Direct from Ghost Orchid Press:
Suffering from severe depression, Emma seeks out a serial killer who will kill her in the most gruesome way she can describe. But when she backs out of their agreement, she discovers the murderer is host to a parasitic creature from another dimension that feeds on the extremes of pleasure and pain. When the creature turns its attention to Emma, she is torn between the ecstasy of desire and guilt over her new urges. At the same time the killer, no longer protected from his memories by the creature, has to face a century of gruesome murders, including the death that started everything.
Hold My Heart is an uncompromisingly dark horror novella about desire—and the things we’ll do to get what we really want.
Release day is finally here! Today is the day Hold My Heart is publicly available. It’s a bit of a strange release this time around, simply because the book was available to ARC readers on Book Sirens for the past month, so reviews have already been coming in. You can check out most of the reviews on Goodreads to see if this horror novella is your cup of tea.
But I suppose I should also give you a rundown of the book here, so you have some idea of what you’re getting into when you pick it up. Hold My Heart is my first foray into extreme horror. It’s a toe dip, really, and a shallow one at that. But there are definitely some gory sections to the book. An amusing tidbit — It wasn’t until Antonia at Ghost Orchid asked if I minded it being categorized as extreme horror that I realized just how bloody the story was. To me, the book was pulp noir mixed with cosmic horror, maybe with a pinch of erotic horror mixed in. But this little novella is a lot of things packed into a small package, including the edges of extremity.
As you may know, over the past few months I’ve been doing a personal deep dive into the serial killer archetype in the modern novel. Writing this novel has been what kicked off this interest. While I needed something to clear my head between projects, I also wanted to look at where the serial killer currently stands in public imagination. One would think I would have done this pet project before writing my first serial killer book, but I’m happy that I wrote my book before looking too deeply at the tropes. I will definitely write another serial killer book, perhaps one that engages in the conversation more deeply. But I like having a book that comes from my slice of that public imagination before its dissection.
And where does Hold My Heart sit in the canon of serial killer fiction? Most likely on the periphery. Yes, one of the main characters is a serial killer. But this book is about the liminal space around the archetype of the serial killer — the moment that persona is accepted, and the moment it is shed, and the question of whether there is still humanity beneath it. Beyond the trope, it is a book about pain and guilt. It is a book about the need for pleasure. You can find out more about the book here.
Today I share a release day with some big names: Stephen King is releasing Never Flinch and John Palisano has Requiem coming out. I’ll take that as a good sign… who knows? Maybe someday someone will be thrilled they’re being released the same day as me.
As a note — my author copies got held up in customs, and I’ve been struggling to get them released for the past few weeks, the usually long process has been made even more difficult than usual with all the holidays in Bulgaria during May. They should be released sometime this week, and I can’t wait to hold this book, the beautiful cover done by Claire L. Smith. Until then, I’d love to see any shots of physical copies you have!
I’d especially like to send out a thank you to the wonderful team at Ghost Orchid Press. Antonia is wonderful at putting together and releasing these books. Claire has once again made a killer cover, and Ed Crocker’s edits continually make me a better writer. Thank you for all your hard work on this!