#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: The Night Ship by Alex Woodroe

The giveaway this week is an ARC of an upcoming book by a well known editor for a critically acclaimed small press whose book is coming out from a trusted and widely distributed press. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

The most recent winners were Rebecca from AL and  Kirsten from TN. Now on to this week's giveaway.

Alex Woodroe is a name you should know because she is part of the team behind the critically acclaimed Tenebrous Press. Click here to learn more about them.

Woodroe is the Editor-in-Chief and she does a great job with their titles in that capacity. As a result, I was very excited to she her novel. Unfortunately, I received it too late for a formal review in Booklist or LJ, but I want to say this book is worth a purchase by all of you for your collection.

I am getting ahead of my self though. The book is entitled, The Night Ship, and it is out from Flame Tree Press on January 20th. From Goodreads: 

An apocalyptic world turned into a pitch-black sea of nothingness, but smuggler Rosi and her crew of survivors aren't alone. Something hungry lurks below... 

Driving a logging truck through the Romanian mountains, smuggler Rosi and her crew come across a radio signal that hints at impending doom. As the world goes completely dark, their truck becomes a vessel sailing across a sea of nothingness.  

But they’re not alone.

Transmissions trickle in through the radio from similar isolated islands across the country, from amateur radio hobbyists and police cars and customs facilities. Attempting to rescue survivors and find a way out, the group save more lives, but soon discover that something hungry lurks below, and it's sending up agents – and transmissions – of its own.

Three Words That Describe This Book: Band of survivors, strong sense of place, Lovecraftian

Woodroe has given readers a unique, compelling, and immersive supernatural apocalypse story. Of note is the fantastic setting-- 1908s soviet Romania. Woodroe lives in Romania so she understands the landscape, but the Soviet era vibes and how people living there are disconnected from a lot of the world already and the reliance on radio in their every day lives-- all of it is incorporated into the horror seamlessly.

The history components are key as well. This era was defined by the fear of nuclear war. The idea that an apocalypse could come at any time was a real fear in those days, and that historical context comes though.

And I love that there is a great supernatural threat here and that it is not just the Cold War. And that is all I will say about that.

These types of stories do not work well without solid characters. Readers need to be immersed in the place and intrigued by what is ending the world and how it could be stopped (if at all) yes, but without a hook for how the band of survivors are connected, it will fall flat. We need humans good, bad, and in between to keep us reading. Woodore nails this as well.

I hope you add this book to your collections whether you win this giveaway or not. It is a great read for all of your band of survivor fans, especially those who like horror stories set outside America. 

Thank you to Flame Tree Press for the ARC.

Enter once and you are entered going forward.

Good Luck