LJ Cohen

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• New Release
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While it's been a *very* long time since September meant back to school time in my life -- even my children are now out in the working world -- I nonetheless still see the Autumn as a starting place.

And after taking a year long hiatus from working on a long form project, I am ready to head out to buy new notebooks and pens and get back to work.

I have several projects vying for attention in my story-brain, including a massive structural reworking of a ghost story I wrote before the Halcyone Space novels and for which I have new ideas and new energy for.

If you follow me on social media, you may have noticed that I've been posting a lot of photos tagged #StarFieldFarm. 2 years ago, I bought a house in central Massachusetts that in a few years will be my home. For now, it's a space for renewal and writing retreats. But it's also a place that lives comfortably with its ghosts.

It is nearby the Quabbin reservoir, the large valley that in another century was flooded for the water that now serves Boston. There are four towns that were relocated, including their cemeteries. I've always been fascinated with the area and its stories, ever since I read my children Jane Yolen's Letting Swift River Go.

Little did I know that the Quabbin would be in my backyard, so to speak.

There is also a potential ghost story tied in with the property my new home sits on. In the early 1900's the land was purchased by a Canadian railroad magnate who wanted to build a new railroad to compete with the ones already in the area. The land was surveyed and partially cleared, but the railway was never built because the owner drowned in the Titanic.

I often imagine a ghost train moving through the woods.

Stay tuned as my life returns to the rhythms of daily writing and the new stories I am eager to explore.

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One of the organizations I'm a member of is the New England Speculative Writers Association. It's founding member, Jeremy Flagg, has a new release out this week called Nighthawks.

 

Rick Wayne is a friend and fellow author whose work I have recommended in the past. He has recently released a complete revision and expansion of a series of occult mysteries that is unlike anything I have ever read before.

I loved the early versions of the stories (he had me with eccentric shaman chef) and watched as he poured his heart and soul into making them even better than they had been. I'm spellbound, working my way through the first volume of the two volume set of FEAST OF SHADOWS and can't wait to read all the new material, including the final story that ties all of the previous 'courses' together.

Rick is a skilled storyteller--when I read his work, I know I'm in good hands. If you like mysteries of ordinary people drawn into an ancient tale of magic, suspense, and betrayal, then I highly recommend FEAST OF SHADOWS.

Years ago, driven by greed, men penetrated the last soft places on earth. Out of the clear-cut jungle—out of nowhere—a man appeared, eyes rimmed in blue. The last shaman. A man who could make magic.

Now a recluse, known to modern society only as an eccentric chef, he is locked in an occult battle with an unseen nemesis. Their prize: a most unusual book, penned before the fall of Babylon, said to contain the recipe for eternal night.

Across five stories, five victims of inexplicable events narrate their encounters with an enigmatic titan of magic, a man without a past, whose tattooed palms hold the power to alter human history—or to end it.

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