Merry Christmas!

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish readers of this blog (and their loved ones) a very Happy Christmas, with all best wishes for the New Year.

Thank you for your continued support and interest, let’s hope 2012 is a storming year for all of us!

A Year In Books

Well, it’s that time of the year again, as we gear up for Christmas and remember the good (and not so good) of 2011. Here, I present the now Third Annual ‘My Best Reads Of The Year’ award and my top 20 reads like this:

Joint 1st:
Love & Freedom, by Sue Moorcroft
The Concrete Grove, by Gary McMahon

3: The Silent Land, by Graham Joyce
4: The Hellbound Heart, by Clive Barker
5: Nearly Departed, by Rook Hastings
6: It Knows Where You Live, by Gary McMahon
7: Fogbound From 5, edited by Peter Mark May
8: Peel Back The Sky, by Stephen Bacon
9: The Howling, by Gary Brandner
10: The Derelict, by Neil Williams
11: Immortal Remains, by Rook Hastings
12: Early Autumn, by Robert B Parker
13: Lantern Rock, by Stephen Bacon
14: King Death, by Paul Finch
15: Play It As It Lays, by Joan Didion
16: Nowhere Hall, by Cate Gardner
17: Necropolis Rising, by Dave Jeffery
18: Angels Of The Silences, by Simon Bestwick
19: Last ManThroughThe Gate, by Tim C Taylor

There’s no number 20 listed here, since I’m currently reading Alison Littlewood’s superb “A Cold Season” and that will definitely feature.

The worst, without any close competition, was “Almost Blue”, by Carlo Lucarelli (translated by Oonagh Stransky), a dreadful piece of work.

Stats-wise, as of this writing, I’ve read 50 books - 31 fiction, 8 non-fiction and 11 comics/nostalgia. I didn't read any Three Investigator books at all, since I finished my epic read-through of the first 30 last year but, to be honest, I've missed them.

All of my reviews are posted up at Goodreads here

Writing round-up

“The Mill” continues to gather good notices, the latest appearing at The Book Den, where I also contributed a guest blog post on where the story came from.

The Review can be found here, whilst my guest blog can be found here.

I was also thrilled to discover that the story came at number 8 in the Top 15 Reads of the year, as compiled by Jim MacLeod at the Ginger Nuts Of Horror website.

In other news, “Fogbound From 5” is starting to roll out - it’s available in print and digital editions over in the USA, with the print edition due here very early in the new year, though you can get it from Amazon on Kindle. Really proud of this collection - not only does it contain my story “Last Train Home”, by Neil Williams & I were responsible for the cover artwork.

Coming soon....

..."Fogbound From 5", a new collection from those nice folk at Hersham Horror Books. It features brand new fiction from Alison Littlewood, Adrian Chamberlin, Neil Williams, Peter Mark May and me, with the cover art and design by Neil and myself.

My story "Last Train Home" features a monster dear to my heart and the ending was suggested by Matthew. We were driving one day and I was thinking aloud about what the story could be and he told me how it should finish - and, with a couple of tiny tweaks, I've managed to write what he suggested.

Here's the trailer I produced, ordering details will be coming soon...