The Deixis Press Weekly - Issue #51

Everything is winding down. School’s out. I’ve just finished helping out with the 2023 First Novel Prize. My contract at ALPH comes to a close, after being extended for a month, on 29 July. You’d think it would be time to vacation, sit in the sun, take a break…

…You’d think WRONG, mofo! Oh ok, I’ll do a little vacationing IF FORCED. But so many exciting things are going on here at this little ol’ press!

In case you didn’t know, our very own Genevieve Jenner has been shortlisted for the Guild of Food Writers First Book Award for CHOCOLATE CAKE FOR IMAGINARY LIVES! She is one of THREE finalists in this category; one of the others is an *ahem* quite well-known chef, and the other has a surname that is, as far as I’m concerned, tantamount to cheating. May the best man win, and may that man be a woman.

I’ve also got some exciting BEWK NOOS for you! Richard Gadz and Marc Joan both have new novels coming out this autumn. Both are horrors (Richard’s paranormal; Marc’s psychological).

Here’s Richard’s (Kindle pre-order link):

London, 1973. A small-time crook is on the run – from the law, from the local crime boss and, above all, from a horror that’s haunted him since childhood: a supernatural psychic entity that seeks to devour his soul. It’s crawled out of his memories and now, slowly, it’s emerging from his mind and into reality. So he believes, but is it real? Are feelings of guilt about his most recent crime pushing him into paranoid delusions?

At the boarding house where he takes refuge, he hopes to restart his life through his love for a fellow resident, but his growing fear of the entity – and the imminent vengeance of London’s criminal underworld – threatens disaster for them both. When they find themselves at the entity’s mercy, trapped in a bizarre, menacing otherworld, reality itself mutates into something truly evil…

And here’s Marc’s (Kindle pre-order link):

As an independent comic book store owner and the heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, Philippe Favrier lives a life that straddles the real world and the realm of fiction. Struggling with mental illness, Philippe relies on his wife, Marilyne – a successful surgeon with her own haunting secrets – and a groundbreaking drug his father developed. Bound by their shared pain, they navigate their haunted lives, forever shadowed by the heart-rending loss of their baby, Antoine.

Their fragile world begins to crumble when Philippe catches a disturbing glimpse of an unfamiliar profile in the mirror. And his uneasiness is further fueled by an anonymous comic strip that arrives at his store, featuring a character bearing an eerie resemblance to him.

Is Marilyne hiding an affair? Is she connected to the comic strip that's tormenting him? As he probes deeper, Philippe is drawn into a web of deception, where the lines between reality and imagination blur – until his investigations into Marilyne and the malicious comic artist at last reveal the tragic truth.

Speaking of covers, I had my say, as they say, about commercial covers on Twitter the other day. The context is that the account Caustic Cover Critic posted a collage of all of the “dark houses with yellow windows” crime/thriller novels that are coming up soon. I noticed a handful from my own group at ALPH (and ALPH’s US arm).

I have a real dislike for that kind of cover, though I accept that they have a very real commercial purpose (which is also a purpose I dislike). If you’re interested in my little monologue about it all, just click below:

And that’s it for now! I hope you’re excited about these books, and about Genevieve’s potential prize (which will be announced 6 September!). And don’t forget that even though Genevieve’s book is sold out from my own small stocks, you can order it from your preferred bookshop, worldwide!

Yours,

Angel