AFTER A 10-MONTH WAIT, The Night Mother, the sequel to NightWhere, is finally available! I turned in the manuscript to my editor at Flame Tree Press almost a year ago, so I’m super excited that the book finally launched on Thursday, June 1st via the Dark Arts Books imprint (a last-minute publication change; Flame Tree will instead issue my novel The Bloodstained Doll next year.).
The Night Mother is a novel I wanted to write for a decade, so you could say it’s been a 10-year, not a 10-month wait! As soon as Samhain Publishing released NightWhere back in 2012, I knew that I personally wanted to know more about the story of Selena, the mysterious “guardian” of that novel who saves Mark from the evil clutches of both his wife and the otherworldly BDSM club known as NightWhere.
I wasn’t sure what the story was though for a long time, so writing it kept getting postponed in favor of novels like The House by the Cemetery and Voodoo Heart. But during COVID, I decided that I really wanted to know what happens to Selena and Mark, so I decided to just dive in and see where the road led. Originally, I thought it would be more about Selena’s past – and some of it is – but mostly this is a new story that takes place after the events of NightWhere, as Watchers from the club are trying to recapture Mark and Selena. It’s also about newcomer Cassie, a dominatrix who is hit with the worst bit of luck a domme could have.
I reached out to some people ahead of the novel’s release to see if they would read it and review it so it could “hit the ground running” and the response was amazing. Authors Edward Lee, Tim Waggoner and W.D. Gagliani all provided blurbs saying things like “The perfect storm of supernatural mayhem, celestial sex, and gore galore!” and “Another wickedly entertaining novel from a master of erotic horror! and “10 lashes out of 10!” And Horror Bookworm Reviews, Betwixt the Sheets and WMP Dark Fiction Magazine all came through, saying things like “Come on in and sin. Yes, please!” and “titillating extreme horror for the truly daring.” You can read all of those reviews on The Night Mother Review Page. Plus a couple of early readers posted great 5-star reviews to Goodreads, which you can read here.
Lots of people pre-ordered autographed editions of the paperback edition directly through me via The Night Mother webpage and dozens of people pre-ordered the ebook edition on Amazon. The first couple Amazon reviews that appeared were both 5-star ratings, so I am really hoping that trend continues!
But mostly, what I’m hoping, is that all of the fans of NightWhere discover that this new book is available and that they read and enjoy it. Out of all my novels, NightWhere is the one that has generated the most “when are you going to write a sequel?” requests. So I’m really hoping that they all find out about the book and that they enjoy where the story takes them. I know I enjoyed writing it and discovering the next chapter in Mark and Selena’s lives. And honestly, Cassie was a surprise to me – I loved finding her and her story.
Several people have asked me if there will be a hardcover edition of The Night Mother and the answer is… hopefully some day? Originally, Flame Tree was going to issue both The Night Mother and reissue NightWhere and they always used to do hardcover editions… but then earlier this year they decided to cut most of their hardcovers due to cost and sales, so if these books had come out as originally planned through Flame Tree, there would absolutely have been no hardcover. However, now that Dark Arts has issued the books, I could license a hardcover edition. I personally think it would be super cool to see a matching NightWhere, The Night Mother hardcover set. But… nothing is currently in the works.
However, what is in the works, are audiobooks! Fireside Audio will be producing audiobooks of both NightWhere and The Night Mother, which is awesome. I can’t wait to hear them! NightWhere had been contracted for audio years ago, but never got produced. So now, at last, people will be able to hear the invitation from The Watchers to “Come in, and sin.” Stay tuned…
In the meantime… if you’re reading this, I hope you’ll give The Night Mother a read. She’s waiting for you… with open arms. And more.
