DarkFuse have announced the release of novella Emergence by Gary Fry. The book is available as an e-book and costs only £2/$3.

A haunting supernatural excursion, here’s a taster:

Following the death of his wife, Jack lives alone on… the northeast coast of England. But this year, something worse than isolation and loneliness stalk the bay in front of his home. When his grandson Paul comes to stay, they find intricately crafted cones of sand jutting from the beach, and a tautness in the air affecting their sleep patterns. And then something else arrives…something that may want to trouble much more than their dreams. EMERGENCE…they’re closer than we fear.

The book can be downloaded HERE in the UK and HERE in the States.

If you are a member of the BFS you should by now have received (or shortly be receiving) the latest BFS Journal (Autumn 2012). The Journal contains new fiction and poetry by: Christopher Golden, Gary Fry, Peter Crowther, Allen Ashley, Terry Grimwood and others. This issue also includes interviews with Nina Allan, Rhys Hughes, David A. Sutton and graphic artist Emma Vieceli (who also provides the amazing cover art for this issue of the Journal). Together with regular and one-off features by Mark Morris, Ramsey Campbell, Garry Kilworth (on crafting the short story) and Editorial Director of Gollancz Gillian Redfearn among others, this issue is jam-packed full of interesting content.

All BFS members receive the BFS Journal on a quarterly basis along with their other benefits of membership. If you haven’t yet joined the BFS but would like to do so to secure your copy of The Journal please go to the “join the BFS” page HERE

The Ninth Black Book of Horror edited by Charles Black is now available from Amazon and will soon be available to purchase direct from the Mortbury Press website.

About the book:
“Horrible people, horrible places, horrible things and horrible fates all await you in The Ninth Black Book of Horror. The new anthology from Mortbury Press is truly horrible. Check in at a horror hospital, witness grisly acts, observe dreadful family reunions, meet a man who hates waste, the things that are not there, and find out what’s behind you in The Ninth Black Book of Horror.”

Sixteen stories by John Llewellyn Probert, Craig Herbertson, Simon Bestwick, Gary Fry, David Williamson, Anna Taborska, Sam Dawson, Paul Finch, Gary Power, Thana Niveau, Tom Johnstone, Marion Pitman, Kate Farrell, John Forth, Marc Lyth and David A. Riley.  Cover art is by Paul Mudie.

“Someone is killing doctors in the style of the murders in Vincent Price movies, leaving the Bristol police baffled. The only man who could possibly be responsible died years ago . . . or did he . . .

The police in Bristol have been confronted by a series of the most perplexingly elaborate deaths they’ve ever encountered in all their years of murder enquiries. The only thing which connects them is their seemingly random nature and their sheer outrageousness. As Detective Inspector Longdon and his assistant Sergeant Jenny Newham (with the help of pathologist Dr. Richard Patterson) race against time to find the murderer, they eventually realise that the link which connects the killings is even more bizarre than any of them dared to think…”

John L. Probert’s latest work, The Nine Deaths of Dr. Valentine, is an affectionate, bloodily gruesome and blackly comic tribute and homage to the films of the late actor and horror icon Vincent Price. It’s also a reminder of the Golden Age of horror films of the 60s & 70s, late-night cinema showings and TV horror double bills. Included in the hardback edition is an Appendix, The Nine Films of Dr. Valentine, featuring mini-reviews and reminiscences by the author of all the films referenced in the story.

The Nine Deaths of Dr. Valentine is the second in the new Spectral Visions line of longer works from Spectral Press. The first, Gary Fry’s The Respectable Face of Tyranny, sold out quickly and garnered universal critical praise from readers, reviewers and bloggers alike. John Probert’s novella is set to both maintain the standards set by the British Fantasy Award-nominated Spectral Press and to follow the first novella in flying off the shelves.

The book has a wraparound cover by J.D. Busch, and will be available in a signed and numbered hardback limited to 100 copies worldwide, with full-colour covers, coloured endpapers and silk ribbon bookmarker. It will be available in September 2012 and is due for launch at FantasyCon. To pre-order your copy go HERE

THE RESPECTABLE FACE OF TYRANNY by Gary Fry, Spectral Press, p/b, £5.99, spectralpress.wordpress.com

Reviewed by Katy O’Dowd

The Respectable Face of Tyranny could be a cautionary tale on the perils of deep thinking.  Whereby Josh, failed in finances, marriage, with a daughter to care for and unwell mother to visit ruminates on life and seemingly slowly drives himself completely mad with the stress of it all.

Comfortably close to the bone for a lot of us in these straitened economic times. So comfortably close to the bone that Gary Fry has our full attention and empathy from the very first word. Devilishly clever that.

So then, throughout this rather marvellous novella, we are keen observers to the thoughts of our hero – the poor (in more ways than one), beleaguered Josh, who has thing after thing to deal with thrown at him. Small wonder, then, that he starts seeing things around the periphery of his vision and signs drawn in the sand.

The book starts with an argument between a father (Josh) and his teenage daughter (Sally), and we observe, cringing at times it has to be said, his clumsy attempts at having a decent relationship with her. Those with teenagers of their own will know the horrors of that particular human parental rite of passage.

And then the creeping dread sets in.

The crawling sensation you get when you just know that something really horrible is just around the corner.

For this, the author uses a boat, and uses it so well that it becomes another character. It would not be the first supernatural boat to appear in a story in Whitby, but Fry’s boat has less teeth. And stranger, more cosmic creatures than Stoker’s Dracula come to blight the land and spread their creeping menace.

The twin strands of fiscal failure and supernatural stalkers weave together beautifully in an intriguing premise and it can be hard at times to decide, as a reader, which is more dreadful for Josh as both compound his sense of inadequacy and fear of the unknown.

But then something happens to change his world forever. And it’s not him winning the lottery. You’ll have to read this creepy, dark work yourself to find out what it is – but take it from me, it’ll be well worth your time.

Gray Friar Press is delighted to announce the second instalment in its new anthology series: Terror Tales of the Cotswolds. Edited by Paul Finch, this collection of fourteen original horror tales includes spooky entries from Ramsey Campbell, Simon Clark, Reggie Oliver, Alison Littlewood, Gary McMahon, John Llewellyn Probert, Thana Niveau, Joel Lane and Gary Fry. Cover art is by Steve Upham.

This volume follows the first anthology in the series, Terror Tales of the Lake District, also edited by Paul Finch.

For further details and information on how to order see the Gray Friar website HERE

Spectral Press, publishers of limited edition signed and numbered single story supernatural chapbooks, are introducing a line of occasional novellas – Spectral Visions. The first will be The Respectable Face of Tyranny by Gary Fry, to be published in April 2012. It is intended that there will be several versions of each novella – a hardback, paperback and ebook version.

More information can be found HERE

Fearful Festivities, a new novel due shortly from Screaming Dreams, is Gary Fry‘s heartfelt homage to the classic ‘small town’ horror novels of the 1980s: a diverse group of characters beset by a malevolent force creeping in a time of great vulnerability. By turns, it’s creepy, shocking and darkly comic, with an ending that might just signal the end of the world.

With stunning cover art by Steve Upham.

Now available for pre-order HERE