New Year, New Weird
Hey Ho, Tenebrous Cult!
Hopefully when this hits your inbox I’ll be in the sky, Yucatán-bound, for a stretch of exploring ruins and eating my weight in cochinita pibil. Also doing some work-related reading, but for the most part this will be the calm before the storm that is the Tenebrous 2025 publishing year.
This’ll also be a short newsletter. I think. Who knows. I tend to take 500 words to say what could easily be said in 50.
HOW ‘BOUT YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT SPLIT SCREAM: OFF THE MAP
That’s a great idea! I know we’ve mentioned this—the seventh volume of our pulpy New Weird Horror twinned novelette series—in broad strokes, but let’s dive a little deeper.
The threads that loosely bind these two tales together are themes of grief and loss, and protagonists fresh-starting their lives in new locations:
In Evergreen, by the team of John K. Peck & L. Mahler, protagonist Deirdre is tying up the loose ends of her mother's death when she makes a startling discovery: a tree growing in the closet of her childhood home, and a bizarre collection of knick-knacks buried in its soil.
She soon learns that her mother had a hand in her hometown’s long history of odd disappearances and misfortune, and that this ominous tree is her legacy.
Nurturing the tree's soil with filched mementos, Deirdre learns that she can control the vast system of roots thriving beneath the town to a terrifying degree, and she soon finds herself fighting her darkest desires to wreak terrible vengeance on the town that wronged her.
Meanwhile, Íde Hennessy’s Sequoia Point takes us to California’s fabled Lost Coast. It’s long been a treacherous place where dreams—and people—go to die. Meg's adrenaline junkie husband had been so drawn to Sequoia Point’s beaches that he'd requested his ashes be scattered on their black sands. Reeling after his death and a miscarriage, Meg decides to put down new roots in this strange place.
What she finds is a van-life conspiracy theorist seeking refuge from 5G radiation; mysterious packs of roving dogs; cryptic talismans on doors; a winter tourist who seems to be in two places at once; and a mute woman who looks exactly like her.
When her double begins to bring her gruesome "gifts" and a mudslide cuts the town off from civilization, Meg must overcome her debilitating fears to unravel the mysteries of Sequoia Point.
SPLIT SCREAM: OFF THE MAP will be available to preorder soon, but you can secure a copy right now by signing up for the Tenebrous 2025 Book Club:
We have options for both Print+eBook, or eBook-only, and both options include exclusive content and goodies that won’t be available elsewhere.
You can read more about all eight of our 2025 titles right here.
ANATOMY OF A COVER: CASUAL
I always like seeing what went into creating a finished artwork. Maybe you do too, or maybe I’m just a weirdo who watched too many making-of-the-stop-motion of Clash of the Titans documentaries as a kid.
Anyway, when we were brainstorming with cover artist Cristina Bencina, we keyed in on two specific components we wanted to showcase: the Fox, a recurring element that main character Valya pursues in the in-story game app, Casual; and Valya herself.
It was also critical to depict the neural uplink/technological vibes at the center of the story. Cristina put together a couple different pitches for us, and we all agreed that this was the right direction to go:
We were super geeked on how Cristina depicted Valya as a series of geometric shapes in the bottom right; it’s subtle and feels very character-appropriate too:
The “final” cover that Cristina originally sent us was this red-on-red version:
But she added an alternate color version without prompting and invited us to pick whichever one we preferred. Alex and I agreed that the red-on-red was almost too overwhelming in its intensity, but the alternate was perfect:
About CASUAL:
Valya’s neural implant is amazing.
Its game-like app, CASUAL, has managed her depression and anxiety, stabilized her mood, and helped the infertile Valya get pregnant. But new laws forbid her from using the device when she's sole caregiver for her infant. Her gaslighting ex won't help her, and she can't afford a nanny, so her obstetrician insists that Valya wean off CASUAL before giving birth.
Despite a will to quit and a supportive new love interest in her birthing class, disabling CASUAL turns Valya's anxiety into full-blown panic attacks. Her psychiatrist offers to enroll her in a controversial clinical trial that would place a tandem implant in the baby and allow Valya to keep hers active. Valya must decide whether she should attempt parenting without CASUAL or install a minimally tested device in her vulnerable child.
Casual is a stark and cutting glance at a near future that looks uncannily like our present, exploring themes of bodily autonomy and the struggle for mental health in a world increasingly divided.
“Compelling and incredibly imagined. Akin to classic dystopian literature like 1984 and Brave New World. It left me reeling."
Ivy Grimes, author of Glass Stories
“A complex and compassionate exploration of mental health and motherhood. Unlike anything I have ever read before.”
Emily Ruth Verona, author of Midnight on Beacon Street
"A stunningly written story about class, women’s autonomy and all the ways a society can seek to control these in a future so real I could almost touch it.”
Ed Crocker, FanFiAddict
CASUAL is currently up for preorder, and is also part of our 2025 Book Club! Huzzah!
Some dates to keep in mind for the First Quarter of 2025:
THE SKULL & LAUREL Issue 002 - out January 15th!
CASUAL - out February 11th!
Ghoulish Book Festival - March 14 & 15th (Alex & Matt both in attendance)
SPLIT SCREAM: OFF THE MAP - out March 27th!
A bit of bummer news: Scarlet Lane Brewing Company in McCordsville Indiana, host of the incredible yearly Scarelastic Book Fair, is closing down for good this New Year’s Eve.
What this means for next April’s Scarelastic—which we are currently scheduled to attend—is up in the air. But we’ll keep you posted, and we wish Book Fair organizer Joshua Hull (MOUTH author, Scarlet Lane ownership team) and the rest of the Scarlet Lane staff only the best for the future.
Well, this was…short-ish? At least it had a lot of pictures.
Thank you for all of your love and support this year. Thank you for trusting us to curate and introduce you to new voices. Happy New Year, Weirdos. We’re going hard next year.
Hail the Tenebrous Cult.
Hail Indie Publishing.
Hail 2025.
Matt + Alex
Excellent write up? Do you work with media (book reviews)? I might be interested in reviewing some of your stuff