The Babadook meets A Headful of Ghosts in Texas Hill Country.

Eric Ross is on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow. Having left his wife, his house, his whole life behind in Maryland, he's desperate for money--it's not easy to find steady, safe work when you can't provide references, you can't stay in one place for long, and you're paranoid that your past is creeping back up on you.

When he comes across the strange ad for the Masson House in Degener, Texas, Eric thinks they may have finally caught a lucky break. The Masson property, notorious for being one of the most haunted places in Texas, needs a caretaker of sorts. The owner is looking for proof of paranormal activity. All they need to do is stay in the house and keep a detailed record of everything that happens there. Provided the house’s horrors don’t drive them all mad, like the caretakers before them.

The job calls to Eric, not just because there's a huge payout if they can make it through, but because he wants to explore the secrets of the spite house. If it is indeed haunted, maybe it'll help him understand the uncanny power that clings to his family, driving them from town to town, making them afraid to stop running. A terrifying Gothic thriller about grief and death and the depths of a father's love, Johnny Compton's The Spite House is a stunning debut by a horror master in the making.

From the Bram Stoker award-nominated author of The Spite House comes a bone-chilling new novel about a private investigator hired by a mysterious billionaire to discover why he can’t die.

When private investigator Shyla Sinclair is invited to the looming mansion of mysterious Texan tycoon Saxton Braith, she’s more than a little suspicious. The last thing she expects to see that night is Braith’s assistant driving an iron rod straight through the back of his skull. Scratch that—the last thing she expects to see is Braith’s resurrection afterward.

Braith can’t die, it turns out, but he has no explanation for his immortality, and very few intact memories of his past. Which is why he wants to pay Shyla millions to investigate him, and bring his long-buried history to light.

Shyla can’t help but be intrigued, but she’s also trapped by the offer. Braith has made it clear that he knows she’s the only person he can trust with his secret, because he knows all about hers.

Bold, atmospheric, and utterly frightening, Johnny Compton’s Dead First is spine-chilling supernatural horror about the pursuit of power and the undying need for reckoning.

Celebrate the release of Devils Kill Devils with Johnny Compton!

EVENT DEETS

When: Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Where: 2304 Stuart St. 

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your book or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store programming*

ABOUT THE BOOK

When all hell breaks loose, you need a devil on your side

Sarita has been watched over by a guardian angel her entire life. She calls him Angelo, and keeps him a secret. But secrets can’t stay buried forever…

When Angelo murders someone she loves, Sarita begins to see what's really been lurking in the shadows surrounding her. And she will have to embrace the evil within if she hopes to make it out alive.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JOHNNY COMPTON's short stories have appeared in Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, The No Sleep Podcast and many other markets. He is an HWA member and creator and host of the podcast Healthy Fears. He is the author of The Spite House. 

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Rhonda Jackson Garcia, AKA RJ Joseph, is an award winning, Stoker Award™ and Shirley Jackson Award nominated, Texas based academic and creative writer/professor/editor whose writing regularly focuses on the intersections of gender and race in the horror and romance genres and popular culture. She has had works published in various applauded venues. Rhonda is also an instructor at The Speculative Fiction Academy and the co-host of the Genre Blackademia podcast. She is also working with Raw Dog Screaming Press, editing a new novella line, The Selected Papers for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena.

*ZOOM LINK*

James Beard Award-winning chef Nina Compton shares recipes that tell the story of her thrilling culinary journey from St. Lucia to Jamaica, Miami, and New Orleans, and celebrate the diverse African heritage that threads these cuisines together.

Growing up in St. Lucia, a small island in the Eastern Caribbean, chef Nina Compton developed a strong sense of community through cooking and food. As she traveled and worked in restaurants abroad, she was eager to learn, improvise, and innovate by doing what transplants like herself do best: Bring the best of home with them wherever they go. Kwéyòl / Creole explores the cuisines and pivotal locales that form the basis of Nina’s unique culinary perspective: from her birthplace in St. Lucia, to Jamaica where her view of Caribbean cuisines broadened, to Miami where she was immersed in Afro-Latin influences and continued to hone her cooking style, and finally New Orleans, her adopted city whose Creole cuisine brought her home in new ways.

In St. Lucia, when they say “Creole,” they don’t mean French-influenced. The St. Lucian Creole, or Kwéyol, celebrates a diverse African heritage, beautifully reflected in the 100 recipes presented here. The dishes are both transportive and irresistible, each telling a story of its multi-faceted history and influences: steamed snapper with a peppery ginger sauce, slow-cooked curried goat, green fig and saltfish, coconut-braised collard greens, Creole-stewed conch, the countless possibilities of the beloved plantain. In these pages, the weather is warm and tropical, and the vibe is easygoing, just like the places Nina’s lived. The dishes are full of flavor and the mood is chill.

Full of stunning travel photography and anchored by Nina’s singular culinary vision, Kwéyòl / Creole celebrates the rich history of where she comes from, while forging something that feels a little new, a little hers. And now, with this book, a little yours, too.