Tales of Wonder and Dread Marks Anniversary With New Books

POPLAR GROVE, Ill. - Sept. 4, 2022 - PRLog -- September 4th, 2022 is the fourth anniversary of Poplar Grove, Illinois based Tales of Wonder and Dread Publishing. In commemoration that, T.O.W.D. published four new books. The books are "Horrifying Halloween: Halloween Poems and Tales," "It Ends in the Graveyard," "Spooky Berwyn Two: More Creepy Tales from the Chicago Area" and "Spooky Stateline: Creepy Tales from the Illinois / Wisconsin Border Area."

"Horrifying Halloween: Halloween Poems and Tales" gathers poems and stories with a Halloween focus. There are vintage stories from Mary Wilkins Freeman and Eleanor L. Skinner along with retro poems from J. K. Bangs, Joel Benton, George Francis Dawson, H. P. Lovecraft, A.F. Murray, Eleanor L. Skinner and Robert Louis Stevenson. Frank Coffman provides three new poems, and Eileen Eggert supplies one. Del Merritt and Paul Lubaczewski each contribute one story to the collection. R. C. Mulhare supplies two. Editor Gary Hill adds two brand new fiction stories and one non-fiction tale to round out the collection. The book is divided into a family friendly section and a section that comes with more of a parental advisory.

The GoodReads description for "It Ends in the Graveyard" says, "They say you shouldn't give away the ending, but this tale ends in the graveyard. In Gary Hill's second horror novella a horror writer named 'Apexan' recounts the real life story that inspired their first book. It's a tale of an ancient mystery hidden in a forest. It's a saga of monsters and murders. It's also a story of change."

The follow up to 2019's "Spooky Berwyn," "Spooky Berwyn Two: More Creepy Tales from the Chicago Area" presents 17 non-fiction spooky tales and two fiction stories based in the greater Chicago area. Like its predecessor, the title is not totally accurate because the area covered is the full Chicago area, rather than the suburb of Berwyn. While that first book featured a couple tales set in Berwyn, this one does not. The title is an homage to horror host Svengoolie (Rich Koz) and his show. The book features non-fiction from Hill, Rick Hale, Diane Hill and Mike Korn. Gary Hill penned one of the fiction stories, while Jay Sturner wrote the other.

The GoodReads description for "Spooky Stateline" says "You might be familiar with 'Spooky Rockford' and 'Spooky Rockford Two.' In a way you can look at this as Spooky Rockford Three, but it moves further out to the whole stateline area this time. This book features both non-fiction and fiction. The non-fiction is from Diane Hill, Gary Hill, Mike Korn and Stephen Osborne. The fiction was created by Gary Hill and Jay Sturner.

The books are available in paperback and hardcover at lulu.com/spotlight/strangesound and GaryHillAuthor.com.