Here are the new releases from Crossroad Press for September and October 2024. Unless noted otherwise, you can purchase any of them at Amazon, B&N, Apple, Google Play, Smashwords, or Kobo.
(Release date – 9/3/2024)
The survivors of what has come to be known as The Catskill Cataclysm are not out the woods yet. As the last known members of The Hidden, they are marked for extermination. Their allies—Chan and Danni, and the Troika—are hunting them as well, but the Hidden do what they do best: hide.
Something new surfaces in the South Atlantic: a Manhattan-size iceberg. And embedded within it is a long lost Nazi U-boat. Back in the day, the Third Reich claimed part of Antarctica for its own. Was the sub on an exploratory mission? It carried a strange artifact that it was ferrying home when it was trapped in the ice. The bodies of the crew are perfectly preserved from the subzero temperatures… but they all were murdered.
Could the appearance of the sub have any relationship to the Catskill Cataclysm? Unlikely. But then, there are no coincidences.
Incantations: Short Stories and Illustrations
by Sandy DeLuca
(Release date – 9/19/2024)
INCANTATIONS is an offering to lovers of horror fiction. It’s a collection of short stories…starting off with four interconnected tales about a traveling photographer named Tani. She encounters a homeless New York City girl who has a profound effect on her life, first as a lighthearted distraction in a derelict section of the city…later as a stark reminder about how hard life and bad luck can damage a woman. Later, Tani meets up with a vengeful entity…conjured with a bag of powerful mojo. She goes on to join a ragtag theater group who are not really what they seem. In the last interconnected story, she teams up with a surreal traveling companion who takes her to the end of her journey.
There’s a lot more here. Vampires appear in the second part of this collection. There are two mystics who are determined to protect their small Rhode Island town from an ancient vampire. In another story, a young man dreams of meeting an undead. A secret his grandmother kept for decades just might grant his wish. A Hollywood vamp tells her tale about becoming immortal…along with some colorful Tinseltown history. And THE VAMPIRE’S CHILD just may break your heart.
There are also murderers, phantoms and assorted demons included in this collection.
It’s lavishly illustrated and written for anyone who loves a good, dark tale.
Edited by C. T. Phipps
(Release date – 9/24/2024)
“Have you seen the Yellow Sign?”
Hastur was not a creation of H.P. Lovecraft but an adaptation of concepts created by Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers. Nevertheless, Hastur, AKA The King in Yellow, has since gone on to become one of the most iconic Great Old Ones. Whether the mysterious Lord of Leng in the Dreamlands or Cthulhu’s alleged half-brother, he is a figure who haunts the dreams of those mortals who touch upon even the barest knowledge of his existence.
THE BOOK OF HASTUR is a collection of short stories and novellas depicting Hastur’s influence over a variety of individuals as well as those individuals affected by his presence. Some of them are horror, some of them are Pulp adventure, and some are a mixture of the two.
(Release date – 10/1/2024)
Since childhood, successful New Jersey realtor Yvette Rollins’ friend Celine has helped her with all life decisions. But no one can see Celine, and the only person who hears her is Yvette. A serious car accident shatters Yvette’s body and exposes the crumbling façade of her seemingly perfect life. Her loyal twin, Anna, jumps in to help care for her three-year-old nephew, Max, while Yvette is in rehab. To Yvette’s dismay, the accident has also silenced Celine.
When Yvette returns home, Anna shares a recently discovered letter from their absent father, revealing the existence of a real Celine, a third sibling who died in the womb. Their father performed a Vodou ceremony and believes that Celine’s soul lives on in Yvette. Yvette is relieved to know Celine is real, while Anna has mixed emotions. Anna feels she’s spent her life competing with Celine, so is relieved that she’s gone.
As Yvette recovers Celine returns, causing Anna to fear for Yvette’s stability and Max’s safety. Anna uses an old family journal of Vodou spells to launch a desperate scheme to “rescue” Max from his mother. Celine warns Yvette that everything she holds dear is at risk. Who will Yvette believe—Anna, the sister she can see and touch, or Celine, the sister who has never steered her wrong?
(Release date – 10/2/2024)
Once they see you nowhere is safe.
Olympus One colony students Hal Leon and Akio Sato have made history. Their invention, a camera that images dark matter, has had its first successful test; but what it reveals may put human life on Mars in jeopardy.
Hal believes that the strange animalistic silhouettes hidden in the dark matter web prove his theories. The wiry, inhuman forms appear to look to the sky at some invisible threat before they’re wiped away by a wave of nothingness that resets the dark matter web to normal, until it all repeats again—a never-ending cycle.
That is, until something else appears in the dark matter web, and students and colonists alike start dying under mysterious circumstances. Can Hal and Akio figure out what’s causing these grisly murders, and does the dark matter camera somehow hold the key to the mystery?
Echoes of Olympus Mons is for anyone who’s ever wanted a Lovecraftian horror story set on Mars, like Lovecraft’s From Beyond and John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars.
(Release date – 10/3/2024)
“Kafkaesque” isn’t a term that’s used often or even lightly. So when it finds itself tied to any modern-day author, you know you’ll be in for a real treat. And that’s just what we’ve come to expect from Steve Rasnic Tem. His work often embodies the same nightmarish quality that authors like Kafka inject into their own writing. However, in Tem’s stories the situations are even more nihilistic. His environments are inhabited by droogs and degenerates, lost or forgotten, whose stories—up until now—have had no voice. But in a world overrun by an abject and apathetic populace, Tem provides his characters with all the voice they need.
Thus, it’s no surprise that violence is the wallpaper that lines Tem’s squalid hallways. Stories like “Facing It” and “Rough Justice” portray a dog-eat-dog world where “little bastards” are held in check and accused baby killers receive their just deserts. But keep a look-out for irony knocking on the door—it provides all the epiphany our flawed anti-heroes would ever wish to meet.
In “Rat Catcher” an infestation of rodents in one family’s home leads to an anguished plea for help. But the man who arrives leaves their children unsettled, and like the nightmare the father endured as a child, a horrific manifestation has been resurrected. Just as deplorable is “The Stench” in which Riley is continually hampered by foul odors found in ordinary people, places, and things, forcing him to avoid them at all costs. But one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and for Riley, the stench he so admonishes may in fact be our windfall.
Tem shows that there may be a glimmer of sentiment lurking inside—one that needs its door slammed shut. “Love Letters” features a man traveling cross country in the hopes of recovering his ex’s love notes. No matter what their nostalgia, they pull him further from reality and further from the closure he so desperately needs.
“Daddy’s an Actor” and “My Daughter is Here” feature two distinct father-daughter depictions: one that surrounds a fascination with the art of acting; and the other with end-of-life care. Their faux relationships may be teetering on the brink of collapse, but thankfully, their “daughters” are there to swoop in and help as needed…in their own little, maladjusted ways.
Unlike the noir-driven exploits from your father’s time, these forty-three tales of crime and deception run the gamut from high-altitude capers to back-alley brouhahas. You’ll meet obsessives and connivers, goons and scoundrels. You may find it uncomfortable or even disturbing, but you’ll never be lonely or bored locked inside Tem’s “Kafkaesque” amphitheater. With nearly 500 pages of disturbing content, it’s not to be read all at once.