Exclusive Preview: The Order of the Circle

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cover of The Order of the CircleThe Order of the Circle by Levi Cory is described as an “occult/revenge/love story set in 1950s London.” The graphic novel will be published February 18, and in the meantime, Cemetery Dance is able to show an exclusive B&W early preview.

Cory said in a quote to Cemetery Dance, “When I saw [artist] Elisabeth [Mkheidze]’s work for the first time I knew it would fit perfectly for the story. She has this gothic flow inherent in her style, so when we talked about these dark horror elements she knew exactly how to bring the world to life. The book’s art is stunning. Elisabeth knows how to capture emotion with her work, so the character of Dorothy seems to grow right out of the page and into my imagination. And then, you throw Eva [de la Cruz]’s colors into the mix; the mood comes through, that gothic feeling is set, and the tone of the book hums like a well-oiled machine.” 

Please enjoy the following preview!Continue Reading

Review: Grim Root by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

cover of Grim RootGrim Root by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
Dark Matter INK (October 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

Touted as a “humorous gothic horror novel pitched as The Bachelor meets The Haunting of Hill House,” this novel definitely delivered on the first part and somewhat on the latter. In this novel, a “group of women on a reality TV dating show must compete for the hand of an eligible bachelor by spending a week in a haunted house.” Sign me up! I absolutely love this idea for a plot. Reality shows are a great setting for some devious and illicit things to occur. Continue Reading

Review: Shadowplay (Book 1): Midnight School by Samuel Fonseca

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Shadowplay (Book 1): Midnight School by Samuel Fonseca
Top Shelf Productions (February 11, 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Sam Fonseca has been drawing comics since he discovered that the anime he watched on TV as a child came from manga — and that it was possible to create all that stuff by himself using paper and pencil (still his tools of choice). Nowadays, he alternates duties between art direction, storyboard art, script writing for animation and TV projects, and creating comics. His comic project Age of Rust was nominated three times for the HQMix Prize, and his other title, Dynamite & Laser Beam, won in the “best webcomic” category. Sam also has the strange hobby of creating soundtracks for his comics. His newest collection is the dystopian nightmare, ShadowplayContinue Reading

A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O’Nan Announced!

A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O’Nan
Signed, Numbered, and Slipcased Limited Edition
Just announced and shipping later this month!
Includes cover artwork and illustrations by François Vaillancourt
Plus: an afterword by Patrick McGrath

Lividian Publications is proud to be publishing a deluxe signed, numbered, and slipcased Limited Edition hardcover of A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O’Nan.

This special edition has been lavishly crafted with collectors and readers alike in mind. François Vaillancourt provided stunning color artwork for the dust jacket and frontispiece, plus ten black and white illustrations for the interior, making this a true work of art. As a special bonus, “Good Man Mad” by Patrick McGrath is included as an afterword.

About the Novel:
Dark, poetic, and chilling, A Prayer for the Dying asks if it’s possible to be a good man in a time of madness.

Set in leafy Friendship, Wisconsin, just after the Civil War, A Prayer for the Dying opens harmlessly on a languid summer day; only slowly do events reveal themselves as sinister, bloom gently into a shared nightmare, as one neighbor after another succumbs to a creeping, always fatal disease. Our sole witness to this epidemic is Jacob Hansen, Friendship’s sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, a man with a large heart and conscience.

As the disease engulfs his town, breeding hysteria, Jacob must find a humane way to save those he loves, short of calling up a full quarantine and boarding up the sick in their houses. And what of the tramps slipping nightly through the tinder dry woods, and the spiritualists on the edge of town with their charismatic leaders, Chase. Who will bury the dead properly, if not Jacob?

A Prayer for the Dying is a rare and scary book, Stewart O’Nan’s most astounding achievement yet, a sunlit Gothic painted in shimmering prose that darkens and disturbs your complacency the further you go into it until – as in the best Poe and Flannery O’Connor – there is no going back.

Night Time Logic with Laird Barron

Night Time Logic with Daniel Braum

“Messy and Mysterious”, the “Indiscernible, Unknowable, and Ambiguous,” and a “Destabilization of Perceptions”

photo of author Laird Barron
Laird Barron (Photo by Ellen Datlow)

Night Time Logic is the part of a story that is felt but not consciously processed. It is also the name of this interview series here at Cemetery Dance and over on my YouTube channel.

Through in-depth conversation with authors this column explores the night time part of stories, the strange and uncanny in horror and dark fiction, and more.

My short story collection with Cemetery Dance is titled The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales in homage to Aickman and his kind of stories that operate this way. It can be found here.

I spoke with Laird Barron in early December 2024 about his latest short story collection titled Not A Speck of Light. You can watch our conversation here.

Our conversation for the column contains topics and stories we did not cover for the YouTube show. We began our talk about the opening quote for the book.Continue Reading

Review: The Ill-Fitting Skin by Shannon Robinson

cover of Ill-Fitting SkinThe Ill-Fitting Skin by Shannon Robinson
Press 53 (May 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

Twelve stories about women navigating their everyday situations, each a unique story covering different areas of a woman’s life.  We get tales of a mother whose baby bites a lot and how she tries to handle the situation. A woman who gives birth to rabbits and instead of this being a strange thing, it’s a tale of misunderstanding.  There’s even a story that gives you that “choose your own adventure” feel where you have to shuffle through pages to see what may come up.  The best part of this is where the author sometimes chastises you for making a decision — or at least it feels this way.  I found this to be very humorous and a lot of fun. Continue Reading

Review: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

cover of Witchcraft for Wayward GirlsWitchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
Berkley (January 14, 2025)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin

Great horror reflects the societal fears of its time. In the 1950s, fear of the unknown and the atomic age inspired classics like Richard Matherson’s I Am Legend and Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. In the 1960s, distrust in the government worsened, and many feared mental illness and occultism, giving birth to Robert Bloch’s Psycho and Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby. In Witchcraft For Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix speaks to the evolution of these social anxieties and unrest but prioritizes an often suppressed point of view: women’s.Continue Reading

Review: The Axe Remembers: A Redwood Ripper Story by Marcus Hawke

cover of The Axe RemembersThe Axe Remembers: A Redwood Ripper Story by Marcus Hawk
Hawke Haus Books (July 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

Welcome to Vancouver Island, where the crew of a timber mill gathers.  Unbeknownst to them, the urban legend of The Redwood Ripper is all too real and they’re about to get the sharp end of the axe. The legend is that this vengeful spirit “haunts the wild and hunts those that take more from it than they give.”  The trees remember, and so does The Redwood Ripper’s axe.Continue Reading

Review: Six O’Clock House & Other Strange Tales by Rebecca Cuthbert

cover of Six O'Clock House and Other Strange TalesSix O’Clock House & Other Strange Tales by Rebecca Cuthbert
Watertower Hill Publishing (January 21, 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Rebecca Cuthbert is a dark fiction and poetry writer living in western New York. She loves ghost stories, folklore, witchy women, and anything that involves nature getting revenge. Her debut poetry collection, In Memory of Exoskeletons (Alien Buddha Press, 2023) won a 2024 Imadjinn Award for Best Poetry Collection; the poems “Still Love” and “Bloodthirsty” were nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and “Still Love” was also nominated for a Best of the Net Award. CREEP THIS WAY: How to Become a Horror Writer With 24 Steps to Get You Ghouling (Seamus & Nunzio Productions, 2024) was nominated for a Golden Scoop Award. Her hybrid fiction and poetry collection of feminist horrors, Self-Made Monsters, is out from Alien Buddha Press. Her newest collection is a book of literary-speculative stories, Six O’Clock House & Other Strange Tales.Continue Reading

Review: Midnight Lullabies by Jonathan Maberry

cover of Midnight LullabiesMidnight Lullabies by Jonathan Maberry
WordFire Press LLC (September 2024)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

The name Jonathan Maberry is known to horror and speculative readers far and wide. He is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 3-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, anthology editor, writing teacher, and comic book writer. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and action; and he writes for adults, teens and middle grade. His newest collection is Midnight Lullabies.Continue Reading

Review: A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons

cover of A Mask of FliesA Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons
Tor Nightfire (August 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

Let’s meet Anne Heller. The opening of this book places her in a bank heist gone wrong. She is caught literally in the crossfire. But Anne isn’t quite the killer and instead injures a police officer who she then takes hostage because hey, witnesses and all that. From here we get thrust into a crazy world that starts at her family’s cabin that she decides to hole up in. We soon learn that this abode isn’t quite as deserted as she thought it would be and the presence that also resides there is not to be messed with.Continue Reading

Review: Thunderstruck: A Dark Poetry Collection by Sandy DeLuca, Alex S. Johnson, and Alea Celeste Williams

cover of ThunderstruckThunderstruck: A Dark Poetry Collection by Sandy DeLuca, Alex S. Johnson, and Alea Celeste Williams
Independently Published (October 2024)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Thunderstruck describes itself as “A witchy, pagan, erotic, just right for Halloween poetry collection by critically acclaimed authors, artists and poets.” This is a very appropriate description as the bulk of the poems are witchy and pagan in origin.Continue Reading

Review: You Can’t Take It With You by Marcus Hawke

cover of You Can't Take It With YouYou Can’t Take It With You by Marcus Hawke
Hawke Haus Books (November 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

“What would you do for more time?” 

In this day and age where everyone tries to hold onto their youth and prolong their lives, this is a very important question. If you were very rich and had access to something that could actually extend your life, would you go for it? Would you do it at the ripe old age of ninety years old? You don’t even know if you’ll be stuck in the shell that you currently are trapped in or if you’ll be something… better? You’re not even sure if this injection will actually work. Perhaps all the money spent on it was a waste. There’s only one way to find out…Continue Reading

Review: Family by Ian Rogers

cover of FamilyFamily by Ian Rogers
Earthling Publications (October 2024)
Reviewed by Dave Simms

When is a haunted house story not a haunted house story? Earthling Publications knocks it out of the park with this novel by Ian Rogers. Comparisons will be made to the classics such as The Haunting of Hill House and newer entries like A Head Full of Ghosts, but also to cinematic hits like Poltergeist and The Changeling. What’s the best description? All and none of them.

Continue Reading

The Eco-Horror of Emma Rios

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cover of AnzueloEmma Ríos, a cartoonist who has won the Eisner Award, is coming out with a new book she both wrote and drew, titled Anzuelo. Anzuelo has been described as “ eco-horror” and “gorgeous and brutal.” Ríos spoke to Cemetery Dance about her inspiration, writing the Sea under her skin, and her creative process.Continue Reading