Today I want to feature a publisher-- Clash Books-- and three ARCs they sent me, including one which I have review of in the current issue of Booklist. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:
- You need to be affiliated with an American Library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
- If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
- Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
- If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.
Mable wants nothing more than to be a Ziegfeld girl, but until her big break, she is living hand to mouth, robbing people to keep herself housed and fed. When she follows a wealthy woman wearing a diamond necklace into The Grand Hotel, Mable’s life changes forever. She is offered the chance to make all of her dreams come true. The price? Her soul. Scully convincingly re-creates the Great Gatsby-esque world of a lavish hotel in 1920s NYC. The glitz and the glamour,yes, but also the bleak, devastating hardship of those on the outside. Readers eagerly follow Mable, as she races against time, through the constantly shifting, alluring, awe-inspiring, but extremely sinister hallways of the hotel (a character here itself), to steal back her soul and hopefully, destroy the evil force at its foundation. Suggest to those who like tales of artists making dark deals in pursuit of their craft like Roses and Rot by Howard and fans of strong women kicking demon butt like Devils Kill Devils by Compton.
Three Words That Describe This Book: strong sense of place, demons, struggle of artists
This book came out on 5/6. Click here for a lot more from me about Below the Grand Hotel.
I also have in my possession two more ARCs from Clash that I did not have time to review.
This is How You Lose the Time War meets Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke in this fast-paced queer horror novel in which an obsessive woman stumbles upon a second-chance romance with her flighty paramour, but it quickly deteriorates into a dark spiral of destruction.
Johnny spots her ex, Alice, at the local cafe with a vague sense that she’s been there before. Though she’s still angry about their breakup and Alice’s subsequent ghosting, Johnny can’t resist the draw of a second shot at their relationship and accepts Alice’s invitation back to her apartment. Once there, promises are exchanged. There’s talk of wonder and change and dreams made real. But after spending the night together, they face a morning in which Alice is still Alice, Johnny is still Johnny, and the dog has doubled in size.
Over the course of a week, increasingly bizarre changes in the world around them force Johnny to consider whether the pair can change just as easily, if they can change at all. Or if both her relationship and the bounds of reality are destined to implode. The narrative of I Can Fix Her operates on nightmare logic, putting forth an irresistible tale in which the world, the narrator, and time itself are not to be trusted.
Weird fiction icon and award-winning author Michael Cisco's Black Brane, begins with the physical pain of a bad foot and later voyages into absurdity, mad science, occultism, and existential dread.
A man lying in a bed of pain flees from physical torment into his own memories, and into speculations about life and reality. He was, once, employed by the Temporary Institute for the Study of Holes, a think tank pursuing research that ranges from occult studies to advanced physics, including black holes—or, as they are known in string theory, black branes.
He meets and interacts with the various other members of the institute. Its founder, Dr. Marilyn Shitansky, a formerly homeless woman who claims to have a thinking hole in her brain; its resident occultist, the chain-smoking Daladara with his magic abacus; Ernie Allegre the engineer, who designed and built a decoherence reactor to power the institute; Dr. Liu, the string theorist; the linguist Dr. Corngholm, who can't sit still; and Dr. Shitansky's secretary, Renbrui, who seems to carry a mystery with her wherever she goes.
In memory, the speaker finds them again, in a story of physical and emotional pain, of social and quantum entanglement, that turns comic, speculative, and nightmarish. Echoing the work of Blake Crouch and Thomas Ligotti, Michael Cisco shows in Black Brane why he’s beloved by weird fiction and horror readers.
All three books to one winner.
Good luck!
