Queen of No Tomorrows (paperback)

SKU: 978-1-940372-35-8
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Part supernatural horror, part crime noir, and set in eighties Los Angeles. Librarian con artist Cait MacReady forges occult tomes, but her latest creation has caught the attention of something magical and terrible. ​



LOS ANGELES, THE EIGHTIES

Cait MacReady spends her days in the UCLA library, special collections, restoring old books and saving them from the ravages of time. By night, she works her real job, making copies of antique and occult texts. But don't call them forgeries. She only gives customers exactly what they want.
​
When her ex-lover, now business partner, shows up on behalf of some customers who want a book that isn't written yet, Cait gets suspicious. When she discovers they're from the organization No Tomorrows, she gets scared. And when she finds out that their leader, the enigmatic figure called the Queen, wants a book that only Cait has, she begins to wonder what's real and what she's manufactured on her own.

Cait's latest creation, the Smoking Codex, is a work of complete fiction and all her own, nothing but vodka-fueled occult nonsense and heartfelt desire. It's a fake—no history, no power.

Or is it? This book takes on a life of its own, and the police get involved as people start to die. Now Cait must somehow manage to stop a thing that has already happened: the book’s secret god is already known.

And its name has been spoken.

REVIEWS

"Queen of No Tomorrows is set in 80’s Los Angeles. It instantly brings to mind a bit of nostalgia for the ridiculous movies from that era." (Sci-Fi & Scary at Goodreads)

"A dark, riveting page-turner set in a near-past Los Angeles where magic lurks just beneath the surface of everyday life. I loved this book, and I especially loved Cait who makes her living making copies (and forgeries) of antique and forbidden books. One of the books she has made attracts interest from a mysterious group of people who seem to think it is a lot more important than Cait ever imagined." (Maria Haskins at GoodReads)

"LA noir goes weird and eerie in Queen of No Tomorrows. You might think you’re merely faking an ancient text for profit, but the power of the Word is real, and its truth will likely slither from the shadows of your imagination and bite you. Intriguing and finely written.” (Jamie Delano, author of Hellblazer)

"A dark tour of our most sun-drenched city, led by a woman unlike any other. The prose positively crackles with dread—I couldn't put it down!" (Corinna Bechko, author of Invisible Republic and Heathentown)

FROM THE AUTHOR

"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."

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FORMAT
Trade Paperback; 120 pages
​
AUTHOR
Matt Maxwell

COVER ILLUSTRATION
Gabriel Hardman

COVER DESIGN
Matt Youngmark, Matt Maxwell, Scott Gable

OTHER FORMATS
ebook

THEMES 
crime, noir, occult thriller, supernatural horror, weird​

SAMPLE

Picture
(Click image to load sample pages.)
Matt Maxwell
​Matt Maxwell was born in California, sometime between the JFK
assassination and the moon landing. His past writings include work for Blizzard Entertainment and
stories in both Tomorrow’s Cthulhu and It Came from Miskatonic
Univerity from Broken Eye Books. He’s self-published a number of
books, both nonfiction/commentary and short/long fiction and
was also the writer and publisher of the weird western comic series
Strangeways.
Sure. He’d love to be on your podcast.

http://highway62press.com
@highway_62