Two horror writers take on greed, extreme wealth, and revenge in these new books! Alma Katsu’s Fiend is all about rich people behaving badly. Her tale of family dysfunction imagines what it would be like if an all-powerful billionaire family had a demon at their beck and call. Johnny Compton’s Dead First follows a private investigator hired by a mysterious billionaire to discover why he can’t die. This is Groundhog Day noir that combines ongoing Texas concerns with colorful characters. These emotionally charged novels will have you up all night reading!
Photo Credit: Louis Scott
Johnny Compton is the Stoker Award–nominated author of The Spite House and Devils Kill Devils. His short stories have appeared in PseudoPod, Strange Horizons, The NoSleep Podcast, and several other publications. His fascination with frightening fiction started when he was introduced to the ghost story “The Golden Arm” as a child.
Johnny is joining the Book Festival to discuss his latest book, Dead First.
Photo Credit: Matt Mendelsohn
Alma Katsu is the award-winning author of nine novels, including The Hunger. Her books have won or been nominated for the Bram Stoker, Locus, Goodreads Choice, and Shirley Jackson Awards, and made best-books lists at NPR, Library Journal, Oprah Daily, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and more. Prior to the publication of her first novel, Katsu had a long career as a senior intelligence analyst for several US agencies. She lives outside of Washington, DC, with her husband. Her new book is Fiend.
Scott Gage is an Associate Professor of English at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, where he directs the first-year composition program and teaches courses in creative and professional writing. He is coeditor of the book Violence in the Work of Composition: Recognizing, Intervening, Ameliorating and has published work examining the intersections of rhetoric, violence, and white supremacy. A lifelong fan of horror, Scott is a new member of the Horror Writers Association and is pursuing horror fiction as the next step in his career.
