Above you will see the cover art of my new story collection, HIDEOUS FACES, BEAUTIFUL SKULLS, from Wildside Press.

Here is a link to the GoodReads page for the book: Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls. Visit the book's page and enter a Goodreads contest, via the notice posted there, for a chance to win a FREE trade paperback copy of the book!

News Update (3/8/14): HIDEOUS FACES, BEAUTIFUL SKULLS is now available for Kindle, via the following links:

US: http://www.amazon.com/Hideous-Faces-B...

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hideous-Faces...

In HIDEOUS FACES, BEAUTIFUL SKULLS, a collection of thirty stories of horror and the bizarre, you shall enter a boundless realm of dark magic and twisted love. In this collection, you will encounter monsters aplenty: magic zombies, evil cats, alien lovers, aquatic humanoids, a vicious Egyptian monstrosity, Internet witches, ghouls and others that defy description. Below you will find some excerpts from some of the stories:

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An excerpt from "Hungry For Faces"...

Michael walked up to the door and looked inside.

The blue light came from a tinted bulb in a shadeless lamp. Thin copper wires were strung across the room at various levels; every piece of furniture seemed to be caught up in the tangle. The breeze from a fan on high-power made the wires hum. On a brass bed in the center of the room reclined a pale man, bundled in quilts and pillows. His long black hair was thick and coarse, like a horse's mane. He wore a tattered bathrobe over a gray sweatsuit. Michael decided the pale man was probably twenty-five, just a few years younger than himself.

Michael brushed a hand over the lump in his pants pocket. He had a roll of bills totalling three-hundred dollars, in case the pale man had a price. "I met somebody in a bar – a mechanic. He’d told me you made his wife go away." It dawned on Michael that the mechanic might have violated a trust. "You can't really blame him for talking. He'd had a lot to drink and ... well, I bought him a few drinks, too. He seemed pretty miserable."

The pale man shrugged. "No worry. I appreciate references, if discretion is observed. I'm sure Mr. Curtis has selected well. My name is Card."

"I'm Michael. I guess you don't really want to know who I am, though, since you told me to cover my face." He twanged at one of the copper wires. "What's with the spiderweb?"

"Be careful, will you?" Card nodded as Michael stilled the vibrating wire with a fingertip. "Yes, it is like a spiderweb, isn't it? Except there's no pattern. Still, do you see the appeal? Everything connected to everything. Beautiful, like a work of art."

"Can I get through?"

A brief, worried look crossed Card's face. "I suppose so." The pale man watched intently as Michael threaded his way across the room. "Careful there, a wire is snagged on your coat. And your handkerchief is coming loose. Don't let it fall off. If you should ever show me your face, I would want it to be a conscious choice."

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An excerpt from "The Voice of the Pangyricon"....

Something horrible stepped off the platform.

It was a corpse. A walking corpse with blue skin, streaked with dust and what looked like thick strands of yellowish-green cobwebs. Its eyes were tightly squinted shut. Its face was smeared with blood and strings of fresh meat hung from its broken teeth.

“Attention, Daniel!” I screamed to the Pangyricon's computer system. “Daniel, help us! Activate security alert!” None of us had any weapons. There had never been any need for them.

“Interesting!” the computer said in its higher voice of excitement. “I’ve completed a brain-scan on this being and though the organ is profoundly altered, I can detect familiar patterns. That is my original body.”

“Don’t just scan that thing!” Remson said as he came out of the chamber. “Activate security alert!”

“Yes! Look what it did to the calf!” Quinn cried.

“I detect animal blood, but no animal,” the computer said. “I cannot activate a security alert based on an external occurrence.”

The creature’s eyes slowly opened, revealing twin milky-white orbs. Apparently it had needed some time to get used to the light. It rushed to the door, which slid open, like all work area doors when somebody stepped up to them. The thing then raced down the hall....

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Need ordering information on the trade paperback? Here's the Amazon.com link:

http://www.amazon.com/Hideous-Faces-B...

Thanks! :-)