Translated by Agnes Broome.
Once inseparable, Joel and Nina haven't spoken in twenty years.
When Joel's mother Monika develops dementia, he has no choice but to return to his home town. Monika needs specialist care, and that means Pineshade - which also means Joel is going to have to deal with his one-time best friend, for Nina works there.
It's not long before Monika's health deteriorates - she starts having violent, terrifying outbursts, and worse, she appears to know things she couldn't possibly know. It's almost as if she isn't herself any more... but of course, that's true of most of the residents at Pineshade.
Only Nina and Joel know Monika well enough to see the signs; only by working together can they try to find answers to the inexplicable...
The Home is an eerie story about love, friendship and the greatest fear of all: losing control of ourselves...
Read more: The Home - Mats Strandberg
Guest post by Jason P. Hein
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Guest Post
Risingshadow has the honour of featuring a guest post by Jason P. Hein.
About the Author:
Jason P. Hein is a writer of Medieval Fantasy and Science-Fantasy, best known for his four book saga The Varsian Kingdom Series. He also writes poetry and short stories, mostly connected to The Varsian Kingdom. Jason began writing at 13 years of age and published his first book, Inspired Poetry, when he was 17. He has also been featured in the Mirrored Voices Poetry Anthologies, and his first two books in The Varsian Kingdom have hit #1 best sellers in the top 100 Free Teen & Young Adult Sword & Sorcery Fantasy eBooks.
Jason currently lives outside a rural community in Oklahoma on his family farm. While the solitude and nature nurture his creativity, he is continually adding to the Varsian Kingdom. His latest project, Music From Varsia, includes 8 musical tracks. Each track representing a unique culture from the Varsian Kingdom itself.
You can visit his official website at www.VarsianKingdom.com
GUEST POST BY JASON P. HEIN
Read more: Guest post by Jason P. Hein
Review: Good Intentions by Ira Nayman
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Ira Nayman's Good Intentions was published by Elsewhen Press in a digital edition in April 2019 and in paperback in June 2019.
About Ira Nayman:
In his past lives, Ira Nayman was, among other things: a cave painter whose art was not appreciated in his lifetime; several nameless peasants who died before their 20th birthday during the Dark Ages; a toenail fungus specialist in the court of Louis XIV; and Alan Turing’s scullery maid.
In his current incarnation, Ira is the creator of Les Pages aux Folles, a Web site of political and social satire that was 11 years old in the first week of September, 2013 (that’s positively Paleolithic in Internet years!). Three collections of Alternate Reality News Service (ARNS) stories (Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys and Luna for the Lunies!) which originally appeared on the Web site have been self-published in print. Two new volumes of ARNS stories – The Street Finds Its Own Uses for Market Lateralization and The Alternate Reality News Service’s Guide To Sex, Love and Robots were published in 2013. Ira has produced the pilot for a radio series based on stories from the first two ARNS books; “The Weight of Information, Episode One” can be heard on YouTube.
Ira has also written a series of stories that take place in a universe where matter at all levels of organization has become conscious. They feature Antonio Van der Whall, object psychologist. To date, four of these stories have been sold. “A Really Useful Engine” has been published in Even Birds Are Chained To The Sky and Other Tales: The Fine Line Short Story Collection and “Escalation is Academic” has appeared in the anthology UnCONventional. “If the Mountain Won’t Come to Mohammed” can be found in Here Be Monsters. “Thinking is the Worst Way to Travel” has been accepted into Explorers: Beyond the Horizon. Several other stories in the series are currently awaiting editorial decisions at various publications.
Ira’s Web Goddess tells him he should make more of the fact that he won the 2010 Jonathan Swift Satire Writing Contest. So, Ira won the 2010 Jonathan Swift Satire Writing Contest.
In another life (but still within this incarnation) Ira has a Masters degree in Media Studies from The New School for Social Research which was conducted entirely online. He also has a PhD in Communications from McGill University. Ira taught New Media part-time at Ryerson University for five years.
Whoever created the Karmic wheel has a lot to answer for...
Click here to visit his official website.
About Good Intentions:
Being the sixth novel in Ira Nayman’s Multiverse series (aka the Transdimensional Authority series). But also the First Pie in the Face of the Multiverse Refugees Trilogy (which will make sense when you read it!)
At the end of You Can’t Kill the Multiverse (But You Can Mess With its Head), Doctor Alhambra, the chief scientist of the Transdimensional Authority, set up an alarm to warn him if a universe is succumbing to the universe-killing machine that is at the heart of the story. But how would the Transdimensional Authority respond if that alarm went off?
In Good Intentions, the first book in the Multiverse Refugees Trilogy, but also the sixth Transdimensional Authority novel, we find out. In the process we not only meet the most unusual refugees in fiction (probably), learn what Noomi Rapier’s brother does (and with whom), revisit Dingle Dell, and finally discover what happened to chapter seventeen of The Multiverse is a Nice Place to Visit But I Wouldn’t Want to Live There.
REVIEW: GOOD INTENTIONS BY IRA NAYMAN
Read more: Review: Good Intentions by Ira Nayman
Review: Thorns of a Black Rose by David Craig
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
David Craig's Thorns of a Black Rose was published by Elsewhen Press in a digital edition in July 2019 and in paperback in October 2019.
About David Craig:
Aside from three months living on an oil tanker sailing back and forth between America and Africa, and two years living in a pub, David Craig grew up on the west coast of Scotland. He studied Software Engineering at university, but lost interest in the subject after (and admittedly prior to) graduation. He currently works as a resourcing administrator for a public service contact centre, and lives near Glasgow with his wife, daughter and two rabbits.
Being a published writer had been a life-long dream, and one that he was delighted to finally realise with his debut novel, Resurrection Men, the first in the Sooty Feathers series, published by Elsewhen Press in 2018. Before the next book in the Sooty Feathers series though, Elsewhen Press has published his latest fantasy epic Thorns of a Black Rose.
Click here to visit his official Twitter page.
About Thorns of a Black Rose:
Revenge and responsibility, confrontation and consequences.
A hot desert land of diverse peoples dealing with demons, mages, natural disasters ... and the Black Rose assassins.
Having endured two years of hardship and loss on a quest for vengeance, Shukara arrives in the city of Mask where her pouch is stolen by Tamira, a young street-smart thief. Hunting down the thief, Shukara discovers that Tamira has emptied the pouch, throwing away some of the rarer reagents that Shukara needs for her magick. Being unfamiliar with Mask and unsure of where to find replacements for her reagents, Shukara shows mercy to Tamira in exchange for her help in replacing what has been lost. Together they brave the intrigues of Mask, and soon discover that they have a mutual enemy in the Black Rose, an almost legendary band of merciless assassins. But this is just the start of their journeys...
REVIEW: THORNS OF A BLACK ROSE BY DAVID CRAIG
Read more: Review: Thorns of a Black Rose by David Craig
Review: The Wolf Queen: The Hope of Aferi by Cerece Rennie Murphy
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Cerece Rennie Murphy's The Wolf Queen: The Hope of Aferi was published by LionSky Publishing in October 2018.
Information about Cerece Rennie Murphy:
Cerece Rennie Murphy fell in love with science fiction at the age of seven, watching “Empire Strikes Back” at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., with her sister and mom. It’s a love affair that has grown ever since. As an ardent fan of John Donne, Alice Walker, Kurt Vonnegut and Alexander Pope from an early age, Cerece began exploring her own creative writing through poetry.
She earned her master’s degrees in social work and international relations at Boston College and Johns Hopkins School for Advance International Studies, respectively, and built a rewarding 15-year career in program development, management and fundraising in the community and international development arenas – all while appreciating the stories of human connection told in science fiction through works like Octavia Butler’s “Wild Seed,” Frank Herbert’s “Dune” and “The X-Files.”
In 2011, Cerece experienced her own supernatural event -a vision of her first science fiction story. Shortly after, she beganwriting what would become thebest-selling Order of the Seerstrilogy. Order of the Seers was selected as one of The Best Kindle Books of 2014 by Digital Book Today.
Cerece lives in herhometown of Washington, D.C., with her husband, two children and the family dog, Yoda.
Click here to visit her official website.
Information The Wolf Queen: The Hope of Aferi:
To fight for her future, she must first discover the magic of her past
Once great and powerful sorcerers, the Amasiti were hunted to the brink of extinction by the Hir and his followers. For four hundred years, their legacy faded from memory waiting for the hope of Aferi to be renewed...
In the Land of Yet
At the edge of the Forbidden Forest
A young woman lives alone.
Forced to fend for herself after the brutal murder of her family, Ameenah Yemini has made a life for herself as a master tanner and farmer, only venturing into the world to earn her living then return to the safety and seclusion of her home.
Until a chance encounter brings her work to the attention of the powerful Hir.
And her careful life begins to unravel.
Drawn to the hidden magic that lingers in everything she touches, the new Hir insists on having her for himself, using the people around her to force Ameenah into his grasp.
When she realizes that her greatest enemy may hold the key to a secret she thought lost to her forever, Ameenah is determined to reclaim her stolen past. But, at what cost? As an ancient power waits to be unleashed, Ameenah's choices will make the difference between awakening a new magic or delivering it into the hands of evil.
REVIEW: THE WOLF QUEEN: THE HOPE OF AFERI BY CERECE RENNIE MURPHY
Read more: Review: The Wolf Queen: The Hope of Aferi by Cerece Rennie Murphy
Q&A with James Lovegrove about Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Interviews
Risingshadow has had an opportunity to have a Q&A with James Lovegrove about his latest novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon.
About the author:
James Lovegrove is the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Odin. He was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1998 and for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2004, and also reviews fiction for the Financial Times. He is the author of Firefly: Big Damn Hero with Nancy Holder and Firefly: The Magnificent Nine, and several Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. He lives in south-east England.
Click here to visit his official website.
Author photo by Katie Vandyck.
About Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon:
It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client. Eve Allerthorpe - eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty - is greatly distressed, as she believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit.
Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick’s calling card...
Eve stands to inherit a fortune if she is sound in mind, but it seems that something - or someone - is threatening her sanity. Holmes and Watson travel to the Allerthorpe family seat at Fellscar Keep to investigate, but soon discover that there is more to the case than at first appeared. There is another spirit haunting the family, and when a member of the household is found dead, the companions realise that no one is beyond suspicion.
Q&A WITH JAMES LOVEGROVE ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CHRISTMAS DEMON
Read more: Q&A with James Lovegrove about Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon