What a great way to start off autumn. My latest story “Blood & Gingerbread” has just released as part of the anthology Masks from Black Shuck Books, an imprint of Great British Horror. It seems I am becoming a British author by proxy as this is my second in a series of at least four sequential books lined up with British presses.

This story was fun to write. Inspired by Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and real-world accounts of militant separatist compounds, “Blood & Gingerbread” is set in a secluded community where bizarre annual rituals keep death at bay. It explores the raw human need to control, holding domain over violence, nature, families, behavior, life, and death. What happens when that power is disrupted?

Check out the table of contents below featuring some of the great writers you’ll find in the independent horror field right now. Masks is edited by Dean M Drinkel and the cover art is by the late and great illustrator James Powell, may he rest in peace.

• PORCELAIN  by James Everington
• BLOOD & GINGERBREAD  by D T Griffith
• THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND FACES  by Chris Stokes
• VARIETY NIGHT  by Russell Proctor
• AFTER THE END, THE BEGINNING  by Christine Morgan and Lucas Williams
• THE MAN WHO FED THE FOXES  by Phil Sloman
• MANY HAPPY RETURNS  by Kyle Rader
• TRIXIE  by Christopher Beck
• THE FACE COLLECTOR  by Stephanie Ellis
• AN ABSENT HOST  by F A Nosić
• THE SILENCING MACHINE  by Clockhouse London Writers
• HIS LAST PORTRAIT  by Adrian Cole
• THE JAR BY THE DOOR  by Icy Sedgwick

Purchasing info and other details are available on Black Shuck Book’s site: blackshuck.greatbritishhorror.com/masks.