BooksChatter: ☀✂ Castle of Sorrows: The Sorrows [2]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Castle of Sorrows, a Contemporary Horror by Jonathan Janz (first published 14 July 2014; this edition 11 July 2019 Flame Tree Press, 288 pages).

This is the second book in The Sorrows series.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis, the Kindle Cloud Reader Preview below, and our Exclusive Excerpt, as well as full details of the series.

Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other exclusive excerpts (✂), and reviews (✍).

|| Synopsis || Teaser: KCR Preview || Teaser: Exclusive Excerpt || The Series || About the Author || Giveaway & Tour Stops ||

Synopsis

A year ago composer Ben Shadeland traveled to the Sorrows, a reportedly haunted island off the California coast, to find inspiration for a horror movie music score. Instead, he found madness, murder, and an ancient evil. His family barely survived the nightmare, and Ben swore he'd never return to the island or its accursed castle.

Now Ben's infant daughter has been kidnapped and Ben is convinced that the malevolent creature that lives in the catacombs beneath Castle Blackwood is responsible. Ben joins three federal agents, a sultry medium, and others in an attempt to save his daughter. But what awaits them is far worse than they ever imagined. The creature - an ancient god named Gabriel - has grown more powerful than ever. It has summoned unspeakable monsters to the island - both human and supernatural. And Gabriel won't rest until he has his revenge.

Teaser: KCR Preview

Teaser: Exclusive Excerpt

Chapter Four

           “Would you get your ass out of the house?” Nat Zimmerman said. He was as tall as Ben, but he had a bony build, so when he pushed Ben toward the front door, Ben hardly budged.
     Claire saw the look on Ben’s face and thought, Please don’t back out now.
     Joshua was already waiting in the car. Through the glass front door she could see his expectant little face peering through the back window of the car. Even on the booster seat, his face didn’t come up far enough for her to see his mouth, but his big, blue, worried eyes were enough to galvanize her into action.
     She linked her arm with Ben’s. Ben was explaining to Nat—rather redundantly, Claire judged—how often Julia needed to be fed and could he make sure he took the baby monitor with him if he and Ben’s mother went to the kitchen together?
     “Go to the kitchen together?” Nat asked. “I hardly think we need to use the buddy system.”
     Ben turned, nodded toward his mother, who stood with arms folded and a sympathetic smile on her lips.
     Ben said, “I just mean if you should happen to both get a beer at the same time, something like that.”
     “Ben,” Charlotte Shadeland said. “I haven’t had a beer since your father and I were married.”
     Ben shrugged. “Or something else.”
     Claire gave his arm a firm tug. He glanced down at her, brow knitted.
     “It’s time to celebrate your son’s birthday,” she said.
     He made a pained face. “I still don’t see why we have to go out. We can bring the food here, let Julia watch him blow out the candles.”
     “Look out the window, Ben.”
     Reluctantly, Ben did.
     From the back window of the car, Joshua’s small, pale face peered at them. Ben seemed to deflate. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
     Nat held the door while Claire led Ben through. As she passed Nat, he winked at her, and as usual, she was struck by how handsome he was, how he looked every bit his sixty years, but somehow seemed twice as virile as a man half his age. The salt-and-pepper hair was trimmed neatly, the matching mustache reminding her a little of Sam Elliott. And also like Sam Elliott, Nat Zimmerman was tall and rangy, like a cowboy or an ex-baseball player.
     Claire and Ben made their way down the walk.
     “You think there’s enough milk?” Ben asked her, throwing a glance back at the house.
     “Honey, even if I died, I’ve pumped enough bottles for Julia to survive for the next six months.”
     Ben’s face went tight. “That’s not funny.”
     “Please don’t ruin this.”
     He glanced down at her.
     “Joshua needs this,” she went on. “He hasn’t had us to himself since the day Julia was born. He’s a super kid, but even he has to get jealous sometimes, doesn’t he?”
     Ben ran a hand over his mouth and studied his shoes. “What if something goes wrong with the bottle warmer? Julia could burn her mouth.”
     “Your mom is almost as cautious as you are,” Claire said. “Where do you think you get that from?”
     Ben nodded.
     “Nat’s here in case anything happens—”
     Ben looked up at her.
     “—which it won’t,” she added quickly. “And your mom still has her nursing training. You couldn’t ask for a safer environment.”
     “It’d be safer if I was here.”
     She stared at him until he met her eyes.
     “Ben?” she said.
     “What?”
     “Put on your big boy pants.”


     Ben was wrong. They had a wonderful time at the seafood place Joshua chose. They went out afterward for ice cream and a walk, and they returned to the ranch road at around nine forty-five.
     Joshua and Claire were debating whether Joshua would have to go straight to bed when they got home when Ben felt it for the first time, the whisper of unease. He told himself it was pointless paranoia, but as they threaded their way up the mountain road, the whisper grew in strength and clarity: You made a mistake.
     Ben clenched the wheel harder. He flicked on his brights, though a lusterless orange twilight still lingered. He didn’t like it, that tingling at the nape of his neck. It was like they were driving under a high-tension wire, some of the electricity transferring to them through the air.
     Ben swallowed. Claire and Joshua hadn’t noticed his disquiet yet. He supposed that was good. But their arguing had grown loud enough to distract him, and not in a good way. Not in a way that took his mind off of Julia—in a way that made him yearn to shout at them, to demand they shut the hell up for one minute so he could get them home. And then Claire and Nat and his mom could make fun of him all they wanted. At this particular moment Ben cared about nothing else but his baby girl, his sweet little trusting Julia, who was
     (dead)
     probably lying on her tummy asleep, the way she often rested despite the fact that Ben worried about crib death, and what a stupid, senseless phrase that was. Why did there even have to be such a thing? Why couldn’t babies just be safe until they got old enough to deserve the consequences of their actions? No baby deserved to have a rash, much less anything as serious as
     (murdered)
     NO! Ben’s mind screamed. No murder, no injury, no anything, not even a blistered tongue from a too-hot bottle. Julia was going to be fine, she was going to be—
     They rounded the last corner, and when Ben looked at the house and saw the glass front door, he knew nothing was ever going to be fine again.

Castle of Sorrows
Available NOW!

The Series: The Sorrows

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

The Sorrows [1]

The Sorrows, an island off the coast of northern California, and its castle have been uninhabited since a series of gruesome murders in 1925. But its owner needs money, so he allows film composers Ben and Eddie and a couple of their female friends to stay a month in Castle Blackwood. Eddie is certain a haunted castle is just the setting Ben needs to find inspiration for a horror film.

But what they find is more horrific than any movie. Something is waiting for them in the castle. A malevolent being has been trapped for nearly a century. And he’s ready to feed.

[First published 6 December 2011; this edition 30 November 2018, 288 pages]

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About the Author

Jonathan Janz grew up between a dark forest and a graveyard, which explains everything. Brian Keene named his debut novel The Sorrows "the best horror novel of 2012." The Library Journal deemed his follow-up, House of Skin, "reminiscent of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Peter Straub's Ghost Story."

Since then Jonathan's work has been lauded by writers like Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Tim Waggoner, Bryan Smith, and Ronald Kelly. Novels like The Nightmare Girl, Wolf Land, Savage Species, and Dust Devils prompted Thunderstorm Books to sign Jonathan to an eleven-book deal and to give him his own imprint, Jonathan Janz's Shadow Side.

His novel Children of the Dark received a starred review in Booklist and was chosen by their board as one of the Top Ten Horror Books of the Year (August 2015-September 2016). Children of the Dark will soon be translated into German and has been championed by the Library Journal, the School Library Journal, and Cemetery Dance. In early 2017, his novel Exorcist Falls was released to critical acclaim.

Jonathan's primary interests are his wonderful wife and his three amazing children, and though he realizes that every author's wife and children are wonderful and amazing, in this case the cliché happens to be true. You can learn more about Jonathan at http://jonathanjanz.com. You can sign up for his Shadow World newsletter here.

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