8/19/26

Trade paperback and eBook editions of BENEATH THE LOST LEVEL — the fourth book in The Lost Level series — went up for preorder yesterday. Release Date is December 15th, 2026 but if you preorder now, you’ll save 30%! Click here to reserve your copy direct from the publisher.

Charged with another impossible task, with only their wits, weapons, and a group of helpful frog-people to aid them, Aaron and his friends must fight to escape from… Beneath the Lost Level.

After escaping the snake-like Anunnaki and laying waste to their city, Aaron Pace finds that his troubles are far from over. Trapped underground in a cave-in with his companions, Kasheena and Patamoose, the survivors must go deeper to try and find a new way to reach the surface. Little do they know, there’s a whole other world laying in wait.

If being faced with killer robots, dementia-riddled androids, and the last dregs of the civilization of Atlantis wasn’t enough, Aaron and his companions learn that there is an even larger threat looming deeper below—a threat that, if left unchecked, could destroy the Lost Level as they know it.

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And a new episode of KEENEVERSATIONS is live, as well. Available for free on Spotify, Patreon, and this website.

If you've ever been curious about or wanted to create, edit, and publish an anthology, Brian Keene, Stephen Kozeniewski, Johannah Simon, and LP Kindred take you step-by-step through the process, with real talk about what to do -- and what not to do -- in such an endeavor.

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Women In Horror Year: Day 106

Prodigal by Melanie Tem

eBook - Audiobook

Her brother Ethan is dead. then why does he visit and why does he leave the doors open for Lucy and her sisters -- doors that whisper of the place that claimed Ethan's body and mind?

"Don't be afraid, Lucy."

The world of sleepy houses and glimmering summer lawns is losing its hold on Lucy Brill. Her parents don't have the answers - they don't even have the questions. ethan has changed everything. Ethan, whose drug-racked body lies in the morgue...Ethan, who beckons Lucy to follow.

"Welcome, Lucy, Welcome."

Lucy will follow, blinded by light, her head filled with anger. lucy Brill is going away...to the place that took her brother's life, where evil waits with open arms.

Originally released as a mass-market paperback in 1991 as part of the now-legendary Dell/Abyss line, Prodigal was Melanie Tem’s debut novel — a weird, quiet, supernatural coming-of-age story that immediately caught the attention of the entire genre, earning accolades from folks like Stephen King and Dan Simmons, winning the Bram Stoker Award for first novel, and leading many readers to accurately compare her works to those of Shirley Jackson. Indeed, as Daniel Robichaud wrote in his retrospective review, found here:

If Shirley Jackson had written something that blended the emotional torments of David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979) and Judy Bloom’s Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret with touches of psychic vampirism and some clever nods toward Stoker’s Dracula, the result might have been something like this.

Prodigal is a stressful, emotional, terrifying read that has now left generations of horror fiction fans deeply unsettled. “Heart-wrenching” is a phrase that pops up in more than a dozen reader reviews, and it’s apt. She hurts you here in a way that few have even come close to accomplishing with prose. A deft blend of grief horror and magic realism that’s like some Tom Piccirilli / John Urbancik fever dream. Easily one of the best horror novels of the 1990s, and if you’re making a list of ‘100 Horror Novels To Read Before You Die’ and it doesn’t include Prodigal, then your entire list is suspect.

Seriously, folks. This Women In Horror Year list will be — when finished — 365 books long. If you can only read one from the list, make it this one. It’s that important.

The mass-market paperback is long out of print and goes for anywhere from $30 to $100 on the secondary market (depending on condition) but the book is indeed available in eBook and audiobook from Crossroad Press.