The Thing in the Woods - Softcover

Quinn, Matthew W.; Fiction, Digital

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1988863112 ISBN 13: 9781988863115

Publisher: Digital Horror Fiction, an imprint of Digital Fiction Publishing Corp., 2017

Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old James Daly thought moving from Atlanta to small-town Edington senior year would kill him, but he didn't mean it literally.

But his father bought a bigger house to go with a promotion at his law firm, only to lose his job when the housing bubble popped. Now James has to work at the Edington Best Buy to help pay the mortgage they're underwater on. He can't wait until he turns eighteen and can leave Edington behind forever. But when a local boy challenges him to an ATV race near a tree farm most people avoid, things get much worse. James' rival is slaughtered by a tentacled horror emerging from a nearby pond.

The monstrosity has been worshiped by a secretive coven since before the Civil War, and its devotees don't take kindly to their secrets being threatened.

Now with the aid of Amber Webb, a local girl he doesn't like liking, and a renegade cult member, James must fight to avoid ending up bound to a picnic table and offered up to a monster. He must do battle with both the local cultists and their predatory master, THE THING IN THE WOODS.

• ★★★★★ Quinn writes effectively and convincingly in recreating a new take on H.P. Lovecraft and the genre. I am not much of a fan of horror, but this work kept the right mix of tempo, detail, suspense, interesting characters, and plot development to keep me engaged. The creepiest horror stories are the ones that take place in setting just like where you live... - John Allred


• ★★★★★ This is Not Mayberry - This tale of a Lovecraftian cult in the backwoods of a rural Georgia town is both suspenseful and frightening. The creature being worshiped by the cult is an ancient, multi-tentacled monster that lives in a lake in the middle of an isolated tree farm. When high school student James Daly stumbles upon the cult and watches the monster devour a rival classmate, things go downhill fast. Matthew W. Quinn blends together small-town politics, Civil War legends, and more profanity than Lovecraft himself would be comfortable with. This is not Mayberry. Highly recommended for fans of eldritch horror in a realistic, modern-day setting. - Darrell Grizzle


• ★★★★★ Good Read - A fast-paced horror novel with a likeable hero, a monster with a backstory, and a hidden commentary on social issues in southern small towns. - Alex S.

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Thank you for your interest in our book. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed presenting it. - Digital Fiction

About this title

About the Author

Matthew W. Quinn (b. 1984) grew up in Marietta, Georgia. After graduating from the University of Georgia with a dual degree in magazine journalism and history, he has reported for one newspaper, edited two more, reported for an online news service, a sports magazine, and a trade show, blogged for a cloud-computing firm and two film companies, and collected Twitter feeds for online ad campaigns. His work has brought him into contact with presidential candidates, television celebrities, and notable authors and once earned him a commendation from the Georgia Department of Veterans' Service. After earning his M.A. in World History, he now works as a high-school social studies teacher. Throughout all of this, he has written science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His first sale, the creature tale "I am the Wendigo" to the horror webzine CHIMAERA SERIALS, was during his last year at college. 2009 saw the sale of "Skirmish at the Vale's Edge" to BattleCorps, the official BattleTech tie-in site. He made his first professional sale, "Coil Gun," to Digital Fiction Publishing's Kindle anthology PRESSURE SUITE: DIGITAL SCIENCE FICTION #3 in 2011. He also sold the Viking horror tale "Nicor" to HEROIC FANTASY QUARTERLY, which published it in early 2013. In 2015 and 2016, reprints of his independently-published short stories "Picking Up Plans in Palma," "The Beast of the Bosporus," "Illegal Alien," and "Lord Giovanni's Daughter" have appeared in Digital Fiction Publishing's collections UNCOMMON SENSES, OPERATIVE SEQUENCE, and COSMIC HOOEY.

Edition details

• Publisher: Digital Horror Fiction, an imprint of Digital Fiction Publishing Corp.
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1988863112
• ISBN 13: 9781988863115
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192