I’m thrilled to be a stop on the blog tour for Heather Brewer’s The Cemetery Boys. Heather is one of the kindest and most genuine authors I’ve met… even if the synopsis for this book scares the tuna salad outta me! Read on for more about the book, a guest post, and a giveaway!
About the Book:
When Stephen is forced to move back to the nowhere town where his father grew up, he’s already sure he’s not going to like it. Spencer, Michigan, is like a town straight out of a Hitchcock movie, with old-fashioned people who see things only in black-and-white. But things start looking up when Stephen meets the mysterious twins Cara and Devon. They’re total punks–hardly the kind of people Stephen’s dad wants him hanging out with–but they’re a breath of fresh air in this backward town. The only problem is, Cara and Devon don’t always get along, and as Stephen forms a friendship with the charismatic Devon and something more with the troubled Cara, he starts to feel like he’s getting caught in the middle of a conflict he doesn’t fully understand. And as Devon’s group of friends, who hang out in a cemetery they call The Playground, get up to increasingly reckless activities to pass the summer days, Stephen worries he may be in over his head.
Stephen’s fears prove well-founded when he learns of Spencer’s dark past. It seems the poor factory town has a history of “bad times,” and many of the town’s oldest residents attribute the bad times to creatures right out of an urban legend. The legend goes that the only way the town will prosper again is if someone makes a sacrifice to these nightmarish creatures. And while Stephen isn’t one to believe in old stories, it seems Devon and his gang might put a lot of faith in them. Maybe even enough to kill for them.
Now, Stephen has to decide what he believes, where his allegiances lie, and who will really be his friend in the end.
About the Author:
Heather Brewer grew up on a diet of Twilight Zone and books by Stephen King. She chased them downwith every drop of horror she could find—in books, movie theaters, on television. The most delicious parts of her banquet, however, she found lurking in the shadowed corners of her dark imagination. When she’s not writing books, she’s skittering down your wall and lurking underneath your bed. Heather doesn’t believe in happy endings . . . unless they involve blood. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two children.
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Guest Post:
What Scares Auntie Heather
By Heather Brewer
I like scary things. I grew up watching the imaginings of Hitchcock, Serling, and Romero. I ate up the words of Poe and King like they were candy. To me, scary things are a comfort. They remind me that the world is often an ugly, frightening place, but in the end, I’m prepared to face whatever it is that will come.
When I decided to write a stand-alone, I knew that I wanted it to be scary, but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write about. So I asked myself – what scares me? The answer, of course, was “clowns”, and my immediate response to that was “NONONONONOTOOSCARYTOOSCARY”. So I gave it a lot of thought and realized that the one thing that truly does scare me (apart from clowns, that is) is the idea of returning home again, to the small town I grew up in.
I had a terrible childhood, but more than that, the place where I grew up felt so suffocating, so defeating. I longed to escape it, and the very idea of being forced to move back there sends a shiver of dread up my spine.
Now, as pretty much everyone knows, authors take a sick thrill in tormenting ourcharacters (and afterward we celebrate by having tea and cookies with Satan). So I sent my protagonist, Stephen, to live in the town of Spencer – a small town in Michigan that feels more than a little bit familiar to me. Population 814.
Well…816 now, if you count Stephen and his dad. Unless, of course, you’d like
If you do, try not to stay too long. Spencer has a history. But then, you know how small towns are…
Thanks so much to Heather for sharing this post! Also, double thanks for not writing about clowns (they’re terrifying!)
Giveaway:
Enter to win a copy of The Cemetery Boys! US only!!
Ange/Libby Blog
I love this guest post! And clowns are seriously creepy!!! Why are they even a thing? I just do NOT get it!