HUGE EBOOK ... REALLY HUGE SPECIAL OFFER!

I've collected the first 5 full-length novels in my Raine's Landing fantasy series into one enormous Kindle eBook. And it's now available from Amazon at a Very Special Price.

BACK TO PAPERBACK

I've been self-publishing my own eBooks -- both on Kindle and from other outlets -- for a good few years. But now that Amazon have made the whole process considerably easier, I've started bringing out a few more novels and short story collections as paperbacks as well.

Some of my novels were already in that form ... the 6 books in my Raine's Landing supernatural series, for instance, two of which are pictured above. The same was true of my Californian detective thriller The Tribe.

And of my non-fiction handbook How To Improve Your Writing: The Art of Creating Professional Fiction.

But it used to take a fair amount of effort  to bring these books out. Now that Amazon have speeded up and simplified the work involved, I've started producing p/b editions of some of my other work, with plenty more to follow. Already out is Under The Ice, my Scandinavian-based chiller.

And there is also my collection Classic Pan and Fontana Horror, which has been so popular as an eBook in the UK.

Soon to come in paperback will be my first detective thriller, The Desert Keeps Its Dead, my near-future mystery novel The Electric Shaman, and my modern-day ghost novel Postcards From Terri.

And that's just for starters. As they say -- whoever they are -- watch this space.

FREE CHILLER, SCANDI-STYLE

My short novel Under The Ice -- a supernatural chiller set in Scandinavia -- has been through a good number of incarnations in the 14 years it's been around. It first appeared as part of my 2005 collection Ghost Dance from small publisher Sarob Press. A few years after that, I published it on Kindle, where it started doing rather well.

Then US-based Samhain Publishing picked it up, bringing out both an eBook and a paperback version. It got some serious critical praise that way, with the Horror Novel Reviews website praising it hugely and voting it one of the Top 10 novels of 2013. But Samhain dropped their horror list after a couple of years.

And so now Under the Ice is back on Kindle, and is as good a piece of fiction as it ever was. And as a special bonus to my readers, I am offering it free this week.

There's a paperback version of the book as well, in case Kindles are not your thing. I might even sign it for you when we meet .

ALL THE RAINE'S LANDING NOVELS ARE NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK

E-books are wonderful things, and I've been publishing my own -- both new fiction and reprints -- for a good few years now. But a lot of people still prefer a paperback, the feel of it, the solidity of it. And the sad fact is that when it comes to my Raine's Landing supernatural thrillers, there've been no hard copy versions of the last three novels. They have only been available to readers digitally.

Until now.

I'm very pleased to be able to announce that I have finally put that right, and there is now a fine-looking trade paperback of every last Raine's Landing novel save the second one. Let's deal firstly with the three books that are having their first outing in this style.

DEADLY VIOLET sees a beggar girl getting hold of an extremely powerful magic jewel. When she begins using it, the boundaries of reality begin to crumble and break down. Ross and Cassie and the rest are suddenly confronted with bizarre monsters roaming the streets ... and that's just for starters. As the fabric of existence continues to come apart, everything becomes considerably more frightening . And the only way to stop it is for Ross and Cass to set off on the strangest journey of their lives.

In SPEAK OF THE DEVIL, the town's major adepts start being attacked  by mysterious cloaked, hooded men. And when Ross and Cass investigate, they begin to uncover the horrifying truth. It's people from inside the town who are responsible for this ... some of Raine's Landing's own citizens have turned  to Devil-worship. They plan to deliver the whole of the Landing over to the forces of Hell. And to ensure this happens, demons have already arrived in the town, disguised as human beings.

And in WITCH HUNTER, the sixth and latest in the series, an old-time witch from back before the time the Salem witches came returns to life and re-visits Raine's Landing, bringing her own lethal brand of magic with her. But that's not the biggest problem Ross and Cassie have to face. The man who killed that witch is also back, and he's considerably more powerful than her, since he is in the service of a very ancient being whose one desire is to destroy the Universe itself.

As for the first Raine's Landing novel -- DARK RAIN -- and the third -- MIDNIGHT'S ANGELS -- there have been paperback versions of both titles  in the past, but they are now also available in this  smart new format.

There's a link to the page for all five novels here.

WELCOME TO BIRCHIAM-ON-SEA

I haven't done much in the way of blogging -- or anything else on social media -- for a good long while. Why? Because the work of writing novels has been eating me alive of late. I honestly believed that I would finish the sixth in my Raine's Landing series -- Witch Hunter (see below) -- by Xmas 2015. It had already been through seven or eight drafts, after all. But I started reading what I'd done a few days before the holiday break, and realized that I still wasn't satisfied with it. Christmas and New Year passed, and I started work again. And it took me three more very intensive drafts to get the story reading just the way it should. It was mentally fatiguing work, but well worth it to get Ross and Cassie's latest, greatest, and most heart-gripping adventure right.

And I was planning to take a long break after that, but ... what is it they say about no rest for the wicked? My second full-blown crime novel -- The Tribe, a follow up to 2014's The Desert Keeps Its Dead --  is due out later this year from Cemetery Dance Publications. And since there is a third installment in the story of my fictional detective, I realized I'd better get cracking and start writing it. Which is what I'm doing right now (I am on a break this afternoon), only stopping every so often to do some research on stuff like assault weaponry and helicopters (yes, you read that last word right).

But however much you try to hide behind your laptop, the world moves on regardless. The world of publishing especially. And so much has been going on the last few months, it is going to take me three whole postings to describe it all.

The first matter to deal with is the book above.  I've been writing short horror and dark fantasy stories set in the fictional south-coast English town of Birchiam-on-Sea for the past ten years. The first -- The Waiters -- appeared in Weird Tales. And since then, Birchiam stories have shown up in Black Static magazine, the Black Book of Horror, and top anthologies like The British Invasion. And now all of them have been collected together by Trevor Denyer, editor of the esteemed Midnight Street magazine. It's a truly wonderful-looking book, and there's even an introduction -- explaining the whole concept behind Birchaim -- by a certain T. Richards. Moon on Dark Water: The Birchiam Chronicles is available both as a Kindle and as a good old-fashioned paperback book.

AUGUST SALE

E-book versions of my work -- available not only on Kindle but on Nook, Kobo, and Smashwords too -- are not usually that expensive. But for most of this month, they're even better value, because they're all available at minimum price. That includes three of my Raine's Landing supernatural adventure novels (the first of which saw print in 2008 from Eos/HarperCollins), a huge collection of my horror stories titled Three Dozen Terrifying Tales, my near-future detective novel The Electric Shaman, and the self-explanatory The Complete Sherlock Holmes in the 21st Century.

And if you happen to be a member of Amazon Unlimited, then almost all of my self-published fiction on Kindle can be had for an even better price than that. Zero, in fact. Enjoy!

FREE FICTION FOR THE YOUNG (and YOUNG AT HEART)

When I first started writing professionally, I produced a good number of stories -- mostly supernatural and spooky science fiction ones -- aimed at younger readers, mostly for the likes of Mary Danby's Armada anthologies and Richard Davis' sf collections. I've not penned many of them since those early days, but I have since written a few more tales that -- although aimed at adults -- are perfectly suitable for younger readers too. And I've recently collected my personal selection of the very best of them into this little book on Kindle. About half the fiction in it can be found in other places, but four of the stories -- my Armada Ghosts chiller 'The Girl in the Cellar,' for instance, and my dystopian future fantasy 'Summertime' -- are available to the general public for the first time in several decades.

And the book is absolutely free on Amazon from today until Wednesday 11th, inclusive. But why wait until Wednesday? Pick up a copy straight away, and take a look at some early stories that I'm still extremely pleased with. You can take a look at the book's Amazon page HERE.

A WAR BETWEEN IMMORTALS

Last year saw the publication of my chiller Under the Ice from Samhain Publishing. And it certainly drew some critical praise, but it was short, a novella in fact.

This year sees something much, much bigger, because my dark fantasy epic Hot Blood is out from the same publishers. Here's the back-cover blurb:

Who dares to challenge a vampire? Two very different immortal creatures have arrived in New York City. One is Tanya Merrit, the last of the Ykrall, a race that lives among—and depends on—human beings. The other is Janos Wolkran, an ancient and extremely powerful vampire. He has with him a brood of servants, humans that he has converted. But one of his servants is dying. And Wolkran has chosen Tanya’s lover, Kathy Harrison, as a replacement. When he kidnaps her, Tanya sets off in a pursuit that will lead her around the world…and into a battle to the death between immortals. Hot Blood starts out in Manhattan before moving on to Latin America. And then, after a brief stop-over in London, England, the action transfers to Prague, and beyond that to Budapest, finally ending up in the Zempleni Mountains, part of the Carpathian Range. Like I said, this is one big book  and took me several years to finish. The novel is available either  as a superb-looking trade paperback or in e-book format, either directly from Samhain, or from Amazon, Nook, or Kobo. Want a piece of fiction you can really get your teeth into? Well, this should keep you busy for a while. Enjoy!

THE BIG AUGUST SALE!

How about this for a special offer?

For the rest of this month, all of my self-published e-books in all formats will be available for 99c plus delivery fee (totaling around 77 pence in the UK). That takes in books normally priced at $2.99, including 3 full length novels in my Raine's Landing dark fantasy adventure series, the huge short story collection pictured above, and The Complete Sherlock Holmes in the 21st Century.

Which means that all of my e-books on Amazon Kindle are now the same low price. And the same applies to Kobo, Smashwords, and B&N Nook.

Happy reading. And in some cases, scary reading too -- though not everything is write is scary by a long chalk. There's something for most tastes here.

IMPORTANT P.S.: EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS ... I'VE DECIDED TO CONTINUE THIS SALE INTO SEPTEMBER. DON'T MISS THIS CHANCE TO PICK UP SOME GOOD-SIZED BOOKS AT THE MINIMUM PRICE.

AT LONG LAST BLOOD!

Let me transport you back in time to the late 1990s. Remember those days? (And I really don't want to hear that you weren't even born then, smartarse!)

Pan Macmillan had a couple of years earlier published my second full-length novel, Night Feast, a great thick blockbuster of a horror tale involving some of the nastier gods of Ancient Egypt transmuted into human form, the plot spanning the decades from the Great Depression to the -- back then -- present day.

And they were within a couple of months of publishing my third one, again big and thick, but spanning continents rather than decades this time. It was called Hot Blood, and featured two different types of vampire, one good and the other extremely evil.

I'd checked all the edits. I'd read the final proofs. The cover was done, and I felt all ready to go ...

When Pan decided to cut their horror list almost altogether and the book got dropped (I kept the advance, you'll be glad to hear).

This was the start of the massive slump in horror publishing that happened around  that time. In fact, pretty well none of the major publishers were interested in even looking at that type of fiction for a good seven or eight years thereafter -- and believe me, my long suffering agent Leslie Gardner of Artellus really tried.

And when vampires did finally make a huge comeback -- well -- they weren't the types of vampires featured in my novel, not by an awfully long shot.

But now I'm very proud to say that, after 15 years or so, Hot Blood is finally to see print. Samhain Publishing -- the same guys who brought out my chiller Under the Ice last year -- are producing it as an e-book first, and hopefully as a paperback later on. I took the opportunity, naturally, to revise the book and bring it up to date before I even showed them the manuscript. And they have run with it since then, with the end result that I sent the final  proofs back just two days ago, and the novel will be available in September.

I hope my readers feel that it's been worth the wait.

IT'S A DARK RAIN THAT'S GONNA FALL

Dark Rain, the first in my Raine's Landing series of dark fantasy/supernatural thrillers, was first published by the Eos imprint of HarperCollins in 2008. It immediately got a following and some pretty good reviews, and I have written four more novels set in that strange Massachusetts town since then, with a sixth - Witchhunter - planned this year. But now that first novel is finally out of print at Eos/HC and no longer available digitally, and the rights in it have reverted to yours truly.

Which means not straight away - I'm working on the final draft of something new at the moment, and don't want to disturb that process - but sometime in April I will be bringing out my own version of Dark Rain on Amazon, where it will join the likes of Deadly Violet and Speak of the Devil as a $2.99 e-book.

It's gonna fall, in other words. In price. Watch this space.

NON-SPARKLY, NON-ROMANTIC, NASTY, EVIL, BLOODTHIRSTY VAMPIRES

Late last year, Samhain Publishing took my short novel Under the Ice -- which had previously been a self-published Amazon e-book -- and brought out their own version of it. And this year they're doing the same again, with a much longer novel this time.

Hot Blood runs to over 120,000 words and is a vampire epic, starting in New York, taking in Central America, and finally moving on to Eastern Europe ... Prague, then Budapest, then finally the Carpathians. And these aren't any Twilight kinds of vampires I'm describing. No, these bloodsuckers are very definitely not nice ones.

After all the swooning and white weddings, I get the feeling some readers will be extremely glad to see some non-sparkly vampires back. But for those who prefer a little romance mixed in with their dark fantasy, the heroine of the novel is a supernatural being herself, although of a very different kind. She ...

No, I cannot tell you too much in advance, now can I? Hot Blood will be out as a Samhain e-book in September 2014.

FIND ME ON FACEBOOK

As well as the Raine's Landing Novels Page on Facebook, there's now a Page about my new novels from Schusters/Pocket and Samhain Publishing, my latest (seventh) short fiction collection from Dark Renaissance Books, and my most recent self-published enovels. Check it out here.

A ZOMBIE REBORN!

“Out at the edge of the ice, something dark appeared, rising from the water and then closing downwards on the frozen surface. I squinted. And was sure it was a human arm.”

David and Bobby are a pair of twin brothers, both in love with the same woman. But on a trip to Finland, the matter gets resolved in the worst way imaginable – Bobby drowns in the icy waters just outside Helsinki. Two years later, David is still in that city and living with Krista, when a supposed magic artifact comes into their possession. And when David makes a wish upon it, dark things from the past begin resurfacing. Things like old-time sins and misdeeds. Like guilt and awful memories. And things like Bobby himself, two years drowned and trapped under the ice ... but still here with us.

My zombie novel Under the Ice first appeared as a collector's hardback from Sarob Press back in 2005. It had long been out of print when I published it again myself as an ebook on Kindle at the start of this decade, where it quickly became my best-selling title. And now it's available from Samhain Publishing as a smart new ebook edition. Here's its first (rave) review:

“Every now and then you’ll stumble upon a low-key piece of work that totally and completely stuns you. Under the Ice is a stellar tale ... brilliant, well thought out and perfectly delivered by Tony Richards, who understands the balance that must be upheld between fantasy and reality. The story boasts numerous layers, fine character examination and a final curveball that’s going to leave readers pleased. Whether you opt to label this one a revenge tale, a ghost story or a zombie tale matters not. It’s original, creative, and somehow successfully blends all of the aforementioned classifications, wrapping a plethora of ideas into one. This is an excellent read, and you want to get your hands on it as soon as possible!” – Horror Novel Reviews. 

You can read the complete review here.

Under the Ice is available directly from Samhain Publishing, or from Amazon, B&N Nook, Kobo and a variety of other outlets. 

THREE 4 FREE

The last in my 3 collections of horror tales is free on Amazon Kindle for the whole of today and Sunday. Like its two sister books, The Books of Shadow: Volume III only contains stories that have previously seen print, and includes fiction from Weird Tales, Midnight Street, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

ALL RIGHT NOW

I'm very fond of letting you know when things are going well, aren't I? And so it's only fair that I cop to it as well when I occasionally mess up.

I was having at look at the template documents for  my triple collection of horror stories on Kindle -- THE BOOKS OF SHADOW -- a few days back and realized that I'd let a formatting mistake slip through. And that's a shame, because these three books represent the best of my dark fiction over more than 30 years, the very oldest in the series being 'Headlamps' from The 14th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories back in 1981.

And so I promptly sat down and fixed the error. All three books are now properly formatted, and have brand new linked tables of content and publication info about every story.

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Favorable reactions continue to roll in for my newest novel TROPIC OF DARKNESS (Simon & Schuster/Pocket Star).

Night Owl Reviews says: "Tropic of Darkness in a really good thriller."

While  the Dew on the Kudzu literary blog adds: "Filled with Voodoo, 200 year old curses, beautiful ghosts and the nightclubs of Havana, the story sucks you in."

And I learned just yesterday that both TROPIC and my short story 'The Hunting Party' (Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, October) have won nominations for Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards.

A COUPLE OF NEW ROUTES INTO RAINE'S LANDING

My fourth Raine's Landing supernatural adventure/dark fantasy novel -- DEADLY VIOLET -- is now available on B&N Nook. Or, if you're inclined that way, you can pick it up on Smashwords too.

TICKET TO TERROR

My latest collection of short fiction -- my seventh -- is now available for preorder from Dark Renaissance Books. THE UNIVERSAL AND OTHER TERRORS has eleven stories and a novella, with fiction from Hitchcock's, The Black Book of Horror, Scheherazade and Midnight Street, and includes five brand-new stories -- Aegea, Under the Shroud, Covered Mirrors, The Visitors in Marvell Wood, and the title story -- that see their very first publication in this book.

As well as painting the cover, the terrific M. Wayne Miller had illustrated every individual story ... you can take a look at some of those on the art gallery of my website.

And here's the back cover material for the book:

What could be so bad about a golden Greek beach with scores of beautiful young people lying on it? Where could be the danger in a perfectly normal-looking southern English seaside town? Or an even more ordinary town out in the Nevada desert? An old, abandoned building on a rocky shore…what could be awful about that?
Discover the truth behind the origins of Abraham van Helsing. Find out how a decrepit old man continues to attract beautiful young women. Learn about the real link between crows and the Grim Reaper. Travel a few decades into the future and see a fresh and modern Africa…and the menace that still lurks there. Here are twelve new stories, five of them previously unpublished and unique to this collection, that will open your eyes to the hidden terrors in the world around us. Read them at your peril.

Praise for Tony Richards

“A hell of a writer, one of today’s masters of dark fiction.” Mario Guslandi, Horror World

 “Richards is a master at combining horror, fantasy and humor in a way that will mesmerize readers from cover to cover.” Rhomylly Forbes, Romantic Times Book Reviews

“The rest of us stand on the sidelines with eyes wide open at his audacity and wonder what he’ll do next.” Peter Tennant, Black Static


“…Richards creates something unique.” Clay Bye, Alternative Reads

THE UNIVERSAL is only available as a collector's edition at the moment, but a trade paperback edition will be along soon. You can find out more more it here.

TROPIC OF DARKNESS -- FIRST REVIEWS

The reviews for my new novel – TROPIC OF DARKNESS, a supernatural chiller from Schusters/Pocket (see my posting on this blog for 29^the September) – have started coming in.

The first review on Amazon gives it 5 stars.

The Monster Librarian says: “Tropic of Darkness is a well-crafted tale, and well worth reading.  I rate this work as Highly Recommended for adult readers.”

The Don d'Ammassa's Horror Reviews site says: “This is a rapidly paced story with supernatural incidents to add suspense along the way. The underlying mystery and the fast paced plot complement each other admirably.”

AlternativeWorlds concludes: “Tropic of Darkness is an exciting horror thriller.”

And Crossroad Reviews adds: “Last year I had started to expand on what I was reading.  And it’s (because of) books like this one that I am so happy that I decided to go ahead and do that! This is a deff must read and why not pick it up!”

Find out more about TROPIC OF DARKNESS here. And here’s the Schusters UK link.