Shadow of the Hidden Audiobook Out Now

Welcome to my May 2025 newsletter. If it’s your first one, it’s likely you downloaded my supernatural witchcraft-laden novelette, Warding, from BookFunnel. If you haven’t received your copy of it yet, reply to this email and I’ll send it right over.

This month, I want to start by plugging the audiobook version of my debut novel, Shadow of the Hidden. Narrated marvellously by Pete Eaton, and produced by his friend, Dan Brown (no, not that one), it’s four and a half hours of horrific Djinn-curse adventures, sprawling across Turkey and North Africa. What’s best of all is that, if you are a Spotify Premium subscriber, you can listen to it FOR FREE, right now.

If you don’t have Spotify premium, you can also find it on Google Play Books, Kobo/Walmart, Nook, Libro FM and Storytel. It will also be arriving on Apple Books, Audible and all the other services where you would expect to find your audiobooks very soon. You can check out all the links for the audio, eBook and paperback versions here.

Also, for the next thirty days, I’m going to be giving away a free audiobook code to listen to Shadow of the Hidden on Spotify to the first five people to buy a signed paperback of the book from my Ko-Fi shop. So, for about a tenner, you will get a signed paperback and the audiobook to listen to for free. Grab them while they’re still available. Obviously, if you buy any combination of books including Shadow of the Hidden, the offer is also valid.

A bit more Pyres talk now, if I may. Last month, we had a blurb from the inimitable T C Parker for the book. This month, we have one from my friend and author of the fantastic Last Night of Freedom, Dan Howarth:

Last month, I mentioned an event I was hoping to participate in in September, and I can now reveal that I will be an attending author at the Indie Horror Chapter: Chapter 3 event in Weston-Super-Mare. I’ve never been to Weston before, so that’s exciting in itself. But more exciting is that I’ll be table sharing with the brilliant David Watkins, and also sharing the event space with some forty-five horror authors from all over the UK and Europe. If you are in the west country, I would love to see you there. I’ll be selling books, as well as the first precious copies of my second novel, Pyres, but even if you’re not buying books, I love to chat about horror, writing, or anything at all. I’ll also be more than happy to sign any existing books of mine that you have. I’ll also have coasters, magnets, stickers and other little freebies for people to take away. The event starts at 11am on Saturday 6th September at The Royal Hotel. There’s a bar, a café and it’s FREE to get in. Click here or on the poster, below, for full details and to add it to your calendar.

A final bit of release news, now, and I can confirm that my collection, Paths Best Left Untrodden, along with my short story of grief horror, Alone With Myself, is now wide. What does that mean? Well, when I first created it, it was an Amazon-only book. It was my first foray into creating a book myself and I also wanted to take advantage of Kindle Unlimited. However, after almost four years on the market, I feel like most KU readers who wanted to check it out have done so, and I wanted to open it up to users of other eBook readers, as well as libraries, etc. So, if you’ve been waiting for it, or even if you’ve never heard of it, the time to check it out is now. You can find the collection here or by clicking the image below. The short story, Alone with Myself, is here. Even better news if you are a Kobo Plus subscriber is that you will be able to read both for free as part of your subscription.

Before we get to my recommendations for this month, just a quick note to say that I’ve started the first book in a series in the past few weeks. It centres around a side character in Pyres (more reasons to pick that one up!) and, while it’s been tricky to get the beginning right, I feel like I know where I am with the lead, and his origins, now. More on this in future newsletters.

Recommendations

Reading - Phengaris by Anna Orridge

This is my first contact with author Anna Orridge, but judging by this book, it’s unlikely to be my last! Phengaris is a weird story. It begins with a cryptic, violent prologue, then moves into the main narrative, following a young man, Mark, as he attempts to deal with the rejection of his dying mother. Finding his escape through drugs and by wandering in nearby Thurstrop Wood, he stumbles upon birds and insects displaying mysterious behaviour and decides to investigate. This is a fever dream of a story, one in which you can never be fully sure what’s real and what’s hallucinatory. It’s wonderfully written, leaning proudly into the label of beautiful grotesque. Don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself here. 

Listening - Cometh the Storm by High On Fire

I’d never heard High on Fire before, when a track leapt into my autoplay list after an album finished last week. Sitting in the screamy, slow-paced area of sludge/stoner rock, further investigation revealed a band whose frontman is the guitarist from Sleep, and suddenly it all made sense. There are some interesting influences going on here, with the track Karanlık Yol, in particular, displaying a range of Turkish instrumentation, for example. If you like your music ear-splittingly loud and aggressive, you can give it a listen on your chosen streaming service, here.

Watching - Sinners - Cinema

I tend to panic when a horror movie does so incredibly well at the box office. I try not to get caught up in the hype, so as not to be disappointed. So, when I saw Sinners blowing up everywhere, I told the missus that we should go see it, but immediately stopped reading about it. I didn’t watch any trailers. Nothing. We finally got down to our local UCI to catch it last week and, holy crap, it is such a terrific movie. I grew up with the blues, my dad being a huge aficionado of blues and rock music, and Sinners is worth the price of admission in a theatre for the music alone. All the way through, you feel the soundtrack in your chest, and Miles Caton’s singing and playing, in particular, is extraordinary. But then the horror kicks in and it’s a whole different kind of fun. Smart, sexy, funny, bloody, I really just can’t recommend this film enough. Watch the trailer, here and see if it might be for you.

Bargains and Freebies

Brian Martinez at Bloodstream City has put together a list of almost thirty free horrors for your reading pleasure. You can check out the full list and grab a free spooky read here.

My novella, Below, is a featured title in this month’s Midnight Whispers promo from Newton Webb. You can grab more than thirty bargain books, including four of mine. View the full list here.

In the Hair Raising Reads promo, Steve Hudgins of Maniac on the Loose fame has gathered over sixty books which are free, 99c, or free on Kindle Unlimited. Grab a bargain here.

If you’re after post apocalyptic fiction, Tarah Benner has you covered with twenty-one tales from the end, here.

And finally, in Horror Giveaway May, the fine people at the Horror Readers List have twenty-eight free horror books for you to frighten yourselves.

Okay, enough blathering from me for this month. Remember you can always reply to these emails directly, or reach out to me on Bluesky, Xitter, Instagram and all the usual places if you want to give me any feedback, or just say hello. When you next hear from me, I’ll be on my way to my annual summer sojourn to work in the UK, so writing time will be thin on the ground. If I see any dolphins or whales on the boat over like last year, I’ll try to get some photos and videoclips.

In the meantime, take care of yourselves, be kind, and I’ll see you in late June.

Kev