Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories The Comic VaultLeave a comment on Derek Charm’s Toxic Summer 
Eisner Award-winning cartoonist Derek Charm is mixing horror with humor in his new comic, Toxic Summer, and its first issue drops on May 1 from Oni Press. High school graduates and friends Ben and Leo are expecting a great summer as lifeguards, but things go from bad to worse when there’s a toxic spill. Charm spoke to Cemetery Dance about his influences, the extremes of horror and humor, and what he hopes readers take away from his newest work. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: When the Rain Begins to Burn by A.L. Davidson 
When the Rain Begins to Burn by A.L. Davidson
Disturbances by Alycia (October 2023)
140 pages
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
Noland and Judah are finally on a vacation together and they stop in the Appalachian wilderness to be one with nature and enjoy the gorgeous views. Well off the beaten path to avoid the local yokels, they get stuck when an unexpected storm leaves their RV cemented into the mud. As if things couldn’t get worse, a deadly rain has come upon them, which Judah finds out about when a few drops eat away at his hand. As this acid rain continues, there appears to be no ending and they watch animals being consumed in disgusting fashion making their beautiful view into one of death and despair. Now they’re trapped inside their RV, not knowing when this will end. Not only do they have to endure what is happening outside, but they quickly have to deal with their own personal demons as well.
Oh my freakin’ beating black heart. Yes, this is an eco-horror novel with some gruesome scenes, but it’s the relationship between Noland and Judah that truly shines. Their forced isolation truly brings out the good and the bad within themselves and to each other. All I want to do is take them both into big bear hugs and tell them everything is going to be okay. Each moment of their tenderness pulled at my heart strings and each time they put themselves in danger, in their relationship and in the terrible death rain, I held my breath and hoped for a happy ending. I really want to discuss more but I feel you should read this with little information and let the words pierce you as they did me.
This is a fantastic read for those seeking a haunting and introspective horror story that explores the complexities of personal relationships and the terrors of the unknown. Come for the dread and stay to see what happens to the cutest couple in horror history.
The Day Of The Door by Laurel Hightower
A Ghoulish Books Publication (April 2024)
The Synopsis
Once there were four Lasco siblings banded together against a world that failed to protect them. But on a hellish night that marked the end of their childhood, eldest brother Shawn died violently after being dragged behind closed doors. Though the official finding was accidental death, Nathan Lasco knows better, and has never forgiven their mother, Stella.
Now, two decades later, Stella promises to finally reveal the truth of what happened on The Day of the Door. Accompanied by a paranormal investigative team, the Lasco family comes together one final time, but no one is prepared for the revelations waiting for them on the third floor.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Inkblots by Jeff Oliver 
Inkblots by Jeff Oliver
300 South Media Group (February 2024)
240 pages; $16.99 paperback
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
Jeff Oliver is a writer of intense emotions, having started composing his dark poetry at just 11 years old. His poetry has an ethereal quality. When others may have been destroyed by such devastating darkness, he manages to weave lyrical justice into an otherwise unfair world. His newest collection of poetry is Inkblots.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Eynhallow by Tim McGregor 
Eynhallow by Tim McGregor
Raw Dog Screaming Press (February 2024)
178 pages; $17.19 paperback; $6.99 e-book
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
Eynhallow is a beautiful gothic piece of horror literature taking place in the Orkney Islands way back in 1797. Our protagonist, Agnes, is a pleasure to get to know. She lives on a remote island and is in an abusive marriage, trying to get through the days and raise her kids the best that she can. Then one day a stranger comes and occupies a house that really is uninhabitable and here our story truly begins.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories The Comic VaultLeave a comment on Kang Tae-kyung on Webtoons and The Bequeathed
Kang Tae-kyung is the pen name for two creators, Kang and Tae-kyung, who have published multiple webtoons, including their horror title The Bequeathed. Webtoons are comics from South Korea that can be read digitally, and they’re becoming more popular globally and in America. The live-action show The Bequeathed, from award-winning writer and director Yeon Sang-ho, is currently on Netflix, and he worked with Kang Tae-kyung to also make a webtoon version of this creepy story about murder and secrets. Cemetery Dance spoke to Kang Tae-kyung about their background, why they think webtoons are good at conveying horror stories, and how they approach getting horror across. Continue Reading
No One Is Safe! by Philip Fracassi
Lethe Press (April 2024)
The Synopsis
No One is Safe! presents fourteen stories of macabre, pulpy terror — a book filled with futuristic noir mysteries, science fiction thrillers, alien invasions, and old-school horror tales that will keep you up late into the night. Inside these covers, you’ll discover haunted dream journals and evil houses, birthday wishes gone wrong, a neighborhood cat that cures any disease, a flesh-eating beach, and mysterious skeletons on a hidden moon base. You’ll meet wise-cracking detectives, suburban vampires, murdered movie stars, and monsters of the deep. Don’t get too attached to the characters you’ll meet on these pages because anything can happen, and no one is safe.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Night Time LogicLeave a comment on Night Time Logic with Dan Franklin 
“Ghosts. Monsters. And Things that Linger.”
Night Time Logic is the part of a story that is felt but not consciously processed.
In this column I explore the phenomenon of Night Time Logic and the strange and uncanny side of horror and dark fiction through in-depth conversation with authors.
My short story collection with Cemetery Dance is titled The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales in homage to Robert Aickman’s strange tales. It can be found here.
In February 2024 I spoke with Cemetery Dance’s own Dan Franklin about his new book, ghosts, monsters, folklore, and much more. You can tune into our conversation here on YouTube.
Franklin’s newest novel These Things Linger is out now from Cemetery Dance. We begin our conversation here at the very, very beginning of the book…Continue Reading
On April 16, Abrams Fanfare will publish the genre-bending graphic novel thriller The Harrowing by illustrator Rye Hickman and writer Kristen Kiesling. This stylish, surprising, suspenseful, and unsettling book follows a psychic teen who hunts potential killers — until she discovers the boy she loves is her next target.
Abrams Fanfare has supplied Cemetery Dance with the following exclusive excerpt. Before you dive in, the comic’s creators offer some insight about this part of the story.
“It’s a vision time warp,” said Kiesling. “Up to this point, Rowan believes the serum will prevent her from losing her mind. We learn in this scene that like many of the medications currently on the market, the unintended side effects are useful. It’s not a diabetic drug used for weight loss but it does possess unexpected, yet beneficial side effects. Rowan’s mother discovered the medication protects Harrows’ minds but also grants them the ability to manipulate their visions. Having this opportunity sets up Jackie’s motives.”
Hickman adds: “There’s actually a delightful amount of synchronicity here in what Rowan is learning how to do (move through time inside the killer’s spree) and what the art must do in order to take the reader along on the ride. Anchors, in comics, are objects and people that appear consistently from panel to panel in order to help the reader understand movement in space. But here in The Harrowing, movement/space is secondary to time, so the people and objects on the train are performing a slightly different little trick.”
Enjoy the excerpt, and order your copy of The Harrowing today!Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on The Cemetery Dance Interview: Stephen Mark Rainey 
Writing from Martinsville, Virginia, Stephen Mark Rainey (that’s Mark to his friends, peers, and others who he doesn’t owe money to) is the author of over 200 short stories, some of which are available as collections (Other Gods, Fugue Devil: Resurgence) and the editor of the award-winning magazine, Deathrealm (1987-1997). Rainey is also the editor of a few fine anthologies such as Evermore, The Song of Cthulhu, and Deathrealm: Spirits, which is the book that prompted me to chase him down and ask nicely to corner him for his remarkable knowledge of our beloved horror genre.
Rainey did not disappoint and satiated my curiosity, at least for now, about how the tides of the horror industry has changed, the significance of having Deathrealm back in the spotlight, how he managed to rally today’s most esteemed and promising authors writing today under one unified literary roof, and a whole lot more worth leaning forward in your seat for.
Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Extinction by Douglas Preston 
Extinction by Douglas Preston
Forge Books (April 23, 2024)
384 pages; $20.99 hardcover; $14.99 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms
For those who have read the thrilling Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, it’s apparent that Preston knows how to roll out a successful high-concept thriller that often borders on horror. This dark thriller might just have cemented itself in many top ten reads of the year, especially for those who enjoy some science and beasties in their reading.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on The Cemetery Dance Interview: Stephen Graham Jones
When we opened the first pages of Stephen Graham Jones’ My Heart Is a Chainsaw back in 2021, we fell in love with Jade Daniels, Graham’s perfect vision of teenage imperfection. She was scrappy and self-deprecating yet willfully too smart for her own good; her encyclopedic brain for horror trivia featured an artist’s instinct to hyper-relate the genre to the world at large. But growing up in a small doomtown like Proofrock, Idaho, is not a large world. Rather, it’s a suffocating microcosm of our crumbling society where the walls are closing in, largely to the fault of her own imagination and the occult boundaries her mind crosses to materialize various personifications of said doom.
Then through 2022’s Don’t Fear the Reaper, we grew up with Jade, only to realize the more things change, the more they stay the same, even while the body count of Proofrock’s finite population rose with the tide of that cursed lake. All the while there’s a serial killer named Dark Mill South who seemed only a red herring, where even after his capture, he kept escaping; all the while paling in comparison to something untouchable under the surface of everything.
And when we commit to surviving something like Graham’s brilliant trilogy, even in the beginning, you’re already dreading the ending. And because of the inherent gravity of heartbreak, we knew there would have to be a finale for the finest final girl, Jade Daniels. In The Angel of Indian Lake, the third and last installment of the Indian Lake Trilogy, Graham successfully ties up every loose end, like serpents slithering down our neck, shedding from multiple real time eternities from the condensed Savage History of Proofrock.
And now it’s all history, just like that?
I had to ask the man.Continue Reading
The Thing In The Wind by Bill Mullen
Crystal Lake Publishing (April 5, 2024)
The Synopsis
A woman who has found her place in the world has it overturned by news of her mother’s disappearance in a remote region of northern Saskatchewan. She, her father, and a small group set out to find answers about how and why her mother and colleague disappeared and are suspected to be dead, all the while being haunted by dreams, premonitions, and a strange presence of something stalking them…something not human.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Grasshands by Kyle Winkler 
Grasshands by Kyle Winkler
JournalStone Publishing (January 2024)
216 pages; $16.95 paperback; $6.95 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
In Kyle Winkler’s Grasshands, the line between reality and nightmare trembles, unsteady, before dispersing into scattering spiders.
“Farce lands first. Tragedy knocks later.”
Throughout this read, I often thought of Ray Bradbury, who wrote stories like Fahrenheit 451, emphasizing the power of knowledge and caution against its misuse and exploitation. Winkler revived Bradbury’s calling card of creating characters who grappled with the pursuit of knowledge, whether for the exposure of hidden truths or devotion for discovery and conjured an unputdownable biblio-horror novel. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: The Redemption of Morgan Bright by Chris Panatier 
The Redemption of Morgan Bright by Chris Panatier
Angry Robot (April 23, 2024)
400 pages; $18.99 paperback; $6.99 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms
2024 is already looking to be a banner year for horror and dark thrillers. Chris Panatier is set to be one of those voices readers are not likely to forget.
Tales told in an asylum setting tend to be fascinating as a whole, especially through the fractured mystique of mental health. The Redemption of Morgan Bright is likely the best novel is this vein since Shutter Island, even though the two couldn’t be any more different. So much of Panatiers’ story relies on the layered plot and unfolding of who Morgan Bright truly is — and who she’s not.Continue Reading
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