Indie Spotlight Part 2: October 2020
There's much to savor in this roundup of horror and supernatural fiction, including haunted houses, Harry Houdini, and Christmas monsters.
Steven Ramirez
ISBN 978-1-949108-03-3
About the book: Protagonist Sarah Greene is a successful realtor who sees spirits. While renovating an old house, she finds a mirror haunted by a teenager’s tormented ghost.
Author statement: “My book is a contemporary ghost story set in a fictional town near Santa Barbara, Calif. Themes include the lure of evil, the strength of family, and the power of faith.”
Rita Moreau
ASIN B07R9Q682Y
About the book: The sprawling house on Xenia Avenue has always protected its residents. When a body is discovered beneath the floorboards, along with some top-secret interstellar information, the house’s days are numbered.
Author statement: “This book was written to celebrate single mothers, but especially my mother who raised three children in a house on Xenia Avenue in Dayton, Ohio. She is the reason I write.”
Chris Stanton
ISBN 978-1-09-376469-7
About the book: The surfing town of Great Water has a long history of unsolved and inexplicable occurrences. When a mysterious portal opens in the forest, unsuspecting residents are pulled inside and ghosts roam free.
Author statement: “I’ve long been intrigued by the paranormal, and although I’m originally from Ohio, far from the ocean, I became interested in surfing as a youngster. It was fun and rewarding to combine those two elements to create a haunted surfing town on the upper peninsula of Michigan.”
Timothy G. Huguenin
ASIN B073XT877S
About the book: After Kelsea Stone inherits her estranged birth parents’ house, she discovers an angry presence lingering there.
Author statement: “I grew up in a beautiful, quiet area of West Virginia, where Little One is set. Though one of my main goals as a horror writer is to scare, I always try to write in such a way that highlights the beauty and mystery of the beloved hills there.”
Lullabies for Suffering: Tales of Addiction Horror
Edited by Mark Matthews
ISBN 978-1-09-376469-7
About the book: The six stories in this collection explore the horror and tragedy of addiction.
Author statement: “As a recovering addict, writing about horrors is part of how I release my trauma and cope with what it means to live stone cold sober in a world where addiction is an epidemic and my cravings persist despite two decades of sobriety.”
Piper Houdini: Apprentice of Coney Island
Glenn Herdling
ISBN 978-1-5043-4972-7
About the book: Piper Weiss has spent her childhood in an orphanage. But everything changes when she’s whisked away to live with her uncle—Harry Houdini.
Author statement: “My novel is set in Coney Island during the Roaring ’20s. It’s a time filled with silent movies, secret speakeasies, and an unscrupulous spiritualist movement that is the unwitting pawn in a plot to bring about hell on Earth.”
Claudette Melanson
ASIN B076B468Y9
About the book: Ghosts, elves, werewolves, serial killers, and Krampus are among the monsters populating the pages of this story collection.
Author statement: “I was trying to imagine what it would be like if Santa was immortal because he is a vampire. I wrote the first story in the book to explore that idea and was happy with it, so I decided to create an entire Christmas horror anthology. It was a lot of fun to twist Christmas into something you won't find on the Hallmark Channel.”
Loren Niemi
ISBN 978-0-9993744-4-3
About the book: This collection of 15 short stories defies ghost story conventions.
Authors Statement: “My definition of a ghost story is quite broad and not limited to the appearance of the spirits or souls of the dead. These stories explore those things we hold onto—memories, emotions, beliefs, people, and places. As such, I trust readers to reserve judgement as they enter the world or the moment and consider in what way each tale represents what haunts us.”
