by Marty Young

WINNER OF THE AUSTRALIAN SHADOWS AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL

NOMINATED A NOTABLE INDIE BOOK OF 2013

Parkton is a dangerous town, full of dark secrets, and 14-year old Byron James finds himself stranded there. To make matters worse, his two new friends – his only friends – turn out to be class rejects with an unhealthy interest in monsters. They want to discover the truth to the infamous monster house at number 809 Jacob Street, and Byron is soon caught up in their game.

Joey Blue is an old bluesman who fell into his songs and couldn’t find his way out again. Now he’s one of the Gutterbreed, a slinking shifting shadow haunting the town’s too-numerous alleys. When an old dead friend comes begging for help, Joey’s world is torn apart. He is forced to stare down the man he has become in order to rescue the man he once was – and there is only one place he can do that.

The house on Jacob Street calls to them all, but what will they find when they open its door?

“This is a writer cutting his own way through horror, and I can’t wait to see where his journey takes him.” – Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Flesh Eaters and Dead City

“A refreshingly hypnotic tale that blends Monster Squad and the small-town coming-of-age themes of Stephen King to his own dark and surreal ends.” – Robert Hood, author of Immaterial and Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead

“This book gets scary… You need to buy this book, you need to get it.” – The Witching Hour Paranormal Radio Show on 4ZZZ (Broadcast on Nov 2, 2013)

Marty Young (martyyoung.com) is a Bram Stoker-nominated and Australian Shadows Award-winning writer and editor, and sometimes ghost hunter. He was the founding President of the Australian Horror Writers Association from 2005-2010, and one of the creative minds behind the internationally acclaimed Midnight Echo magazine, for which he also served as Executive Editor until mid-2013.

Marty’s first novel, 809 Jacob Street, was published in 2013 by Black Beacon Books, and won the Australian Shadows Award for Best Horror Novel. His novel was also given an Honorable Mention in Shelf Unbound’s Page Turner competition.

His short horror fiction has been nominated for both the Australian Shadows and Ditmar awards, reprinted in Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror (‘the best of 2008’), and repeatedly included in year’s best recommended reading lists. Marty’s essays on horror literature have been published in journals and university textbooks in Australia and India, and he was also co-editor of the award winning Macabre; A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears, a landmark anthology showcasing the best Australian horror stories from 1836 to the present.

When not writing, he spends his time in the deep dark jungles of Papua New Guinea as a palynologist, whatever the heck that is.