David A. Riley's Blog, page 72

Waiting by Kate Farrell - Kitchen Sink Gothic

Waiting by Kate Farrell provides us with a keenly observed, sometimes wryly humorous  insight into the life of Edna Gould. The tightfistedness over money of her late husband, Len, is comically observed throughout the story.
"I used to get People's Friend and Woman's Weekly. Len liked the Daily Express. We had the papers delivered until he decided he'd walk down to the newsagent for them. Why pay a delivery charge when you've got the use of your limbs, he said. And it saved on a Christmas box for the paperboy."
Throughout we get to know about Edna's life, her trials and tribulations and her cheery determination to make the best of everything, especially after her husband's death, when some of the little luxuries he was too careful to pay for are suddenly available.
"...I were thinking about taking a holiday abroad, a short break somewhere with Mrs Wilson. I must look out for my passport. The last time I used it, Len and I went to Holland for the tulips. That was nineteen eighty-seven, our fortieth anniversary. I loved all the purples and yellows and reds and pinks, all mixed up. Len said we could have stood outside the local florist and saved him the money."
For me it's a wonderfully warm story, full of colour, humour and humanity, and we truly grow to like Edna. Which makes the closing paragraphs all the more chilling.
You have been warned.
Parallel Universe Publications will be publishing a collection of Kate's stories later this year, And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After. In the meantime PS Publishing have just brought out My Name is Mary Sutherland,
trade paperback: 
amazon.co.uk   £8.99
amazon.com  $11.99
ebook:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com

Kitchen Sink Gothic includes:

1964 by Franklin Marsh
Derek Edge and the Sun-Spots by Andrew Darlington
Daddy Giggles by Stephen Bacon
Black Sheep by Gary Fry
Jamal Comes Home by Benedict J. Jones
Waiting by Kate Farrell
Lilly Finds a Place to Stay by Charles Black
The Mutant's Cry by David A. Sutton
The Sanitation Solution by Walter Gascoigne
Up and Out of Here by Mark Patrick Lynch
Late Shift by Adrian Cole
The Great Estate by Shaun Avery
Nine Tenths by Jay Eales
Envelopes by Craig Herbertson
Tunnel Vision by Tim Major
Life is Prescious M. J. Wesolowski
Canvey Island Baby by David Turnbull

Black Sheep by Gary Fry - Kitchen Sink Gothic

Some families have secrets. Dark secrets. Perhaps this is something Billy doesn't realise. After all, his own is an open book. An open book that he loathes. Out of work and workshy, his father and Billy's mother rely on his older sister's wage to supplement the family income.  In contrast, still at college. studying for his exams, Billy is subjected to scorn and ridicule, resented for not making any money for them all.

"We didn't need no education to get on in life," Mum said, and if there was any trace of maternal affection in her tone, it was quickly superseded by occupational bitterness. Then she added to her husband, "I suppose he thinks he's better than us now."

Invited by his girlfriend, Trudy, to have dinner with her well to do parents, though, Billy soon finds that sometimes, however much money a family might have, there are grim, dirty, disgusting secrets that make the damage his own family are doing to him, with their sarcasm and resentment, seem tame by comparison.

Gary Fry has created a uniquely Aickmanesque nightmare in Black Sheep, with more than a touch of Charles Birkin.

A toothpick was pinning together his lips, its points thrust through both wedges of flesh. His mum's domestic skills had certainly been put to good use here. 

Read Gary Fry's darkly grotesque tale of a family gone wrong in Kitchen Sink Gothic. Try it - and the other 16 stories, some darkly humorous, while others are more than weirdly strange and occasionally horrific. None are less than memorable.

trade paperback: 
amazon.co.uk   £8.99
amazon.com  $11.99
ebook:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com

Kitchen Sink Gothic includes:

1964 by Franklin Marsh
Derek Edge and the Sun-Spots by Andrew Darlington
Daddy Giggles by Stephen Bacon
Black Sheep by Gary Fry
Jamal Comes Home by Benedict J. Jones
Waiting by Kate Farrell
Lilly Finds a Place to Stay by Charles Black
The Mutant's Cry by David A. Sutton
The Sanitation Solution by Walter Gascoigne
Up and Out of Here by Mark Patrick Lynch
Late Shift by Adrian Cole
The Great Estate by Shaun Avery
Nine Tenths by Jay Eales
Envelopes by Craig Herbertson
Tunnel Vision by Tim Major
Life is Prescious M. J. Wesolowski
Canvey Island Baby by David Turnbull

Daddy Giggles by Stephen Bacon - Kitchen Sink Gothic

When Duffy visits his dying mother in hospital it's not from love. 
For a few seconds she just stares at him. Then she closes her eyes. “You’ve come.”
“Mum.” He waits until she opens her eyes and looks at him. Then he says, “You’re dying. I didn’t want to miss it.” 
What is it from his past that makes him hate her so much? 
...a tattered toy, a threadbare relic of his childhood. Grey stuffing bulges through rips in the stitching. The face of the creature is grotesque; uneven button eyes, lolling crimson tongue, lopsided chin, a tarnished brass bell clinging to the remaining cotton attached to its hat. Duffy wrinkles his nose at the dust that has been released into the air.
A vague light erupts in his mother’s eyes. “Daddy Giggles.” She gurgles something that might be a chuckle. “Where’d you find it?”
But there's worse, far worse haunting Duffy's past than an ugly, tattered old toy.
Read Stephen Bacon's harrowingly haunting story Daddy Giggles in Kitchen Sink Gothic. 
Try it - and the other 16 stories, some darkly humorous, while others are more than weirdly strange and occasionally horrific. None are less than memorable.

trade paperback: 
amazon.co.uk   £8.99
amazon.com  $11.99
ebook:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com

Kitchen Sink Gothic includes:

1964 by Franklin Marsh
Derek Edge and the Sun-Spots by Andrew Darlington
Daddy Giggles by Stephen Bacon
Black Sheep by Gary Fry
Jamal Comes Home by Benedict J. Jones
Waiting by Kate Farrell
Lilly Finds a Place to Stay by Charles Black
The Mutant's Cry by David A. Sutton
The Sanitation Solution by Walter Gascoigne
Up and Out of Here by Mark Patrick Lynch
Late Shift by Adrian Cole
The Great Estate by Shaun Avery
Nine Tenths by Jay Eales
Envelopes by Craig Herbertson
Tunnel Vision by Tim Major
Life is Prescious M. J. Wesolowski
Canvey Island Baby by David Turnbull

The Great Estate by Shaun Avery - Kitchen Sink Gothic

What is it about the council estate in The Great Estate that makes it unique - and so wrong? Even Dave Holland, born and bred there, is unsure. Only after his girlfriend becomes pregnant does he begin to see things with different eyes. After all, why would his wayward, sometimes violent father greet the news of the pregnancy as enthusiastically as he does? Why are men on the estate proud to become members of the Shitty Fathers Society? Why do Bernie and Frank hit each other on the head with hammers to make "themselves stupid"? What is the bizarre secret of the social club's beer barrels?
In The Great Estate Shaun Avery has created a memorably strange, disturbing place, well fitted to be included in Kitchen Sink Gothic.
Try it - and the other 16 stories, some darkly humorous, while others are more than weirdly strange and occasionally horrific. None are less than memorable.



trade paperback: 
amazon.co.uk   £8.99
amazon.com  $11.99
ebook:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com

Kitchen Sink Gothic includes:

1964 by Franklin Marsh
Derek Edge and the Sun-Spots by Andrew Darlington
Daddy Giggles by Stephen Bacon
Black Sheep by Gary Fry
Jamal Comes Home by Benedict J. Jones
Waiting by Kate Farrell
Lilly Finds a Place to Stay by Charles Black
The Mutant's Cry by David A. Sutton
The Sanitation Solution by Walter Gascoigne
Up and Out of Here by Mark Patrick Lynch
Late Shift by Adrian Cole
The Great Estate by Shaun Avery
Nine Tenths by Jay Eales
Envelopes by Craig Herbertson
Tunnel Vision by Tim Major
Life is Prescious M. J. Wesolowski
Canvey Island Baby by David Turnbull

Kitchen Sink Gothic available in paperback

Artwork by Joe Young
Kitchen Sink Gothic is now available in paperback.

amazon.co.uk   £8.99

amazon.com  $11.99

Coined in the 1950s, Kitchen Sink described British films, plays and novels frequently set in the North of England, which showed working class life in a gritty, no-nonsense, “warts and all” style, sometimes referred to as social realism. It became popular after the playwright John Osborne wrote Look Back In Anger, simultaneously helping to create the Angry Young Men movement. Films included Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Entertainer, A Taste of Honey, The L-Shaped Room and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. TV dramas included Coronation Street and East Enders. In recent years TV dramas that could rightly be described as kitchen sink gothic include Being Human, with its cast of working class vampires, werewolves and ghosts, and the zombie drama In the Flesh, with its northern working class, down to earth setting. In this anthology you will find stories that cover a wide range of Kitchen Sink Gothic, from the darkly humorous to the weirdly strange and occasionally horrific.

Stephen Bacon (Daddy Giggles)
Franklin Marsh (1964)
Andrew Darlington (Derek Edge and the Sunspots)
Gary Fry (Black Sheep)
Benedict J. Jones (Jamal Comes Home) 
Kate Farrell (Waiting) 
Charles Black (Lilly Finds a Place to Stay)
David A. Sutton (The Mutant's Cry)
Walter Gascoigne (The Sanitation Solution)
Mark Patrick Lynch (Up and Out of Here)
Adrian Cole (Late Shift)
Shaun Avery (The Great Estate)
Jay Eales (Nine Tenths)
Craig Herbertson (Envelopes)
Tim Major (Tunnel Vision)
M. J. Wesolowski (Life is Prescious)
David Turnbull (Canvey Island Baby)
 

Moloch's Children - free on kindle Thursday 6th August

My horror novel Moloch's Children will be free on Thursday the 6th August for one day only.

Please feel free to write a review if the urge is there.


 Moloch's Children by David A. Riley

trade paperback: 
 
amazon.co.uk  £7.99
amazon.com   $9.99

ebook:

amazon.co.uk  £2.99 - free for the 6th August
amazon.com  $4.68 - free for the 6th August

Kitchen Sink Gothic now available on kindle

Kitchen Sink Gothic is now available on kindle.

amazon.co.uk
amazon.com

A print copy in trade paperback will be available within the next couple of weeks.

Coined in the 1950s, Kitchen Sink described British films, plays and novels frequently set in the North of England, which showed working class life in a gritty, no-nonsense, “warts and all” style, sometimes referred to as social realism.
It became popular after the playwright John Osborne wrote Look Back In Anger, simultaneously helping to create the Angry Young Men movement. Films included Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Entertainer, A Taste of Honey, The L-Shaped Room and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. TV dramas included Coronation Street and East Enders. In recent years TV dramas that could rightly be described as kitchen sink gothic include Being Human, with its cast of working class vampires, werewolves and ghosts, and the zombie drama In the Flesh, with its northern working class, down to earth setting.
In this anthology you will find stories that cover a wide range of Kitchen Sink Gothic, from the darkly humorous to the weirdly strange and occasionally horrific.


Table of contents:

1964 by Franklin Marsh
Derek Edge and the Sun-Spots by Andrew Darlington
Daddy Giggles by Stephen Bacon
Black Sheep by Gary Fry
Jamal Comes Home by Benedict J. Jones
Waiting by Kate Farrell
Lilly Finds a Place to Stay by Charles Black
The Mutant's Cry by David A. Sutton
The Sanitation Solution by Walter Gascoigne
Up and Out of Here by Mark Patrick Lynch
Late Shift by Adrian Cole
The Great Estate by Shaun Avery
Nine Tenths by Jay Eales
Envelopes by Craig Herbertson
Tunnel Vision by Tim Major
Life is Prescious M. J. Wesolowski
Canvey Island Baby by David Turnbull

Kitchen Sink Gothic - Update

The paperback version of Kitchen Sink Gothic is now in the process of being published. All we are waiting for is a proof copy before finalising the process. Hopefully this will happen before the end of the month.

In the meantime we have arranged for a kindle version to be available within the next twenty-four hours.

Johnny Mains' collection to be reissued by Parallel Universe with cover created by the author

Johnny Mains has painted a new cover for his collection of short stories published by Parallel Universe Publications, Will Anyone Figure Out that this is a Repackaged First Collection?

The original cover merely had writing on a black background.  The new one, based on a painting by the author, will be revealed shortly.

 

New delivery of Moloch's Children received intact

Several weeks ago I had my first delivery via a courier from the printers of my horror novel Moloch's Children. Unfortunately, we were away for a few days at the time and the courier unwisely decided to leave the parcel behind the locked gates of our bookshop rather than with a neighbour. As the photo below shows, a thief was easily able to reach the parcel and rip it open. Whoever it was certainly expected something more lucrative for their efforts than a few copies of my book!

Anyway, a fresh delivery has now been received. And I have added a notice to our door asking couriers not to leave parcels in that area in future. Lesson learned!!!