There are still loads of readers who simply prefer something tangible between their fingertips, the smell of paper and of print, the history and memories behind all that. And with that in mind, I have five offerings here that are easily within most people's pockets.
STORIES WITH A STING IN THE TAIL does exactly what it says on the cover. 12 tales of mystery, suspense and fear from the pages of magazines like Hitchcock's and Cemetery Dance, each of them with a twist ending. Black Static magazine's top critic Peter Tennant has compared these stories to the work of Roald Dahl. Tales of the Unexpected indeed. $6.99/£5.99.
CLASSIC PAN & FONTANA HORROR contains horror and ghost fiction mostly from the 1980s when those three famous anthology series Pan Horror, Fontana Horror and Fontana Ghosts were still in their heyday. But there's also fiction from that period from collections edited by Mary Danby and by Richard Davis and even a story from the 1980s F&SF, back when that magazine was at its best. And this book concludes with my tale from the 2010 Back From the Dead: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror. $7.99/£6.99.
My ghost novel THE NIGHT MANAGER is next. It's centred round a once-successful writer who checks into an old grand Victorian hotel to complete what he hopes might be his comeback novel. It's way off season and the hotel seems deserted ... but it's not as empty as it first appears. A definite touch of Stephen King's The Shining here, although it is not at all the same story. $5.99/£4.99.
If you're into either science fiction or mystery fiction, here's the one for you. The central character of THE ELECTRIC SHAMAN is a police detective lieutenant for sure, solving murders, kidnappings and other crimes. But he's doing all of that in a united Federal Africa of the future, that great continent massively changed. The book takes the form of five long stories, each of their narratives connected, and four of them originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. $7.99/£6.99.
Set in Finland in the depths of midwinter but with a British central character, my supernatural novel UNDER THE ICE has been through a number of incarnations. Appearing first from UK publisher Sarob, it was then released in the US by Samhain. The Horror Novel Reviews site subsequently named it as one of the 10 Best Novels of the year. $5.99/£4.99.
Plenty of books for your shelves then, whatever your favorite style of fiction.
