Cate Gardner's Blog, page 10

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Mark West’s ‘Compass Wood’
“Little pigs,” the man called in a strangely sing-song voice, “little pigs, won’t you come out to play?”
A man lurches out of the woods towards Jason’s car. A few moments later, his car tyre explodes, and a woman urges Jason into the woods. Jason, a new father, must decide who to trust.
A classic fuck-you-over horror that left me nauseous with fear.

Check it out in The Woods, a new anthology from Hersham Horror Books.

Edge Lit 8 (All of the Books)

A week has passed since the awesomeness that was Edge-Lit 8 in Derby. We stayed over two nights this time in the fabulous Premier Inn at Riverlights, which meant that we got to meet up with friends on the Friday night at the Quad.

The following day I attended panels, one workshop (disclaimer - my husband's) and a non-reading, spent time in The Quad bar chatting with friends, went out for a meal with some of said friends, and attended the launch of the anthology The Woods, featuring my story 'The Iron Curve of Thorns'. I had to read. I had five minutes warning and I had to read. It wasn't the greatest performance in the world. It may have been the worst. I survived. I think the audience also did.

Next year, the event is two days. Yay!

Above is my book haul. I've already finished 'The Finite' and am half-way through 'The Woods'.

If you...

The Hersham Horror Books anthology 'The Woods' was released last weekend at Edge Lit - Yay! - and contains my story 'The Iron Curve of Thorns'. I'm going to be doing a serious of small reviews on my blog to entice you to buy the anthology because it totally rocks. Trust me! I'm in it. :)


James Everington’s ‘A Short Walk Round The Woods’
“…the movement of hunting bats became visible, scouting the border where the turf ended and the shadows began.”

The woods are getting bigger.
New to the village, our protagonist, a man haunted by loss, develops a nightly routine of visiting the local pub and talking with a man who is obsessed with the woods.
An unnerving tale tinged with sadness and of how sorrow can trap us in many ways.
Check it out in The Woods, a new anthology from Hersham Horror Books.

A Small Convention (for Small People)

It's Edge-Lit 8 weekend and we are, as I type, on our way to sunny Derby. Please be sunny, Derby. As I type is a wee lie as I'm actually typing this the day before in the dis-comfort of my office chair at work. Shush! Don't tell the boss.   It's going to be a busy weekend (for some - small husband in particular). Here's my schedule (it is also small):     16:00 Cinema One - Multi Publisher Launch Hersham Horror is releasing THE WOODS an anthology containing stories by me, Phil Sloman, Penny Jones, James Everington and Mark West. Also released in the same slot are A LOVE LIKE BLOOD by Simon Bestwick (small husband), which is published by Dark Minds Press, and Cannibal Nuns from Outer Space by Duncan P. Bradshaw, published by Sinister Horror Company. My story is 'The Iron Curve of Thorns'. I'm led to believe that wine and nibbles with be available. I actually fancy a Pina Colada, but that's another story, one that usually involves virgins.   

Scary Children

Suffer Little Children by Penny Jones is part of Black Shuck Books Shadows series - a continuing series of mini collections from some of the hottest, upcoming and established names working in horror fiction today.

And in the tradition of small things (my hubby* is five-one if he's lucky), here is a mini review of the collection:

Penny Jones’ “Suffer Little Children” is a collection of six stories centered around children, the horrors of childhood, and the horrors that are children.

It is very well written, engaging, and sometimes twisty, from the traumatic “Beneath Still Waters” through to the heartbreaking “Waxing”. Coincidentally, they were my favourite stories in a collection that has no duds.

I look forward to reading a longer collection of Penny’s stories in the near-future.


*cheated and put a link in for my hubby's Black Shuck Books** mini-collection (sorry, Penny).**did it again

Alchemy Press Book of Horrors Review

The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors was launched at the Fantasycon convention in Chester last October. Peter Coleborn & Jan Edwards (the editors and owners of the press) provided the authors and those who purchased the book with free bat biscuits.

Well that's just bats!

I'll leave now.

Anyway, to the purpose of the post and all that, the British Fantasy Society published a review of the anthology yesterday. Here's a snippet off what they said about my story, Fullness of her Belly...

"Other stories that are worth a mention are -Cate Gardener’s (sic) Fullness Of Her Belly.... However, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for."

Be careful what you wish for... Now isn't that the truth?

Into The Woods with Hersham Horror

I am delighted to announce that my story, The Iron Curve of Thorns, will be appearing in The Woods, an anthology from Hersham Horror. The anthology also includes stories by James Everington, Mark West, Penny Jones and Phil Sloman (who is also the editor of this awesome little book) and is volume 6 in the PentAnth series.


The paperback anthology will be released at Edge-Lit in Derby on 13th July 2019. The kindle edition is already available from Amazon.

My Reading Year 2017

The talent of current short story writers, especially within the horror, fantasy and science fiction genres, is immense, making choosing my favourite short stories of the year very difficult. In the end, out of the 241 stories I read, I chose those that wowed, that I thought award-worthy, and which scored 8½ or above on my unscientific scale. I also read 9 novellas and 36 novels (hope to improve on that figure next year).

Here are my favourites:

NOVELLAS
The Booking - Ramsey Campbell
The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
Skyshine (or Death by Scotland) - Carole Johnstone
Naming the Bones - Laura Mauro
Of Sorrow & Such - Angela Slatter

NOVELS
The Time Keeper - Mitch Albom
Blacklands - Belinda Bauer
The Beautiful Dead - Belinda Bauer
Devil in Red (unpublished) - Simon Bestwick
The Manchunian Candidate (unpublished) - Simon Bestwick
The Girls - Emma Cline
The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle -Shirley Jackson
Hater - David Moody
A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness

SHORT STORIES 
Into Gold - Krista Ahlberg (Red Rose Review)
Mental Diplopia - Julianna Baggott (Tor)
The Misericord - AK Benedict (Black Shuck Books - Green & Pleasant Land)
Breakwater - Simon Bestwick
Horn of the Hunter - Simon Bestwick (The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories)
The Library of Lost Things - Matthew Bright (Tor)
Seven Minutes in Heaven - Nadia Bulkin (Nightmare)
The Lily Rose - Emily B Cataneo (The Dark)
The Swans - Ray Cluley (Black Static)
Is-And - Claire Dean (Dead Letters)
The Beautiful Thing We Become - Kristi DeMeester (The Dark)
Dogsbody - Malcolm Devlin (Black Static)
Perspective - Steven J Dines (Black Static)
Room Tone - Brian Evenson (The Masters Review)
Whipping the Dead - Jen Finelli (Pantheon)
En La Case de Fantasmas - Brian Holguin (Shimmer)
A Nest of Ghosts, A House of Birds - Kat Howard (Uncanny)
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
Flower Garden - Shirley Jackson
Songs to help you cope when your mom won't stop haunting you and your friends - Gwendolyn Kiste (Black Static)
Buyers Remorse - Andrew Lane (Dead Letters)
Signal - John Lanchester (The New Yorker)
Flotsam - Tim Lebbon (The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories)
Shell Baby - VH Leslie (Shadows & Tall Trees)
The Mysteries - Livia Llewellyn (The Dark)
The Spook School - Nick Mamatas (Nightmare)
Over to You - Michael Marshall Smith (Dead Letters)
Strange as Angels - Laura Mauro (Black Shuck Books - Green & Pleasant Land)
Sun Dogs - Laura Mauro (Shadows & Tall Trees)
Will you Accept these Flowers From Me? - Ralph Robert Moore (Black Static)
In the Days of our Lives - Adam Nevill (Dead Letters)
Rapture of the Deep - Thana Niveau (Unquiet Waters)
The Curtain - Thana Niveau (The Dark)
The Reflection - Thana Niveau (Unquiet Waters)
Flowers of the Sea - Reggie Oliver
The Veils - Ian Rogers (The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories)
Monster Girls Don't Cry - A Merc Rustad (Uncanny)
Shallaballah - Mark Samuels (Nightmares: A Decade of Modern Horror)
Pearls - Priya Sharma (Nightmare)
Lump in your Throat - Robert Shearman (The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories)
Things Crumble, Things Break - Nate Southard (Nightmare)
Every Black Tree - Natalia Theodoridou (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
A Home in the Sky - Lisa Tuttle (Black Static)
Painter of Stars - Wang Yan & Translated by Andy Dudak (Clarkesworld)

Sherlock Holmes's School for Detection

I am very excited to announce that my story, The Gargoyles of Killfellen House, is available to read in Sherlock Holmes's School for Detection, published by Robinson and edited by the gracious and talented Simon Clark.

Other authors include Simon Bestwick, Carole Johnstone, Alison Littlewood, Paul Finch, William Miekle, Steven Saville, and Guy Haley. You can purchase it in the usual places including Amazon UK and US.

Here be an extract:

Sometimes father scares me. I push him too far. At least, that's what mother says. Running from the room would have made me appear weak. Instead, I retrieved the newspaper, righted the lamp and headed to the roof where I could rant and rage and only gargoyles would notice. Oh, to be taught by the great Sherlock Holmes!

Although mother and James stood directly below me, due to the stillness of the day their voices did not carry to the roof forcing me to lean far forward. Beside me, Tweedledum wobbled but I righted him. Time must have weathered the gargoyles base. At this moment, my investigation into its instability ventured no further. Then James laughed and he sounded so much like Ted that I wanted to cry. If only father would open the telegram. I ache to know what happened to my brother.

He's dead. Will knowing the cause ease the pain of that?

Vicky's World

 Many of you know I started a card business (The Handmaidens Tale) over on Etsy last year (still loving it) and it's doing far better than I expected. My study is suffering though as it is trying to balance my writing and my card making and is about the size of a wardrobe.  One of the joys of Etsy is discovering new artists and I am particularly interested in other card makers and regularly buy cards from other sellers. One I've discovered recently is