Tag: horror readers

News

Pestilent Perils 2 – FLEA, OUT NOW!

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Sick of talk of Valentine’s day? I have just the antidote for you. The second short in the Pestilent Perils series is out today! Get FLEA now.

FLEA cover by Ruth Anna Evans

Following an incident at a lab, a detective haunted by his past is tasked with investigating a spate of unusual deaths. Bodies drained of blood are showing up all over town, and the staff who worked at the lab the night of the incident are in hiding. Will police get to the bottom of the mystery in time to save the next intended victim? Or is something unthinkable and unstoppable lurking in the shadows…

Illustrations by artist KP

Praise for FLEA

“MJ Mars drags us into a tale ripped from the X-files in Flea, where a hybrid born of nightmares is loose, and only the truth can stop the leap from secrets to slaughter. But how do you outrun what can jump? Had me gripped from start to finish.”

Rowland Bercy Jr., author of Dr. Parasite and The Mami Wata of Mermentau River

“MJ Mars has established herself as a master of the creature feature, there’s no doubt about that. Weird horror lover? MJ is your gal. In Flea, we take a creepy crawly journey with down-and-out detectives, sinister research facilities, and one hell of a twist. There’s so much more to Flea than you might anticipate. Just like its namesake, this story might be small, but my god is it mighty!”

Sarah Jules, author of You Invited It In and the Tiny Terrible Tales series.

To celebrate the release of FLEA…

Get the first tale in the Pestilent Perils series absolutely FREE from 12th February to 14th February. F*ck flowers – bring on RAT!

Get RAT free now

When Victorian clipper, The Cormorant, sails upon a ghosted prisoner hulk, the captain’s decision to explore the crewless vessel proves fatal. For the hulk isn’t completely abandoned, and the entity that follows them back aboard is seeking vengeance.

Are you kind to animals? If not, don’t set foot on the ghost ship, The Tulketh Swain…

Image by artist KP

There will be a third story in the Pestilent Perils series coming later this year. Can you guess what critter will be the star?

Follow me on socials for all the news on my upcoming releases.

News

The Suffering Cover Reveal!

mjmarsauthor

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but on this occasion, I’m happy if you do!

I’m thrilled to be able to reveal the cover of The Suffering, which was created by the extremely talented Covers by Christian, after consultation with my fantastic team at Wicked House Publishing. Here it is:

It feels a lot more “real” now that I can show the world what my little book is going to look like. My neurotic brain has been convinced somewhere in the dark recesses that something would go wrong. That somewhere along the way plans would change, or that the book would be randomly dropped for no reason. Something deep inside me has been holding a little reservation, not getting too excited just in case.

But, now that I can shout it from the rooftops, I am going to embrace it as fully as I can! I already have a print order for 2 different sets of flyers and some bookmarks ready for promotion. It’s time to pluck up the courage to head into every shop and establishment I can think of and ask if they would like one for their staffroom. Better yet, a noticeboard. In public. Eek!

I think this quote from Zadie Smith sums it up:

It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.

Zadie Smith

Having such a beautiful cover and such a great team behind me is definitely going to make this next part easier, the part my introvert ass has spent a lot of time dreading (promotion). But, you know what? Now I’m getting kind of excited about that part, too.

It’s really happening, guys. This is not a drill.

This time last year, I didn’t have a publishing deal. I’d been querying but getting nowhere – not even a hint of a bite. Looking back through my posts from around that time it’s easy to tell how disheartened I was getting. I’m going to elaborate a little more on this in an upcoming post later this month, but for now I just wanted to remind anyone who is querying or facing a lot of rejections that it really only takes that one hit to change everything. The only way you can be sure you’ll never get there is if you stop. So keep going.

The Suffering is coming in February 2023! Which ghost will haunt you?