Newt's Nightmares #92

Newt's Nightmares provides subscribers with news on the author's latest work, upcoming releases, and events.

Aug 02, 2023

Newt's Nightmares

My trusty line editor has been resurrected after suffering the horrific ordeal of a fractured wrist and spine. What doesn't kill you makes your stories darker, so I’m eagerly awaiting their input.

I politely recommended that they take more care when hunting for those perfidious bee orchids in the future.

Otherwise, this month has been a odd one. My medication has been changed which absolutely flattened me, but don’t worry I’m upright and writing again.

New Releases
Behind the Scenes
Book Recommendations
Free Horror Stories
Upcoming Releases
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New Releases

Coming up this month:

9th August 2023 ‘Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues’ free short story.

16th August 2023 ‘12 Minutes’ free audiobook.

23rd August 2023 ‘The Black Widow’ free short story.

30th August 2023 ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’ free audiobook.

Behind the Scenes

I've written only one new short story this month that's ready for release. I have others in first-draft territory, but just one is ready to publish.

Ain’t Nothing But The Blues

Deep in the sweltering heart of 56' New Orleans, Jackson Gray, a Xavier University student, becomes entwined in the nocturnal blues sessions of former music maestro Elliot Banks.

However, Banks has a dangerous secret.

I wrote this story after Darius the Dazzler - which needs a lot more TLC to become publishable. Other than a few brief scenes in ‘The Tokoloshe’ (featured in ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’), I had yet to write anything set in America. I have always had a fascination with New Orleans and one day hope to sell enough books to afford to visit it.

Free Horror Stories

Horror Story Compilations

Blood Tingling Reads: 140 FREE horror stories, including 'The Green Man', ‘The Wine Cellar’, ‘12 Minutes’, ‘The Blood Eagle’.

Heart Pounding Reads: 117 horror stories, including 'Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1'.

Thrills, Chills and KILLS!: 79 FREE horror stories, including 'The Green Man'.

Recommended Stories

I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls, by Ben Farthing, available to purchase.

Johnny awakes. A puppet looms over his bed.

He recognizes the furry monster: Grandpa was its puppeteer on the children’s television show R-City Street. But Grandpa went missing a year ago. He disappeared from this very apartment building, which was converted from the old R-City Street studio.

Desperate to see Grandpa again, Johnny follows the puppet inside the building’s walls, ever deeper into a puppet-infested labyrinth...

The Pull, by Len M. Ruth, free on Kindle Unlimited or available to purchase.

A malevolent force pulls Casey, a homeless alcoholic, to an abandoned Connecticut mill. There, he unearths pieces of a strange urn that devours his soul. Trapped in the bodies of the cursed object’s victims, Casey must find a way to stop the endless cycle of horror and possession, freeing himself from—The Pull.
In the rising floodwaters of ancient Sumeria, Hili finds the urn and touches its glowing violet glyphs. Bound to its evil, the young merchant woman falls through time, desperately searching for a way to escape—The Pull.
When Casey disappears, his twin Kelly suspects it has to do with an inexplicable force drawing him to a ruined building on the river’s edge. Now Kelly must learn the possessed artifact’s history in a race against time to save his brother’s soul from—The Pull.

Try Not to Die: At Grandma's House: An Interactive Adventure, by Mark Tullius, free on Kindle Unlimited or available to purchase.

David and Sam survive a terrible accident, only to make it to the worst place in the Virginia mountains - Grandma's country cottage. Don't let the lace doilies and cups of tea fool you; you're sharing a home with terrifying creatures and an inescapable darkness.

Your life hangs in the balance with each decision, and the monsters know every closet, hidden door, and shadowy nook of the house. If you die, you take little Sam down into the grave beside you. Can you discover a way out of this innocent-looking hell hole before you get ripped to shreds?

Sour Roots, by Shawn Burgess, free download.

Roger and Gertrude Davis enjoy an idyllic existence in the small Appalachian town of Harper Pass. With vast landholdings, a successful business, and love for the family they’ve built, they’ve avoided the suffering The Great Depression has wrought on the area until it all comes crashing down on a sweltering summer day in 1932.

With the twin daughters they dote on gone missing and ominous signs of foul play evident, a suspect quickly emerges. But not everything is always what it seems. Amidst the murder, madness, and mayhem, they soon learn there’s blood to pay when the past comes calling.

Ghosts of the Sea Moon, by A. F. Stewart, available to purchase.

Banished from his ancestral home for showing favour to mortals, Rafe sails the seas as the captain of the Celestial Jewel. Caught between two worlds, the mortals and the gods, he exists as a wayward saviour collecting the ghosts of drowned sailors before they can be devoured by malicious sea monsters.

An insane Manume wreaks havoc from the Isle of Bones, sending her monster children out into the world to unleash destruction. Heedless of the consequences, she now seeks greater revenge, and her violent actions put everyone in peril.

To end his sister’s madness, and protect the mortal realm, Rafe must confront his past and his estranged family. He must persuade them to help, convince them that the Goddess of the Moon is a true threat. For Manume has become more powerful than anyone could have predicted, and he's not sure he can stop her. And if Rafe can't, the entirety of existence could be destroyed.

Destroy the Dead: Book 1, by Joanne Nundy, free on Kindle Unlimited or available to purchase.

Captain Adrian Rogers and his Special Forces team were tasked with keeping the scientists safe long enough to find a cure for the rage and destruction hurtling towards the UK. Ade was due to hand in his notice until he got word of the zombie apocalypse heading their way. Just his luck!

As the world descends into chaos, it’s a race against time for Ade and Steph. Can they stay alive long enough to figure out how to DESTROY the DEAD?

BestGhost: A Novelette, by C. J. Daley, free download.

The Old Mayor’s Mansion sits just a few miles outside the town of Cemetery.

When best friends Sean and Devon want to increase views on their ghost investigation channel, they know the mansion is the perfect spot to film.

Voices, by Kayla Krantz, free on Kindle Unlimited or available to purchase.

Hell is a real place, and it’s in Michigan.

Lynn spent her life trying to escape the tourist trap of her hometown of Hell, Michigan. After a failed semester at college, she had no choice but to return home. Usually, she made a habit of hanging out in the woods around her mother’s home and avoiding the tourists. When a voice calls to her from the woods, she follows it.

Hearing voices is nothing new to her but hearing one outside of her regulars isn’t. The voice leads her down a rabbit hole of the town’s secrets. West Gate Hospital was an urban legend she’d heard about since she was a kid. Except legends don’t leave buildings behind.

An Unkindness of Ravens, by European P. Douglas, free on Kindle Unlimited or available to purchase.

While she was out enjoying her senior prom, Sarah Brighwater's mother was murdered in their home. The serial killer was known to the police but never caught. Now, fifteen years later, Sarah is an FBI Agent in the Behavioral Science Unit tracking down killers like the one who killed her mother. When a new string of murders begins and bodies are dumped near her old home town, Sarah wonders about the re-emergence of her lifelong tormentor. Could it be him? Tyler Ford is a respected investigative journalist working for a less than respected Newspaper. He too sees the links to Sarah's past and wonders. He knows he has to keep close to her to find out the real story. But when the killer contacts him, Tyler finds that she needs him more than he needs her. The pair race against time to find the killer before he disappears once more into the dark underworld that hides him so well.

The Waiting Mortuary, by L.V. Pires, free on Kindle Unlimited or available to purchase.

Bash Trawler wants to find an easy summer job so he can get back to partying with his friends. When he discovers an advertisement in the local paper for night watch at a nearby funeral home he jumps at the chance to make quick money. But staying up all night watching corpses for an eccentric war vet turns into something out of his worst nightmares.

Casey McClair wants to make the tennis team. Popularity has never come easily to her and she’s willing to practice into the late evening and follow all the rules of the game if it means she’ll finally find acceptance. But when she's kidnapped, she'll have to fight to survive a harrowing ordeal with a cold and calculated serial killer.

Serial Killer X knows about pain. He's been through the worst of what humans do to each other. The thrill is in the fight and he'll make sure his victims know it.

Three stories intertwine to tell the sickening tale of what goes on inside THE WAITING MORTUARY.

Grim Reflection (Ghost Punch Book 1), by A. Lawrence, free on Kindle Unlimited or available to purchase.

Ghosts are real.

Shay and her friend Max are searching for evidence of ghosts in a haunted house when things go horribly wrong. A spooky house turns out to hold an entity that can not only touch Shay, but tries to drag her into an antique mirror.

Trouble escalates when her brother is seemingly possessed and disappears. Someone, or something, is riling up and gathering ghosts in the little town of Teton Falls.

Shay, with the help of friends and new acquaintances, has to solve the mystery of who, or what, is responsible for this paranormal activity – before they destroy the town and everyone she cares about.