Hailey Piper

Release day: Song of the Tyrant Worm

The end has come.

It began in 2020 with The Worm and His Kings, continued in 2023 with Even the Worm Will Turn, and now concludes with Song of the Tyrant Worm, out today in ebook and paperback from Off Limits Press and audiobook from Tantor and available from Barnes & NobleBookshop, Amazon, Libro.FM, Audiobooks.com.

Cassie Daley drew up the gorgeous cover art, depicting the Gray Maiden against eerie cosmos.

I’ve already listened to the audiobook and Allyson Voller brings the narration to a haunting close.

This has been a long journey. I could’ve never foreseen a short story I wrote and abandoned in early 2019 would become a book, and then two books, and then a trilogy. I’m ever grateful to the readers, reviewers, booksellers, and other authors who’ve taken this story of kings and gods and New York into their hearts, as well as a massively supportive publisher who’s weathered delays from me, changes of plan, and more to bring this book into the world.

Thank you all. Now to follow the Gray Maiden beneath Manhattan one last time.

New York City, 1990: The Gray Maiden has served the almighty Worm and his faithful for her entire life. Recently that has meant abducting women off the street to find the Worm’s destined Bride, but any brutality is worth his promise of a better world to come.

“Between the Mind and the Dark” in Cosmic Horror Monthly

I have a new story out today!

I’m pleased to return to the wonderful Cosmic Horror Monthly in their 47th issue with my tale “Between the Mind and the Dark,” set in the summer of 1977, when a widower’s art project becomes an otherworldly obsession.

You can check it out here!

Also the final book in The Worm and His Kings trilogy, Song of the Tyrant Worm, is up for paperback pre-order at Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Amazon. The Worm saga’s finale releases June 8th!

These two pieces of news just might be related. You’ll have to see!

Worm pre-orders + limited edition

Two bits of The Worm and His Kings news today!

First, the final book in the trilogy, Song of the Tyrant Worm, is up for Kindle pre-order alongside audio options. The paperback will go up soon, too.

In the meantime, Thunderstorm Books will be publishing The Worm and His Kings Saga, which will contain all three books in a limited edition signed hardcover. This is a collector’s item, only available until May 19th, with unique artwork by Evangeline Gallagher, who gave their dazzling touch to the eerie blend of New York City and the cosmos.

Expected ship date is July, but again, these are only available until May 19, and then they’re gone.

From the publisher:

“Long ago, in a time now dead, one note changed our world forever.”

Manhattan 1990: Monique’s girlfriend Donna has vanished without a trace. Only after the disappearances of several other impoverished women does she hear the rumors of a gray creature rising from the underground to snatch victims off the street, and Donna might be one of them. When Monique decides to give chase, she’ll plunge into a subterranean world of monsters, monarchs, cultists, and gods both beyond her understanding and closer than she thinks.

So begins the sprawling trilogy of the almighty Worm. Join Monique, Donna, the Gray Maiden, and more in desperate searches for lost lovers, dire revelations, and shattered futures, where every step brings the discomforting touch of celestial cruelty.

Hailed as a modern cosmic horror classic, exploring queerness, worship, connection, transcendence, and fate, the original novella The Worm and His Kings has been gathered here for the first time in a single volume with its sequels, Even the Worm Will Turn and Song of the Tyrant Worm. Together, they invite you down mysterious caverns within the earth, into strange histories, and out of the world you know, where you’ll come face-to-face with a darkness that stretches from the dawn of time and across the stars.

Signed by Hailey Piper

No Gods for Drowning update

As you might have seen on social media, Polis Books is closing down and its titles are going out of print. This includes No Gods for Drowning, my novel mixing dark fantasy, noir, and horror into a genre stew of serial killers, detectives, sea monsters, and bloodthirsty gods.

The audiobook from Dreamscape, narrated by the ever-talented Jodie Harris, will remain available.

There will also continue to be short stories set in the world of Aeon.

No Gods for Drowning will find a new home in time. Until then, thank you to everyone who’s taken the visit to the shores of Aeg.

Release day: Cranberry Cove

At last, it’s release day!

My supernatural crime novella Cranberry Cove is loose in the world from Bad Hand Books. Tremendously grateful to them, Lynne Hansen with her stunning, eerie cover art, Eric LaRocca and Booklist for their kind words pre-release, and everyone who’s pre-ordered checking it out. No Gods for Drowning was my first foray into crime fiction with its genre stew, and getting to wade deeper in with this supernatural crime novella is a treat. The doors are open.

Available in paperback and ebook from: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop

Something unspeakable is happening at Cranberry Cove.

For decades, the chilling mystery within the derelict hotel has claimed those foolish and unwary enough to go inside.

Following the violent assault of a criminal kingpin’s adult son, enforcer Emberly Hale takes a dark journey into the haunted core of Cranberry Cove—and her own past—to find out the horrible truth.

“The best crossover episode of Law & Order: SVU and X-Files that you never knew you wanted and now cannot live without.”

—Booklist

Cranberry Cove feels like a more thoughtful and nuanced episode of Tales from the Crypt with its harrowing examination of masculinity and gender roles inside a carnivorous hotel. Exquisitely written with Piper’s signature lush and haunting prose, this bleak and undeniably upsetting novella will provoke and excite like all excellent works of art should.”

—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

cover reveal: All the Hearts You Eat

I’m a day late but not a vampire short: yesterday Titan Books revealed the cover to my upcoming modern gothic coastal vampire novel, All the Hearts You Eat!

The sea wants blood, and Julia Lloyd’s gorgeous cover screams out its beastly thirst. It also shows a few kind words from Chuck Wendig:

“A dark and powerful undertow … it’ll pull you far, far out to sea.”

All the Hearts You Eat is up for pre-order at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Bookshop, Libro.FM & more, and will wash ashore from Titan Books on October 15th.

What really happened to Cabrina Brite?

Ivory’s life changes irrevocably when she discovers the body of Cabrina Brite on the sands of Cape Morning, along with a mysterious poem. How did she die, and why does it seem she was trying to swim to Ghost Cat Island, the center of so many local mysteries?

Desperate to uncover the answers surrounding Cabrina’s death, and haunted by her discovery, Ivory begins to see the pale ghost of Cabrina, only to shake it off as a mere hallucination. But Ivory is not alone. Cabrina’s closest friends have also seen a similar apparition, and as they toy with occult possibilities, they begin to unravel the truth behind Cabrina’s death.

Because Cape Morning isn’t a ghost town, but a town filled with ghosts, and Ivory is about to discover just what happens when you let one in.

 

TGONG pre-orders return!

You might have noticed that the pre-orders page for The Ghostlands of Natalie Glasgow disappeared for a few weeks. Rooster Republic was doing some remodeling.

But it’s back now! The limited edition hardcover is up for order once again. Gathering The Possession of Natalie Glasgow alongside six all-new interconnected stories, the hardcover is up for order until April 30th. After that, it will no longer be available, but there’s still plenty of time before then.

Also, I was recently at the Scarelastic Book Fair in McCordsville, Indiana and it was wonderful. If you have a chance next year, check it out!

Next event: I’ll be at AuthorCon 3 in Williamsburg, Virginia from April 12th-14th. Hope to see you there!

Events, upcoming books 2024

A few quick things!

This weekend (Saturday, March 2nd) I’ll be in McCordsville, Indiana at the Scarlet Lane Brewing Company for the Scarelastic Book Fair with plenty of cool horror folk. It’s going to be a fantastic time!

Also, look what’s arrived!

These are the copies of Cranberry Cove pre-ordered directly from the publisher, Bad Hand Books. There are a couple hundred to sign, and then hopefully they’ll be getting out before the April 2nd release date. Can’t wait for the doors to open on this abandoned hotel. It’s also still up for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Lastly, and perhaps out of the usual chronology (fitting for the Worm series), Song of the Tyrant Worm audiobook is up for pre-order. The other format pre-orders are still to come, but if audio is your jam, you can find this one on Libro.FM.

Song of the Tyrant Worm cover reveal

Excited to reveal the cover for the final book in The Worm and His Kings trilogy, Song of the Tyrant Worm!

Cassie Daley is the artist, and she’s captured all the cosmic weirdness of the book and the series as a whole in this dazzling visage of portals and planets and starlight.

Plot synopsis and pre-order is still to be announced, but Song of the Tyrant Worm will be out from Off Limits om June 8th! The end is coming.

In other book news (now’s a good time to remind I have four books releasing this year, right?), the paperback for Cranberry Cove is now up for pre-order on Barnes & Noble.