I signed up!

That's right. It's that time of the year again! I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2019. Yay. 😃

After spending the weekend thinking about the two stories I narrowed it down to last week, and chatting to hubby about both options, I picked one.

Here's the description I posted on the website:

A horror story with a science fiction slant and some wrestling. Set in the 80s, it's about a woman dealing with monsters, paranoia and revenge.

This is an idea that came to me last year. I thought it might be a short story, but as soon as I started writing, I knew it was going to need a lot more words. 

Asides from signing up, I also set up a new folder for Neon, added all the inspirational pics, made a dodgy cover graphic and put together a playlist.

I'm really excited about this new WIP I'm going to tackle because this is going to be a lot of whacky fun. And because November 1st isn't until the end of next week, I'm going to enjoy doing more NaNoPrep. That equals daydreaming, collecting more pics, taking notes and brainstorming.

Are you taking part?

Hope you have a great week!

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CROSS HER HEART by Sarah Pinborough

Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love Sarah Pinborough's writing. I love her books because every time I start one, I'm instantly hooked. And this one was no different. As soon as I started, I was drawn into the lives of these women.

Lisa lives a quiet life, has a wonderful best friend, adores her teenage daughter and enjoys her job. But she has a huge secret.

Ava has just turned sixteen, loves spending time with her friends and wants her mother to get off her back. She's also keeping a few secrets.

Marilyn is organised, loves her best friend, kinda has a boyfriend and has a devoted husband. Yet, hides a very important secret.

When one of these secrets is exposed, all three are affected in the worst way possible...

Wow.

This is yet another fantastic thriller.

I love how we're thrown into the seemingly normal lives of three different women getting on with their lives, and then everything changes. All of a sudden, the normal everyday stuff is turned upside down and we're thrown into a shocking situation.

The switching POVs between Lisa, Ava and Marilyn was awesome. Not only did it give us personal insight into each character, but it kept the story moving so well.

This book is intriguing, twisted and totally amazing. I enjoyed every single moment I spent with this book and couldn't put it down. The pacing was perfect, the writing wonderful, the characters as real as they were outrageous, and the story's totally captivating.

As surprising and messed up as so much of what happens to these character turned out to be, I also found several aspects to be very sad.

I thought the ending was perfect because it served as a nice final note, plus provides a strange sense of redemption. And that's as much as I'm going to hint at about this book because you need to go in blind. The less you know about this, the more you'll enjoy it.

Man, Pinborough is one hell of a storyteller and is on my auto-buy list because her stories are addictive.

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THE TOWN THAT FEARED DUSK by Calvin Demmer

The Town That Feared Dusk by Calvin Demmer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, that was another very cool Short Sharp Shocks! story. Also, I love the cover. I actually love the simplicity of all the SSS! covers, and how much they mean after you finish reading the story.

Sylvia is a journalist who doesn't want to end up where her mentor and colleague did. She wants to find an interesting and more meaningful story. And she finds that in the tabloid's archives. The Suicide Bridge sounds like a great place to start, but when she gets to the town and starts asking questions, she finds no one wants to answer them.

And when they do, she discovers silence might have been a better option...

I really enjoyed this! It happens to have some of my favourite things: a curious character, weird small town, and a mystery that begs to be solved. I read it in one sitting, which I think is the best way to read short stories and novelettes.

As soon as I started reading, I was hooked and followed Sylvia down what I suspected would be a very dark path.

The mystery at the core of the story had me intrigued, but even after the narrator sees some strange things, I was suspicious about what was going on beneath the surface. And that's another great thing about this story, the weird and disorienting vibes are so strong that when the ending creeps up on you, it takes you by surprise. Yet, doesn't surprise you.

It's just the right amount of spooky, and trippy.

Yeah, this is another great Demmer story and SSS! book.

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Q&A with Hunter Shea

I have a guest on my blog today.

Hunter Shea writes awesome horror stories and has a very impressive backlist. And he's dropping in for a Q&A.

 

Hi Hunter. Congratulations on your latest release from Flame Tree Press.

Slasher movies are some of my favorites. Is SLASH a throwback to the 80s subgenre us horror fans know and love so much?

Absolutely. I’ve always wanted to write a slasher novel, but I needed to come up with the right killer. I was a teen in the 80s and feasted on everything from Friday the 13th to Maniac, The Slumber Party Massacre, and Microwave Massacre (a terrible movie, by the way). My ten best times in a movie theatre mostly involve watching Jason carve campers up while the crowd went wild. What people growing up today miss by watching horror movies at home is the shared experience. They were wild, wild nights. So, needless to say, a lot of ideas have been rattling around my brain pan for many years. Driving past the old, abandoned Nevele Resort in the Catskills, I suddenly had this concept of a killer called The Wraith. Wouldn’t it be cool to make a crumbling resort his home base? And wouldn’t it be fun to start the book through the eyes of a final girl who barely escaped The Wraith some years earlier? What would that do to not just her, but her friends and family and everyone associated with The Wraith’s victims? Once all of those questions started buzzing around, I had to sit down and write. 

When did you realise horror was the genre for you? 

Way too early. I mean, I was begging my father to wake me up when I was 6 so I could watch The Night Stalker with him. I’d been taken to drive-ins and local theaters to see every conceivable movie since I was a baby. Horror is the genre that stuck with me the most. As a teen, my walls were filled with either posters of girls in bathing suits (yes, I had the Farrah Fawcett in the red suit) or still shots of gory movies ripped from the pages of Fangoria. One wall would have a shrine to Victoria Principal next to heads being lopped off and Nazi werewolves from An American Werewolf in London blasting people away. I lived and breathed scary movies back then, and I still do now. 

I’ve noticed you have a thing for monsters and cryptids, when did your interest/fascination begin? 

Good old Leonard Nimoy and his series, In Search Of, got me hooked on Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. That show was both informative and downright creepy. I read every book I could find in the library about cryptids and monsters (there weren’t many). To me, it’s a natural progression from horror movies to potential real life monsters. It’s fun to write books about creatures people are familiar with and taking them to places maybe most people never even considered. 

It’s October, and for me that means celebrating Halloween all month. What do you do to celebrate the spooky season? 

First, I renamed the month many moons ago to Horrortober. Trademark pending. 😉 My goal each year is to watch at least one horror flick a day. When I’m done with each, I tweet out the movie and my rating system, which is x number of 9 tana leaves (for you Mummy fans). I also pick out certain books throughout the year that I save to read in Horrortober. My family and friends always meet up at the Chiller Theater con at the end of the month. And Halloween at the house is crazy. Last year, we got almost 600 trick or treaters. It’s a huge event for the neighborhood and the perfect way to cap off the season. 

What are you working on at the moment?

Right now, I’m working on my next Flame Tree Press novel, Misfits. It’s tense and it’s dark and it has a villain that I think quite a few people will recognize. It’ll be all complete and wrapped in a bloody bow by December. Your readers can follow my progress, and insanity, over at www.huntershea.com. 

Thank you so much for answering all of my questions. I look forward to reading more of your awesome books.

----- 

I hope you enjoyed reading Hunter's very interesting Q&A as much as I did. 

SLASH will be available on 24th October

You can already pre-order a copy from Amazon

You can also find out more about Hunter Shea on his website and 
check out his author page at Flame Tree

Thanks for reading!

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