This week on International Women’s Day (8 March), Twelfth Planet Press announced the official release of my new short story collection, Showtime!
I’m so excited to be part of TPP’s Twelve Planets series. I’m also excited to bring you four domestic (but not domesticated) horror stories.
- Stalemate
– a kitchen ghost story - Thrall
– a Hungarian vampire finds the 21st Century doesn’t agree with him, and all he has to help him remedy the situation is a dowdy middle aged mum. With allergies. - The Truth About Brains
– a teenage girl’s little brother gets turned into a zombie, and she’s trying to fix him before mum finds out. - Showtime
– Gary the vampire and Lissa the librarian from The Opposite of Life go to the Royal Melbourne Show. Lissa is annoyed to discover vampires up to No Good at the Haunted House. Terrified, but mostly really annoyed.
US Author Seanan Maguire wrote a magnificent introduction to the collection that makes me feel amazed that someone could like something I wrote so much, and see so much in it.
An e-version will be available in due course, but in the meantime buy Showtime from Twelfth Planet Press.
Some bookstores stock TPP books, too, including Embiggen Books on Little Lonsdale Street and Notions Unlimited in Chelsea, so check with them. If you want your own local bookstore to order it in, the details are: Showtime by Narrelle M Harris, published by Twelfth Planet Press, ISBN 978-0-9872162-0-5.
The official blurb:
Family drama can be found anywhere: in kitchens, in cafes. Derelict hotels, showground rides. Even dungeons far below ruined Hungarian castles. (Okay, especially in Hungarian dungeons.)
Old family fights can go on forever, especially if you’re undead. If an opportunity came to save someone else’s family, the way you couldn’t save your own, would you take it?
Your family might include ghosts, or zombies, or vampires. Maybe they just have allergies. Nobody’s perfect.
Family history can weigh on the present like a stone. But the thing about families is, you can’t escape them. Not ever. And mostly, you don’t want to.
It’s a beautiful collection of pieces, each one utterly classic and completely new at the same time… In Narrelle’s hands, everything old is new again, and everything new has the weight of age. There’s magic in that, and in this book. — Seanan McGuire
These Australians give me hope for the future of female, and even feminist, writers in SF. – Gwyenth Jones