Bestselling Horror Books for January 2010

The Companion

Author: Martin, Nicholas
Format: Trade Paperback
Type: Novella
Page Count: 108pp.
Pub. Date: January 27, 2010
Publisher: Sideshow Press

The Companion by Nicholas Martin — Book Two in the First Cut Series!

From the geniuses at arcadiacorp the companion: The world’s first ‘date in a can’!

Aaron’s life lacks spark. Working as an advertisement designer for ArcadiaCorp, a manufacturing leader in a world infected with commercialism, he finds little joy in his profession, and he longs for a meaningful connection with the opposite sex. When he is asked to test his company’s latest product, The Companion, he is less than enthused.

Just add water and in 12 to 14 hours, you’ll have your very own playmate ready to service your every need.

The Companion is unnervingly realistic and equipped with a computerized brain that allows it to grow and adapt to its owner’s every need and whim. At first, Aaron is repulsed by this stunning, vegetative woman. However, he soon finds that he is developing feelings for this . . . thing . . . feelings he’s never had before. For the first time, his life has purpose, flair . . .

The Companion . . . Let your greatest fantasy be its worst nightmare

Then Aaron attends a Companion enthusiasts meeting where owners share their experiences with the ‘product’ . . . and everything changes.

The Companion: A dystopian vision that explores what happens when male sexuality meet hyper-commercialism.

Beautifully illustrated by Meghan Hakes.

Last Days

Author: Evenson, Brian
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 256pp.
Pub. Date: February 1, 2009
Publisher: Underland Press

Just Won The American Library Association Best Horror Novel Of 2009 Award!

Last Days was frst published in 2003 as a limited-edition novella titled The Brotherhood of Mutilation.

Its success led Evenson to expand the story into a full-length novel. In doing so, he has created a work that’s disturbing, deeply satisfying, and completely original.

This is the limited edition of Brian Evenson’s remarkable book Last Days.

Underland Press produced only seventy-five finished copies of the limited edition. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

The limited edition package consists of the offset-printed text hand-bound into a foil-stamped hardcover, with a letterpress-printed jacket.

Brian Evenson wrote longhand sentences from the book on each jacket, making each one unique. It’s quite beautiful.

You Are My Everything

Author: Lee, Edward
Format: Softcover Chapbook
Type: Novella
Page Count: ??pp.
Pub. Date: 2009
Publisher: Necro Publications

From the master of hardcore horror comes a new tale of love and revenge. And revenge is always better when it involves a Header.

Easter Cutler’s Ole Grandpop Orne used to always say, “All men’re the same when you git right down to it. All silly’n ever-lovin’ HORNY. Cain’t control their urges fer the life of ‘em . . . “

And Easter has sure learned that the hard way. But she’s got a way fix things with her husband. And Noot is sure gonna find out just how much his wife loves him. Because Easter’s Old Grandpop had some secrets himself and hidden within the ancient pages, kept in a beaten old binder handed down to his loving granddaughter, lies a gateway to the darkest magic the world has ever known — a magic that will let Noot know that Easter will do anything to keep their love whole.

Poor old Noot . . . he’s about to find out just how much Easter means it when she says . . .

You Are My Everything

Kingdom of Shadows

Author: Gifune, Greg F.
Format: Trade Paperback
Type: Novel
Page Count: 102pp.
Pub. Date: October 2009
Publisher: Delirium Books
Also Pub: October 2009 (eBooks — Delirium Books)

A band of desperate criminals . . . a seemingly deserted farmhouse guarded by the rotting remnants of scarecrows, the echoes of torture and depravity and the whispers of unholy nightmares . . . a dark night concealing terrible secrets, misery and long-suppressed horrors . . .

One faraway, nearly forgotten night, this night, stands between the forsaken and deliverance, but they are not alone in the darkness. Something demonic dwells within . . . something luring them toward a separate kingdom . . . a kingdom of night . . . a kingdom of evil . . .

A Kingdom Of Shadows . . .

Fear the night.

Black Ink Horror XXX

Editor: Moran, Tom
Format: Trade Paperback
Type: Periodical
Page Count: 50pp.
Pub. Date: 2008
Publisher: Sideshow Press

This special, full-color edition of Black Ink Horror is devoted to horror stories of the extreme variety.

Sex and gore abound in this 50 page, highly collectible edition. Each of the five tales is accompanied by three illustrations.

This one is not for the prudish or easily offended — we cut our artist loose on XXX, and they left nothing to the imagination.

Note: Due to the sexually explicit nature of the cover of Black Ink Horror XXX I had to make a hard decision. I opted not to display the cover. I have tried to maintain a “PG” status in case children visit this website. And yet, the librarian and creative person in me screams “censorship!” What do you think? Is caution warrented or do I owe Tom a great big apology? Tell me what you think in the comments or use the Contact Me page.

Table of Contributors:

• Stories:
• Melissa Karnes
• J. Brundage
• Mark Leslie
• Nancy Jackson
• Michele Lee Freel
• Art:
• Geff Bartrand
• Tony Karnes
• Tom Moran
• Jeff Beckman
• Jacob Parmentier

The Cyesolagniac

Author: Lee, Edward
Format: Softcover Chapbook
Type: Novella
Page Count: 52pp.
Pub. Date: 2009
Publisher: Sideshow Press

Cyesolagniac:

1. One who experiences sexuoerotic arousal at the sight of a pregnant woman.

2. One with a fetish for pregnant women.

Everything is going right for Heyton. Just hours away from closing the business deal of a lifetime, he’s about to become very rich and the envy of all his competitors. With night falling, he should be relaxing in his hotel room, getting some much needed rest before his big day.

But Heyton has a compulsion, one that has him cruising the streets in the seedy section of town, desperately searching for the perfect woman to satisfy his sick needs.

Like an angel, she appears. The face of a cheerleader and the swollen, gloriously gravid body of a Madonna, she’s willing to sell her body for his fulfillment.

Everything is about to go very wrong for Heyton. In a fleabag hotel room, he will learn an important lesson . . . “People are never what they seem.”

From Edward Lee comes a story of fetishism and depravity that only the master of extreme horror could tell.

Secrets

Author: Gonzalez, J. F.
Format: Hardcover
Type: Horror Novella
Page Count: 120pp.
Pub. Date: December 1, 2009
Publisher: Sideshow Press
Also Pub: December 1, 2009 (Trade Paperback — Sideshow Press)

From J.F. Gonzalez, author of Fetish, Survivor, and The Beloved, comes a locked-room tale of deceit, perversity, and murder.

Just before Christmas, a blizzard strands five friends at the local watering hole. They plan on an uneventful night enjoying each others’ company as they wait out the storm.

Everything changes when the stranger arrives. He knows each of their darkest secrets — secrets that he shouldn’t know, secrets that he threatens to reveal. Trapped in the bar, friends turn against each other as tensions increase as distrust and paranoia fester.

And then they find the dead girl in the bathroom . . .

The next book in the Sideshow Press Lettered Series will feature a slightly larger size and a black bonded leather and premium fabric cover with foil stamping. Fully illustrated with 8 full-page illustrations and color frontispiece.

The First Header

Author: Lee, Edward
Format: Signed Limited Chapbook
Type: Excerpt
Page Count: 6pp.
Pub. Date: 2009
Publisher: McGuire Press

This mini-chapbook is an excerpt from the forthcoming novel Header 2

Crimson

Author: Rollo, Gord
Artist: Zach McCain
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 380pp.
Pub. Date: 2009
Publisher: Bad Moon Books

Four engaging boys from Dunville, Ontario, dub their 1977 club The Knights of the Round Room after finding a bomb shelter on Johnny Page’s farm.

In 1955 Jacob Harrison killed his family and hanged himself on that same spot, and Johnny’s tumble into a well awakens a creature who has possessed what’s left of Harrison’s corpse. It confronts the boys and tempts one of them into evil.

By 1986, the boys are 19 and the creature is rampaging again, framing Johnny’s friend Peter for the Ripper Killer’s 12-victim crime spree.

Book #5 in our Eclipse line.

Ouroboros

Authors: Kelly, Michael and Carol Weekes
Format: Hardcover
Type: Novel
Page Count: 250pp.
Pub. Date: December 2009
Publisher: Arcane Wisdom
Also Pub: December 1, 2009 (eBook — Arcane Wisdom)

The Great Wyrm Ouroboros — the ceaseless cycle of destruction and renewal.

In a small coastal town, an ancient force stirs, drawn by the cumulative power of life and death, grief and sorrow, and, ultimately, endless love.

Ouroboros — life out of death.

Tom Christiansen’s wife of 35-years, Dolly, is dead. His world suddenly shattered, Tom takes refuge in his house to grieve and reflect. Tom’s thin veil of reality and fantasy begins to crack and slip. He hears things: the rusty creak of the backyard swing; the tap of tiny feet from an upstairs room.

And he sees things, as well: a small rubber ball bouncing slowly down the stairs; birds like silent sentinels on electrical wires; a strange little pig-tailed girl suddenly appearing in his yard. And what is that mysterious figure lying in the upstairs bed that he used to share with his beloved wife?

Ouroboros — a new cycle has begun.

Tom’s long-time neighbors, and dearest friends, Mick and Robbie Hamlin begun to glimpse strange behavior from grief-stricken Tom. They witness dinner place-settings for two. They hear hushed conversations from the old house, as if Tom is speaking to himself, as if he isn’t alone. There is a pale little girl in the backyard, swinging ceaselessly. And something is rustling in the bushes, peering out from the undergrowth with inquisitive eyes.

Ouroboros — the end is just the beginning.