Here are the new releases from Crossroad Press for January and February 2024. Unless noted otherwise, you can purchase any of them at Amazon, B&N, Apple, Google Play, Smashwords, or Kobo.
(Release date – 1/23/2024)
Michael Windsor’s luck has abandoned him. His wife, Muriel, left him, taking his beloved seven-year-old son Andy with her, and is sleeping with a rich lawyer.
As if that isn’t enough, he experiences three near-death episodes in his sleep, fighting for breath and nearly suffocating. It’s called obstructive sleep apnea, and his neurologist advises him to use a device to help regulate his breathing at night. It sounds even more miserable, but Michael agrees.
What follows is a whirlwind of surreal changes as his body strengthens, his life improves, and he feels somehow more alive. He knows it’s the machine, but he also knows that’s crazy. Then, to his horror, he is enmeshed in a string of murder and violence that has both the police and a very powerful, very evil entity hot on his trail. He also finds a new romance and the hope of a better life. If only he can survive and protect himself, his son, and the woman he’s grown to love.
(Release date – 1/30/2024)
When Annette, the editor of a survivalist magazine, embarks on a weekend getaway up Minnesota’s north shore with her boyfriend Sebastion, events spiral out of control when a gang of rowdy bikers starts to show up at their every stop and pay her more attention than she feels comfortable with.
The always-prepared Annette does not believe in coincidences.
To further complicate the situation, Annette is also dismayed when Sebastion questions her worries and suggests they are nothing but a result of cutting her PTSD meds. As if in direct rebuttal to his position, the bikers rumble into the same remote B&B as the couple, the gang’s aggressive leader inviting Annette and Sebastion to join them outside at the bonfire for drinks and weed. Feeling cornered, and long ago vowing to never allow an unwanted touch again, Annette’s actions continue to escalate, resulting in an explosion of bloody violence and revenge inspired by her survivalist skills.
When the true evil of the situation reveals itself, only Annette’s rage and cunning, no matter her guilt or innocence, can possibly save them.
Tales from the Rain: Early Weird Fiction
(Release date – 2/6/2024)
NIGHTMARE FICTION FROM THE RAGGED EDGES OF REALITY
A sinister ice sculpture that towers a hundred feet high
The secret of the ‘man’ suffering from The Condition
A strange girl who welcomes you to her very unusual home
An insane, otherworldly cure for a lingering death
An abusive doppelgänger who refuses to lie down and die
A car park that may be one corner of a very personal hell
Meet all these horrific treasures and many more in the 52 stories waiting between the covers of Tales From The Rain.
This book brings back into print the collections Songs From Spider Street and Brightest Black, both of which have been unavailable for almost a decade.
It also includes The Monochrome Mandarin, a previously unpublished collection from the same period, alongside a selection of ‘lost’ early tales.
Cover illustration by Tais Teng
by Keith Herber
(Release date – 2/8/2024)
Vampire Cannibalism — The Ultimate Crime
Sullivan was a working stiff, a before-the-mast sailor, when he was taken in by the Family almost 150 years ago. They gave him immortality — and an undying hunger for human blood.
Since then, Sullivan has been on the prowl. And what better place for a night creature than modern San Francisco, its streets crowded with runaways, drifters, tourists, violent gangs, and nameless punks? Food is plentiful. Even food for the darkest hungers of the inhuman heart.
But San Francisco is more than just a hunting ground. Known as the Casablanca of the World of Darkness because it is home to so many competing vampire clans that have heretofore existed in relative peace, it is on the verge of becoming the locus for many schemes of immortals both within the city and beyond. And when Sullivan falls victim to their plots and is accused of diablerie, vampire cannibalism, he discovers how easily the hunter can become…the hunted.
(Release date – 2/14/2024)
Once he lived a life of valor and principle—a life that ended in betrayal and defeat.
James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, in life the embittered, martyred Cavalier, walks a different path in the Underworld. Embracing deceit and unbridled ambition as fervently as he once served God and England, Montrose has clawed his way up the Hierarchy to become a cynical lieutenant of the Deathlords of Stygia. Today, he’s no one’s idea of a hero—and a hero is what the Shadowlands needs.
Because something truly evil is stirring. Something cunning and malign that threatens the living and dead alike. And Montrose is the only being with a prayer of stopping it.
The Ebon Mask is the first volume in the shadowy, suspenseful Dark Kingdoms trilogy, based on the popular role-playing game Wraith: The Oblivion.