The Year in Review: 2014

2014 is finally over. It's been a long but good year, and I hope all my readers are looking back fondly on it and/or starting the exciting challenge that is 2015! It's a new year, let's all do great things!

But now, the year in review.

I started the year with a flurry of releases. Wanting to rush out of the gate, I put out four books within a month. First were two of my darker works. The Lost and the Damned is a straight up horror novel about a detective trapped in a monster-infested mental institution. Can private detective John Keats rescue the girl and get out of the hospital that's collapsing across space and time? Cowards and Killers is dark noir story addressing a simple question: If you knew you would go to Hell when you died, what would you be willing to do to stay alive? Would you kill someone else to hold on just a little longer?

The next two releases were the first and second novels of the Damned Lies Series. A geeky absurdist adventure with a snarky narrator living an outlandish life, volume one allowed readers to see the narrator deal with a clone, a hobo boxing circuit, dark mystics, government bunkers, a vampire, and a nun. Volume two, Damned Lies Strike Back, paid the first's story back double time with a college mystery gang, a Lovecraftian cult, giant robots, drugs, magic, swords, an epic confrontation, and the destruction of a coastal California city by skyscraper-sized alien god.

Next up was April, when the third Damned Lies novel, Damned Lies of the Dead 3D, hit the scene. One long humorous meditation on death in its permutations, it was the obligatory zombie novel of the series. But it wasn't just about zombies. It also included the afterlife, deals with the Devil, ghosts and ghost hunters, exorcists, super powered fighting tournaments, and a few lingering loose ends.

After that was my mashup novella, Cthulhu, Private Investigator. Ever felt like you wanted your favorite Lovecraftian Old Ones mashed up into a 1940s detective noir story? Cthulhu narrates this tale of murder and betrayal. Do you like Hammet, like Chandler? Do you like Lovecraft? Want them all mashed together in a blender to create an unholy literary monstrosity with a tongue placed firmly in a tentacled cheek? Then here it is. You're welcome.

Over the summer, I put out two short stories. First, Confession to a Friend was a short horror tale about two men taking a ride out into the desert, doing drugs, and finding out what lurks in the middle of nowhere as well as in men's hearts. On the other side of the spectrum was Balls, an absurdist humor tale. An underwear model who is also an adjunct profession in all subjects testicular, his inherent narcissism comes face to face in a head-on collision with an admirer whose affections lean toward the dangerous side. The best part about Balls and Confession to a Friend? They're both completely free and will be so for the forseeable future. So if you haven't read them, go check them out!

Next came Voices of Madness in September. Voices scream in the head of William Drake, setting him on a mad quest. Along his path, he pisses off four unlikely heroes: an armchair occultist, a Taoist exorcist, a college dropout, and a punk rock singer. Together they vow to chase Drake to the end of the world and if they're lucky, to stop the resurrection of a god. It's also a prequel to The Lost and the Damned, but no knowledge of that other book is required for this story; there's just a relationship between the two for those who like such things.

The year was rounded out by a western short story, The Devil Takes His Cut. Two aging outlaws on the run find themselves shot and dying in a strange foggy mountain range where the past returns. Years ago a deal was made and that debt is coming up. It's also inspired by an upcoming album by the band acid buffalo.

And so ends 2014. But that's not to say that 2015 won't be a great year! I've already announced the new urban fantasy novel, I Kill Monsters for February 3rd. It's about Mikkel and Szandor Nowak, two young monster hunters with a punk rock attitude who hunt ghouls and zombies under the streets of the modern American city of New Avalon. Watch for more information on that in the coming days!

Finally, if you want to keep track of everything coming, there are many ways to do so. There's a newsletter now, a facebook page, and a goodreads page besides the usual suspects of twitter, my Amazon author page, and more.

To close, it's been quite an eventful 2014 but I'm coming out of 2015 swinging with more for you to read! Thank you all for reading and welcome to all my future readers! Let's make 2015 even better than 2014!

Sincerely,

Dennis Liggio

P.S. Looking to get samples of some of 2014's best? Check out the excerpts over at my Book page!

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