A Family of Killers Cover and ARCs

I’ve known about this for a while, but I’ve been waiting to share it until we’ve been closer to the release date. At the beginning of the week, however, I got my advance reader copies (ARCs) for A Family of Killers in the mail, so I think the cat is well and truly out of the bag now. (Note: If you’ve been a supporter of mine on Patreon for a long time, and you’d like a copy of one of the ARCs, just shoot me a message, and I’ll get it to you on my dime. If you haven’t been a supporter . . . don’t you wish you had? 🙂

Here’s the description on the back of the book:

From the author of The Perfect Place to Die and Don’t Go to Sleep comes another chilling horror that explores the eerie story of America’s first serial killer family.

Warren Bullock always thought he was a decent person. But lately he’s been haunted by a sinister voice in his head urging him to commit unspeakable acts of violence against the people around him.

And then the rumors start… There have been a string of disappearances in southeastern Kansas, and his father’s friend is one of the missing travelers. When Warren’s father leaves to investigate and doesn’t return, Warren knows this is his chance to prove that he is stronger than his darkest impulses. 

As he makes his way through Kansas, he finds himself at a suspicious inn run by the Benders, a family with deeply unsettling mannerisms. They watch every move he makes, stand over him in his sleep, and the daughter seems to be able to see into both the past and future.

As he delves further into the disappearances, he realizes one or all of the Benders may be responsible for all the missing people—and might be the reason his father never came home. It’s up to Warren to set things right, even if that means giving into the voice he has been working so hard to ignore. 

This ended up being a tricky book for me to write, for a number of reasons that I’ll get into (or have already gotten into, though I’ll get into them again later). However, I just reread it for the fourth or fifth time, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. I think it’s got one of my best endings, and possibly the best. Warren, the main character, is also a favorite of mine. It also helped that I’m a fan of westerns, and getting the chance to write one was a lot of fun, even if I sort of stumbled into the genre without realizing it at first.

And now, for those of you who have been waiting for the cover, here you go.

I’m a fan of it. I like how it’s in the same vein as my other covers, with a disquieting, eye catching image that hopefully makes browsers want to find out more. I didn’t come up with the name of the book (when I was writing it, I just referred to it as THE BLOODY BENDERS), but once we bounced it back and forth with my editor, I really like the one we settled on, even making some tweaks to the manuscript to lean into it in a way I hadn’t thought of before, but which really clicked when I did.

The book will be available for purchase August 6th, so you’ve got a long time to wait, unfortunately, but hopefully it’s worth it. (I’m also in the early stages of planning an actual release party for this one. Stay tuned on that.)

Exciting!