Fear the Reaper (with Joe Mynhardt)

Joe Mynhardt is a fellow South African who's steadily creating quite a buzz in the horror genre. He's definitely one to look out for and I hope to bring him down to Cape Town for one of our SA HorrorFest Bloody Parchment events (that's a hint, Joe, BTW).

Anyhoo, Joe's been at the helm of a new horror anthology entitled Fear the Reaper, which is available in paperback and Kindle. It was published on October 25 through his company, Crystal Lake Publishing.

Over to you, Joe!

* * * *

It was some time in the middle of last year that I couldn’t get the thought of death out of my mind. Like always, I was looking for topics or themes for the next Crystal Lake Publishing book, and for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about death. Not so much death as the process or act of dying.

I couldn’t even play with my two dogs without thinking about their eventual demise. Holding them in my arms and watching the life fade from their eyes as they stare up at me. I once had the horrible experience of holding my dog in my arms as she bled out. Luckily we made it to the vet on time to save her. But… that feeling of her body growing weaker, and her cries fading away, has haunted me ever since.

Noticed how I referred to the dog as her, instead of it. What if it’s a person? Someone I love? I know they’re all going to die one day, perhaps I’ll go first. It’s not knowing when or how that can drive you crazy, but knowing might be even worse.

These very personal thoughts haunted all the authors in Fear the Reaper as they created and wrote their stories. Feel free to check out this blog post by Rena Mason as she talks about her sister. We even lost one of the authors along the way. Rick Hautala, you are missed, indeed. I wish we could’ve chatted more.

One shouldn’t dwell on these thoughts of death, but let them motivate you to enjoy life more, even if those bad thoughts scratch at the back of your mind. No wonder most Reaper tattoos are on people’s backs or shoulder.

In this collection you’ll find people fighting death, trying to cheat death, becoming death, even catching death. Each with their own personal issues and motivations, of course. I’ve never seen such a collection of well-established 3-dimensional characters in an anthology.

So be sure to check out Fear the Reaper, you never know when it might be too late.

TOC: Taylor Grant, Joe McKinney, Rick Hautala, Gary Fry, Ross Warren, Marty Young, Stephen Bacon, Dean M Drinkel, Richard Thomas, Sam Stone, Eric S Brown, Mark Sheldon, Steve Lockley, Robert S. Wilson, Jeremy C Shipp, Jeff Strand, Lawrence Santoro, E.C. McMullen Jr., Rena Mason, John Kenny and Gary A. Braunbeck. Includes a poem by Adam Lowe. Edited by Joe Mynhardt.

LINKAGE
Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and check out our YouTube reading of Adam Lowe’s Hecate poem.

All the best,

Joe Mynhardt

Crystal Lake Publishing