Angry Robot is launching its own crime fiction imprint: Exhibit A - News

Following Angry Robot's recent announcement of their YA imprint Strange Chemistry, they have today announced details of an exciting new crime imprint. 

Angry Robot, the award-winning publisher of what it calls SF, F and WTF?!, is pleased to announce its newest venture – a sister imprint, Exhibit A, which will publish crime genre fiction.

The imprint will launch in late Spring 2013, with two titles appearing in each of the first two months, before settling down to one book each month. Exhibit A will follow AR’s strategy of co-publishing its books simultaneously in both the UK and US, in both paperback and eBook formats, backed up by strong online marketing and community activity.

Exhibit A’s ambition is to become an addictive new home for addictive crime fiction. It will be looking for authors with original, gripping voices. Exhibit A books – whether they’re procedurals, mysteries, thrillers, or something entirely new – will aim to divert readers from their everyday lives into an exhilarating world of drama, fear and suspense.

Joining the company to run the imprint is Emlyn Rees. He published his first crime novel aged twenty-five, his second a year later, and then co-wrote seven comedies with Josie Lloyd, including the Sunday Times bestseller Come Together. In his time, Emlyn has also worked for the Curtis Brown literary agency and run a manuscript editing service.

Angry Robot’s managing director, Marc Gascoigne, said: “Passion, a flair for innovation and a keen sense of what readers want – that’s what has driven Angry Robot’s success so far, and it’s what Emlyn Rees will bring to our new imprint too. We’re overjoyed to have him on board. With our YA imprint Strange Chemistry launching this September, and now Exhibit A due next spring, our growth plans are shaping up very nicely indeed.”

Emlyn Rees commented, “Angry Robot is an exciting and innovative new publisher, with a terrific track record for breaking out fresh talent and bringing great authors and readers closer together. I’m delighted to be joining the team and can’t wait to set about building a list of talented crime writers we can be proud of and passionate about. I want Exhibit A to become an eye-catching new focal point for compelling crime fiction and the crime fiction community.”

The launch of Exhibit A is the latest in a wave of expansion by parent company, Osprey Group, following investment by Alcuin Capital Partners in 2011. Osprey recently won the IPG Award for Specialist Consumer Publisher of the Year 2012.

You can visit the Angry Robot website here.

The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett - Review.

George Carole ran away from home to join the Vaudeville circuit. Sixteen years old, uncommonly gifted at the piano, he falls in with a strange troupe – strange even for Vaudeville.

Under the watchful eye of the enigmatic figure of Silenus, George comes to realize that the members of the troupe are more than they appear to be. And their travels have a purpose that runs deeper than entertainment.

George must uncover the mysteries of Silenus’s Company before it is too late. He is already entangled in their web of secrets and if he doesn’t learn where they are taking him, he may never find his way out.

Robert Jackson Bennett is a difficult writer to pin down. What exactly is it that he writes? Horror? Fantasy? Science Fiction? Well the answer seems to be all three and much more besides. In this era of clone fiction, where the safest option from a publishing perspective is to write something in an established and popular sub genre, zombie novels or gritty epic fantasy, say, and then just keep on writing the same thing, Bennett has chosen to walk a much riskier path. His first novel, the award winning Mr. Shivers was a fine piece of American Horror, wrapped up in a Southern Gothic meets Dark Fantasy package. Then for his second novel, The Philip. K. Dick nominated The Company Man, he went off on a completely different track and wrote a Noir Sci-Fi meets Corporate Thriller. Now in The Troupe, we have a kind of Historical Urban Fantasy, a character driven ensemble piece set in the vaudeville era, that is really rather brilliant. 

The story of The Troupe focuses on the young George Carole and his desire to find the father he has never known. A man he believes is the leader of an enigmatic troupe of travelling vaudevillians, The Silenus Troupe. The first section of the book is taken up with George's efforts to track and then join this mysterious band of entertainers. From the get-go Bennett does an excellent job of evoking a sense of mystery and magic around this group. As soon as I heard about them, I wanted to know more about them. Then when they appear in full and put on their first performance, I felt like he had in some ways crafted an exaggerated sense of what it might have been like to watch such bizarre acts in their day. At the same time proving once again his gift for mining elements of American History and finding there a rich vein of dark fable.

The Silenus Troupe itself is peopled by a wonderful band of oddballs. Each of the characters, the creepy and sombre puppet master, Professor Kingsley Tyburn, the darkly alluring dancer, Collette de Verdicere; the vacant strong woman, Francis Beatty, and the beguilling Heironomo Silenus himself, are wonderfully vivid. Bennett's later revelations about how these performers accomplish their stage acts, are fantastically inventive, and often more than a little twisted. There is also another member of the troupe who remains mostly in the background during their performances, a mute fellow by the name of Stanley who communicates by writing on a chalk board. I loved Stanley. He is presented as a warm, compassionately grounded chap, who apparently has something of a soft spot for George. All of the characters have their stories, each is intriguing, and often ultimately quite sad.

As the main story progresses, it quickly grows in scope. In many ways this book surprised me. It is much more fantastical and 'big picture' than I was expecting. The secret behind the Silenus Troupe is not a little thing, and this book has a grand mythic theme worthy of any epic fantasy. George's desire to find the truth of his unknown father becomes a metaphor in a way for a much larger quest, and the stage magic of the vaudevillians a symbol for a dying era of enchantment in the world. But there is no shortage of magic in this story, and at times I wondered what weird and wonderful thing was going to happen next.

Thematically it explores the mystery of being, and the endless desire to know what lies beyond. In a way it both mourns the loss of belief in our world, and praises the virtue of finding magic in the ordinary. It is infused with melancholy, but not without its uplifting moments. With Mr. Shivers, Bennett earned himself a reputation as something of a horror writer, and the The Company Man also had its fair share of the dark. The same is true of The Troupe to an extent. There are definite moments of darkness here, but this is also very much a fantasy novel, albeit unlike any you are likely to have read recently.

I opened this review by stating how difficult Bennett's writing is to pin down, but there is some consistency of theme to his work, namely, American Myth. I find in his writing an amazing sensitivity to the icons of American History. In his novels so far he's already given us The Great Depression, The rise of American Corporate Power, and now the last of a very special type of American Showmanship. I'm an Americanophile at heart, I often don't love American Politics, but who can deny the romantic impact of so many aspects of the history of the United States over the last few centuries? Bennett seems especially attuned to these facets of the American Story.

Simply put, I loved The Troupe. Many of the characters made a real impression, and I admire the intent and scope behind Bennett's vision. I think Bennett is one of the most interesting young writers to emerge on to the SF scene in a while, and I'm not surprised that he has already picked up a number of awards. His writing is accessible and yet he's clearly following his own muse. He's not writing stuff that fits within any neat category, but he's also not writing stuff that tries to be deliberately obscure (a kind of category in itself). The Troupe is a great example of this, an ambitious piece of myth making that is thoroughly entertaining. In this tale of the dying days of magic, Bennett proves he has plenty of his own.

The Troupe 

by Robert Jackson Bennett

Published in the UK and the US by Orbit Books.

Buy The Troupe from Amazon UK/US, The Book Depository, Waterstones (UK) or Barnes & Noble (US).

Robert Jackson Bennett has a blog.

Also, check out the cool book site for The Troupe here.

By the same author:

 

Silent Voices (The Concrete Grove Trilogy) by Gary McMahon - Trailer

One of the books I've been most looking forward to in 2012 is nearly here. Gary McMahon's Concrete Grove was a real favourite of mine last year. A relentless tale of urban horror, it touched upon issues of social deprivation, despair and hopelessness; themes that I find personally engaging as a result of my own background and interests. I've said before now, that I think McMahon's voice is one of the strongest to emerge recently in dark fiction, and I've no reason to expect that this second instalment in the Concrete Grove Trilogy will be anything less than superb. Check out the exciting new teaser trailer below.

Twenty years ago three young boys staggered out of an old building, tired and dirty yet otherwise unharmed. Missing for a weekend, the boys had no idea of where they'd been. But they all shared the same vague memory of a shadowed woodland grove…and they swore they'd been gone for only an hour.

When Simon returns to the Concrete Grove to see his old friends and unearth painful memories from his childhood, things once buried begin to claw their way back to the surface. The hummingbirds are flying again, bringing a warning of something terrible. Bad dreams take on physical form and walk the streets of the estate. A dark, hideously patient entity is calling once again from the shadows, reaching out towards three terrified boys who have now grown into emotionally damaged men. And the past is about to catch up with them all, staining their lives with a darkness they could never truly escape. Welcome back to the Concrete Grove. The place you can never really leave...




Here is my review of the first book in the Concrete Grove Trilogy.

Silent Voices is released March 27 (US/CAN) and April 12 (UK) from Solaris Books

A Cold Season by Alison Littlewood - Review

Cass is building a new life for herself and her young son Ben after the death of her soldier husband Pete, returning to the village where she lived as a child. But their idyllic new home is not what she expected: the other flats are all empty, there's strange graffiti on the walls, and the villagers are a bit odd.

And when an unexpectedly heavy snowstorm maroons the village, things get even harder. Ben is changing, he's surly and aggressive and Cass's only confidant is the smooth, charming Theodore Remick, the stand-in headmaster.

Not everyone approves of Cass's growing closeness to Mr Remick, and it soon becomes obvious he's not all he appears to be either. If she is to protect her beloved son, Cass is going to have to fight back.

Cass realises this is not the first time her family have been targeted by Theodore Remick. But this time, the stakes are immeasurably higher...

A Cold Season is the first full length novel from Alison Littlewood whose short fiction has featured in a number of genre magazines such as the award winning, Black Static. This novel was also chosen by the Richard and Judy Book Club, a rarity for a supernatural horror novel.

I can see why too, this is a very engrossing story. Littlewood wastes no time in drawing the reader into a well crafted atmosphere of menace. From the opening chapter where lead protagonist, Cass, drives into the village of Darnshaw through moorland shrouded in fog and picks up an apparently stranded stranger, there is a pervasive sense of threat and paranoia. And something a little bit retro too. This tale of the picture postcard English Village hiding a sinister secret has touches of the Wicker Man, as well as some of the religious overtones of notable seventies horror movies, like The Omen or Rosemary's Baby. 

There is, however, a fine line between retro and cliché, and there were times when I thought this novel strayed a little close to the mark on that front. The brilliantly helpful and charmingly seductive (for which read - obviously evil) school teacher, and the equation of paganism with devilry, for example. But overall, the combination of well pitched tension and compulsive narrative, mostly alleviated what gripes I had in this area. Some of that tension was achieved by the general uselessness of the main character, which frustrated me at times. I really wanted her to make a decision and stick with it, to trust her instinct, and I was constantly frustrated by her ineffectual meandering. It seemed to me that every time, even the sanest, most rational person would think, hang on a minute, there's something clearly a bit wrong here in this village, she managed to convince herself otherwise. I should say though, that I found this an enjoyable frustration, and a lead character who always does the right thing would be pretty dull. Also, a lot of the time she was just trying to do the best for her son, Ben, the other primary character in the story.

The relationship between Cass and Ben really forms the pivot of the story, and it is this relationship that lifts the novel out of the ordinary in terms of supernatural thrillers of this type. It is this aspect of the story that I also think is the most original. I did not expect when I initially began reading this book, that Ben himself would be a threat to Cass, as soon becomes apparent. Due to the trauma the family has recently experienced, it is difficult at times to know whether Ben is grieving for his lost father or being manipulated by supernatural forces, and this uncertainty is handled with real flair.

It is often said, and I've mentioned this before, that in horror - owing to the genre's Gothic heritage - the setting is as much a character as any other. Here, Littlewood has done a splendid job with the elements of Gothic tradition. In Darnshaw, it often seems as is the topography itself is conspiring against Cass, and the ensemble of village antagonists arrayed against her seem to draw their strength from the very soil. The looming menace of the village church, where Cass's father once led services, adds further to these Gothic touches.

Overall, I enjoyed A Cold Season. It is not without its faults: the ending resolves a little too quickly and appears weak comparative to the main body of the novel, and some of the character types and themes are a little familiar. Despite these flaws, A Cold Season kept me hooked with its atmospheric portrayal of enforced isolation, hysteria and paranoia. The engaging central drama of a mother's desperate desire to protect her child, while caught in a tug of war with both their past and malign forces in the present - and with that child himself also seemingly intent on bringing harm to them both - has resulted in Littlewood producing a tense, atmospheric, and at times very creepy debút novel. 


A Cold Season
By Alison Littlewood
Published in the UK by Jo Fletcher Books

Alison Littlewood has a website and a Twitter

Buy from Amazon UK/US, The Book Depository, Waterstones. 

Future Releases - Preview

Well, hello there! Sorry I've not been around much, but I've recently had a fair bit to deal with in my personal life. Anyway, all that's terribly boring. Thankfully things have begun to settle down, and I'm slowly starting to get my reading mojo back. Naturally, I've been looking at some of the upcoming new releases heading our way soon. Here is a selection of those that have caught my attention:



On a battlefield strewn with corpses, a ragged figure, dressed in wolfskin and intent on death, slips past the guards into the tent of the Emperor and draws his sword. The terrified citizens of Constantinople are plagued by mysterious sorcery. The wolves outside the city are howling. A young boy had traded the lives of his family for power. And a Christian scholar, fleeing with his pregnant wife from her enraged father, must track down the magic threatening his world.

All paths lead to the squalid and filthy prison deep below the city, where a man who believes he is a wolf lies chained, and the spirits of the dead are waking. The Norsemen camped outside the city have their own legends, of the wolf who will kill the gods, but no true Christian could believe such a thing. And yet it is clear to Loys that Ragnarok is coming. Will he be prepared to sacrifice his life, his position, his wife and his unborn child for a god he doesn't believe in? And deep in the earth, the wolfman howls...

Lord of Slaughter by M.D. Lachlan. Published by Gollancz 28 June 2012.



A KILLER IS LOOSE IN A SMALL TOWN.

In the small town of Chambers, Ohio, there is one thing that everyone gets excited about: high school football. Coach Kent Austin has led the team to an undefeated season, and they're finally headed for the state championships after decades of waiting.

Kent's older brother, Adam, is the local bail bondsman, known for finding people who don't want to be found. So, when high school student Rachel Bond wants help tracking down her father, an ex-con who has just been released from prison, she turns to Adam for help. But just days after Adam gives Rachel an address for her father, she is found murdered on the side of the road.

The death shakes the town and Rachel's boyfriend, star of the college football team's, to the core. It also causes Adam and Kent to relive the tragedy of their sister's murder many years before. Feeling responsible for Rachel's death, Adam vows to find the killer . . .

The Prophet by Michael Koryta. Published by Hodder & Stoughton 27 September 2012.



1912. Locked in an eerily quiet dining room on the Titanic, a mysterious man tells a young girl his life story as the ship begins to sink. It all starts in Whitechapel, London in 1888... In the small hours of the night in a darkened Whitechapel alley, young Mary Kelly stumbles upon a man who has been seriously injured and is almost unconscious in the gutter. Mary - down on her luck and desperate to survive - steals his bag and runs off into the night. Two days later, an American gentleman wakes in a hospital bed with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He has suffered a serious head injury, and with no one to help him remember who he is he starts to wonder how he will ever find his way home.

One terrible truth links these two lost souls in the dark world of Victorian London - a truth that could ruin the name of the most influential man in the land... Back in 1912, as the Titanic begins its final shuddering descent to the bottom of the frozen, black Atlantic, one man is about to reveal the truth behind a series of murders that have hung like a dark fog over London for more than two decades...the identity of Jack the Ripper.

The Candle Man by Alex Scarrow. Published by Orion Books 26 April 2012.



While carrying out an autopsy on a body recently brought into a morgue in Santa Fe, county coroner Alexis Cruz makes a surprising discovery. Lodged in the dead man's femur is a musket ball which, carbon dating reveals, was fired some 200 years earlier in the American Civil War. But before she can notify the authorities, Alexis disappears. The DIA call in Ethan Warner and his partner, Nicola Lopez, to find the missing coroner. But the closer they come to unlocking the terrifying truth, the nearer they unknowingly bring a warped and dangerous individual to achieving a catastrophic goal.

Immortal by Dean Crawford. Published by Simon & Schuster 10 May 2012.



Alice isn't having the best of days. She was late for work, she missed her bus, and now she's getting rained on. What she doesn't know is that her day's about to get worse: the epic, grand-scale kind of worse that comes from the arrival of two angels who claim everything about her life is a lie.

The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating; the age-old balance is tipping, and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act—or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever.

That’s where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory—a disgraced angel with a drinking problem and a whole load of secrets—Alice will learn the truth about her own history...and why the angels want to send her to hell.

What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding—and can she trust either side?

Caught between the power plays of the angels and Lucifer himself, it isn't just hell's demons that Alice will have to defeat...

Blood and Feathers by Lou Morgan. Published by Solaris Books 31 June 2012.



At the end of THE PASSAGE, the great viral plague had left a small group of survivors clinging to life amidst a world transformed into a nightmare. In the second volume of this epic trilogy, this same group of survivors, led by the mysterious, charismatic Amy, go on the attack, leading an insurrection against the virals: the first offensives of the Second Viral War. To do this, they must infiltrate a dozen hives, each presided over by one of the original Twelve. Their secret weapon: Alicia, transformed at the end of book one into a half human, half viral - but whose side, in the end, is she really on?

 The Twelve by Justin Cronin. Published by Orion 30 August 2012.



May Lynn was a pretty girl from a mean family who dreamed of becoming a film star. Now she's dead - her body dredged up from the Sabine River, bound with wire and weighted down. Her best friend, Sue Ellen, has a family meaner than May's and a yearning for something greater than she's been given. She thinks the least she can do for her friend is take her ashes to Hollywood, the place she'd always longed to be. But May Lynn's diary holds a secret: the location of a large sum of money. What seems like a stroke of fortune has disastrous consequences, and Sue Ellen's escape is about to get more complicated than she'd ever imagined.

Edge of Dark Water by Joe R. Lansdale. Published by Mullholland 15 March 2012.

The outbreak tore the USA in two. The east remains a safe haven. The west has become a ravaged wilderness. They call it the Evacuated States.

It is here that Henry Marco makes his living. Hired by grieving relatives, he tracks down the dead to deliver peace.

Now Homeland Security wants Marco, for a mission unlike any other. He must return to California, where the apocalypse began. Where a secret is hidden. And where his own tragic past waits to punish him again.

But in the wastelands of America, you never know who - or what - is watching you . . .

The Return Man by V.M. Zito. Published by Hodder & Stoughton 29 March 2012.



Peter Warlock is a magician with a dark secret. Every night, he amazes audiences at his private theater in New York, where he performs feats that boggle the imagination. But his day job is just a cover for his otherworldly pursuits: Peter is a member of an underground group of psychics who gaze into the future to help prevent crimes.

No one, not even his live-in girlfriend, knows the truth about Peter—until the séance when he foresees an unspeakable act of violence that will devastate the city. As Peter and his friends rush to prevent tragedy, Peter discovers that a shadowy cult of evil psychics, the Order of Astrum, know all about his abilities. They are hunting him and his fellow psychics down, one by one, determined to silence them forever.

Dark magic by James Swain. Published by Tor 22 May 2012.

When Benedict Doyle finds himself the owner of his great-grandfather's north London house, he is dismayed. For it was in that house, as a frightened eight-year-old, that the strange glimpses into his great-grandfather's life began: eerie shutter-flash images that have gradually revealed sinister darkness in his family's past.

Through that darkness runs the grisly thread of an old legend about a chess set - 32 carved figures believed to possess a dark power, but shut away in the forgotten library of a tumbledown Irish castle for many decades.

When Michael Flint, meeting Benedict in Oxford, starts to research his story, chilling facts begin to emerge - facts that suggest the old legend contains a disturbing reality.

And when Nell West, no stranger to the eeriness of old properties, begins to compile an inventory of Holly Lodge's contents for her antique business, it seems that the chess set's malevolence might be reaching out to the present . . . 

Sin Eater by Sarah Rayne. Published by Severn House 29 March 2012.

Expelled from school, betrayed by her best friend and virtually ignored by her dad, who's never recovered from the death of her mum, Beth Bradley retreats to the sanctuary of the streets, looking for a new home. What she finds is Filius Viae, the ragged and cocky crown prince of London, who opens her eyes to the place she's never truly seen. But the hidden London is on the brink of destruction.

Reach, the King of the Cranes, is a malign god of demolition, and he wants Filius dead. In the absence of the Lady of the Streets, Filius' goddess mother, Beth rouses Filius to raise an alleyway army, to reclaim London's skyscraper throne for the mother he's never known. Beth has almost forgotten her old life - until her best friend and her father come searching for her, and she must choose between the streets and the life she left behind.

The City's Son by Tom Pollock. Published by Jo Fletcher Books 7 June 2012.



Indie filmmaker Kyle Freeman is a man at the end of his tether. He faces bankruptcy and obscurity, until he lands a commission to make an unusual documentary. The Temple of the Last Days was a notorious cult, which reached its bloody endgame in the Arizona desert in 1975. Ever since, the group’s rumoured mystical secrets and paranormal experiences have lain concealed behind a history of murder, sexual deviancy and imprisonment.

Kyle and his one-man crew film the cult’s original bases in London and France – finally visiting the desert crime scene where the cult self-destructed in a night of ritualistic violence. But when Kyle interviews survivors, uncanny events plague his shoots. Frightening out-of-body experiences and nocturnal visitations follow, along with the discovery of ghastly artefacts. Until Kyle realises, too late, that they’ve become entangled in the cult’s hideous legacy.

Last Days by Adam Nevill. Published by Pan Macmillan 24 May 2012.



Jack Glass is the murderer. We know this from the start. Yet as this extraordinary novel tells the story of three murders committed by Glass the reader will be surprised to find out that it was Glass who was the killer and how he did it. And by the end of the book our sympathies for the killer are fully engaged. Riffing on the tropes of crime fiction (the country house murder, the locked room mystery) and imbued with the feel of golden age SF, JACK GLASS is another bravura performance from Roberts.

Whatever games he plays with the genre, whatever questions he asks of the reader, Roberts never loses sight of the need to entertain. JACK GLASS has some wonderfully gruesome moments, is built around three gripping HowDunnits and comes with liberal doses of sly humour. Roberts invites us to have fun and tricks us into thinking about both crime and SF via a beautifully structured novel set in a society whose depiction challanges notions of crime, punishment, power and freedom. It is an extraordinary novel.

Jack Glass by Adam Roberts. Published by Gollancz 26 July 2012.

Some Kind of Fairy Tale is a very English story. A story of woods and clearings, a story of folk tales and family histories. It is as if Neil Gaiman and Joanne Harris had written a Fairy Tale together.

It is Christmas afternoon and Peter Martin gets an unexpected phonecall from his parents, asking him to come round. It pulls him away from his wife and children and into a bewildering mystery. He arrives at his parents house and discovers that they have a visitor. His sister Tara. Not so unusual you might think, this is Christmas after all, a time when families get together. But twenty years ago Tara took a walk into the woods and never came back and as the years have gone by with no word from her the family have, unspoken, assumed that she was dead.

Now she's back, tired, dirty, dishevelled, but happy and full of stories about twenty years spent travelling the world, an epic odyssey taken on a whim. But her stories don't quite hang together and once she has cleaned herself up and got some sleep it becomes apparent that the intervening years have been very kind to Tara. She really does look no different from the young women who walked out the door twenty years ago.

Peter's parents are just delighted to have their little girl back, but Peter and his best friend Richie, Tara's one time boyfriend, are not so sure. Tara seems happy enough but there is something about her. A haunted, otherworldly quality. Some would say it's as if she's off with the fairies. And as the months go by Peter begins to suspect that the woods around their homes are not finished with Tara and his family...

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce. Published by Gollancz 21 Jun 2012.

Strange Chemistry announces launch titles - News

ANGRY ROBOT ANNOUNCES STRANGE CHEMISTRY LAUNCH TITLES

Strange Chemistry - the YA imprint of award-winning indie genre fiction publisher Angry Robot - has announced two deals that will help launch the list into publishing super-stardom.

In a post on Strange Chemistry's website - http://strangechemistrybooks.com - imprint editor Amanda Rutter has revealed that Strange Chemistry's first two titles will be...

SHIFT by KIM CURRAN

About The Book: When your average, 16-year old loser, Scott Tyler, meets the beautiful and mysterious Aubrey Jones, e learns he's not quite so average after all. He's a 'Shifter'. And that means he has the power to undo any decision he's ever made. At first, he thinks the power to shift is pretty cool. But as his world quickly starts to unravel around him he realises that each time he uses his power, it has consequences; terrible unforeseen consequences. Shifting is going to get him killed. In a world where everything can change with a thought, Scott has to decide where he stands.

About the Author: Kim Curran was born in Dublin and moved to London when she was seven. After studying Philosophy and Literature at Sussex University her plan of being paid big bucks to think deep thoughts never quite paid off. She became an advertising copywriter instead, specialising in writing for video games. She lives in SW London with her husband, if they're not both off travelling. When she's not writing she fences and plays guitar, both very badly.

Visit Kim online at http://www.kimcurran.co.uk/


POLTERGEEKS by SEAN CUMMINGS

About the Book: Julie is an apprentice witch - or so she believes. When a dark power comes stalking out of the past to haunt her and her mother, Julie learns that she is far more than just a witch. With the help of her best friend Marcus and a rather unusual Great Dane, Julie has to race against time to ensure she can defeat the bad guy, save her mother and avoid being grounded - again!

About the Author: Sean Cummings lives in Saskatoon, Canada. He's a comic book geek, superhero junkie, zombie fan and a total nerd. His interests include science fiction, the borg, cats with extra toes, east Indian cuisine and quality sci-fi movies/television. Sean has been writing since 1978 (as a means of liberating his "inner nerd") and his published works for adults include Shade Fright, Funeral Pallor and Unseen World, all published by Snowbooks. Poltergeeks is his first book for Young Adults.

Visit Sean online at www.sean-cummings.ca and www.darkcentralstation.com.

------------

Check out the full news announcement on http://strangechemistrybooks.com for more details, folks. And say hello to Kim (@KimECurran) and Sean (@saskatoonauthor) on Twitter!

Rebellion opens new publishing store - News

‘My god, it’s full of books’: new Rebellion publishing store opens

Rebellion Publishing is proud to announce the opening of its brand new digital store – giving you the pick of the freshest genre writing available at the click of a button.

Everything from SF to horror and fantasy to urban fantasy will be available direct from our Solaris and Abaddon Books imprints for the first time, and in both ePub and mobi formats – perfect for anyone with a Kindle or eReader.

You can visit the new store at Rebellionstore.com

The ideal one-stop shop for the 21st century reader, the Rebellion Publishing store offers digital downloads for all our titles with competitive prices, special sales and promotional offers – it’s the perfect place to stock up with winter warmers for the festive season.

Offering Steampunk, SF, fantasy, urban fantasy and horror, the site is easily navigable and each book is categorised in multiple ways. Alternatively, in search of a new read with a strong female lead? Or maybe a good anti-hero? Find what you want quickly with our ‘popular themes’ sections.

And to kick off, not only is there 10% off of all ebooks but, inspired by the lingering chill of Hallowe’en, for this week only all the novels in our Tomes of the Dead zombie series and the Infernal Game series are just £2 each!

“The Rebellion Store is your one-stop digital shop for all that very best in genre,” said Jonathan Oliver, editor-in-chief of Solaris and Abaddon Books, “and a great place to find bargains.”

For all press enquiries, please contact Michael Molcher

Phone + 44 (0)1865 792 201 or e-mail press@rebellion.co.uk