I can officially announce that the third volume in my series of 'regional' horror anthologies, TERROR TALES OF EAST ANGLIA, is now available to pre-order direct from its publisher, GRAY FRIAR PRESS, to be unleashed on the world in the next week or so, with copies available to purchase at FANTASYCON at the end of this month.
With any luck, those of you who enjoyed the first two volumes in this series, TERROR TALES OF THE LAKE DISTRICT, and TERROR TALES OF THE COTSWOLDS will already be on board and eagerly placing your order, but for those who haven't yet read the first two books, or maybe who don't know Britain too well, this anthology is set exclusively in East Anglia, a vast ancient landscape in south-eastern England, very rural in atmosphere, very flat and very marshy - it was always said that in the days when gibbets were erected at crossroads, those in East Anglia (and their grisly burdens) could be seen for miles in every direction.
East Anglia also incorporates the legendary English 'fen country' - thousand of acres of winding, mist-shrouded waterways, and has its own unique and mysterious folklore, not to mention a long tradition of battles, murders, witch-hunts and ghost stories of the most eerie variety (East Anglia, of course, was the preferred stamping-ground of one Montague Rhodes James). But never mind all this expostulation. Time for me to zip it and let the back cover blurb do the talking:
East Anglia – a drear, flat land of fens and broads, lone gibbets and isolated cottages, where demon dogs howl in the night, witches and warlocks lurk at every crossroads, and corpse-candles burn in the marshland mist …
The giggling horror of Dagworth
The wandering torso of Happisburgh
The vile apparitions at Wicken
The slavering beast of Rendlesham
The faceless evil on Wallasea
The killer hounds of Southery
The dark guardian of Wandlebury
And many more chilling tales by Alison Littlewood, Reggie Oliver, Roger Johnson, Steve Duffy and other award-winning masters and mistresses of the macabre.
The book contains ten works of original horror fiction set in East Anglia, and three classic reprints. It also features the usual anecdotal tales concerning supposedly true incidents of East Anglian terror.
In case your appetites haven’t been whetted enough, here is the full table of contents:
Loose by Paul Meloy & Gary Greenwood
The Most Haunted House in England
Deep Water by Christopher Harman
Murder in the Red Barn
The Watchman by Roger Johnson
The Woman in Brown
Shuck by Simon Bestwick
The Witchfinder-General
The Marsh Warden by Steve Duffy
Beware the Lantern Man!
The Fall of the King of Babylon by Mark Valentine
The Weird in the Wood
Double Space by Gary Fry
The Dagworth Mystery
Wicken Fen by Paul Finch
Boiled Alive
Wolferton Hall by James Doig
The Wandering Torso
Aldeburgh by Johnny Mains
The Killer Hounds of Southery
Like Suffolk, Like Holidays by Alison Littlewood
The Demon of Wallasea Island
The Little Wooden Box by Edward Pearce
The Dark Guardian of Wandlebury
The Spooks of Shellborough by Reggie Oliver
Once again, I wholeheartedly thank these authors for their efforts, not to mention STEVE UPHAM, whose artwork propels any project he's connected with into new realms of horror, and Gary Fry of GRAY FRIAR PRESS, without whom none of this would have been possible. (As a footnote, the book will be also be available from most good online retailers, AMAZON UK and AMAZON US for example, in a few weeks' time).
Well, what are you all waiting for ... get in there!
I still need to catch up with the first two Terror Tales, before enjoying this one too. Hopefully, I would be able to read them all by the end of the year. As a matter of fact, let's make this one of my reading goals for the remaining of 2012 :)
ReplyDeleteI think you'll enjoy them, Mihai. We've had no complaints about this series so far.
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