A couple weeks ago, I released my latest work! Hallowed Oblivion is a novelette (about 52 pages) that takes place before the events of THE WILD DARK. It’s part campfire/hiking horror, part Halloween story. This is the first time I’ve written and released a story just for the season and I may make this a continuing theme based on how great the response has been so far!
Here’s a little more about the book:
On Halloween Night, Forest Ranger Hank Feld is called out to the White Mountain National Forest to search for a group of lost hikers. Crushed at not being able to spend the evening with his daughter, Hank sets off into the cold, misty mountains alongside volunteer, Gerard Castle.
But they are not the only things in the woods that night. When they come upon a massacred camping site, they realize there’s something hunting them: a malevolent creature that hungers for the souls of the lost.
A novelette from The Wild Oblivion universe, readers follow one of THE WILD DARK’s characters into the woods for a ghastly adventure, one that might eventually alter the world as we know it…
You can download an ebook copy from my website or order a paperback here
Hello subscribers old and new! A lot has happened since last month’s newsletter. As we bustle through July, I’d love to let you know what’s been going on the last couple weeks as well as what you can look forward to the rest of this summer and beyond!
The Monstrum Chronicles RE-VAMPED editions launched last month with a lovely day long procession of vampire-themed shenanigans. Each of the three books in the series (and one short story) received new interior layouts, brand new covers, deleted scenes, music playlists, and new forewords. I have copies available for purchase on my website as well as via Amazon for paperback and ebook. Thanks to all who came out and helped celebrate!
Have you heard the news? I have a TikTok account! Well, to be fair, I’ve had one but I just wasn’t posting very often at all. Aiming to change that going forward though. If you are a fellow Tiktokker, follow me @katherinesilvaauthor .
WHAT ‘CHA BEEN READING
I’ve plowed through some extraordinary books in the last month including Samantha Kolesnik’s Waif, Hailey Piper’s The Worm and His Kings, Donnie Goodman’s The Razorblades In My Head, and Eric LaRocca’s You’ve Lost A Lot of Blood. Each one was a unique and terrifying experience in its own right and I definitely recommend them all to you!
Up on the docket next are:
Beguiled By Night by Nicole Eigener
Your Mind Is A Terrible Thing by Hailey Piper
Nightfall: Nightmareland Volume 1 by Daniel Barnett
Three Days in the Pink Tower by E.V. Knight
This one kind of came out of the blue… At the same time, this is unlike anything I’ve written before. This short story is a combination of prose and poetry and startling black and white imagery with descriptive typography. While it’s a short read (only 38 pages), I’m hoping readers will feel moved, pulled, and changed by the content inside.
The book will only be available via ebook and is only 99 cents. It is currently up for pre-order via Amazon and B&N. Links will be below along with a description of the book.
“I am losing all the little things that make me who I am…”
Brody Aritza was lost to the Wild Dark when he was killed in the line of duty. But then something happened. The thin wall between life and death parted and he found his way back, back to the woman he loved. It wasn’t right though: he was dead and she was alive and they couldn’t be together. But he found a way to fix it. He could possess others to keep her safe and maybe…maybe they could be together after all.
Orchards takes place after the shocking conclusion of THE WILD DARK. Thrust into darkness once more, Brody must sift through time and memory as he clings to what little pieces of humanity remain in his ruinous soul. This short story will leave readers hungry for THE WILD FALL: Book Two of The Wild Oblivion, coming in 2023.
If you are a book reviewer and you’d like a free digital copy of ORCHARDS (or any other book in my catalog), please email me at strangewildspress@gmail.com to request a copy!
I’m still at work on This House Will Kill Again. Because ORCHARDS turned into a random (but lovely) necessity this month, I missed time working on this one. For those of you who might not remember, this is my Archive 81/House of Leaves/Downton Abbey mashup novel that I’ve been trying to get out for a couple years.
THE WILD DARK was featured on reviewer Nisar Sufi’s website, Literary Retreat. View it here.
I recorded an episode on the Terrifying Tomes of Terror podcast with Chance Forshee. We talk about THE WILD DARK and the upcoming sequel, slated for release next year. (I recorded this before ORCHARDS was even a thing.)
We watched all kinds of horror last month including the latest season of Stranger Things and The Black Phone. We will be watching NOPE when it premiers in theaters next week as well as the new Netflix adaption of Resident Evil. I just hope it’s better than Welcome to Raccoon City…
I’m off to a joint birthday party today! Cake and sunshine are in my imminent future and that only makes me more happy.
That’s my June/1st half of July wrap-up! If you want more regular updates about me and my projects, be sure to subscribe to my Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, or whatever else you see my face on!
Winter has been fairly productive here. I’ve been consuming lots of horror content and have been churning ideas in my ice cream-making brain as I write more short stories and work on getting novels in shape for submission and publication.
THE WILD DARK is currently at 28 brilliant reviews on Goodreads and 13 on Amazon. This might not seem like a lot to most of you but I’m absolutely over the moon. Every person that leaves a review or rating helps me get closer to selling the book to more people. Visibility is everything to indie authors and the more word-of-mouth is spread about the book, the more people will give it a try.
Click on the photo above to get to the online shop!
First of all, holy ****. What an insane premier book for author Matthew Lyons. Not only is it a unique take on the “teenagers go into the woods for a night” horror dynamic, it’s also a well-written odyssey of creepiness, a page-turner, and takes so many unexpected turns. I was intrigued by it from the moment it popped up as a suggestion on Amazon last year. It took me some time to get to it (the list of novels to read only keeps growing!), but I wasn’t disappointed.
This beast of a book took me some time to get through. That being said, the entire time was lovely. There’s a reason this book is on so many must-read lists, won the Hugo Award, and has a ton of five star reviews. It’s unapologetic in its presentation of the world and the characters, doesn’t waste time trying to explain away everything that happens, but justifiably treats its characters as though they are real, living, breathing people. I haven’t read much in the way of fantasy, but I’m 100% hooked and can’t wait to read The Oblivion Gate. You feel for Damaya, Syneite, and Essun collectively through her years of trials and tribulations and wonder and heartbreak and short-lived harmony.
Just to give you a taste, there’s magic (called orogeny), giant obelisks floating in the sky, stone eaters, pirates, a dying earth, vengeance, and so much more. Fall into Jemisin’s world of The Broken Earth trilogy and don’t look back. You’ll love it.
I’ll be picking up book 2, The Oblivion Gate, in the coming months. Until then, I’ve just started David Wellington’s vampire novel, Thirteen Bullets. I’ll be hoping to pull up a review on it this week.
As a writer, I’ve always found it most difficult for me to write short stories. I tend to overcomplicate the story with sub-plots and multiple characters and the entire thing gets away from me far too easily. Therefore, I’ve always had an appreciation for those that can write a compelling short work, let alone a collection of them.
Emma J. Gibbon is an author with whom I have a great appreciation for. When she isn’t writing heartrending short tales of darkness and spooky stories about monsters seen and unseen, she can be found at the Topsham library here in Maine, serving as an event coordinator and ardent lover of books. I was able to participate in two book readings there and definitely had fun doing it.
Funny, scary, and so heart-warming. I loved every little bit of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. The story follows the highs and lows of housewife, Patricia’s, furtive investigation into the new man in the neighborhood. He’s charming, intelligent, and seems to have everyone eating out of his hand. But is there something more to him than meets the eye? Patricia seems to think so and nothing would make her feel safer than to convince her closest friends of this, the ladies of a Mount Pleasant book club. Ladies who are all interested in reading about crime, gruesome murder, and dastardly deeds. Will her friends believe her?
Grady Hendrix has created a vivid and deep world that stretches over the span of a decade in a small Southern town. Absolutely fell in love with the characters and their friendship.
Unique and scary as hell. Revenge is a messy business and that’s exactly the case in “The Only Good Indians”. Four men are individually reminded of the tragedy they incited on a fateful November day ten years prior by someone…or something that holds a grudge against them. Jones’s writing is vivid and brutal and had me turning pages in anticipation of what came next.
I’m going to say something that probably a few of you have already been feeling. So far, the year, 2020, has felt like a dystopian horror novel. We’ve had everything from massive Australian wildfires to a global pandemic to a disappointing almost presidential impeachment, to racial protesting for equality, to murder hornets, to more shark sightings, to a wild rabbit virus to Karens. Reading about a different dystopian landscape might not be the first thing readers want to do in light of all we’ve been through. But, when it comes to dropping into the world of Josh Malerman’s Bird Box sequel, it’s a thrilling story that just about everyone can get behind.
Absolutely chilling. That’s the best thing I can come up with to describe Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s latest release, Mexican Gothic. When this book popped up on my radar over a month ago, I knew it was going to be incredible. I haven’t read any of Moreno-Garcia’s other books, but I had heard a lot about Certain Dark Things when it came out and had it on my list of vampire books to check out eventually.
Mexican Gothic had a strong marketing campaign. It started appearing all over the place when I was searching for random things online. The more I read about it, the more I convinced myself it was going to be a killer read. The quintessential gothic styled novel, updated for today’s reader and presented in a location underutilized in that genre and with unsettling, brooding characters. As soon as my pre-ordered copy hit my desk, I dove in. Glorious terror and creepiness abounds in Mexican Gothic.
The Kat At Night 