Dark Country Launch Day: Take a Walk on the Wild Side …

Today is the Dark Country launch day, and I couldn’t be happier. 😁 Of course, those release day nerves are still there and the little voice of worry doesn’t disappear, but I’m also so excited for the world to read this book. Writing this book was, after all, a labor of love. Well, okay, maybe not love per se. It was a story that I needed to write, and through all the blood, sweat, and tears, I grew surprisingly fond of it.

Perhaps it’s because the story is set in South Africa? Maybe it’s because Dark Country plays off in the same location where I grew up? Who knows why it has such a special place in my heart, all I care about now is sharing this terrifying tale with everyone. 🙂

And yes, it is a terrifying tale to me.

What seems, at times, like completely made-up horrors—because how can anything so heinous be true?—is real. It happens here in South Africa. We just don’t talk about it … Well, we don’t talk about it often or in public. But I’m a rebel, so I wrote all about it in Dark Country. *evil laugh*

What’s “it”?

Ritual murders, of course. The type that seems so farfetched, so graphic, it borders on shock horror. I didn’t write this book for shocks, by the way. It’s not because of some urge to step into the “exploitation horror” subgenre either. Yes, okay, there may have been some fictitious murders that made even my stomach twist, but that was purely because the killer in the book is cruel. But here’s the thing: Ritualistic murders in South Africa is cruel. I’ve seen photographs of actual crime scenes that I still have nightmares about. Some people are more prone to being victims, yes, but in general nobody’s safe.

Dark Country, in my personal opinion, is more of a modern folk horror than anything else. Yet, it’s so much more …

It’s an exploration of life in South Africa, of the people and variety of cultures, the things that makes this country so unique in comparison to others. It’s anger and love and confusion and questioning one’s place in a society that constantly changes. Is there still room for superstitions in this day and age? What if those superstitions aren’t superstitions at all? Is good and evil still easily distinguished from one another?

Whether I’ve succeeded in answering all those questions, I don’t know. Luckily, there will be more books in this series, so I can truly rake my brain for answers in the sequels. 🙂

Dark Country (Dark Country #1)

Too often people mistake monsters for gods.

When a ravaged corpse is discovered in Pretoria, South Africa, Esmé Snyder—an occult-crime expert—is called in to investigate. But she doesn’t know the scope of what she’s up against. Esmé is the target of a cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer who uses the paranormal to do his bidding, with the intent of becoming a god on Earth.

With assistance from her team—a brusque detective, eccentric millionaire, stoic priest, hawkeyed secretary, and handsome British forensic criminologist—Esmé hopes to find the killer before he strikes again.

But the clock isn’t all that’s working against them. The media catches wind of the threat against the citizens of Pretoria, and their reported speculations promise a post-Apartheid Satanic Panic.

As the body count grows, Esmé must figure out who is behind the heinous crimes before she ends up the final sacrifice.

Dark Country highlights the multicultural mythologies, magic, histories, beauty, and horror of living in pseudo-modern South Africa.

NOW AVAILABLE