soon Marla will also discover first-hand that the island hides a terrible secret. She’ll meet the resident known as the Skin Mechanic. And she’ll find out why so few Lamplighters ever leave the island alive.
The Jack in the Green saw me turning my bloodshot eye to folk horror, and the story takes place in the same fictional universe as my forthcoming novel Hearthstone Cottage. Here’s the scary skinny:
A nightmare made real.
On Christmas Eve, six year-old Tom McRae witnessed an unspeakable atrocity that left him orphaned, his childhood in tatters. Now in his mid-thirties, Tom still has terrifying nightmares of that night.
When Tom is sent to the remote Scottish village of Douglass to negotiate a land grab for his employer, it seems like a golden opportunity for him to start over. But Tom can’t help feeling he’s been to Douglass before, and the terrible dreams from his childhood have begun to spill over into his waking life.
As murderous events unfold and Tom’s feverish nightmares escalate, he will discover the hideous truth behind the villagers’ strange pagan ritual of The Jack in the Green.
Buy The Lamplighters on
Amazon.com
https://amzn.to/2YmMHvJ
Buy The Jack in the Green on
Amazon.com
https://amzn.to/30WUOAN
Buy The Lamplighters at
Amazon UK
https://amzn.to/2Y91v5L
Buy The Jack in the Green at
Amazon UK
https://amzn.to/2YuceHA
…and from all good horror novel stockists!
My thanks to the two Davids at Crossroad Press. To Don D’Auria, without whom… And many thanks to you, as ever, for reading.
Sweet dreams….
Frazer x
