#38 - Tuning Into Terror: Author TJ Payne on Re-wiring Haunted House Tropes into a Clinical Nightmare

#46: The Gothic Reframed: Charlotte Cross on Carving a Fresh Voice Within the Dracula Mythos in Her Debut Novel ‘The Brides’

‘Come to me, and be mine for eternity’ Historical fiction author Charlotte Cross [https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/charlotte-cross/47736] launches her debut novel, The Brides [https://amzn.to/44KLkLV], in the US tomorrow (7 July). Having harboured a lifelong fascination with history, Cross grounds her new narrative in the framework of Bram Stoker’s Dracula—reintroducing familiar figures like Jonathan Harker, Lord Godalming, and Abraham Van Helsing, but entirely reframing the perspective. Written in an epistolary format—and ideal for fans of Kat Dunn’s Bitterthorn and Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian—The Brides is a sapphic horror love story set in 1884. The plot follows Mafalda as she journeys to Budapest to care for her grieving aunt, swiftly followed by her secret love, Lucy, who travels from London with a chaperone and lady’s maid in tow. However, the maid, Alice, is plagued by terrifying visions brought on by “the Sight.”  When their chaperone falls ill, the women head into Transylvania in search of healing waters, ultimately accepting a nobleman’s invitation to Castle Dracula—where their host’s dark ambitions threaten to tear them apart. In celebration of the book’s US launch, CinemaChords caught up with Cross to uncover the “delightfully monstrous” blueprints behind this gothic subversion, tracing her journey to find an authentic voice inside a century-old literary shadow and exploring why horror remains our most honest mirror for dissecting the human condition. Get your copy of The Brides here: https://amzn.to/4p9Tx5R

#45 - Chuck Tingle Talks ‘Fabulous Bodies’: Turning Influencer Culture into Blood-Soaked Midnight Movie Mayhem

“These days, nobody seems to care about the experience, they just expect everyone else’s time for doing absolutely fucking nothing.” So declares one of the key characters in Fabulous Bodies [https://amzn.to/4fcQ3Mq], the highly anticipated new novel from USA Today bestselling author Chuck Tingle [https://www.chucktingle.com/]. It’s a line that hits shockingly close to the bone, perfectly encapsulating a book that’s bound to become a major topic of discussion when it publishes this coming July 7th through Titan Books [https://titanbooks.com/72792-fabulous-bodies/] in the UK and Tor Nightfire [https://torpublishinggroup.com/fabulous-bodies/] in the US. For us, Fabulous Bodies is a brilliantly bonkers, genre-fluid chiller that reads like a late-night ’80s midnight movie for the online age. Melding the close-quarters, adrenaline-inducing stakes of Michael Mann’s Collateral with the cult sci-fi schlock of The Hidden, the novel drags an initially detestable delinquent into the orbit of a sinister, charismatic figure. Yet, beneath its trippy, B-movie exterior, you will find a fiercely sharp critique of influencer culture and our insatiable appetite for shock value, exposing a modern narcissism that rewards increasingly extreme behaviour for fleeting attention. The result is a wildly entertaining but deeply resonant critique that ultimately forces readers to reckon with whether great art can ever truly excuse destructive impulses. The novel charts the misadventures of Poppy Stringer, an aspiring fashion influencer by day who moonlights as a Palm Springs grave robber by night to make ends meet. When her ultimate idol – the flamboyant, piano-slamming rock icon Eddie Michaels – unexpectedly dies, Poppy is offered a lucrative payday to snatch his corpse from the medical examiner. What should be a straightforward final score quickly turns into absolute, unadulterated chaos when the deceased rock star suddenly wakes up, triggering a fabulously blood-soaked joyride of pure grindhouse cinematic carnage.  In anticipation of the book’s release, we caught up with Tingle to discuss how he merged this contemporary satire on fame and performance with the raw energy of an ’80s midnight movie. The author also opened up about using “America’s iconic answer to Elton John” to interrogate the sinister side of creative genius, and just how much the narrative was informed by his own experiences navigating the surreal reality of meeting personal heroes. Grab your copy of the book here: https://tinyurl.com/FabulousBodies

#44: Paul Tremblay Talks ‘Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep,’ AI, Human Agency and the Horror of Surrendering Ourselves to Technology

One of our most anticipated books of the year, Paul Tremblay [https://cinemachords.com/?s=Paul+Tremblay]’s latest, Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep [https://amzn.to/4f1tp9E], is all set to publish this coming June 30th through Bloomsbury [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/dead-but-dreaming-of-electric-sheep-9781037205798/]. Taking aim at contemporary AI anxieties and the growing influence of technology giants, the book spins a surreal, darkly satirical and terrifying work of speculative fiction about technological overreach and human fragility that feels all too plausible in the not-too-distant future.    The book follows Julia Flang, a twenty-something temp, who is tasked with remotely guiding a man in a vegetative state – whose implanted AI links him to a shifting, nightmarish reality – across the country. As his memories resurface and danger mounts, Julia and her unlikely charge must navigate a surreal, grotesque world while uncovering who he really is and who he must find. In anticipation of the book’s release, CinemaChords sat down with Tremblay, who reflected on the unsettling inspiration behind the novel’s AI-controlled Weekend at Bernie’s premise, its examination of humanity’s growing deference to technology, and why lived experience, memory and art remain vital antidotes to a future increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.Grab your copy of the book here: https://amzn.to/4f1tp9ESUBSCRIBE To Howard's Haunt on YouTube so as not to miss out on any upcoming videos: https://bit.ly/2KUmvrp

#43: Daniel Kraus on His Sci-Fi Frightmare ‘The Sixth Nik,’ Cronenbergian Biotech, and the Fight for Human Emotion

Fresh off taking home the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction [https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/daniel-kraus] for his World War I novel, Angel Down [https://cinemachords.com/cinemachords-best-horror-books-of-2025-so-far-top-horror-novels-you-need-to-read/], New York Times bestselling author Daniel Kraus [https://www.danielkraus.com/] is all set to take readers on a galaxy-spanning adventure in his latest release, The Sixth Nik [https://amzn.to/4efSugV], which publishes this June 23 through S&S/Saga Press [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Sixth-Nik/Daniel-Kraus/9781668079478]. Part cosmic space opera, part body-horror frightmare, The Sixth Nik transcends genre to take readers far beyond the edges of civilized space where The Sickness—a sentient ship woven from living biomatter—is charting a course toward uncharted cosmic terror. Onboard is Sisilla, a nine-year-old cultist with a brain enhanced by arcane tech known as “niks,” sent to uncover why a plague-ridden planet has suddenly gone rogue.But the planet is far from the only threat. Trapped with a volatile, NonModded captain with a score to settle with Sisilla, a hacked robot that thinks she’s its child, and a living ship that is terrifyingly mutating from the inside out, Sisilla needs to survive long enough to uncover a cosmic secret far more terrifying than anyone could ever have imagined. In anticipation of the book’s release, CinemaChords sat down with Kraus, who shared his inspirations for creating a world that defies the laws of physics and leans into unprecedented, futuristic, Cronenbergian (bio)tech, sure to give you recurring, claustrophobic nightmares. We also discussed the novel’s exploration of deeply nihilistic themes, particularly how the “Niffakoq” colony draws bleak parallels to our own tech-saturated world. This includes how emotion becomes a form of rebellion in a society obsessed with absolute efficiency, and how we can’t stop progress—we can only mop up the mess. And, despite the book’s grim backdrop, we also covered the story’s glimmer of hope in how Sisilla’s struggle to unlearn her programmed instincts serves as a much-needed lesson in moral sovereignty. Secure your copy of The Sixth Nik here: https://amzn.to/4ebLmAK [https://amzn.to/4ebLmAK] Add it to Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242986069-the-sixth-nik [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242986069-the-sixth-nik]

#42 - Grief, Folklore, and Highway Horror: CJ Leede Talks Grimy New Shocker Novel 'Headlights'

CJ Leede [https://torpublishinggroup.com/author/cj-leede/] has fast earned her stripes for her ability to make readers care before she makes them scared. Her knack for pairing pure, unadulterated terror with deeply empathetic character work is unmatched, and her brilliant new shocker Headlights [https://torpublishinggroup.com/headlights/] doubles down on that signature formula. Born from a deeply personal period of grief and disillusionment, the book uses the backdrop of Colorado folklore to map the sinister anatomy of highway murders. For anyone fond of the tightly wound, sinister procedural thrills of Seven, "True Detective", or "Hannibal"/The Silence of the Lambs, this is bound to be your next absolute obsession - a relentlessly tight procedural where the book's grisly roadside horrors are matched blow-for-blow by the brilliant psychological depth of a deeply scarred cast. The novel centers on Special Agent Daniel Stansfield. On the brink of stepping away from the FBI, Stansfield is pulled back to Denver when seemingly innocent people are discovered on highways wearing the skin of total strangers, each with a single strand of hair tied around their tongue. To stop the cycle, he must confront both his own traumatic past and the entity behind these gruesome crimes before more lives - including his own - are claimed. To celebrate the book’s release tomorrow, June 9th, via Tor Nightfire [https://torpublishinggroup.com/headlights/],CinemaChords caught up with Leede to reflect on the novel’s geographical grounding in Colorado, her dedication to scratching that "anchored-in-reality" itch so the supernatural elements carry real resonance, and how her prose consciously rejects the reductive, single-trauma shorthand often found in fiction, opting instead for nuanced character studies that ultimately lend the book’s visceral horrors a satisfyingly profound psychological anchor. Secure your copy of HEADLIGHTS here [https://torpublishinggroup.com/headlights/].