Kitchen Sink Gothic reviewed on British Fantasy Society website

Dave Brzeski wrote a very detailed, excellent review of Kitchen Sink Gothic on the British Fantasy Society website, with the closing summary:
 
"...on the whole this is a solid collection of stories with no absolute duds."

"...this is Kitchen Sink Gothic—like Kitchen Sink Drama, only scarier. What’s not to like? No haunted mansions here; no bloodsucking counts. No, the horror here is targeted just where it tends to be in real life, at ordinary people who don’t have enough money to protect themselves—indeed some of the horrors in these stories are quite mundane in origin, but certainly no less terrifying for that."

For Mr Brzeski's full review click here. 

Goblin Mire by David A. Riley - free on kindle till the 30th November

David A. Riley's fantasy novel, Goblin Mire, will be available free on kindle from the 26th till the 30th November.
All we ask is that if you download this novel you give consideration to giving it a honest review on amazon afterwards, however brief.
Hope you enjoy it, though.

Kindle:

Amazon.co.uk free

Amazon.com free

Half price (plus free postage) on any of the Jim Pitts Prints for anyone who buys a copy of The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts

Between now and the 31st December anyone who buys (or has already bought) a copy of The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts can buy any of Jim's prints for half price with free postage.

David A. Riley's Moloch's Children receives glowing review on the British Fantasy Society website

There was a great review for David A. Riley's horror novel, Moloch's Children, on the BFS website by Ian Hunter.

"This is my kind of book, only 213 pages long with a prologue and epilogue and 36 chapters in between, evidence of how fast-paced a novel “Moloch’s Children” is; in a tale that reminded me of the works of Dennis Wheatley, Ramsay Campbell and Richard Matheson; although it’s not as “quiet” as these last two writers. In his short fiction, Riley has never been one to shirk away from bloody horror and he doesn’t here..."

99p Promotion for kindle version of Erik Hofstatter's The Crabian Heart

There will be a 7 day promotion for Erik Hofstatter's The Crabian Heart on kindle, starting on the 30th August, with a price reduction to only 99p. So why not give this highly acclaimed book a try?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077DKHKVG/ref=sr_1_1…

Irena and her thirteen-year-old son Aleš are refugees living in a lonely seaside town of Dover, England. Aleš has never seen an ocean, let alone one that glows purple when he’s nearby. On a local beach, he befriends the ostensible Mother of Crabs, an amputee with rigid demeanour and unequivocal warnings. Soon, purple crustaceans crawl behind his every step and women with pincers threaten to recondition his sensitive heart.

Erik Hofstatter is a dark fiction writer and a member of the Horror Writers Association. Born in the wild lands of the Czech Republic, he roamed Europe before subsequently settling on English shores, studying creative writing at the London School of Journalism. He now dwells in Kent, where he can be encountered consuming copious amounts of mead and tyrannizing local peasantry. His work appeared in various magazines and podcasts around the world such as Morpheus Tales, Crystal Lake Publishing, The Literary Hatchet, Sanitarium Magazine, Wicked Library, Tales to Terrify and Manor House Show. Other works include The Pariahs, Amaranthine and Other Stories, Katerina, Moribund Tales and Rare Breeds.

Starburst magazine by Jon Towlson:
"...the emotional tug that The Crabian Heart exerts on the reader is palpable. The Crabian Heart is also a coming-of-age tale, one that resonates with the pangs of unrequited love. And as such, it concludes, like all great coming-of-age stories, with a very difficult and painful realisation for the love-struck main character. By the end of its 100 pages you will find yourself both haunted and moved by Hofstatter’s evocative writing."

hellnotes:

"I like this little collection a lot. Definitely a case of bigger not always being better. Hofstatter could have watered this down with more words, but that would have taken the impact out of the stories. I also like how he slips a lot of important messages into his work. For example “people are scared of what they don’t know…or understand,” says Enola, as she and Ales walk along the beach. Zsofia tells him that life is a gamble and his mother points out that the powers that be make the rules that govern us and we have to go where they tell us to. Ultimately, the decisions of what we do are ours, but I’d like to suggest that you try a copy of The Crabian Heart. That forward is going to be the icing on the cake!"

Limited Edition - The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts

This is just a friendly reminder to anyone interested in this large, hardcover book featuring the fantastical art of Jim Pitts, that this is a signed, numbered, limited edition. Only a diminishing number of copies remain before it will be out of print, when it will  become a collector's item, with the inevitable rise in its price.

If you want to make sure of getting a copy before this happens, there is only one place it can be bought, and that is direct from the publisher, Parallel Universe Publications. The link to buy copies is here. Priced only £25.00 plus p&p.

Besides hundreds of copies of black and white and full colour artwork, the book includes articles by Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Jones, David A. Sutton, Adrian Cole, Peter Coleborn, Jon Harvey, and Nick Caffrey.

The Return by David A. Riley

Not a book published by Parallel Universe Publications - actually by Blood Bound Books in the States - this was written by PUP owner David A. Riley.


The Return is a combination of Lovecraftian horror and crime noir, set in a terminally sick north of England town, torn by cults, crime and the darker denizens of the Cthulhu Mythos.

One reviewer wrote: "For me, this is David A Riley's best book to date. A tight, pulse-pounding thriller, mixing hard-boiled crime with horror - a new angle for the Mythos of Lovecraft - with pace, character and enough action to keep the pages turning. Well constructed, with a credible landscape and a bagful of grotesqueness."

Douglas Draa, editor of Weirdbook, wrote: "You don't even have to be a "Mythos" fan to receive maximum enjoyment! David A. Riley's "The Return" is an amazing read. Do you like gritty noir? Brit Horror? Masculine (but not macho) protagonists? Eldritch Horror in bleak industrial slums? "The Long Good Friday" meets "the Mythos"? The writing is dense and sleek. Never boring enthralling page turners. Do you like to read just a few more pages even though you need to sleep? Then this is THE BOOK!"

A further reviewer had this to say: ""The genres of crime and horror have always skipped hand in hand like a deranged Jack and Jill (see "Falling Angel" and "The Damnation Game") and with "The Return" David A Riley continues this tradition. If you like your cosmic horror to be tinged with the darkness of the human condition that can be seen in noir-ish crime then this is the book for you.
Riley evokes a wonderful sense of place in the rundown Grudge End, a place that is dying but the creatures that dwell within will tear the world apart as they try to enact their own return just as our protagonist does returning to the place where he is from now that he has nothing left.
I would recommend this book to both fans of Lovecraftian fiction and those who like their horror tales to be fused with the gritty reality of the old ones - a kind of "Cthulhu tries to Get Carter""

You can buy copies of this book on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. Or direct from the publisher, Blood Bound Books.

Kindle versions of the novel are also available.

The cover is by the brilliant Croatian artist Andrej Bartulovic.

Promotional price of 99p for Kindle version of Fractious Fairy Tales by Jessica Palmer

As a promotion we have reduced the price of downloading the kindle version of Jessica Palmer's Fractious Fairty Tales to 99p ($1.26 in the States).

Ebook:
amazon.co.uk £0.99
amazon.com $1.26  

The paperback version is, of course, still available, and an absolute steal at:
amazon.co.uk £9.99
amazon.com $12.99

What one reviewer thought of Fractious Fairy Tales:

"Terry Pratchett was renowned for taking familiar tales and converting them into comforting metaphors in the Discworld. That is not the way of Jessica Palmer.
Rather, she takes the crumbling skeletons of childhood fairy stories and fleshes them with satirical icons from the modern world to create a universe that is not Grimm but GRIM.
An author with many genres to her credit, from teen fantasy, through textbooks and cultural analysis. But this collection has more in common with her early horror work, twisted with a warped sense of humour that befits the daughter of a clown.
As with her other recent collection, "Other Visions of Heaven and Hell", you should leave your preconceptions on the coffee table. You will not, and could not, have anticipated this. But you will enjoy it, mostly!"

Also take a look at Jessica Palmer's Other Visions of Heaven and Hell.

Jessica Palmer has had 28 books published, both fiction and nonfiction. Her novels – horror, fantasy and science fiction – were released by Pocket Books in the United States and Scholastic in the United Kingdom. She has written two textbooks about Native American history, which were published by McFarland, and an encyclopedia of natural history released by Harper Collins’ label Element Books and later by Thorson in the UK.
 
Jessica has also written ten science-and-technology manuals on the topics of explosives and radiation. These were distributed globally. It was this work that brought her to Great Britain in 1988.
 
The daughter of a professional clown, Jessica refers to her switch to writing fiction as an exercise in damage limitation. She taught classes and conducted workshops on creative writing and publishing at North Shropshire College in Whitchurch, Stanmore College and the Islington Arts Factory in London.
 
As a journalist, Jessica won awards in New Mexico and Texas for writing features, public service and breaking news – the most recent in 2013. Jessica has also written satirical columns for newspapers, including “A Slice of Life” and “How to Make Love to your Personal Computer.”
 
Her two loves are writing and animals. She started a nonprofit in Kansas for wildlife rescue and has held a wildlife rehabilitation permit since 2002.
 
Other Visions of Heaven and Hell are a series of sometimes inter-related stories about our ideas of Heaven and Hell, sometimes hilarious - sometimes horrific - but always entertaining.

Order Direct from us

trade paperback:
Amazon.co.uk £9.99
Amazon.com   $12.99          Barnes & Noble $12.99

ebook:
amazon.co.uk £2.99
amazon.com     $4.30

Seven full-colour & four black & white prints by Jim Pitts now available

We now have 7 full-colour and 4 black and white prints by Jim Pitts available. Each is printed on high-quality paper and is signed by the artist. Please follow this link.

More prints will be added shortly.

Full-colour £7.00 each
Black and white £5.00 each
plus p&p
(Order 5 or more prints and postage and packing are free.)

Jim Pitts art prints

Parallel Universe Publications will soon be making available signed, high quality prints of the work of Jim Pitts, each signed by the artist, both black and white and in full colour, ideal for framing and displaying on your wall.
More information shortly.

The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts - price reduction to £25.00 plus p&p

We have reduced the price of The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts from £30.00 to £25.00 per copy plus postage.

Our charges now, including shipping costs, are:
£28.90 for UK orders
£34.75 for European orders
£39.75 for airmail postage to the rest of the world
£34.80 for surface mail postage to the rest of the world (which can take up to 45 days)

This is a numbered, limited edition of 250 copies, each of which is signed by the artist.

Please go to Order Books Direct.

Two 4-star ratings for Into the Dark by Andrew Jennings on Goodreads

No reviews so far for Andrew Jennings' novel Into the Dark, but so far it has received two 4-star ratings on Goodreads.

We recently released free downloads of the kindle version, hopefully to get some honest reviews in exchange. So far there haven't been any. If you downloaded this novel, why not give it a review, good, bad or indifferent?

Edge-Lit, Derby July 14th - Parallel Universe Publications Stand

A great day out was had by David A. Riley and Jim Pitts manning the Parallel Universe Publications stand at Edge-Lit 7 in Derby on Saturday the 14trh July.

David A. Riley

Photograph: C.C. ADAMS - right to left: David A. Riley, Jim Pitts

Jim Pitts

Free e-book promotion for Into the Dark by Andrew Jennings

From tomorrow, Saturday the 2nd of June till the 6th, the e-book version of Into the Dark by Andrew Jennings will be free.

If you download this horror novel, would you please seriously consider giving it a review on amazon, whether you like the book or not.

"There's a serial killer at loose in London. Janice, who has a chronic fear of the dark, stumbles into a relationship with the man who may secretly be the murderer. Nedither know that in the North of England, in a place previously owned by his dead mother, activities are taking place that may unleash a horror that could spell the end of civilisation in Britain - an ancient evil that would make the activities of any serial killer look like child's play by comparison. Could a psychotic killer be the only man capable of ending this?"

Amazon.co.uk 
Amazon.com

Carl Barker's Parlour Tricks reviewed by the British Fantasy Society

Sandra Scholes has reviewed Carl Barker's collection Parlour Tricks on the BFS website.

"What is most noticeable is how well-written the stories are. He doesn’t need a slick introduction from an already well established author to tell others how good he is at the written word. When you read From Chatterton Hill you already tell he can write with a style that both engages and gives you the thought that you will want to continue reading the next story and so on"

To read the full review click onto this link.

First amazon review for Jessica Palmer's Fractious Fairy Tales - a solid five-stars

Jessica Palmer's insanely whacky Fractious Fairy Tales has been given its first review on amazon - and it's a solid five-stars.

"Terry Pratchett was renowned for taking familiar tales and converting them into comforting metaphors in the Discworld. That is not the way of Jessica Palmer.
Rather, she takes the crumbling skeletons of childhood fairy stories and fleshes them with satirical icons from the modern world to create a universe that is not Grimm but GRIM.
An author with many genres to her credit, from teen fantasy, through textbooks and cultural analysis. But this collection has more in common with her early horror work, twisted with a warped sense of humour that befits the daughter of a clown.
As with her other recent collection, "Other Visions of Heaven and Hell", you should leave your preconceptions on the coffee table. You will not, and could not, have anticipated this. But you will enjoy it, mostly!"

The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts - revised (and reduced) shipping costs

Following our reduction in the price of The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts from £35.00 to £30.00 per copy, we have also revised our shipping costs and added surface mail as an option to the rest of the world for those who would be happy to wait up to 45 days for delivery.

Our charges now, including shipping costs, are:
£33.90 for UK orders
£39.75 for European orders
£44.75 for airmail postage to the rest of the world
£39.80 for surface mail postage to the rest of the world (which can take up to 45 days)

The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts

UK £33.90 GBP Europe £39.75 GBP Rest of the World - airmail £44.75 GBP Rest of the World - surface mail (45 days) £39.80 GBP

The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts - reduced by £5.00

We have reduced the price of The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts from £35.00 (plus postage and packing) to £30.00 (plus postage and packing).

The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts

UK £33.90 GBP Europe £39.75 GBP Rest of the World - airmail £44.75 GBP Rest of the World - surface mail (45 days) £39.80 GBP

Erik Hofstatter's The Crabian Heart reviewed on The Horror Bookshelf

Another great review for Erik Hofstatter's The Crabian Heart, this time on The Horror Bookshelf.
"I really enjoyed The Crabian Heart. There is plenty of horror and fantastical elements throughout, but at its core, The Crabian Heart is a story that almost everyone can relate to. It’s the story of two outsiders dealing with love, heartbreak, and the desire for acceptance. These are topics that touch everyone’s life in one way or another and I think that is what makes this story so engaging."
https://thehorrorbookshelf.com/…/erik-hofstatter-the-crabi…/