Four Legs in the Morning

Four Legs in the Morning (Cemetery Dance Signature Series #9)
by Norman Prentiss

Featured Artist: Steven C. Gilberts

About the Book:
Dr. Sibley, long-standing Chair of the English and Classical Literature Department at Graysonville University, has outlasted many of his detractors. In this collection of three linked stories, mysterious consequences await those who defy or disappoint him:
 
• a new colleague, whose avant-guard theories offend Sibley’s traditional critical sensibilities, uncovers a new answer to an ancient riddle ("Four Legs in the Morning")

• a student plagiarist learns to regret his dishonesty ("Flannel Board")

• a young administrator attempts to curtail some of Sibley’s power, until he discovers the fate of his predecessor ("The Mask of Tragedies")

All of these characters eventually learn — sometimes too late — that Dr. Sibley may be far more powerful than he seems.
 

"Reviewers have compared Norman Prentiss to the late Charles Grant, but he's so much more than just an imitator.  A superb stylist in his own right, Norman is marking out a place of his very own in genre fiction.  Four Legs in the Morning is quiet, haunting, and as Prentiss dangles unknowable secrets just beyond our reach (which may be for the best), we wait anxiously for a new morning after the long, quiet night.  And even if that morning never comes, we wait for it still, in breathless anticipation."
— Shroud Magazine

"Norman Prentiss wields a hammer made of whispers. Keep an eye on him, and save a yard of bookshelf space while you’re at it. I have a feeling this talented writer is just getting warmed up."
— Norman Partridge, Author of Johnny Halloween
 
"Four Legs in the Morning is a subtle, yet suspenseful, collection in the tradition of the classics. The stories are rich and complex, the characters genuine and engaging, and with Doctor Sibley, Prentiss has created an antagonist of Machiavellian proportions. Intelligent, clever, and imaginative; Prentiss is the thinking man’s horror writer."
— Michael McBride, author of IMMUN3 and Innocents Lost
 
"In his ingenious Four Legs in the Morning Norman Prentiss introduces us to Dr. Bennet Sibley, Chair of the English and Classical Literature Department at Graysonville University—an aging academic who never, ever fails to get what he wants. What is his secret? These three interconnected tales, alternately humorous and horrifying, go some distance in answering that question, and offer further evidence (if any is needed) that Norman Prentiss is one of the most important new writers to come along in the genre of dark fiction in years. Bravo!"
— Christopher Conlon, author of Midnight on Mourn Street and Matrix of Angels, Bram Stoker Award winning editor of He is Legend

Norman Prentiss won the 2010 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction for Invisible Fences, published by Cemetery Dance. Other fiction has appeared in Postscripts, Black Static, Commutability, Tales from the Gorezone, Damned Nation, Best Horror of the Year, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, and in three editions of the Shivers anthology series.

Published in two states:
• Hardcover Limited Edition of 550 signed and numbered copies bound in full-cloth and Smyth sewn with illustrated endpapers ($35)
• Traycased Hardcover Lettered Edition of 26 signed and lettered copies bound in leather and Smyth sewn with illustrated endpapers and a satin ribbon page marker ($175)

Visit the "Four Legs in the Morning: A Free Short Story" eBook page to read the first story for free!

Artwork... coming soon