New Book News: COMBUSTIBLE is Brining the Heat!
Ahoy to the hellions far and wide! It’s a new year, and I have a new book for you! This time around, get set for a road trip across the United States into the wilds of Canada while the world is burning down…from the inside out.
COMBUSTIBLE is like the ‘soup’ we used to let our kids make when they were little – it has a dash of just about everything. An apocalypse brought on by…hold on…spontaneous human combustion. Suspense. Terror. Body horror. Dark humor (because the end of humanity doesn’t have to always be so serious). And at the center of it all, a marriage in a tailspin as the world spins out of control.
I wrote the majority of Combustible in 2021 at the tail end of the pandemic. One thing that kept me going through all of that insanity was laughter, either with co-workers or friends that I couldn’t see in person, but through Zoom watch parties of Joe Bob’s Last Drive In Show or bad horror movies. The unrest and unease in the US specifically pre-dated the ‘Rona-demic. Through all of the fear and shouting, dissent and brand new victim culture, we lost the ability to take a step back and laugh at the absurdity of it all.
So, if you like a good end of the world story with healthy dashes of dark and light humor, ala just about any Jeff Strand book, Combustible was written for you.
About the book:
The End No One Saw Coming
An outbreak of spontaneous human combustion (SHC) has mankind teetering on the edge of extinction. People are going up in flames from every corner of the globe. Panic has led to lockdowns and the complete breakdown of society, but there is no escaping the inevitable.
Love in the Time of the Apocalypse
Sam and Aja watched their marriage implode just as everyone around them was going up in smoke. Forced to sequester in their small apartment, tempers flare hotter than a crematorium. The SHC pandemic and forced proximity has only made things worse. Waiting for the end seems a better alternative than waking up to another day.
Hope in the Great White North
Rumor has it that there’s a Canadian town called Consumption that is free from cases of SHC. Sam steals an RV, refusing to leave his estranged wife behind. Along with his best friend, they embark on a road trip through a vast and weird wasteland, picking up an odd cast of characters along the way. Will they find salvation? Can the flickering flame of love be rekindled amidst a planet on fire?
When it’s your last rodeo, hang on for dear life and ride it out. The end of the world was never so strange.
“Combustible is explosive! A hot new take on the end of the world.” Brian Keene, author of The Complex and Ghoul
“Showcases the best the genre has to offer—body horror, an unknowable and terrifying threat, a post-apocalyptic world told from the perspective of an every-man, and a marriage disintegrating in real time. I absolutely loved it.” – Laurel Hightower, author of CROSSROADS and BELOW
Creature Features, Cow Carcasses and Kindle Deals
I know, Hellions, that’s one strange ass title for a blog post, but that’s exactly what it’s all about.
Thanks goes out to an old friend, Brenda B., for sharing this photo and story with me. Somehow, during my research into the Jersey Devil, I missed this! Back in the 60’s in New Jersey, a cow and a deer carcass somehow made it to the top of a telephone pole. Locals attributed it to their friendly neighborhood monster.
Cryptozoologists say the Jersey Devil has kept a very low profile since the early 1900s, but if you go out and talk to the people who live there, you’ll get a completely different opinion. And here’s another shocker – I can’t believe how many folks have first hand Bigfoot encounters in the Pine Barrens. I’ve spoken to quite a few, some of them still visibly upset, even if it happened years ago.
I wonder if this was the Jersey Devil’s idea of a pinata? Maybe she just wanted to throw a party for her horrid offspring.
And speaking of horrid offspring, Pinnacle has discounted all of my books for the month of February. You can snag an ebook of The Montauk Monster for $1.99, The Jersey Devil for 99 cents or Tortures of the Damned for 99 cents. Time to load up those e-readers on the cheap!
What’s the strangest thing ever found on a telephone pole? For me, we threw a Batman figure that had a parachute attached to our phone line. It stayed there for about 10 years, poor Batsy’s color fading with each year.
Book Giveaways And Sick Cats
Little Iris Shea is sick for the first time in her 9 years on this blue and green globe. As a lazy house cat, she has it pretty darn good. I’d love to go 9 years without an illness. Hell, some years, I’ll take 9 weeks. Turns out she has an eye infection and a small heart murmur. We knew something was wrong when she woke up looking like Popeye and moved around the house less than usual. She wouldn’t let me take a pic of her bad eye, but this is pretty much her position at my feet for the entire day…
She did tell me she wants me to spread the word about the Rafflecopter giveaway for a signed copy of my apocalypse love song, TORTURES OF THE DAMNED. You have until Sept 24th to enter. Click here to enter the Rafflecopter apocalypse special! Reviews have been excellent and the ending is definitely causing a stir.
OK, that’s all for now. I have to go light up the BBQ and roast some weenies. I’ll be using my father’s tried and true method for grilling – each meat requires a certain number of beers to be imbibed before it’s good to go.
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Hunter Shea 