Be sure you have tasted all the Dark Mocha Bites!
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Two New Dark Mocha Bites
Our month long celebration of all things horror winds down to a close this week. We bring you two exciting new additions to the Dark Mocha Bites series: Robert D. Welsh's OLDE CAMDEN ROAD and Billy London's PLAYING DEAD.
Be sure you have tasted all the Dark Mocha Bites!
Be sure you have tasted all the Dark Mocha Bites!
Saturday, October 27, 2012
In the Dark Light: Journal of a Man in Love, Halloween
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This week's dark light title is Journals of a Man in Love: Halloween by Zade Ryar.
Genre: Interracial erotic romance
Blurb: The Journal of a Man in Love are short stories that chronicles the private thoughts and actions of a man completely, totally and utterly in love with his woman. Written completely from a male point of view, take a peek inside what’s in a man’s heart and mind. This one focuses on a very special Halloween.
Grab a copy of this dark mocha delight at our website, Mocha Memoirs Press.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Dark Mocha Bite: PLAYING DEAD by Billy London
BLURB:
Gearoid (pronounced Garod) McCardle is a former crime journalist who is dying from a brain tumour. He has decided to return to his home in Balham to die in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, no peace and quiet comes because he’s haunted by Dr Aoife (pronounced Eefa) Boyake, who was brutally murdered in his home forty years ago.She shows him her death in a variety of ways to convince him to help her find her murderer. Short of telling her that he doesn’t have enough time to help her, Gearoid concedes and begins to investigate the details of her death.
The closer he gets to finding her murder, the more he finds that he doesn’t want Aoife to leave for the afterlife nowing that there’s a chance they’ll never see one another again. It’s all from Gearoid’s point of view, he can be persuasive, impatient, compassionate and passionate. Aoife is pragmatic, smart, sweet, professional with Gearoid’s condition and sexy as hell.
Between the countdown to the anniversary of Aoife’s death and the ticking time bomb of Gearoid’s tumour, they see hope in the other and despite the futility of love between the dead and the living, they make it work.
The closer he gets to finding her murder, the more he finds that he doesn’t want Aoife to leave for the afterlife nowing that there’s a chance they’ll never see one another again. It’s all from Gearoid’s point of view, he can be persuasive, impatient, compassionate and passionate. Aoife is pragmatic, smart, sweet, professional with Gearoid’s condition and sexy as hell.
Between the countdown to the anniversary of Aoife’s death and the ticking time bomb of Gearoid’s tumour, they see hope in the other and despite the futility of love between the dead and the living, they make it work.
Grab your copy today from MMP. http://mochamemoirspress.com/playing-dead/
Thursday, October 25, 2012
In the Dark Light: Reaping Love
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This week's dark light title is Reaping Love by Crymsyn Hart.
Blurb: Vic has spent centuries alone reaping souls . Now he runs a coffee shop, where he met the woman of his dreams who adores him and his mochas. However, she slips through his grasp. Then one dark and stormy night, the one he adores reappears and asks him for another mocha and much much more.
Grab a copy of this dark mocha delight at our website, Mocha Memoirs Press.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
In the Dark Light: Said the Demon
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This week's dark light title is Said the Demon by Billy London.
Blurb: Artist, Evangeline Mensah is slowly losing the mind beneath her afro. A part of it has to do with rock star, Gabriel Walker strolling his fine self into her exhibition, after giving her the best night of her life and looking quite determined to do so again. The other part is all about the strange things happening to her home and the dreams she’s having. Dreams that make her feel really odd around cool, fashion photographer Michael Lee. Not to mention they feature women who turn up dead.
Instinct and an over protective Gabriel warn her to steer clear of Michael but there is something so familiar about Michael, she can’t help but be drawn to him regardless that darkness seems to be surrounding him. And it’s just coincidence that he just happens to live one solitary floor above her own home. That’s all. Coincidence.
Grab a copy of this dark mocha delight at our website, Mocha Memoirs Press.
Friday, October 12, 2012
What I Love About Horror by Jessica Housand-Weaver
contradictions. It dares to go where we think we don’t want to. It tests the boundaries we put in place to see just how far is too far and forces us to face our deepest and most profound fears equally beside the ones that we are ashamed to admit. The lure for readers of horror is that the horror genre is actually disturbingly therapeutic. When reading, we trespass into tragedies and terrors and somehow make it through; we push on, keep on going, reading on and on into that shocking abyss where some part of us wants nothing more but to look away and stop reading--to escape. As readers, we become enslaved to the story, to the reactions of our bodies, to the terrible need to find out what happens next. And in the end, the most relieving thing of all is to set down that book and be infinitely grateful for the mundane. Suddenly our lives, which had seemed unexciting and monotonous before, are wonderful. Horror frees us from the mundane and then gives the mundane back to us so that we accept it with open arms.
Horror is like a drug. The body feels horror intensely. When we read
thrillers, we react physically as if the events are happening to us—heart
rate increases, pupils dilate, digestion slows, there is trembling, vessel constriction; a whole flood of neurobiological events occur inside the body. And yet we are in no real danger (hopefully). Therefore, horror
gives us a safe conduit in which we can experience the rush of fear and a full range of uncommon emotions over and over again without consequence.
We can consider what actions we ourselves might take in similar situations perhaps in contrast to the characters. I like to compare horror to an amusement park ride. And who doesn't want to fool our bodies into reacting as if we are really in some danger of falling to our deaths?
Now here is my confession: I actually am not fond of thrill rides, and I'm certainly not an adrenalin junky. Likewise, I am very picky about my horror. I don’t like anything I can’t escape from, so there better be some
pretty powerful reason for me to stay. I have to be able to be caught up in the story, for it to be deeply psychological, to make me think while I’m shaking in my boots. Trust me, I need the therapy. Writing horror is my addiction, my safe outlet to explore all the possibilities, all the craziness, and every fear that lurks in my demented brain.
What could be better than to share them with readers so that we can conquer them together?
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Try Jessica Housand-Weaver's horror story, THE SCREAM OF THE SIREN, today to see for yourself.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
In the Dark Light: The Water Has Memory
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This week's dark light title is The Water Has Memory by Pete Zimmerman. This tale brings up thoughts of H.P. Lovecraft's works.
Blurb: One of Dr. Nigel Hawkston’s oldest friends, Richard, is deathly ill, hiding in the desert of an obscure American territory called Arizona because he’s terrified of water.
From a centuries old convent in Tucson, Richard sends a telegram to Dr. Nigel Hawkston in London, asking him to please come, and to please hurry. Richard’s odd phobia will only be the first of many strange and disturbing things that Dr. Hawkston will uncover. He will learn the horrible meaning of the old homeopathic concept that The Water Has Memory.
Grab a copy of this dark mocha delight at our website,
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
How to Write HorrorErotica by Eden Royce
story should include:
Sex: Seems obvious, but many publishers lament that they receive great horror stories that are too light on the sexy stuff. Find a way to incorporate sensual description in your story. Have your demon ravish
your heroine after he plunges his sinuous tongue – ahem. Well, you get the idea.
Be scary: Again, seems obvious. However, this is the part where some romance writers struggle. They get the intimacy part down pat, but tend to hold back on creating an atmosphere of fright. Horrotica
readers want to shudder, cringe and squirm a bit. They want to say, “Ew…” before they say, “Ohhhh…”
So let go and raise the stakes. Inspire fear. Your readers will love it.
Make us care: Tell me something about your characters besides their names and that they are about
to get horizontal. Find a way to make your read identify with one or more of your players. Why is
she ready to take the risk of performing that ancient ritual? Why did the sight of your hero draw your
heroine from the underworld to claim him?
Embrace the season: October is the time to be creative, silly, sexy, and terrifying. Simultaneously. Let
the approaching holiday creep in and help you design the perfect mix of horror and erotica. Because
sometimes, there’s a fine line between the two. Cross it.
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Eden Royce is a multi-genre writer. Her latest release from Mocha Memoirs Press, THE SNOW MAIDEN, demonstrates Eden's virtuoso writing skills. Try rher works today.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Dark Mocha Bite: Alicia by E. A. Black
Today's Dark Mocha Bite comes from bestselling horror author, E.A. Black. Although this is her first MMP release, Black is not a new and her horror story, ALICIA, is not for the faint of heart.
BLURB: When the love of his life, Alicia, calls him in the middle of the night to report she had been raped, Eric drops everything to come to her rescue. She takes him on an eerie ride through turbulent hours he can’t quite comprehend. Alicia may need his help, but her situation is not what it seems.
Find out today. Get a copy of ALICIA today...
Monday, October 8, 2012
Dark Mocha Bite: Hellshift by Tom Olbert
Today's Dark Mocha Bite comes from talented and multi-faceted artist, Tom Olbert. His two other MMP titles, Long Haul and Along Came a Spider,demonstrate Tom's various storytelling prowess.
Tom's latest venture, HELLSHIFT, is another tasty bit of fiction.
Blurb: Preston Chandler is a lonely, overworked corporate office drone on the worst assignment of his life. In the dark future world of Preston’s time, low-level clerks like himself must serve a 1-year shift on a corporate mining colony on a hellish alien planet whose indigenous population has been wiped out by nuclear genocide.
He isn’t safe even in his corporate offices, as dismembered human bodies begin turning up. Preston fears he is losing his mind. He desperately wants to return to Earth, but is trapped in an escalating nightmare. Computerized psych-evaluation technology probes his mind with dehumanizing invasiveness.
Preston finally completes his assignment and is looking forward to returning home to Earth at last. But will his Hellshift ever end ?
Grab a copy of HELLSHIFT tonight and find out.
Preston finally completes his assignment and is looking forward to returning home to Earth at last. But will his Hellshift ever end ?
Grab a copy of HELLSHIFT tonight and find out.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Horror on Celluloid – Do audiences still scream?
days.
The Ring did that for me. So did I Know What You Did Last Summer. Two very
different films, illustrating that horror is more rich and varied a genre than mainstream
Hollywood might make us believe. Summer was aimed squarely at a teenaged
demographic, Ring probably at a wider audience. Both films had an artistry to them
that got the message across like a scalpel to the marrow. Both depended heavily on
atmosphere and used it skillfully.
As a teen slasher/whodunit suspense yarn, Summer depended largely on sudden shock
and skillfully timed surprise attacks. But, unlike the tired and overused slasher fare, it
was also a dark morality play and mystery rolled into one. A group of teens who had
accidentally run a man down on a dark, lonely highway and, fearing conviction and ruin
over drunk driving charges, choose to cover up the crime. Their consciences are still
haunting them as circumstances bring them together again a year later, as though they’re
trapped in a nightmare of their own making. Someone on a dark mission of revenge
is picking them off one by one. They can’t go to the law, so they have to ascertain the
killer’s identity on their own. The dark, dreary setting of a small New England fishing
town forms the ideal back-drop for a creepy suspense story, the dark, hooded figure of a
hook-wielding killer in a dark slicker skulking in every shadow like the grim reaper.
Though it has the taste of 1950’s urban legend, (the basis of mindless and horrendously
over-used Friday the 13th -type 80’s slasher tripe) Summer is a shadowy maze containing
enough twists and turns to keep it interesting, with suspense and fear and artful chase
scenes taking the place of mindless gore and brutish violence. It comes to a delightfully
open-ended finish that keeps us dangling. The closing scene is priceless. (Sadly, it led to
a sequel that didn’t do it justice. That’s Hollywood.)
Ring is far less conventional and deliciously bizarre. A ghost story centered around a
murdered little girl drowned and left in a dark well, it uses the strange idea of a cursed
piece of film that kills anyone who watches it within a certain period of time after seeing
it. (While an obvious device, this one had me checking off the days on my calendar with
special interest.) It makes use of shock scenes only minimally and is more an odyssey
into escalating madness, like a psychedelic ride down another long, dark well. Less a
morality play than a story of frail human protagonists up against an incomprehensible
aspect of otherworldly power, this one reflects the mindset of a non-western culture.
(The movie was based on a Japanese horror film.) Sadly, this one also withered through
banal sequels and imitators.
Other film makers cheat in making effective horror. The most obvious such trick being
the Blair Witch Project, which spawned a genre in itself. This new kind of cinematic
horror puts the audience in the film maker’s shoes, building slowly from the innocuous
beginning of making a video and escalating through one grainy, amateurish frame after
another. The horror builds and intensifies, drawing its power from the mockumentarian
feel of the movie, suspending disbelief by simulating the filtered reality of seeing the
world through a lens as that world slowly but surely dissolves into hell and madness.
This became a fad, spawning a slew of such fake video films. The most notable of which
is the Paranormal Activity film series. That one’s effective in bringing the horror into the
American middle-class home, tapping our inner child, remembering the late-night horror
of laying in bed and thinking you hear someone or something creeping up the stairs in
the darkness. Low budget and dull on its face…video monitors endlessly recording dark,
quiet nightly interiors…it generates a creepy atmosphere of suspense and impending
doom. Something unseen and purely evil is lurking in the dark, and it’s coming into the
bedroom. The film closes with a blood-curdling scream, the swift shock of a dead body
hurled into the camera, and a closing shot that achieves horror without elaborate special
effects. And yes, sadly, this one too has languished through sequel after sequel.
Film making is of course a business. And, like any other, it imitates whatever formula
has proven to work. But, that’s a self-defeating tactic when it comes to horror, which
depends for its effectiveness on the element of surprise. Formulized horror is almost a
contradiction in terms, yet that’s what Hollywood insists on sticking us with. Today’s
horror films are tired, repetitive forays into the realm of demonic possession. The thing
that scares Hollywood the most these days is something called originality.
My Dark Mocha Bites story Hellshift is a short shocker which I confess does utilize
visual elements of extremely visceral physical horror, reminiscent in some ways of big-
screen horror. In this one, I’ve tried to bring an alien, somewhat Lovecraftian horror into
the life of an everyman. A dull, overworked, frustrated corporate lackey finds himself
stalked by an inhuman, cosmic horror and fears he is losing his mind. As he stumbles
between the external horror of the thing stalking him and the internal horror of his own
subconscious, he’s the personification of an imploding, morally compromised society. I
was remembering the late, great Ray Bradbury’s popular Martian Chronicles in crafting
a more horrific vision of a human colony trying to re-create Earth on an alien planet and
finding the often invisible, shape-shifting natives less than cooperative.
So, the horror writer seeks to find his or her own voice, while the rest of us wait for
the next great innovation in the art of horror. We all pay our money and go the theater
prepared…hoping, perhaps… to be scared out of our wits. But, just be careful the
sequels don’t get you.
Tom Olbert
Hellshift is a new horror story available 10/8
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Read more of Tom Olbert's fantastic writings in Long Haul and Along Came a Spider.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Third One's a Trio of Dark Delights: Descent Into Madness
Taking us down into madness is our resident editor and author extraordinaire, Michael LaRocca. We've witnessed it talent for suspense and twists and turns in LAZARUS.
For October, Michael has given us something truly fresh and straight out of the Twilight Zone in DESCENT INTO MADNESS.
Blurb: Did you ever feel that your life was but a series of experiments being conducted upon you by forces unknown and unknowable? Does the nature of reality change almost daily, as if someone wanted to see how you’d react? Are there things you knew in your very core you’d never do, until you discovered you were wrong and you did them? Did you ever wish the dead would just stay dead?
Excerpt
Wouldn't life be simpler if the dead just stayed dead?
Bert gazed at Wendy's closed eyes. He held one of her tiny hands in his and noticed how cold it was. Behind him stood the doctor and the nurse who would disconnect the vast array of machinery that all but surrounded them.
"This isn't her," Bert said to no one. "This is only an empty shell."
Bert squeezed Wendy's hand. There was no response. He leaned over her and whispered, "I love you," into her ear. He rose to his feet, released her hand and stepped aside. There was no change, no sign that she was anything more than a rock or a piece of furniture.
The doctor was waiting patiently when Bert turned to him. Bert nodded. The doctor smiled weakly, sympathetically. Bert felt vaguely like an intruder.
The doctor signaled the nurse to switch off the respirator. The nurse complied and Wendy's chest collapsed. The doctor reached for the tube that entered Wendy's nose and led to her lungs. He wiped it with a cloth as he pulled it out—pull, wipe, pull, wipe, pull, wipe—then handed it to the nurse.
The EKG and EEG alarms beeped loudly. Wendy's eyes opened and she bolted upright in the bed. The stunned doctor quickly stepped away.
"Bert?"
"Wendy?!"
"Bert!"
"My God!"
Of course it was a miracle. What else could it have been?
Thursday, October 4, 2012
In the Dark Light: The Scream of the Siren
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This week's dark light title is The Scream of the Siren by Jessica Housand-Weaver.
Blurb: Jen Hanover, depressed and reclusive after her husband’s suicide, finds her life changed forever when she meets a mysterious, brooding rebel named Alejandro. At first, he seems to be exactly what Jen needs. But things quickly spiral out of control as Alejandro reveals the frightening extent of his obsessive nature and violent past. Desperate to end the dangerous affair, Jen is determined to be free of him. Yet the more she tries to escape from Alejandro’s passionate clutches, the more threatening he becomes. The story unravels with heart-pounding suspense as Jen finds herself up against a criminal mind, far more dangerous than she could have ever imagined. In the end, Jen discovers not only the darkest truths about love and the human condition, but must also face the lurking demons within herself.
Grab a copy of this dark mocha delight at our website, Mocha Memoirs Press.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Telling Stories by Wynelda Deaver
my teen years, I started reading horror with Stephen King and tore through all of his books. But as for
writing horror… Well, I’ve only ever told one off the cuff horror story.
And scared myself to pieces.
We were camping, Mom and Dad in the RV, my best friend, Regina and I in a little pop up tent. Like any
good story teller, I used description from the things around us. A spooky house up on a hill. Brown hills
(in California, this happens more than you’d think) full of demon deer.
Demon deer?
Well, yes. While I can’t remember much of the story, I do remember to this day the demon deer herd
with eyes that glowed red in the night. Which you know, doesn’t sound quite so scary right now. Of
course, I have (cough, cough) many years between that trip and now. I’m also safe and sound in my
house. No hills. No spooky houses.
No demon deer.
But that night, oh that night. As a story teller, that little detail was a stroke of genius. As part of a teen
girl duo who could talk themselves into just about anything? Not so much. Every time a deer got caught
in the headlights, so to speak, we saw red. Sleeping in a tent? Great fun for shadows to prey on your
mind. Everything became fodder for the horror story we were living in our own minds. Squeals of “Did
you see that?” and “What the hell was that?” peppered the night air.
By the time we stumbled into the RV because we’d scared ourselves witless, the whole campground
gave a huge sigh of relief. We knew this because we were told by the other campers. All day long and
into the next night. “No more stories, girls, I need my beauty sleep.”
At least my parents didn’t laugh at us when we could hear them. It must have been hard to stifle the
giggles when we came crawling in, defeated by the night.
Since that night so many moons ago, I have stuck to writing what I do best: Dragons. They may eat you,
but at least you’ll see them coming.
Wynelda
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You can check out Wynelda's fantastic dragon stories, in December, with the release of her first Mocha Memoirs Press's story, DRAGON'S PATH.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Another Delicious Dark Bite: Bloody Rain by Rie Sheridan Rose
Blurb: For over a hundred years, the world has wondered whatever happened to Jack the Ripper. Could the answer be hiding in the cold Whitechapel rain?
Look for Rie's other terrifying and often deeply thought provoking other works from MMP:
Drink My Soul...Please
It's the Same Old Thing
Purchase all three titles at the Mocha Memoirs Press website, Amazon or BN.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Dark Mocha Bite Celebration Begins: Into the Realm of Mystery and Night
To start, Mocha Memoirs Press invites you to come with us Into the Realm of Mystery and Night, courtesy of talented, multi-genre author, Janet Eckford. This month we're celebrating our DARK MOCHA BITES. These stories are all around the horror genre.
Blurb:It’s hard for me to pick a time in my life when I haven’t enjoyed the thrill of a good scare. The heady anticipation of the adrenaline rush, the heart beating faster, and the prickly feel of tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.
This “scare” is of course always controlled and contained. I don’t seek out fear just for the thrill of it but when I read a particularly scary story or watch an especially frightening movie, I am in love with how that narrative is causing my senses to go in overdrive. This collection of shorts is inspired by that feeling and housed within the context of one of my favorite holidays, Halloween. Each day you have the
opportunity to read a story that will hopefully have you checking under the bed each night or sleeping with at least one light on. My greatest wish for you is that by the 31st day of October, you too will revel in all things that go bump in the night and bounce with anticipation waiting for next year’s delights.
Think you're ready to follow Janet into the Realm of Mystery and Night? Download the key here.