Review: ‘The Halloween Children’ by Brian James Freeman and Norman Prentiss

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 24, 2017May 21, 2017ReviewsBrian James Freeman, Dave Simms, Norman Prentiss, Reviews, The Halloween ChildrenLeave a comment

The Halloween Children by Brian James Freeman and Norman Prentiss
Hydra/Random House (June 2017)
300 pages; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms

A Halloween story is something no reader of horror fiction should ever miss. A broad statement, true, but The Hallowen Children is another Hallowen tale which has knocked it out of the park. This is a disturbing, claustrophobic, beyond enjoyable read which encompasses everything Halloween should be. Of course, parallels will be drawn to The Shining, but that would be extremely unfair to Brian Freeman and Norman Prentiss. The Halloween Children is utterly original and deserves to be given applause on its own merits. This is an everyman’s horror story—the best, most relatable kind—and holds family close to its dark heart.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Life in a Haunted House’ by Norman Prentiss

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 17, 2017May 16, 2017ReviewsKevin Lucia, Life in a Haunted House, Norman Prentiss, ReviewsLeave a comment

Life in a Haunted House by Norman Prentiss
Amazon Digital Services (May 2017)
175 pages; $0.99 e-book
Reviewed by Kevin Lucia

I absolutely love coming of age stories. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m an overgrown kid myself. Maybe there’s something inside me which looks back on those years fondly, but also remembers how hard it was to be a kid. Everyone expects you to “grow up” and figure out what it is you want to do with your life, all before your sixteenth birthday. I remember those years well, and as a high school teacher, I see it enacted before me, in living color, every single day. So I’m always a sucker for a well-told, engrossing coming of age tale. Continue Reading

‘Life in a Haunted House’ – The Story Behind the Cover(s)

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 15, 2017June 8, 2017InterviewsArt, Covers, Interviews, Life in a Haunted House, Lynne Hansen, Norman PrentissLeave a comment

Norman Prentiss’ new novel, Life in a Haunted House, debuts May 15 at Amazon as an eBook (with a trade paperback soon to follow). To celebrate the book’s launch, he decided to do an interview with the book’s cover artist, Lynne Hansen. In addition to having Lynne create covers for some of his own books, Norman is also the editor of Cemetery Dance’s eBook line, and he frequently hires Lynne to create covers for Cemetery Dance ebooks.Continue Reading

The Dungeon of Count Verlock

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 20, 2017March 19, 2017Free FictionFiction, Kindle Scout, Life in a Haunted House, Norman Prentiss, The Dungeon of Count VerlockLeave a comment

“The Dungeon of Count Verlock”
(A Budget Studio Production)
edited by Norman Prentiss

This previously unpublished story, an anonymous “novelization” of a movie written and directed by Bud “Budget” Preston, was scheduled to appear in issue 101 of Monster Project magazine. For more information about the history of this story, and how I uncovered it, see my Editor’s Note after the end of the story—and continue reading to find out about my forthcoming novel, Life in a Haunted House, that fictionalizes elements of Preston’s life and filmography.Continue Reading

Review: ‘Odd Adventures with Your Other Father’ by Norman Prentiss

Cemetery Dance OnlineAugust 8, 2016ReviewsFeatured, Kevin Lucia, Norman Prentiss, Odd Adventures with Your Other Father, ReviewsLeave a comment

Odd Adventures with Your Other Father by Norman Prentiss
Kindle Press (May 2016)
217 pages; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Kevin Lucia

Norman Prentiss immediately distinguished himself from average horror fare with his debut novella Invisible Fences. A brilliant character study about the fears we inherit from our parents, and also about the guilt we carry deep inside us, it embodied the best of the “quiet horror” sub-genre with powerful, creeping atmosphere and an exploration of the human psyche.

Invisible Fences won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in long fiction (as a novella), an award well-deserved. Norman followed this up with his mini-collection Four Legs in the Morning, another brilliant exercise in quiet horror, about the machinations of Dr. Sibley, Chair of the English Department at Graysonville University, and the unpleasant fates of those who try to oppose him. Personally, I can’t to read about this mysterious (maniacal?) character again.

With his first full-length novel, Odd Adventures with Your Other Father, Prentiss has once again distinguished himself from others in the horror/weird fiction field. Continue Reading

Norman Prentiss on "Odd Adventures with Your Other Father"

Cemetery Dance OnlineJuly 5, 2016InterviewsBlu Gilliand, Featured, Interviews, Kindle Scout, Norman Prentiss, Odd Adventures with Your Other FatherLeave a comment

Norman Prentiss on Odd Adventures with Your Other Father

Author Norman Prentiss has taken his decidedly unconventional road trip/horror novel, Odd Adventures with Your Other Father, and brought it to audiences via a new, non-traditional publishing route: the Kindle Scout program. A little over a month after its official publication on May 31, it looks like the book—and Prentiss’s chosen method of publication—can be called a success: early readers responded favorably to the book, and now it’s opening up new audiences for the talented author. Recently, Prentiss took a few moments to speak to Cemetery Dance Online about his recent Odd Adventures.

(Interview conducted by Blu Gilliand)Continue Reading

Norman Prentiss on “Odd Adventures with Your Other Father”

Cemetery Dance OnlineJuly 5, 2016InterviewsBlu Gilliand, Featured, Interviews, Kindle Scout, Norman Prentiss, Odd Adventures with Your Other FatherLeave a comment

Norman Prentiss on Odd Adventures with Your Other Father

(Interview conducted by Blu Gilliand)Continue Reading

Norman Prentiss and Michael McBride: Collaborating on 'The Narrator'

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 28, 2016InterviewsInterviews, Michael McBride, Norman Prentiss, The NarratorLeave a comment

Norman Prentiss and Michael McBride:
Collaborating on The Narrator

The Narrator eBook

The Narrator, written by Norman Prentiss and Michael McBride, was first released by Cemetery Dance in 2014 in a trade paperback edition. Now it’s back in a new digital edition, and the authors took this chance to sit down and look back on their work together.

The Narrator: The children in Julia Linder’s sixth grade class have grown increasingly agitated. The symptoms are spreading and the source seems to be stories that seize upon the children’s deeply seated fears and intensify them….

An Interview with Richard Chizmar and Brian James Freeman: Talking "Odd Numbers" and "How the Wind Lies"

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 18, 2016InterviewsBrian James Freeman, Featured, Interviews, Keith Minnion, Norman Prentiss, Richard Chizmar, White Noise PressLeave a comment

An Interview with Richard Chizmar
and Brian James Freeman:
Talking “Odd Numbers” and “How the Wind Lies”

In April, Keith Minnion’s White Noise Press is publishing a “flipbook” of two stories: “Odd Numbers” by Richard Chizmar and “How the Wind Lies” by Brian James Freeman. White Noise Press produces beautiful, hand-crafted chapbooks in very limited numbers, attractive to own and collect. And as the line-up for this latest chapbook attests, readers get great fiction from well-known genre authors.Continue Reading

“The Dungeon of Count Verlock” (A Budget Studio Production) edited by Norman Prentiss

Norman Prentiss on Odd Adventures with Your Other Father

Norman Prentiss on Odd Adventures with Your Other Father

Norman Prentiss and Michael McBride: Collaborating on The Narrator

An Interview with Richard Chizmar and Brian James Freeman: Talking “Odd Numbers” and “How the Wind Lies”

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“The Dungeon of Count Verlock”
(A Budget Studio Production)
edited by Norman Prentiss

Norman Prentiss and Michael McBride:
Collaborating on The Narrator

An Interview with Richard Chizmar
and Brian James Freeman:
Talking “Odd Numbers” and “How the Wind Lies”