Samhain Publishing, Ltd. has released of the ebook edition of Bloodthirst in Babylon by David Searls. The trade paperback edition will follow in April or May.

Description: Seize the day. Survive the night.

Times are tough and jobs scarce. It’s desperation that drives the Dunbar family and other down-and-outers to suspiciously welcoming Babylon, Michigan. This remote town has been controlled for more than a century by the rarely seen Miles Drake and his allies. But now a brash breakaway clan is doing away with the old traditions and rewriting the rules of engagement with humankind. The newcomers will pay the price. Never get caught in the crossfire of a vampire war. The siege of the Sundown Motel is on. The harvesting has begun.

“This 120,000-word novel is the culmination of nearly 20 years of work,” says Searls. “I took up Bloodthirst after finishing another horror novel called Malevolent. Both of those books were written after I sold Yellow Moon to Warner Books – at the very end of horror’s Stephen King/Peter Straub-influenced golden age. The Kings and Straubs and Koontzes begat the lurid-covered Zebras and the sudden death of the genre.

No thanks became the rallying cry of agents and editors to anything horror. Bloodthirst and Malevolent both went into a closet for about 15 years. A couple years ago, I ‘rediscovered’ both manuscripts out of curiosity. I suppose I wanted to see if there was anything salvageable in either, but to my dismay, I still liked them both. In fact, Bloodthirst’s theme of hard times and desperation seemed to ring even truer during the Great Recession than it did in the ’90s. And I’d put enough time between my writing them and reading them that I was able to see both books with a relatively impartial eye. I only had vague recollections of either plot, so I was nearly as surprised as a third-party reader as the plots unrolled.

“These books weren’t perfect by any means. I could see through additional years of writing and plotting experience that my chapters were too long, and the pace not always as tau as it could be. Easy enough to solve. Also, I needed to update the technology – give my heroes cell phones and Internet servie or come up with excuses as to why they couldn’t get tower signals or connections. Again, nothing too complex.

“I ended up finding a home for both novels with Don D’Auria at Samhain Horror. Don initially took on Malevolent, after which he asked me if I had anything else. Thus, I’ll launch two novels with Samhain in 2012. Bloodthirst comes out January 3 in electronic format, and in trade paperback format three months afterwards. Malevolent will be released simultaneously in both formats in July.”

Readers can order the ebook edition directly from Samhain Horror here: Bloodthirst Digital

And the trade paperback can be pre-ordered through Amazon.com here: Bloodthirst Paperback

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This