News and Reviews 08:01:2014

NEWS

First off, Happy New Year to everyone out there! Hope 2014 will be a great year for all of you!

Secondly, Spectral moved domiciles over the last weekend – so we kindly ask you to bear with us while we get things organised at this end. We are still surrounded by stacks of boxes which are gradually being unpacked, but it’ll take a little time (about a week or so) to return to normality.

Many thanks for your patience!

REVIEWS AND READER’S FAVOURITES

First, we have two ‘Year’s Best Picks’ lists in which Stephen Volk’s Whitstable novella makes an appearance – to see the illustrious company in which Stephen is mixing then click here to see Ross Warren’s picks and here to see Matthew Fryer’s list.

Now on to the reviews, and once again they’re for Whitstable: the first one is by Anthony Cowin and has been posted to the Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog (that one can be found here) and the second is from the Hypnobobs podcast, courtesy of Jim Moon, which can be accessed here – the review starts around the 45 minute mark.

Please visit the Spectral Shop to buy copies of the paperback edition of Whitstable – it’s also available as a eBook from Amazon US and UK.

That’s all for now, but there will be more soon!

A Horrifically Horrifying review of The Respectable Face of Tyranny

Despite any impression the title of this blog entry may give you, this latest review of Gary Fry’s The Respectable Face of Tyranny is actually a very good one. The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog is the brainchild of Emma Audsley and Shaun Hamilton, and is entirely devoted to our favourite literary genre. This particular review was written by Gary Swindley, to whom many thanks – to see what he thought of this Lovecraftian tome, please click here.

Onwards and upwards!

A return to the Quiet Room

Just like we said in a recent blog-post, you can’t keep a good one down. Gary McMahon’s What They Hear in the Dark is certainly one of those, and Ann Giardina Magee of The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog seems to agree. Last week she posted a new review of this long sold out classic to HHHB, which you can read here.

NEWS

Alison Littlewood’s chapbook, The Eyes of Water, goes off to be printed today – subscriber copies will start to be sent out next week and promo copies soon after that.

Nowhere Hall returns to haunt once more

To paraphrase something someone once said, you can never keep a good story down – which is certainly true in the case of Cate Gardner’s Nowhere Hall, as here comes a new review, written by Ann Giardina Magee and posted on The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog. You can find out what Ann said about Cate’s tale here.

NEWS

A small heads up: Alison Littlewood’s Spectral chapbook The Eyes of Water will be available within the first two weeks of June – all subscribers and individual purchasers will have received their copies by the end of the month. Many thanks for your patience.

Nowhere Hall still haunts

Just over six months after it was published, we’re still getting the occasional review of Cate Gardner’s chapbook, Nowhere Hall. The one we’re about to link you to was posted on The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog yesterday by Shaun Hamilton, who also wrote the piece. Hop on over to the review by clicking here. Thanks to Shaun for the review!

News: THE RESPECTABLE FACE OF TYRANNY by Gary Fry

Two things – first, the limited hardback is in the process of being printed even as this is being written, so the final product should be with us very soon, within the next ten days we should think. As soon as the stock arrives the books will be despatched to those who pre-ordered them.

Secondly, expect the first reviews of the novella to start appearing here very soon…

A couple of new reviews for a sunny Monday morning

With something of a sense of relief (and despite winter being my favourite season), it appears that spring is finally arriving at Spectral Towers. There’s nothin’ but blue skies here today, absolutely guaranteed to lift the spirits for certain. Even better, to boost those spirits higher still, would be some great reviews – and it just so happens that two write-ups on Simon Kurt Unsworth’s Rough Music passed across my virtual desk over the weekend. So that’s my Monday sorted.

First up is The Eloquent Page‘s aseessment of the latest chapbook – pablocheesecake, the man behind the eloquence, last year gave Spectral an honorary Publisher of the Year award, having been impressed by the consistency of quality from the imprint. Simon’s short story is the first of Spectral’s second year of existence, so was Mr Cheesecake as impressed by this one as he has been with all the others? Find out here.

Next we have a review from a new venue, The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog, run by Emma Audsley and Shaun Hamilton. For the purposes of this review, they passed Rough Music on to Matthew S. Dent for appraisal – so what did he think? You can read his thoughts about the tale here.

NEWS

The limited hardback edition of Gary Fry’s The Respectable Face of Tyranny is almost sold out – as of this writing there are only SIX copies available. If you’d like a copy of this collector’s item, then please go here – postage is FREE in the UK and for the rest of the world there’s HALF-PRICE AIRMAIL. That’s an irresistible offer, so you know it makes sense!

Onwards and upwards!!