I’ve been excited about this one for ages, but FunDead Publications has finally revealed the title and cover of its next anthology!

Exquisite Aberrations, out in Spring, is a new anthology of gothic stories with the theme of traditional gothic settings featuring non-traditional characters.

My own contribution, The Lunatic Song, is the longest piece I’ve had published by a third party to date – a novelette, if you want to be grandiose (and I do) – so is something of a milestone for me.

The story follows Charles Hale, a musician returning to London in disgrace after a scandal in Europe. His chance for redemption in the eyes of high society comes in the form of a dubious private performance, for which he must meet famous pianist and alleged murderer, Lawrence Roper, now resident in Bethlem Hospital.

“The only thing that attested to its true identity was the gate and fence itself, which stood twenty-feet tall and was topped with black iron spikes like poisoned arrowheads. That and the mournful call of the wind, which I realized after a minute of contemplation was not the wind at all.” 

— The Lunatic Song

I recently read an extract of The Lunatic Song on Daytime/Nightime on Subcity Radio, which you can still listen to here.

Fundead Publications is based in Salem, Massachusetts and is one of my favourite indie publishers. They published my short story The Sixpence in the Pudding in their 2016 Christmas horror anthology, O Horrid Night, available here.