THE IDEA FOR THIS ONE goes back a long time.
Back in 2002, during the World Horror Convention in Chicago, I remember telling Charlee Jacob that I had this idea for a pretty racy horror novel, but wasn’t sure I could write it.
At that point, I’d been trying to sell my first novel, Covenant, for two years, and was really about ready to throw the towel in on it all. Charlee was a writer I greatly looked up to and am proud to call a friend. I remember her looking at me with great emotion and telling me that I had to keep going. I had to keep writing. She encouraged me to approach NightWhere. But I didn’t right away. I eventually sold Covenant and wrote four other novels instead.
And then last year, right about this time, when my former editor at Leisure, Don D’Auria, began building a new horror line for Samhain Publishing, I pitched him on the idea for this dark erotic horror novel. Like Charlee, he said… “write it.” And he gave me a contract encouraging me to do so.
I spent most of 2011 writing it, and turned in the manuscript late last fall. I think fans of my more erotic horror tales like Sacrifice and The 13th will really enjoy this one. This week I saw the cover art for the book (click the thumbnail for a larger look) and it’s exactly what I’d hoped it would be. Darkly sensual and evocative. It will be a few weeks before the novel shows up for pre-sale on the Samhain web site and other outlets, but here’s the back cover description:
When Rae broached the idea of visiting an underground sex club, Mark didn’t blink. He should have. Because NightWhere is not your usual swingers club. Where it’s held on a given night… only those who receive the red invitations know. Soon Rae is indulging in her lust for pain. And Mark is warned by a beautiful stranger to take his wife away before it’s too late.
But it’s already too late. Because Rae hasn’t come home. Now Mark is in a race against time – to find NightWhere again and save his wife from the mysterious Watchers who run the club. To stop her from taking that last step through the degradations of The Red into the ultimate BDSM promise of The Black. More than just their marriage and her life are at stake: Rae is in danger of losing her soul…
NightWhere will be out from Samhain this June.
Ironically, on the very same day that the cover art was unveiled for my sixth novel, I signed on with Don and Samhain again, this time to write my seventh novel, Violet Eyes … about creepy purple bio-engineered spiders! If you’ve read “Violet Lagoon,” the last story in my short collection Creeptych, you’ve already gotten a taste of this one. “Violet Lagoon” was essentially an expanded version of the prologue for Violet Eyes which I’ve wanted to write for a couple years now.
I’m looking forward to getting started at last!
