Broken Eye Books is publishing the novella The Queen of No Tomorrows by Matt Maxwell. This is a crime horror tale set in Los Angeles of the recent past, one close enough to remember—sharing the world first introduced in the short story "Chunked" (from Tomorrow's Cthulhu). Magic and crime go hand in hand here, where neon and stucco is a façade to the darkness. History once-forgotten is thrust to the forefront as criminal organizations exploit elder powers and perhaps find themselves exploited in return.
Cait MacReady spends her days in the Special Collections library at UCLA, restoring old books and saving them from the ravages of age. By night she's either catching a show or working her real job, making copies of antique and forbidden texts. But don't call them forgeries. She only gives the customers exactly what they want.
When her old lover and current business partner shows up on behalf of some customers who want a book that isn't written yet, Cait becomes suspicious. When she discovers they're from the organization No Tomorrows, she becomes afraid. And when she finds out that their leader, the enigmatic woman-child known as the Queen, wants the book that only Cait has, she begins to wonder what's real and what she's manufactured on her own.
Part crime novel, part ashes-of-the-past romance, part weird horror, The Queen of No Tomorrows takes readers through dirty alleys and the pounding industrial fever dream of the Last Prayer club, where Cait tries to stay one step ahead of the Queen, who seems to know the future before it's even happened.
A future that Cait would give anything to cut off.
"The Queen of No Tomorrows is the kind of book that I want to read," says Matt. "I wrote it simply because of that. Instead of placing things in the arcane and rarified (now all-too-familiar and safe) settings of the old and mannered, I wanted to bring cosmic horror and the uncanny out to the sunshine and neon of Los Angeles. Instead of simply revering a period or place, I wanted to poke at things, to see where the horror might show up in the everyday, even in the simple act of creation itself.
"Besides, there just aren't enough stories that treat crime like magic, or vice versa."
The Queen of No Tomorrows will be released in the Fall/Winter of 2017.
Cait MacReady spends her days in the Special Collections library at UCLA, restoring old books and saving them from the ravages of age. By night she's either catching a show or working her real job, making copies of antique and forbidden texts. But don't call them forgeries. She only gives the customers exactly what they want.
When her old lover and current business partner shows up on behalf of some customers who want a book that isn't written yet, Cait becomes suspicious. When she discovers they're from the organization No Tomorrows, she becomes afraid. And when she finds out that their leader, the enigmatic woman-child known as the Queen, wants the book that only Cait has, she begins to wonder what's real and what she's manufactured on her own.
Part crime novel, part ashes-of-the-past romance, part weird horror, The Queen of No Tomorrows takes readers through dirty alleys and the pounding industrial fever dream of the Last Prayer club, where Cait tries to stay one step ahead of the Queen, who seems to know the future before it's even happened.
A future that Cait would give anything to cut off.
"The Queen of No Tomorrows is the kind of book that I want to read," says Matt. "I wrote it simply because of that. Instead of placing things in the arcane and rarified (now all-too-familiar and safe) settings of the old and mannered, I wanted to bring cosmic horror and the uncanny out to the sunshine and neon of Los Angeles. Instead of simply revering a period or place, I wanted to poke at things, to see where the horror might show up in the everyday, even in the simple act of creation itself.
"Besides, there just aren't enough stories that treat crime like magic, or vice versa."
The Queen of No Tomorrows will be released in the Fall/Winter of 2017.
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