A troubled sailor. A hundred-year-old sailboat. An ancient curse. Welcome to award-winning author John Hornor Jacobs’ nautical nightmare.It begins and ends as always, with the sea. Sam Vines is struggling. Her boat is up on the hard and she doesn’t have enough money to get her back in the water. Turns out the snorkelers and the scubadivers are looking for the ultra-luxury boating experience, not the single-handed, rarely sober, snarky stylings of sailboat captain Samantha Vines. So it’s a good thing when her former crewmate Loick asks her to help deliver a massive, hundred-year-old sailboat from Seattle to England. Sam is the only one who can handle the ship’s engine, and did Loick mention that the money is good? It’s very good.The Blackwatch is a huge boat. An ancient boat. It’s also probably (definitely) haunted.Sam’s alcohol withdrawal (sobriety is important at sea) has her doubting her senses, but when...

The world is on the brink of war. Fisk and Shoe - mercenaries, very much not wanting to get caught in the middle of a political whirlwind - must deliver a very important message, and find a very dangerous man. They have caught the eye of the powerful men of the world, and now the stakes are higher than they like. And the Emperor has decreed that Livia Cornelius, pregnant with Fisk's child, must travel to the far lands of the Autumn Lords on a diplomatic mission. It will mean crossing half the world, and facing new dangers. And in the end, she will uncover the shocking truth at the heart of the Autumn Lords' Empire. A truth which will make the petty politics of war and peace unimportant, and will change the world.

"There are certain shibboleths to our condition."At the end of the first book of The Twelve-Fingered Boy Trilogy, Jack and Shreve are incarcerado—physically locked up. Shreve's back in the custody of the state of Arkansas, and Jack's somewhere in the clutches of Mr. Quincrux—both problems Shreve aims to rectify.Cages might hold Shreve's body, but the power that's been growing since his encounter with Quincrux has reached a pinnacle. Nothing can prevent his mind from scaling the etheric heights. Freed from his body, Shreve discovers the magnitude of the evil that's stirring in the east. The wave of insomnia that's paralyzed the nation is only the beginning.To save Jack—and maybe all of the humanity he no longer feels part of—Shreve has no choice but to join Quincrux and the Society of Extranaturals.

They had escaped their country, but they couldn't escape the pastHaving lost both her home and family to a brutal dictatorship, Isabel has fled to Spain, where she watches young, bronzed beauties and tries to forget the horrors that lie in her homeland. Shadowing her always, attired in rumpled linen suits and an eyepatch, is "The Eye," a fellow ex-pat and poet with a notorious reputation. An unlikely friendship blossoms, a kinship of shared grief. Then The Eye receives a mysterious note and suddenly returns home, his fate uncertain.Left with the keys to The Eye's apartment, Isabel finds two of his secret manuscripts: a halting translation of an ancient, profane work, and an evocative testament of his capture during the revolution. Both texts bear disturbing images of blood and torture, and the more Isabel reads the more she feels the inexplicable compulsion to go home. It means a journey deep into a country torn by war, still ruled...

Mr. Quincrux is dead. Armistead Lucius Priest, founder of the Society of Extranaturals, is now seated uneasily in his protégés flesh, and though Priest's powers are not inconsiderable, the Conformity will not settle for the second-brightest flame in the etheric heights. It will confront Shreve.But it will have to find him first. Under the protection of Mr. Negata, Jack, and the rest of the Irregulars, Shreve retreats to the wild to face his demons and prepare his mind for one more battle. The Conformity is the breathtaking conclusion to the acclaimed Twelve-Fingered Boy Trilogy.

The award-winning and critically-acclaimed master of horror returns with a pair of chilling tales—both never-before-published in print—that examine the violence and depravity of the human condition.Bringing together his acclaimed novella "The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky" and an all-new short novel My Heart Struck Sorrow, John Hornor Jacobs turns his fertile imagination to the evil that breeds within the human soul. A brilliant mix of the psychological and supernatural, blending the acute insight of Roberto Bolaño and the eerie imagination of H. P. Lovecraft, "The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky" examines life in a South American dictatorship. Centered on the journal of a poet-in-exile and his failed attempts at translating a maddening text, it is told by a young woman trying to come to grips with a country that nearly devoured itself.In My Heart Struck Sorrow, a librarian discovers a recording from the Deep South—which may be the...

Product DescriptionRecent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music - broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station - is said to make living men insane and dead men rise. Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil. But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he'll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell... In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood. "A bit of HP Lovecraft, a touch of William Hjortsberg, Southern Gods is an effective combination of cosmic horror and southern Gothic traditions. John Hornor Jacobs will turn heads with this debut." --Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation "In SOUTHERN GODS, John Hornor Jacobs turns the classic blues horror story of the devil at the crossroads into a true Lovecraftian nightmare. Steeped in Southern Gothic - and not for the faint of heart! - this is a bold and mighty debut written with breathtaking assurance. Powerful, horrific and beautiful, Southern Gods is a revelation and Jacobs is an author to shout about. Both deserve to go very far indeed." -- Adam Christopher, author of Empire State (Angry Robot, January 2012) "John Hornor Jacobs' fantastic debut novel, SOUTHERN GODS, is both terrifying and beautiful. His eye for detail and compelling characters makes this one you'll remember long after you've finished it." - Stephen Blackmoore, author City of the Lost (DAW Books 2012) "Compulsively readable and definitely memorable, Southern Gods will ensure that you'll never hear radio interference quite the same way again." -- 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Gary A. Braunbeck, author of Coffin County and Far Dark Fields "Great Yuggoth, what a great debut novel! With a sure hand for intriguing characters and deft plotting, John Hornor Jacobs establishes himself as an author to heed. The prologue to this exceptional novel is one of the most terrifying things I have ever shivered through. It will kiss your paltry soul with fear. With superbly handled echoes of Chambers and Lovecraft, we encounter the mystery of that Tattered Man, Ramblin' John Hastur, who escorts us to the arcane secrets beyond the sun, beyond the stars, beyond that long black veil!" -W. H. Pugmire, author of The Tangled Muse "Hell-hound blues! Zombies! Lovecraft! Jacobs' engrossing gris-gris will take ya down to the crossroads and on then to the Deep Places where the hungry Old Ones sho gon git'cha!" -Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., author of_ SIN & ashes_ "John Hornor Jacobs. Remember the name, because if there's any justice in the universe, he's going to be a big deal one day soon. John's prose is by turns lyrical and tough-as-nails. He effortlessly conjures an eerie southern landscape that will surely haunt the dreams of anyone who reads Southern Gods." --Bryan Smith, Author of Darkened and House of BloodAbout the AuthorJohn Hornor Jacobs has worked in advertising for the last fifteen years, played in bands, and pursued art in various forms. He is the cofounder of Needle: A Magazine of Noir. He is also, in his copious spare time, a novelist, represented by Stacia Decker of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. His first novel, SOUTHERN GODS, will be published by Night Shade Books and released nationally in August, 2011. His other novels are on submission at various publishers. Cross your fingers for him.

In the contested and unexplored territories at the edge of the Empire, a boat is making its laborious way up stream. Riding along the banks are the mercenaries hired to protect it - from raiders, bandits and, most of all, the stretchers, elf-like natives who kill any intruders into their territory. The mercenaries know this is dangerous, deadly work. But it is what they do. In the boat the drunk governor of the territories and his sons and daughters make merry. They believe that their status makes them untouchable. They are wrong. And with them is a mysterious, beautiful young woman, who is the key to peace between warring nations and survival for the Empire. When a callow mercenary saves the life of the Governor on an ill-fated hunting party, the two groups are thrown together. For Fisk and Shoe - two tough, honourable mercenaries surrounded by corruption, who know they can always and only rely on each other - their young companion appears to be playing with fire. The nobles have the power, and crossing them is always risky. And although love is a wonderful thing, sometimes the best decision is to walk away. Because no matter how untouchable or deadly you may be, the stretchers have other plans.

Product DescriptionThese four tales deal with the unquiet dead in all its various forms. From ghosts to vampires, zombies to vengeful spirits, these stories take you from a soft-apocalyptic future where computers are symbiotic creatures burrowing into your skin, to a post-apocalyptic world where cowboys round up zombies for slaughter. You'll witness vampires hosting the birthday party of the century in a antebellum mansion in the old south and a young boy beginning to understand that the evil he does will come back to haunt him. Includes the stories "Verrata," "Heaven of Animals," "Bone China," and "Sneaking In." Word Count: 25,000 words

Fifteen-year-old Shreve Cannon doesn't mind juvie. He's got a good business dealing contraband candy, and three meals a day are more than his drunk mother managed to provide. In juvie, the rules never change and everyone is the same. In juvie, Shreve has life figured out. Then the new fish shows up. Jack's a quiet kid. Small. Cries himself to sleep too. He's no standard-issue titty-baby, though. There's his hands--more specifically his fingers, all twelve of 'em. And when he gets angry, something weird happens. The air wavers. You feel a slight pressure in your chest. And then…well, best take cover. Jack isn't the only new face in juvie. There's Mr. Quincrux. Quincrux has an unusual interest in Jack and Shreve, and it quickly becomes clear that innocent bystanders aren't going to get in his way. So Jack and Shreve bust out. On the lam, they quickly discover that Jack has abilities--hell, superpowers--that might just give them a fighting chance against Quincrux, if they can stay alive long enough to figure them out.About the AuthorJohn Hornor Jacobs has worked in advertising for the last fifteen years, played in bands, and pursued art in various forms. He is the author of the adult novels Southern Gods (Night Shade Books), which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award and This Dark Earth (Gallery/Pocket Books). The Twelve-Fingered Boy is his first work for young adults.