Book Title: THE HANDYMAN METHOD Character Name: Handyman Hank   How would you describe your family or your childhood? Oh, well now, I’d say I don’t have so much in the way of family or a childhood, such as your kind would see it. I kinda gave birth to myself, best as I can recall.   What was your greatest talent? I like to think I help men find their special place in the world. I like to take on apprentices, and sometimes that apprenticeship can last a long time … and boy howdy, when I say long, I do mean looooooong.   Significant other? Womenfolk bring nothing but trouble. They got thoughts coming into their heads a god-fearing fella can’t even reckon with.   Biggest challenge in relationships? I tend to exhaust people, I guess. Plum tucker ‘em out. Then they tend to linger around like a bad smell. I can’t get rid of ‘em!   Where do you live? Under you, just maybe!   Do you have any enemies? Nope. Just friends I haven’t met yet.   How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR, Volume Three   2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? The supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too-real . . . tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle us. Stories from some of today’s finest writers of the fantastique—sure to delight as well as disturb!   3–When beginning an anthology how do you decide what “types” of horror and dark fantasy will be included? Both genres can be so broad. I don’t try to define either – it’s something I’ve addressed in introductions for the volumes since 2010. Generally, I look for stories that don’t necessarily scare so much as unsettle or disturb.   4–What kind of archetypal supernatural/horror character would you hang out with in “real life?” Not sure I’d consort with archetypical archetypes! Maybe fresh versions of them.   5–What are three words that describe what you are looking for in a horror and/or dark fantasy story?  Effective, revelatory, and entertaining.   6–What’s something you learned while acquiring the stories and editing this…

Excerpt from Chapter 1     Beth He looks at me with what appears to be great effort. Like he was about to nod off into a heavy, much-needed nap when I interrupted. He doesn’t look too bothered. Not like he might were I a car smashing through his fence. See that, Mom? I take my hand off the Nikon’s focus ring and give him a friendly wave. Hopefully he doesn’t find it creepy that I’m peering over his fence with a camera in hand. Why am I still holding the camera, anyway? “Hi?” he says as if he isn’t sure I’m even real. “I thought I was all alone out here.” I gesture vaguely at the world around us. Told you I’m a liar. “Seems like everybody else on the street already jumped ship for the season. Winter is coming.” “Call it a slack tide,” he says with a somber nod. “We’re between holidays, the kids are back in school, the weather’s just starting to turn, but the storm watchers won’t start arriving for another month. There aren’t many year-rounders here.” He pokes at the logs with an old hot dog skewer that’s coated in rust. The sight of…

1–What is the title of your latest release? THE VIOLENCE 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? Three generations of women escape the cycle of abuse during a pandemic that causes random bouts of animalist violence. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I was living in Tampa at the time, and mosquitoes were a constant annoyance. It made perfect sense to create a disease spread by mosquitoes and set it in my sunny suburb. Once I started writing, I felt a wave of paranoia every time a mosquito landed on me… which was often! 4–Would you hang out with your heroine in real life? There are three POVs: Chelsea, her daughter Ella, and her mother, Patricia. Chelsea and I don’t have much in common, and Patricia and I would hate each other, but I would’ve been friends with Ella when I was in high school. 5–What are three words that describe your hero? For Chelsea—victim (at the beginning), mother, fighter (at the end) 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? I grew up with the kind of domestic violence Chelsea and Ella experience in the beginning of the book. Writing it was…

Danielle J. Dresser: Welcome to Fresh Fiction, Cassandra, Genevieve, and Caitlin! We are excited to chat with you about WALK AMONG US, set in the world of the RPG game, Vampires: The Masquerade. Were you all familiar with RPGs and this one in particular before you started the project?   Cassandra Khaw: Oh my god, yes. Genevieve Gornichec: I was not, but I always wanted to be! The world just always seemed so big that I didn’t know where to start. Caitlin Starling:  I was obsessed with the source books and clan novels back in the mid-2000s, though I never got a chance to play! I definitely screamed a little when I saw what project I’d been brought in on. * Vampires have always been popular—what do you think makes them so attractive to readers?   Cassandra: The prospect of immortality, of someone who is ancient and ageless and able to have anyone in the world but chooses you to satisfy their needs, I think people like that. I think people like the elegance and sophistication too, the gratuitous amount of black, the tragic nobility. Genevieve: I think there’s something about them that people are drawn to. It’s like, a lot of…

6 DONNA Marleen extends a round porcelain bowl with pills. I scoop them up, put them in my mouth, and take a sip of water from a glass on the nightstand. She leaves the room and I lean back and listen to the sounds of the house. Marleen karate-chops the throw pillows on the couch (I don’t care for that look but I won’t correct her) and wipes the kitchen counters (there is the tearing of a disinfectant wipe from the container, followed by the sound of the garbage can lid clinking shut shortly thereafter). Her heels clack, make their way down the hallway and into the powder room, followed by a silence during which she undoubtedly straightens towels on the shelf. The house phone rings. Marleen’s explanation about someone punching in the wrong numbers at the gate sounds contrived. I want to get up, hurry from my bedroom down the hallway and into the kitchen, want to get to the bottom of this–want to grab the receiver and demand to know who is on the other end of the line–but the phone stops ringing. I don’t want to be in this state of mistrust but– That book on the…

You can read more about Fresh Fiction Senior Reviewer Miranda Owen and her reviews here! “But sometimes, the things you wanted most were the things that would destroy you.” Cynthia Eden, BOUND IN SIN In general, I’m a cozy mystery kind of a girl. I don’t usually go for movies or books that promise “high suspense.” That’s usually a turn-off for me. If a book has dog tags or a pistol on the cover the odds are that it’s probably not for me. Likewise, a film trailer or poster with some intense music or describing how the hero/heroine has a limited amount of time to defuse a bomb, rescue so-and-so, or recover the lost jewel of blah blah blah does nothing for me. I like scary movies, but usually with the violence that is cheesy and obviously fake rather than what I think of as “torture porn” – gratuitous torture scenes that don’t further the story or have us learn anything new about the baddies and generally just stick in my head like some toxic sludge that resurfaces even years later. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. I do read some mysteries and some romances with a few…