My new novel Phantom Audition is officially released this Saturday! Needless to say, I am rather excited.
Also, this week, my publisher, Dragon Soul Press, have organised an online launch party for Phantom Audition on Facebook, on Saturday at 6:30pm UK time (1:30pm Eastern time). Click here at that time to catch me and other talented authors celebrating this new release with games, giveaways, a Q&A, and other fun stuff.
My other hosts include Zoey Xolton and Galina Trefil, both of whom are superb writers, and I highly recommend their work. Zoey opens the party at 6:30pm, and Galina is on at 7:30pm. My “headlining” slot is at 8pm (all UK times).
A gripping, gothic psychological/supernatural mystery, Phantom Audition has plenty of page-turning suspense, but I wish to re-emphasise that I don’t consider it a horror story in the same way as my previous novels Spectre of Springwell Forest or The Irresistible Summons. So if you were put off those because you thought they might be too scary, why not give this one a try?
Here’s the blurb from the back of the book:
Small-time actress Mia Yardley, recently widowed wife of renowned actor Steven Yardley, discovers her late husband’s secret acting diary.
The diary details appointments made with a psychic medium, who advised Steven on which roles to take. It also raises questions about his mysterious and inexplicable suicide.
Seeking answers, Mia speaks to the medium, but in doing so is drawn into an ever- deepening mystery about what happened to her husband during the final days of his life. Eventually, she is forced to ask the terrible question: was Steven Yardley murdered by a vengeful evil from beyond the grave?
Phantom Audition is published by Dragon Soul Press, and is out on the 19th of October. Paperbacks are already available, but Kindle versions can be pre-ordered here.
More psychological thriller/mystery than horror, and if it were a film, probably wouldn’t be rated stronger than 12A (that’s PG-13 for our American cousins). Yes, there is plenty of page-turning suspense, with our imperilled heroine wandering spooky corridors at night, but let’s put it this way; my notoriously easy-to-scare mother braved it, and managed to reach the ending unscathed. It’s only a notch up from something like Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.
This begins more like a whodunnit, develops into a supernatural thriller, and really only segues into horror during the finale, in quite a gradual slow-burn. Yes, the bodies do pile up a bit, but in scariness, only a notch or so up from The Birds Began to Sing.
A properly full-blown ghostly gothic horror mystery, most akin to something like an MR James short story, or The Woman in Black. It is a slow-burn, but it does build to a properly spine-chilling finale that will test the nerves, so I’m giving this one a higher scariness rating.
For the most part, I’d argue this is a supernatural conspiracy thriller. However, the final act is undoubtedly in clear horror territory, in a pretty full-on manner. Comparison texts would be something like Coma crossed with the more horrific elements of Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom.
Despite the sinister (and rather brilliant) cover, this is much more a psychological mystery/drama than a horror tale. In fact, I’d argue it isn’t really scary at all. Suspenseful and gripping yes, but not scary (despite a violent sequence near the end). With this book, I was more interested in messing with your head than making you afraid. It is more unsettling than The Birds Began to Sing, but no more scary, if that makes sense. I’d also add Sarah Water’s The Little Stranger as a scariness comparison text.
On a rather different note, we have my most successful (and arguably most “personal”) novel to date, 
Finally, 
Simon Dillon Books 
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