New E-Book Versions of My First Two Novels will Soon Be Available

I just got the great news that a new and very ambitious e-book publisher, Untreed Reads, has opted to pick up my first two books, Obsessed and Penance and to bring them out in brand new e-book editions.

Original Dell cover

The books are near and dear to my heart because they were my first professional publications and because they were part of a unique horror line, put out by Dell, under the brilliant and innovative eye of editor Jeanne Cavelos. In an interview in Dark Scribe magazine with Jeanne (who became not only a mentor, but a good friend), she had this to say about starting Abyss for Dell: 

Original Dell cover

"I felt that the line had to make a commitment to quality, and to state that commitment in each book. With luck, that would convince the reader to take a chance on it. I also felt that a lot of horror had become predictable, formulaic, and even silly. Too many of those published in the horror boom were doing variations on Stephen King, since he was the king of the boom. We'd had too many stories about haunted houses and evil children and ancient Indian burial grounds...I don't like to lay down edicts about horror, since the great strength of the genre is how much freedom it provides. Horror doesn't dictate a plot, as mysteries and romances do; it doesn't dictate a setting, as Westerns and, to some degree, science fiction and fantasy do. To be a part of the horror genre, all that's required is that the story evokes strong, dark emotions - anything from apprehension, fear, terror, horror, disgust, anger, despair, numbness, loss, morbid fascination, and disturbing thrills, to awe. But I believe that horror should provide vision and revelation, as Steve Tem says, and it can do neither if it is predictable. Horror shouldn't be predictable. It should be the exact opposite of predictable. And it had become all too predictable. I knew that horror could do more, and that it should do more. In a sense the genre had been narrowed by the boom, as publishers sought out more of the same...The new editorial focus would be paired with a new look in cover art (no more dancing skeletons!), and the whole thing would be marked with a new imprint, Abyss, to separate it from the horror Dell had done in the past. "

I am proud to have been a part of the line that launched such renowned writers as Poppy Z. Brite and Kathe Koje and proud that Jeanne saw something worthwhile in a story about a serial killer who thought he was a vampire from an unknown writer.

And now, I am equally proud Untreed Reads sees the same worth in those two books and will be bringing them out for your digital reading enjoyment in 2011.