Saturday 31 May 2014

Here at last: TERROR TALES OF WALES

In the midst of the ongoing HECK saga, and with WAR WOLF now looking as if it's going to be a major project for me in 2014, I still consider it vital that the TERROR TALES series - the collection of regional British horror anthologies I'm continuing to edit for GRAY FRIAR - continues to roll off the press.

And here, I'm so chuffed to be able to tell you, is the latest installment. It's a wee bit later than planned, but we're all of us having a hellishly busy year. So I hope you can forgive us that.

May I present TERROR TALES OF WALES - now available to be ordered from GRAY FRIAR PRESS, or from Amazon. As usual, the cover hits the spot exactly, this time courtesy of artist NEIL WILLIAMS, while the book itself contains a load of original fiction by some of the horror genre's current finest writers, including STEPHEN VOLK, SIMON CLARK, JOHN LLEWELLYN PROBERT, BRYN FORTEY, PRIYA SHARMA, REGGIE OLIVER and TIM LEBBON.

After our brief tour of the whole British seaside in the last edition, today's launch sees us revert to the normal format of a specific geographic locale, though on this occasion, of course, it's a country in its own right - Wales, which we investigate thoroughly through mythology, history and folklore, but only in their most dark and menacing forms.

Perhaps I'd better shut my gob from this point on, and let the official back-cover blurb do the talking.

Wales – ‘Land of my Fathers’, cradle of poetry, song and mythic rural splendour. But also a scene of oppression and tragedy, where angry spirits stalk castle and coal mine alike, death-knells sound amid fogbound peaks, and dragons stir in bottomless pools …
  
The headless spectre of Kidwelly
The sea terror off Anglesey
The soul stealer of Porthcawl
The blood rites at Abergavenny
The fatal fruit of Criccieth
The dark serpent of Bodalog
The Christmas slaughter at Llanfabon
  
And many more chilling tales by Stephen Volk, Tim Lebbon, Simon Clark, Priya Sharma, John Llewellyn Probert and other award-winning masters and mistresses of the macabre. 

With luck that will whet your whistles for more. But in case it doesn't, here's the full table of contents, which I'm sure you'll agree gives it added umph (the italicised items are the 'true' tales with which I always like to intersperse the fictional ones):

Under the Windings of the Sea by Ray Cluley; Legions of Ghosts; Old as the Hills by Steve Duffy; The Beast of Bodalog; The Druid’s Rest by Reggie Oliver; Night of the Bloody Ape; Swallowing a Dirty Seed by Simon Clark; The Devil Made Him Do It; The Face by Thana Niveau; Hoof-beats in the Mist; Don’t Leave Me Down Here by Steve Lockley; The Werewolf of Clwyd; Matilda of the Night by Stephen Volk; The Goblin Stone; The Sound of the Sea by Paul Lewis; A Quick Pint and a Slow Hanging; The Flow by Tim Lebbon; Doppelganger; The Offspring by Steve Jordan; Prophecy of Fire; Dialled by Bryn Fortey; The Dark Heart of Magnificence; The Rising Tide by Priya Sharma; The Hag Lands; Apple of their Eyes by Gary Fry; Beneath the Sea of Wrecks; Learning the Language by John Llewellyn Probert.

Previous books in the series can still be purchased, of course.They can be found at all good online retailers, such as Amazon, or at their point of origin, the GRAY FRIAR PRESS website. For those interested, they are: TERROR TALES OF THE LAKE DISTRICTTERROR TALES OF THE COTSWOLDSTERROR TALES OF EAST ANGLIA, TERROR TALES OF LONDON and TERROR TALES OF THE SEASIDE.

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