Cyber Monday: Obtain Fine Horror Novels With No Financial Obligation

Cyber Monday. What better time to announce that both Knife Lake and The Dead Boys are now available free? Get 'em at the links below.

Read, enjoy. If you particularly liked either, I would be honored if you'd write a short review at the iTunes bookstore, bn.com, or smashwords. If you hated them...well, contact me here and berate me personally.  

Barnes and Noble

iTunes Bookstore

Smashwords

Barnes and Noble

iTunes Bookstore

Smashwords

Coming Soon...

Semifinal draft of cover art for—you guessed it—Meat Men. The background is a Vesalius engraving, digitally altered by my mad amateur Corel Painter skillz.

MM will be about 30k words. It deals with sexual identity, body image, and the objectification of men as 'death objects.' The protagonist is a Star Wars nerd who accidentally becomes a bestselling horror novelist. The antagonist is a guy named Mr. Green, who lives in a cave and keeps surgically altered men around for what he believes are very good reasons. This is turning into one of the wilder things I've ever written, so buckle your seatbelts. 

By the way, both Knife Lake and The Dead Boys are still FREE on Smashwords. Just click the covers to the right to get 'em. You know you want to....

I Am Obsessed With This Windmill

It's tucked into the northwest corner of Golden Gate Park. Though I've lived in this stupid city for years, I had no idea what it was called. Google Maps cheerfully provided the name: The North Windmill. 

Last night, I saw flashlight beams playing off of it. First thought: aliens. Then I heard somebody laugh—could have been male or female—and a few more quiet laughs in response. The sound of breaking bottle. The flashlight beams whipped into a frenzy, then disappeared. 

I'm not on drugs. I'm tired, but not to the point of hallucination. WHAT WAS GOING ON AT THE NORTH WINDMILL?

Will investigate. 

My Secret Infidelity: Basement Power Spank Fetish with Mega-MILF

Enjoys hot wax, foot worship, tickle torture

Damn, Smashwords! How much erotica do you publish?

Every day there are at least five new titles, most of them written by women. I guess there are a lot of repressed librarians finding an outlet for their dormant yet smoldering sensuality.

Living in one of the most oversexed cities in the world, I find myself drawn away from erotica. It's just not that exciting to me anymore. In my books, as a few friends have pointed out, there's no sex. One of my woman (womyn--she insists) friends called Knife Lake 'icky and misogynist.' I think she's full of shit, but I'll leave readers to decide that for themselves.

My next book is a response to the thinly-veiled man-hatred that passes for contemporary feminism, at least as practiced by some of the cawing harpies that roost here. The title Meat Men seemed appropriate, although through the magic of Google I found out that it's also the name of a punk band—hope the boys don't mind sharing.

And, to my darling woman fellow-humans: I love all of you. And by all means, keep writing hot-wax-bitch-latex-slave-foot-fetish-genital-torture-ball-squeezing-whipped-cock-tit-squeeze erotica.

I look forward to snickering at your pseudonyms.

July is the Cruelest Month

For the month of July, both The Dead Boys and Knife Lake will be FREE at Smashwords.com! Click on either cover to download. 

Here's the "flap copy" for both:

KNIFE LAKE

John Fairbrother: prophet, madman, magus. After years in limbo, he's returned with a mission:

Collect sacrifices. Human sacrifices.

Artemis Costa has an easy life. With no material wants, she can afford to drift through the days...until a violent encounter with John forces her to join his bloody crusade.

You see, John needs her help.

He can't create the Knife Lake alone...

Graphic, shocking, and surreal, Knife Lake is a full-throttle horror novel in the tradition of Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, and Richard Laymon. 

THE DEAD BOYS

THE NEWLYWEDS...

Bill and Constance are young, spirited, broke...and just married. In lieu of an expensive honeymoon, they trek to a cabin in the Connecticut woods for a weekend of solitude and celebration. 

THE STRANGER...

At the campsite, a bizarre man calling himself Septimus Smith appears from nowhere, full of strange proclamations and violent threats. Taking no chances, Bill and Constance run for their lives.

THE CONTEST...

But Septimus won’t let them go. It seems the newlyweds have stumbled into the middle of a strange game, played by beings with abilities that seem...unnatural. 

Abilities like raising the dead. 

And, to the young couple’s horror...

...the dead are coming!

The Dead Boys is a surreal, disturbing addition to the zombie genre, filled with unforgettable images, vivid characters, and of course, more guts than you can shake a severed limb at.

News About Another Novel Which Nobody is Going to Read

Love thy neighbor's savory flesh

I'm 5,000 words into my next novel, Meat Men. Should be done by the end of the summer. Deals with themes of gender roles, misandry, and the importance of Star Wars to a grown man's psyche.

And you can still get The Dead Boys for free on Smashwords.com. Just enter coupon code TF99M at checkout. Cheap horror reads: the cure for hellish recession blues. 

Speaking of recessions, if anyone wants to donate, say, ten-thousand dollars to an impecunious writer, please contact one Mr. Jonathan Curwen via this website. Mr. Curwen will write a novel with you as the hero, and promises you won't die at the end. 

SUMMERTIME ZOMBIE MAYHEM X-TRAVAGANZA

My new zombie horror novel, The Dead Boys, will be FREE for the next thirty days. I do hope you'll fit it into your summer reading schedule.

Just click on the cover art above, or go to Smashwords.com and search the book's title. During checkout, enter the coupon code TF99M (not case-sensitive) and get the book FREE. 

It's available in every imaginable ebook format, so you'll easily be able to read it on your device of choice. 

If you read it, I'd be honored if you took the time to write a short review on Smashwords. No need for anything in-depth; just a couple of sentences on why it moved you/disgusted you/bored you to death is fine. I'd be much obliged. 

And as always, I'd love to hear your comments. Just contact me through this blog or at jcurwenhorror@gmail.com. 

Many thanks, and happy reading. 

It's Out!

Now available at Smashwords.com. Click on the cover art to go to the book's homepage. There you can read descriptions, sample chapters, and of course download the book.

A short description:


THE NEWLYWEDS...


Bill and Constance are young, spirited, broke...and just married. In lieu of an expensive honeymoon, they trek to a cabin in the Connecticut woods for a weekend of solitude and celebration. 


THE STRANGER...


At the campsite, a bizarre man calling himself Septimus Smith appears from nowhere, full of strange proclamations and violent threats. Taking no chances, Bill and Constance run for their lives. 


THE CONTEST...


But Septimus won't let them go. It seems the newlyweds have stumbled into the middle of a strange game, played by beings with abilities that seem...unnatural. 


Abilities like raising the dead. 


And, to the young couple's horror...


...the dead are coming. 


The Dead Boys is a surreal, disturbing addition to the zombie genre, filled with unforgettable images, vivid characters, and of course, more guts than you can shake a severed limb at. 

I See You Shiver in Antici—

—pation

Just sent my next horror novel, The Dead Boys, to Smashwords.com. Should be available within a couple of hours.

Curwen, Curwen! Rah rah rah! 

In the Cave

Motivation

Trapped in the editing cave. Plenty of coffee, Frosted Flakes, and crippling neurotic insecurity to keep me company. 

Still deciding on a title. A friend showed me this title-generation trick: write a bunch of of horror-related words (blood, fear, rage, dead, death, demon, vampire, etc.) and pair them at random. So...Blood Death? Demon Rage? Demon Fear? Dead Rage? Rage Blood Fear Death? 

Hmm. I'll make a bigger list of words–hopefully with some actually relevant to the book–and see what happens. 

Or I could just go surfing. But that would mean neglecting my work...and that would make me a dirty birdie. A. Very. Dirty. Birdie. 

Now On Twitter, Just Like the Rest of the Known Universe

@jonathancurwen

It's Out!

"The horror...the horror...."

Knife Lake is up on Smashwords.com. It'll be available on bn.com, amazon, ibooks, diesel, and other sites within a couple of weeks if the gods smile.

Description: 

John Fairbrother: prophet, madman, magus. After years in limbo, he's returned with a mission:

Collect sacrifices. Human sacrifices.

Artemis Costa has an easy life. With no material wants, she can afford to drift through the days...until a violent encounter with John forces her to join his bloody crusade.

You see, John needs her help.

He can't create the Knife Lake alone...

Graphic, shocking, and surreal, Knife Lake is a full-throttle horror novel in the tradition of Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, and Richard Laymon. 

Available for a budget-coddling $2.99...BUT, all readers of this blog can get it FREE. Just order the book from smashwords, and enter the coupon code VE46K during checkout. Voila--over 60,000 words of horror are released slavering through your hard drive for not a single red cent.

You can get the book here. Or just click on the book cover at the top of this post.

It's available in every format imaginable, so you'll find one that's right for your reading device. Feel free to share the coupon code (good until the 23rd of July) with anyone you'd like. And please email me at jcurwenhorror@gmail.com with your thoughts--even if you thought it sucked. I'd love to hear from you.

The Final Cut

Revision = butchery

Knife Lake will be FINISHED today. Just a few more edits, some formatting adjustments, and off it goes to Smashwords. Freshness guaranteed! Perfect for grilling!

Sales forecast: three copies every six months. Gotta be realistic.

I'll post the teaser copy later today. 

Huzzah?

Shield your corneas

I found ANOTHER novel manuscript on an old hard drive. I wrote it on a now-obsolete Dell, complete with eye-searing VGA monitor, in the kitchen of my apartment in San Francisco. This was back in...jeez, 1999 or so.

Bad news: quality of said manuscript is...well, bad. I'll do some revisions, but its chances at seeing the light of day are slim.

Better news: Knife Lake revisions are coming along nicely. Had to rewrite the ending, but the process was surprisingly easy. Working on a 100-word or less teaser for the cover, which is harder than it sounds.

And in case you're interested, here's the book's first sentence:

"Before she saw the beheaded woman, Artemis painted a red lake."

Kind of sets the tone. Not for the gore-sensitive!

Cover Me, Even Though I'm Most Certainly Not Going In

Here's the cover. I'd make it bigger, but this is the actual size you'd see if you were browsing on amazon, ibooks, etc.  Book will be available sometime in the next month or two.

And I just found out that there's a real Knife Lake! I had no idea. It's somewhere in the Wendigo-dense backwoods of Canada.

The Ransackin' o' the Hard Drive

I just found some interesting stories/fragments/75% complete novels on my hard drive. I wrote this stuff over a decade ago. Mostly shit, but hey--I consider it the evidence of a lengthy learning process.

Included in aforementioned shit is a novel titled The Dead...something or other. I think it was originally The Dead Wood, but scrapped that after someone pointed out it sounded like part of an impotence joke.
So it remains the The Dead (something or other), and despite title woes I have high hopes for its eventual publication.

In the meantime, back to edits on Knife Lake. I'd post the cover, but stupid Google blogging software won't let me upload it. The cover's designer, Sam Rippey, who is a monkey but a talented monkey, has had similar problems. So you might not see this effing thing until the book comes out. Thanx, Google!

Hi.

My name's Jon. I write horror. My first book, Knife Lake, will be available for download really soon. It's a surreal, bloody, extreme tale in the vein of Edward Lee and Richard Laymon.

I do hope you enjoy it.

Other than that....

I really like fishing. I grew up on a lake. I faint at the sight of blood. I have a cat with no teeth.

More later, after I uncurl my brain.