Creative Spirit by Scott Nicholson now an e-book (revised edition of The Manor)

Creative Spirit is Scott Nicholson’s revised edition of the 2004 U.S. paperback The Manor. Scott is the Kindle-bestselling author of 12 novels, including The Red Church, Disintegration, Liquid Fear, and Speed Dating with the Dead. Connect with Scott on Facebook, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Twitter — or via his blog, website, or Amazon page.

Creative Spirit: A paranormal thriller by Scott Nicholson

After parapsychologist Anna Galloway is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she has a recurring dream in which she sees her own ghost at Korban Manor. She’s compelled to visit the historic estate to face her destiny and the fate of her soul.

Sculptor Mason Jackson has come to the manor to make a final, all-or-nothing attempt at success before giving up his dreams. When he becomes obsessed with carving Ephram Korban's form out of wood, he is swept into a destructive frenzy that even Anna can’t pull him from.

The manor itself has secrets, with fires that blaze constantly in the hearths, portraits of Korban in every room, and deceptive mirrors on the walls. With an October blue moon looming, both the living and the dead learn the true power of their dreams.

"Scott Nicholson explores the dark legends of the southern end of the Appalachian mountain chain, a nightmare country that ends in Stephen King's yard."-- Sharyn McCrumb, author of The Ballad novels

View or sample Creative Spirit at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, or Goodreads. Look for Liquid Fear and Chronic Fear from Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint.

Re-Kindling Interest: The Big Blow by Joe R. Lansdale (historical novella)

This is one of a series of reviews focusing on out-of-print works that have become available again via a variety of e-book formats.

I've long been a fan of author Joe R. Lansdale's work, and I'll be the first to shout his talents from the rooftops. But even I was impressed when I read The Big Blow when it came around in rotation on the Free Stories section of the his website.

This novella just may be a perfect story. Set during the Galveston hurricane of 1900, it offers action, sex, violence, cleansing, redemption, and a small dose of history, peopled with typically Lansdalean characters.

Centering around a boxing match between John McBride and "Lil" Arthur Johnson (later to be called Jack), it's a real action piece, flying past like a roundhouse punch. The characters and setting feel impressively realistic, and the plot is entirely believable.

Having enjoyed it so much the first time, I read The Big Blow again with relish when it was released in the author's collection Mad Dog Summer and Other Stories. It was even better the second time around, and I'm excited to see it available once again as a reasonably priced download. I'm not much for re-reading, but The Big Blow is one that I look forward to revisiting repeatedly.

Fear Me by Tim Curran (horror novella)

Danny Palmquist is the new fish at Shaddock Valley maximum security prison. He tells his cellmate, Romero, that he's innocent, that Danny's brother committed the murder Danny was convicted of, and that if anyone bothers Danny while he's in stir, his brother will take care of it.

Romero is incredulous at first. But soon, Danny is targeted, and then the attackers die gruesomely, at night, after lockdown. And it can't be Danny because Romero, sleeping on the bottom bunk, knows Danny never left their cell.

But something else did. Something that frightens Romero like nothing ever has before. So much that he couldn't even bear to look at it.

Fear Me is the first Tim Curran book I've read after last year's The Corpse King, and I really must not leave such a gap in the future. Curran really has the chops.

He manages to seamlessly combine a darkly realistic prison setting with Lovecraftian horror, people it with believable and interesting characters, and tell it in short chapters with speedy prose. Even when I knew what was happening, Curran's skill at suspense made sure I wanted to know what would happen next. Fear Me pulled me along with its narrative force and left me satisfied but wanting to read more of this amazing author's work.

Return to Perdition by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty (graphic novel, Road to Perdition sequel)

With Return to Perdition, author Max Allan Collins and artist Terry Beatty conclude the saga begun by Collins and Richard Piers Rayner with Road to Perdition. It not only brings the story back to the graphic novel (sequels Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise were prose-only novels) but also reunites Collins with Beatty in their first comic collaboration in 15 years. (Though Beatty did the cover to the Ms. Tree novel Deadly Beloved and illustrated the Jack and Maggie Starr novels, including Strip for Murder.)

While previous Perdition graphic-novel "sequels" (collected in Road to Perdition 2: On the Road) essentially expanded on the original storyline involving Michael O'Sullivan and his son, Return to Perdition picks up where Road to Paradise left off, including the illustration of a climactic scene from that book. (If you feel a little lost by not having read those books, do so; they're some of Collins's best and most personal work.)

Return to Perdition follows Michael Satariano, Jr. — spoken of but, if memory serves, never "seen" in Road to Paradise — as he is rescued from a POW camp in Laos and recruited by the Justice Department as an assassin targeted on organized crime. He trains at the FBI academy at Quantico but even more rigorously than the special agents, with a fringe benefit of his assignment being his chance to avenge his family's murder.

It's great to see Collins and Beatty together again in this form. Their classic Ms. Tree comic is terrific and influential, and their skills at their respective arts have only deepened over time. Return to Perdition is a fantastic way to end a series that I've been reading and rereading for years.

Top MFA Programs for Genre Writers (from guest blogger Emily Matthews)

Today I have the pleasure of welcoming writer Emily Matthews to the pages of Somebody Dies. An MFA applicant herself, she has offered to share some of her knowledge with other genre-fiction writers.

For all the arguments for and against obtaining a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, one of the greatest concerns among authors is choosing the right program. This concern goes beyond simply choosing between a program that is geared toward fiction or poetry.

In the past, creative writers who wanted to explore the depths of certain genres such as mystery and thriller novels had every right to be skeptical about the value of MFA programs. There was a prevalent notion that MFA fiction programs shunned genre writing in favor of highbrow literary drama and writing for the performing arts. What’s a genre fiction writer to do when you’re searching for a master's degree program to practice your craft? Don’t give up hope.

While it’s true that masters of literature such as Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan, as well as acclaimed screenwriters such as Darren Starr and David Benioff, graduated from MFA programs, authors of thrillers and mysteries can definitely find a program geared towards their chosen genre. Authors of mysteries and thrillers who are looking to create suspense will find that there is an MFA program waiting for them.

The MFA program at the University of Southern Maine has an option for popular fiction writing. The school not only welcomes burgeoning writers of mystery and thriller novels, it actually encourages them to market their work.

Science fiction and techno-thriller authors are gladly accepted at the University of Kansas and its esteemed James Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction. Genre fiction is actually a graduate course for writers attending the North Carolina State University MFA program.

Taking a critical look at the professors teaching at specific MFA schools can shed light on their inclination towards genre writers. At Florida International University, Les Standiford has been at the helm of the creative writing program for decades. He is well known for his crime and suspense novels based in Miami, and he even gave Raymond Carver his first writing gig. Adam Baron, who teaches at the prestigious Kingston University London, is a thriller and crime writer whose work has been serialized for BBC Radio.

Writers of mystery and thriller novels do not have to jump from one workshop to sharpen their skills and become masters of their craft. In terms of cultural standing, the MFA programs above recognize that mysteries and thrillers have an important place in the world's literature. Entering the right MFA program is a great opportunity for authors to become the next Michael Crichton or John Grisham.

Emily Matthews is currently applying to master's degree programs across the U.S., and loves to read about new research into health care, gender issues, and literature. She lives and writes in Seattle, Washington.

Ten Great Western Novels (top 10 best of list)

My friend and co-editor of Living After Midnight: Hard and Heavy Stories, David T. Wilbanks, asked for recommendations of some good Western novels. Here's the list I gave him. They're in no particular order (except the order in which I thought of them).

I was rather pleased with what I came up with, so I thought I'd share it here. There will surely be contention with some of my choices, but I greatly enjoyed them all, and I think they display the genre's breadth of possibilities.

• True Grit by Charles Portis
• Beyond the Outposts by Max Brand
• The Goodnight Trail by Ralph Compton
• Shane by Jack Schaeffer
• .45-Caliber Firebrand by Peter Brandvold
• Rio Largo by David Robbins
• Six-Gun Caballero by L. Ron Hubbard
• Death Ground by Ed Gorman
• The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer Kelton
• The Big Fifty by Johnny D. Boggs

Another fantastic book, which takes place in the West in the early 1900s (and thus isn't a traditional "Western"), is The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner.