New for Review: Fever Dreams of a Parasite and Demo Reels and Arthouse Madness
Nov 20, 2024 2:28 am
~ Books Currently Available for Review ~
New titles now available from RDSP and our fellow publishers are available for review. Email books@rawdogscreaming.com to request a physical or ebook copy or use the links to download from NetGalley
Story Collection: Fever Dreams of a Parasite by Pedro Iniguez
(release date March 13 * hardcopies available)
In Fever Dreams of a Parasite Iniguez weaves haunting tales that traverse worlds both familiar and alien. Paying homage to Lovecraft, Ligotti, and Langan, these cosmic horror, weird fiction, and folk-inspired stories explore tales of outsiders, killers, and tormented souls as they struggle to survive the lurking terrors of a cold and cruel universe. With symbolism and metaphor pulled from his Latino roots, Iniguez cuts deep into the political undercurrent to expose an America rarely presented in fiction. Whether it’s the desperation of poverty, the fear of deportation or the countless daily slights endured by immigrants, these tales are about people who are usually overlooked. This fresh perspective is often delivered with a twist that allows us to see the mundane with fresh eyes.
Poetry: Demo Reels and Arthouse Madness by Vince A. Liaguno
(release date February 25, 2025 * hardcopies available)
Demo Reels and Arthouse Madness collects poetry from a self-identified unapologetic horror and pop culture junkie. Bram Stoker® Award winner Liaguno presents more than 50 poems packed with modern observations that explore everything from our slasher movie obsession to the work week rhythm that drives so many of us. With a lyrical cadence and all-out alliteration, Liaguno weaves short films for the mind from surprising angles, resuscitating familiar themes into ghoulish, garish technicolor life.
Delving into both subcultures and subgenres with a dark cinematic aesthetic allows the subjects contained within to flourish with broad appeal, while retaining gritty and artistic relevance. Liaguno invites you into a world of fearless and fear-inducing verse that dares to play with nostalgic horror in unexpected ways.
Poetry: On the Subject of Blackberries by Stephanie M. Wytovich
(now available in new editions: paperback & ebook, audiobook coming soon)
Now that it has won the Bram Stoker Award we're putting out new editions of On the Subject of Blackberries so we've brought it back for review. Inspired by Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, these poems are meditations on female rage, postpartum depression, compulsion, and intrusive thoughts. They pull from periods of sleep deprivation, soul exhaustion, and nightmarish delusions, and each is left untitled, a nod to the stream-of-conscious mind of a new mother.
Using found poetry and under the influence of bibliomancy, Wytovich harnesses the occult power of her imagery and words and aligns it with a new, more vulnerable, darkness. These pieces are not only visions of the madwoman in the attic, but ghostly visitations that explore the raw mental torture women sometimes experience after giving birth.
Novella: Errant Roots by Sonora Taylor
(release date October 15 • hardcopies available)
Deirdre's family tree was never something she thought much about. For 24 years it's just been her and her mother. But when she accidentally gets pregnant her mother insists they go back to their family roots. Now Deirdre is about to discover just what kind of sinister soil her family has sprouted from.
"Witchy, clever, thoughtful, and brilliant, Errant Roots pulls the reader into the story headfirst. You'll need to read just one more chapter, and another, and another, until you’ve devoured the tale of Deirdre’s family and the secrets they keep. Sonora’s expert touch brings to life characters and a story that are a joy to read, with all those delicious little thrills of tension and fright."
—Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads and Below
Poetry Collection: Bestial Mouths by Brenda S. Tolian
(release date November 14 * hardcopies available)
Bestial mouths whisper, calling you into a labyrinth of nightmares, metamorphosis, and the liminal spaces of the beautiful grotesque lurking within the human psyche. Tolian's debut poetry collection is an unequivocal battlecry for the exploited. Stripped of ornament, the language bites deep, revealing a suspended symbology of human and beast, intimacy and violence, life and death. This book bites deep, exploring themes of identity, metamorphosis, and the primal urge for survival, weaving through time, myth, and shifting perspectives.
The verses serve as a grimoire, an invocation, and a meditation on agency and autonomy over the body and soul—whether it is inherent, taken, sold, stolen, lost, reclaimed, or forcefully wrested back into the self. Sit down on the forest floor, dig your fingers into the soil, and open wide your bestial mouths, consume these words whispered in the darkness.