We’re so pleased to welcome author Roan Parrish and the All in Fear virtual blog tour. I had the immense pleasure of reading and reviewing this anthology last December, and there wasn’t a disappointing story in the bunch. Rebooting things just in time for some Halloween horror, we’re so pleased to have Roan here to share some of her own fave reads/watches in the genre, and there’s a giveaway too, so be sure to check out the Rafflecopter widget for details!
Six Favorite Horror Reads & Movies
I love horror, and my favorites are ones that leave you with lingering questions, about the world we live in and the limits we grow up believing in. They smash those limits and let the what ifs of the uncertain universe ooze in. I love the ooze. Here are a few of my favorites, from all across the genre. Happy creeping!
BOOKS
Bird Box, by Josh Malerman
Five years after something happened, Malorie lives with her two small children, one of only a handful of survivors left. The something infects anyone who sees it with murderous violence, so Malorie and her kids live boarded up, unable to even look outside for fear of being infected. When Malorie goes to the well for water, she blindfolds herself, feeling the something creeping up to her. She trains her children to hear and smell and taste the world, so they can live without sight. When things take a turn for the worse, Malorie realizes she must leave, in the hopes of navigating to a safe place that might or might not really exist. But how can Malorie and two four-year-olds travel hundreds of miles downriver without ever opening their eyes? …
This book is the first for Malerman, a Detroit native and musician, and it’s chilling in the best way. He’s created a totally unique horror world, where the invisible world that usually haunts horror becomes a world of safety, and it’s the visible that will kill you.
Experiment in Terror series, by Karina Halle
Perry Palomino has always been a bit of an outsider. Now, after college, with no job prospects on the horizon, she’s living with her parents and little sister, and generally feeling like a loser. When she encounters Dex Foray an intense (and irritatingly handsome) stranger, filming a ghost hunting show at her uncle’s lighthouse one night, Perry is set on a journey that will shed light on her past and changer her future. She and Dex become partners in the ghost hunting biz, and have the kind of chemistry romance novels are written for. But both of them are hiding dark and terrifying secrets—and the ghosts don’t seem to want to stay away.
This series kicks major ass. Great characters, awesome mysteries (a new one each book), and ever-raising stakes as the series continues and the characters develop. Halle self-published this starting in 2011, which is when I first read it, and she’s at her best in this spooky, quirky, tense series. Great for lovers of creepy and romantic!
BZRK, by Michael Grant
The Armstrong twins are the owners of a corporation that wants to take over the world, turning it into a place with no conflict (read: no free will). A group of teen hackers, gamers, and guerilla tacticians bands together all over the world to take them down and preserve autonomy. But this is no ordinary battle: the weapons function on the nano-level, and the battlefield is the human mind.
This YA thriller doesn’t read strictly like horror, but it’s horrifying AF, I promise. The nano-technology is absolutely fascinating, with each person who wields it sinking into a kind of double consciousness of themselves and their nano-bot as it moves at the microscopic level.
TV/MOVIES
Hannibal, Bryan Fuller
Based on the Thomas Harris novels Red Dragon and Hannibal, the show follows Will Graham, an FBI consultant with such finely-tuned empathy that he is able to look at a crime scene and see the crime’s commission … from the perspective of a killer. Tortured and isolated after his involvement in a shooting death, Graham turns to manipulative psychologist Hannibal Lecter, whose frightening intelligence and insistence on indulging even the most primal of physical urges makes him uniquely positioned to bond with Graham. But are they catching killers, or becoming them?
Hannibal is one of those shows that you either get super into or can’t deal with. I am so. So. Into it. Creator Bryan Fuller’s signature aesthetic is on full display here, and the aestheticization of violence is the perfect visual vocabulary to capture the tension between attraction and repulsion that the show spends the whole series balanced on the edge of. Also did I mention that it’s queer as hell?
Stranger Things, Matt & Ross Duffer
It’s 1983. Four best friends play Dungeons & Dragons in the basement, in a small, peaceful town, before they’re called home for dinner. That night, one of them disappears, leaving behind strange clues and seeming to communicate from another dimension. His three friends, his mother and older brother, and the local police chief will have to cross a threshold into The Upside Down if they have any hope of saving him. Along the way, they’re helped by a girl who has recently escaped from a government-run experiment in mind-control.
This show is an amazing reminder of what horror was like before torture porn and CGI. Equal parts nostalgia and homage, with great characters and a killer soundtrack, Stranger Things can’t be missed. New season coming October 27th! I will be glued to my computer for sure.
Get Out, Jordan Peele
Chris Washington accompanies his girlfriend, Rose Armitage, to her parents’ house for the weekend. What starts as a an awkward and vaguely eerie meet-the-parents turns full-on chilling when Chris finds a black housekeeper and groundskeeper working at the Armitage house, who treat him strangely. Chris becomes terribly aware that something horrible is going on in the Armitage family—but will he be able to get out in time for anyone to listen?
Y’all. This is absolutely one of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. The horror comes in part from the plot, but even before the plot unfolds, the horror comes from the way racism and white supremacy inflect every tiny interaction between Chris and the Armitages, making the viewer aware that it would’ve been a horror movie even without the plot. From “color blind” Rose to Chris’ funny best friend who warns him not to go, Get Out is everything I want in horror. Pitch perfect, smart, and brutal, it’s a must-see (and so’s the alternate ending).
About All in Fear
Title: All in Fear: A Collection of Six Horror Tales
ISBN (ebook): 978-0-9972311-1-3
Genre: Horror/Romance
Authors: Steve Berman, KJ Charles, Avon Gale, Roan Parrish, Kris Ripper, J.A. Rock
Original Release Date: 12/1/16
Available on: All Major Retailers
Order link, epub and mobi (publisher’s page): Open Ink Press
Order link, Amazon
Order link, ePub
Sales Blitz Info: All in Fear will be on sale for 99 cents on all platforms from 10/25 – 10/31 to celebrate Halloween.
Blurb: Horror wears many faces, and its masks can be tantalizing. Some of the top names in queer fiction come together to spin their own versions of horror. Worlds rife with dark beauty and mystery, the familiar becoming terrible, creatures ethereal and alluring—and all bearing the gleam of love. Does hope lie along these grim passages or only doom? It will become clear. All in time—and all in fear.
Company by Roan Parrish
Nick Levy’s family is falling apart and he has no friends, but at least he can escape into the world of his favorite comic book series, The Face of the Vampire. Naturally, when the vampire in question shows up one day, Nick is enthralled. After all, what could be better than his own personal fantasy made real? Except that Nick isn’t exactly sure whether Michel is real or not. And when the arrival of a new boy in school promises romance, Nick sees a side of Michel he never could have imagined. This Michel is cruel, jealous . . . and he’ll do anything to keep Nick for himself.
Love Me True by Kris Ripper
Palmer’s life is as good as it gets. Well, okay, so he hates his mind-numbing office job. But he’s found a hot, smart, incredibly kinky guy. The sex is explosive. The power play is off the hook. And if he gets his way, Jon will soon be his husband.
When Palmer asks, Jon says yes. For the first time ever, Palmer thinks things might be really good. Sure, bad things happen in the world—to other people. But this is all he needs: Jon at the end of the day, in their bed, arms around him.
How could he have possibly been so stupid?
The Price of Meat by KJ Charles
Johanna Oakley will do anything to save her beloved Arabella from the cruelty of Mr Fogg’s madhouse—but ‘anything’ turns out to be more than she bargained for when she finds herself working for a man suspected of worse than murder. As Johanna is plunged from the horror of Sawney Reynard’s barber shop into the foul, lawless labyrinth at the heart of London, can she or anyone get out alive?
His Mouth Will Taste of Chernobyl by Steve Berman
Joining Zeta Psi isn’t Steve’s dream, it’s his dad’s. Nevertheless his dad’s gift of the mysterious Bailey flask gets Steve an in to the frat house, and maybe his best shot at being accepted on campus. But the flask’s silver sheen may only be lighting his way into the darkness at the heart of the frat—and the darkness he’s learning is within himself. Steve wants to choose who he is, but choices are dropping like flies as he learns the true mystery of the Bailey flask. How does he give back a gift that’s also a curse?
Legion: A Love Story by Avon Gale
STAFF SERGEANT JASON ESSEX, YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING ORDERS FROM THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS:
REPORT TO: CAIN INSTITUTE [ADDRESS REDACTED]
ACTIVE DUTY COMMITMENT: GUARD AN ENTITY CURRENTLY HELD IN AN ENCLOSURE AT THE CAIN INSTITUTE. RECORD DAILY MEASUREMENTS. KEEP ANY AND ALL PERSONS FROM ENTERING OR LEAVING THE FACILITY. ENSURE THE ENTITY REMAINS COMPLETELY INCARCERATED. OBSERVE THE ENTITY WITHOUT ENGAGING.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS: THIS ASSIGNMENT WILL BE CARRIED OUT IN FULL ISOLATION. PLEASE BE ADVISED.
Beauties by J.A. Rock
When Dr. Lester Usole attends an event at AI developer Carnificiality, he’s introduced to Beauties: artificial beings designed to provide tailored sexual experiences for their human owners. Lester isn’t interested in sex—but he is fascinated by Ira, a Beauty too violent to be sold.
Lester convinces Carnificiality to give Ira to him. Lester has always wanted the chance to work with an adult AI, and around Lester, Ira isn’t violent. He’s strangely innocent, uncannily perceptive, and his company does much to ease Lester’s loneliness. Except something’s not quite right: Ira roams at night, even when Lester’s sure he’s locked Ira’s door.
Soon Lester is certain of only one thing: Ira has a secret. Something that will link their pasts and change the course of their future—if Lester is willing to face what’s on the inside.
The Excerpts
Company by Roan Parrish: “Hello, Nicholas,” he said. How the hell did he know my name? I ran through many possible responses and settled, naturally, on the worst one.
“Did my mom send you after me?” I asked, like a total loser.
Michel didn’t respond, just cocked his head as if to say, “I am a beautiful and otherworldly creature. Where I come from there is no such thing as mothers.”
“Are you real?” I asked then, congratulating myself on a slightly more pressing and practical question.
“Of course,” he said.
He was just how I’d imagined him: graceful, and beautiful, and so, so lonely. I realized that I had returned his handshake without thinking and was now just standing there, holding his hand and staring like an idiot. At this thought, Michel smiled kindly, and lifted my hand to his lips in a soft, gentlemanly kiss. I’m not proud of it, but it was my first kiss, and even though it was just on my hand, I felt it everywhere.
Love Me True by Kris Ripper: “Truth or dare, Palmer.” He lay back against the pillows of our bed, still idly playing with the band of his shorts.
“Does this game really work if we already know everything about each other?”
He grinned. “You think we know everything about each other?”
“Oh, come on.” I poked him in the chest. “Do you really have secrets from me, mister?”
“Maybe one or two things that haven’t exactly come up yet.” The grin turned into a smirk. “I don’t tell you everything I think about, Palmer. Aren’t secrets supposed to keep things interesting in a couple?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think we need any help keeping things interesting. Plus, I want to know everything about you. Don’t you want to know everything about me?”
“Uh huh. I really do. So: truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Okay. How about . . . when did you know you were in love with me?”
The Price of Meat by KJ Charles: The doctor grasped her arm. Johanna stamped on his instep with everything she had, wrenched her arm free, and fled out of the terrible room, running for the stairs. Reynard gave a roar that might have been amusement or rage, and at the cry his men rose from the shadows with leering grins and stretching arms. Two moved to the base of the stairs. Johanna changed direction and fled for the other door, driven by the instinct of the hunted fox to seek any hole, and this time, nobody got in her way. She pulled it open, hurtled in, batted aside something heavy and cold that swung from the ceiling—
One of dozens of things, hanging from great hooks, cold and pale and heavy in the dim light from the door, white bone-ends showing where the inedible parts had been trimmed off. It was a meat store, full of carcasses. The one she’d shoved swung back at her and on its side, like a cattle brand, Johanna saw an anchor-shaped tattoo.
A shadow fell over her. Reynard, with ragged, grinning men at his side, loomed in the doorway.
“Not a bad idea, Miss Oakley. We leave meat here to tenderise, and this should soften you up nicely. A couple of hours should make you more obliging, don’t you think? I’ve got to gather the Freemen for a meeting, but I daresay we can let you out once I’m done, if you ask nice enough.”
He stepped back and shut the door. It slammed on her like the thud of a coffin lid; the bolt scraped on the outside; she was alone in the dark. She hammered on its unyielding surface with her fists, begging and weeping and screaming for release from this dreadful larder, while behind her the dead men creaked and swayed on their hooks, quietly, gently decaying in the dark.
His Mouth Will Taste of Chernobyl by Steve Berman: As I push open the trapdoor at the top of the ladder, a moist, thick heat trapped within the attic overruns me. The outside daylight seeps through the oddly peaked roof, enough that I can find the dangling cord of a single bare bulb. One pull and I see the attic is really an unfinished elevated crawl space. By the time I worm off the last rung and onto the floor beams, my face feels like a windshield in the rain.
Carl climbs after me. The brothers ordered me to retrieve last year’s Halloween decorations, but Carl volunteered to help. I almost wish he hadn’t because there’s not enough room in the attic for the two of us to move about comfortably. He ends up on his hands and knees beside me.
The cardboard boxes I brush with one hand are mottled with mold and coated with dust. I reach blindly into one box and pull out a cheap plastic devil mask, the scarlet streaked with thick crud.
“I hate Halloween,” Carl says. His pained face is inches away from my shoulder. Dark crescents bloom under his neck, his armpits.
“No one hates Halloween. There’s all you can eat candy. Free candy.”
He shakes his head like a thick-coated dog after a bath and the sweat flies in droplets. “My folks celebrated the ‘harvest’—”
I hold the devil mask in front of my face. The bits of Carl I see through the cut-out eyes look miserable. “That sounds spookier—”
“It’s just pathetic.” Carl reaches out and lifts the mask off me. “I was . . . quieter before I came here.”
Legion: A Love Story by Avon Gale: Personal Journal
Today I asked Cain if demons really did eat human souls. I expected him to tell me that wasn’t true (they don’t live in a lake of fire, either) but . . . well. Apparently that part of demon-lore is true.
“When I’ve broken these bonds of magic and found those who summoned me, Jason, I’m going to feast on their souls so slowly they will die a thousand deaths before I swallow them.”
That probably should have put an end to my thoughts about getting him out of there, but honestly . . . could I really blame him? If I were kidnapped and put into a cage, experimented on and held against my will, I’d be pretty pissed and looking for revenge, too. Definitely.
“Do you need souls to survive? Like food?” I asked. Because there’s only one human here at the moment. Freeing Cain doesn’t mean I have to be his lunch. At least, I hope it doesn’t mean that.
Beauties by J.A. Rock: Lester turned in time to see Ira pinch each end of the worm and pull it in half.
“Ira! What are you doing?”
Ira held the two halves up, each one still wriggling. “I want to see what’s on the inside.”
“But that kills the worm. Don’t you know that?”
Ira frowned at the dark half. “It wipes the worm?”
A sharp pain pulsed behind Lester’s right temple. It’s just a worm. Just a worm. It was startling, to see something come apart like that, is all. “It kills the worm,” Lester repeated.
“It doesn’t,” Ira said steadily. “Both halves can live on and become new worms.” The halves curled around Ira’s thumbs in perfect synchronicity, as though Ira had commanded them. “I just wanted to see what was on the inside. Lester.”
Lester didn’t answer. He studied the dark red clots at each end of the severed worm, unable, for a moment, to move.
A pale mass trailing wires like jellyfish tentacles. Lips moving. No screams. The long, spindly appendages of a cancer cell. Shaking in a white hospital bed. Lips moving. Last words. You had to take things apart to make them whole. That was how ABs had been created—by dissecting the human body until it was nothing. By building its echo.
Ira tossed the worm halves aside. “They have nothing on the inside.”
About the Authors
Steve Berman
Steve Berman loves to tell stories that are both queer and weird. He was a Zeta Psi back in his college days at and remembers being hazed. He survived and graduated and even earned a Masters Degree in Liberal Studies. He has written and sold over a hundred articles, essays, and short stories. His YA novel, Vintage, was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award. ~ Website
KJ Charles
KJ Charles is a writer and freelance editor. She lives in London with her husband, two kids, and a cat with murder management issues. KJ writes mostly historical romance, mostly queer, often with fantasy or horror in there.
Find her on Twitter @kj_charles, pick up book info and free reads on her website at kjcharleswriter.com, get the infrequent newsletter at kjcharleswriter.com/newsletter, or join her Facebook group, KJ Charles Chat, for sneak peeks and exclusives.
Avon Gale
Avon Gale wrote her first story at the age of seven, about a “Space Hat” hanging on a rack and waiting for that special person to come along and purchase it — even if it was a bit weirder than the other, more normal hats. Like all of Avon’s characters, the space hat did get its happily ever after — though she’s pretty sure it was with a unicorn. She likes to think her vocabulary has improved since then, but the theme of quirky people waiting for their perfect match is still one of her favorites.
Avon grew up in the southern United States, and now lives with her very patient husband in a liberal midwestern college town. When she’s not writing, she’s either doing some kind of craft project that makes a huge mess, reading, watching horror movies, listening to music or yelling at her favorite hockey team to get it together, already. Avon is always up for a road trip, adores Kentucky bourbon, thinks nothing is as stress relieving as a good rock concert and will never say no to candy.
At one point, Avon was the mayor of both Jazzercise and Lollicup on Foursquare. This tells you basically all you need to know about her as a person.
Connect with Avon: Website || Facebook || Twitter: @avongalewrites || Sign up for Avon’s Newsletter || Goodreads
Roan Parrish
Roan Parrish lives in Philadelphia where she is gradually attempting to write love stories in every genre.
When not writing, she can usually be found cutting her friends’ hair, meandering through whatever city she’s in while listening to torch songs and melodic death metal, or cooking overly elaborate meals. She loves bonfires, winter beaches, minor chord harmonies, and self-tattooing. One time she may or may not have baked a six-layer chocolate cake and then thrown it out the window in a fit of pique.
Sign up for her Newsletter to receive updates about new releases, works-in-progress, and bonus materials like sneak peeks and extra scenes!
Website || Facebook || Twitter: @RoanParrish || Pinterest || Instagram
Kris Ripper
Kris Ripper lives in the great state of California and hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. Kris shares a converted garage with a little kid, can do two pull-ups in a row, and can write backwards. (No, really.) Kris is genderqueer and prefers the z-based pronouns because they’re freaking sweet. Ze has been writing fiction since ze learned how to write, and boring zir stuffed animals with stories long before that.
Links: The site || The Facebook group: Ripper’s Irregulars || The Twitter
J.A. Rock
J.A. Rock is the author or coauthor of over twenty LGBTQ romance, suspense, and horror novels, as well as an occasional contributor to HuffPo Queer Voices. J.A. has received Lambda Literary and INDIEFAB Award nominations for Minotaur, and The Subs Club received the 2016 National Leather Association-International Pauline Reage Novel Award. J.A. lives in Chicago with an extremely judgmental dog, Professor Anne Studebaker.
Website || Blog || Twitter || Facebook
The Giveaway
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