Voices Rising

It’s been a crazy few days here. We fly off on our late summer holiday soon, so we’ve been zipping around making sure everything is in order, then I fell quite ill last week after neglecting a ‘sniffle’ which turned out to be a full-blown chest infection. As if that wasn’t enough, I had the official launch of Costa del Murder, the 9th STAC Mystery, last Friday, and the usual follow ups to ensure the book is visible.

It’s still total mayhem here. I have STACs #10 and #11 to work on, Maddy Chester is feeling neglected, I’ve a sequel to The Handshaker due out in time for Halloween, and as I hinted previously, I’m working on a sequel to Voices.

The book itself is rallying a little. As far as I’m concerned, it is one of my best works, if not the best, and yet it has never been popular, mostly (I believe) because it’s invisible. It’s also a long read: about 110,000 words.

According to readers, the effort is worth it. Reviews are scarce, true, but they’re consistent. Everyone who has read it has given it five stars. An earlier edition had only a couple of reviews, and they, too, were 5-star.

It’s been likened to the works of James Herbert. I’m honoured to be mentioned in the same breath as the late Mr Herbert, one of the world’s finest horror writers.

Real horror, real fear does not come from zombies, werewolves, vampires and reborn Egyptian Pharaohs. They have a reality about them, a tangibility which can be confronted, fought, beaten.

Genuine terror comes from within: the phantoms and demons which have no form or substance. As Chris Deacon says:

No matter how much I thought about it, no matter how hard I tried to make sense of it, I could find only one common thread: insanity. And it was staring me in the face.

Chris’s very ordinariness is what makes the novel tick, according to most reviewers. There is nothing special about him. He’s an unambitious college teacher, with no designs on management. He enjoys his work, he has a comfortable life, he’s happy, until the terrifying events in the college dining hall change his life, and cast him into this nightmare. His nerve shattered, his courage waning, he cannot comprehend his phantoms, yet if he is to be rid of them, he must learn, and to learn means confronting them.

Reader feedback says Voices is a compelling read, but as reviewer Richard, advises, don’t get so engrossed so that you forget where to get off your train.

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Voices is published by Crooked Cat Books and is available for download from:

Amazon

Smashwords

Crooked Cat Books

And in paperback from

Amazon