BIOGRAPHY
When I was in high school, I weaned on Dracula and Dark Shadows, and have always enjoyed a good horror or science fiction flick. I did not begin writing until 1990, when a college professor encouraged me to try writing to help process my grief over my mother's death. A Stephen King fan, I began with horror fiction, and work through my grief I did, for many of my protagonists were grieving over deceased parents.
My horror and science fiction short stories have appeared in The Vampire's Crypt, Alien Worlds, Detective Mystery Stories, The Ultimate Unknown, and other small press magazines. Night to Dawn published some of my tales before the former editor retired. I've been editing the magazine since 2004.
My first novel, Twilight Healer, has gone through three printings. I've worked full time as a respiratory therapist over thirty years. In City of Brotherly Death and my other tales, I brought my medical background to the printed page, blending it with supernatural horror. Happily, the hospital where I've worked treats patients much better than the ones featured in my stories. That also goes for the nursing homes, for the most part. Sad to say, some of the abuses described have really happened, although I've taken artistic license to conceal identities. My latest releases include Steel Rose, When Blood Reigns, and The Forgotten People.
I've published other authors through the Night to Dawn imprint. You can check out the Night to Dawn books available on www.bloodredshadow.com by going to the link for authors' names on the bottom of the page. I've been pretty active in the authors' online and in-person communities such as Horror Writers Association, twitter.com, www.facebook.com, and others. To read my blog or find out more about me and my projects, stop by at
www.bloodredshadow.com
www.facebook.com/barbara.custer
Where to find Night to Dawn Magazine & Books LLC online
Jen has toiled away in television news, just waiting for a big break. And at the same time she finally gets a shot at the promotion opportunity she’s waited years for, head anchor for the nightly newscast, an unseen, shadowy man is desperate for her to notice him.
When the world’s civilizations collapse from a lethal pandemic, being old can mean you have the experience and wisdom to survive and to see that friends and family do as well. Donal and Sheila McArn are seventy when most of the world is dying, and they must hold the line for everything they know.
At the age of forty, psychiatrist Roger Darvell discovered vampires are real, a nonhuman species living secretly among the ordinary mortals who vastly outnumber them, and he himself is a hybrid, with a vampire mother and a human father. After learning the truth about the craving for blood, he came to terms with his “monstrous” side and found love with his human partner.
He’s seventeen, the world is dying around him, while half the country lies between him and his surviving family. He has a good dog, a child, a dying farmer, and decent ranchers to help him – against him are vicious bikers, the greedy, the foolish and the evil. But Jason is learning every step of the way.
Mixing with your betters can get you killed. Dragons know this as does a certain maverick pilot and his researcher wife. It is possible to get thrown into events not of your own making in which you must do your best to survive.
Peace meant sacrifice, and Dreadnought had already sacrificed so much of himself. He was scarred from battle and felt numb from his pain as well as that of others. Then one day, Dreadnought came to stare into the eyes of the statue of King Kamehameha and drew strength from it.
Meet the Corelli clan. Told by the oldest grandson, Frank, this family tapestry, with pathos and hilarity, begins weaving itself in the 1930s and rollicks through four riotous decades. The strongest thread is its oldest member, Antonio. To the ragtag Corelli clan, he is an ocean—an unwavering force upon which they rely.
Marked for death, Alexis accompanies her lover, Yeron, and four survivors of a zombie invasion on a search for the renegades who created a chemical that induces a zombie-like state. On the way, ravenous flesh-eaters attack Alexis’s team. She realizes too late that the renegades have been tracking her every move.
Two aliens turn a corrupt human medical system inside out to save lives, and a prisoner aboard a research ship proves she has the courage to face down both a power-crazed captain and a deadly alien world to save her shipmates and an alien explorer.
Embrace the alternate lives, and the alternate worlds, of the Forgotten People.
The denizens of hell attack. The zombies feed. She’s their meal.
Sometimes they come back. At least the Kryszka aliens do. Their leader captures humans and injects a chemical to turn them into zombies.
A contortion of malpractice, monsters, and madness: She’s been beaten, stabbed, poisoned, and shot, but Hael refuses to die. In her pursuit for vengeance and her origin, the dhampir Hael hunts down the madman responsible for her fateful transformation. As this half-vampire juggernauts her way through a world at war, Hael battles hordes of Nazi soldiers and struggles to maintain her sanity.
Infinite Sight is a science fiction tale featuring a caregiver devastated by an error which caused an infant’s death. Because of a visual impairment, she struggles to read fine print. After emergency surgery, she discovers she has mental telepathic powers. When an extraterrestrial ship crash-lands near her home, she investigates and happens upon a survivor who needs her help.
From the perils of The First Crusade to the tempestuous skies over war-torn China in the 1940s, death, danger and destruction lurk everywhere … and can strike before you know what hit you. Devastation is served with a smile in this creepy collection of flash tales! Do you trust your best friend? Your spouse? Your doctor? Maybe you shouldn’t.
The Discarded Treasures anthology brings you stories of the dark side of humanity. The stories include the horrors if you will of one of mankind’s cruelest of rituals, collecting and discarding that which we once coveted and eventually discarded when we no longer found them relevant or desirable.
They can smell your fear. They kept to the shadows so no one would know they existed, and preyed on the nameless who no one would miss. Where did they come from, and who was protecting them?
From the cities of USA to the balloon trees on Dorjyn, and a vast galaxy in between, Close Liaisons offers two different tales of heroic aliens bent on rescuing the human race, evil aliens intending to destroy it, and a healthy dose of sensual probing in between.
Trittonite Chibale warns Natalie Springer that an exploding star heading toward Earth will incinerate the planet. After lengthy negotiations with politicians, he and his pilots organize a fleet of ships to pull the Earth away from the exploding star’s path, an endeavor fraught with danger.
Twenty-five Tasty Tidbits of Horror
Hal takes you right to the action in the Blue Plate Special anthology. This compilation of horror flash fiction dips, loops, and twists to churn your gut and draw out your primal fear without lengthy descriptions and back story.
Three short stories involving a vampire, zombies, and a revenant. The opening story, “Rebirth,” tells a poignant tale of a bullied teenage girl grieving for her mother. The residents in “Homes for the Dead” overwhelm an ill-tempered manager. A sickly woman in “Roses for Elaine” seeks to escape sordid conditions at a nursing home. Who will help her? Collectively, about 8,500 words.
Lewis Carroll’s Alice thought Wonderland was strange. Sarah Hollingsworth knew her adventures in Office-land were twisted and downright bizarre. The office of the 1990s was a hunting ground where the unprotected were bagged and disposed of. The trick was not to be one of them.
William Penn never suspected that his beloved Philadelphia would turn into the city of brotherly death. But that’s what’s happening in Philadelphia and other major cities. And it’s only going to get worse. The dead are coming—revenants, vampires, and zombies—people who have scores to settle with the living. So padlock your doors and pack up your guns and survival gear.
Human/Vampire hybrid Gabriel Brimstone walks between the worlds of the living and the dead. He hunts vampires and slays them with remarkable ease. However, the years have taken their toll on him physically, mentally and emotionally. Guilt-ridden Brimstone must wrestle with his innermost demons by acknowledging his thirst for human blood.
Twilight Healer is a vampire romance, where a timid, bullied respiratory therapist finds new life as a vampire. But it isn't until a war threatens her life that Leslie learns how smart she really is.
When Paul becomes a vampire, he brings a new technique in curing people of bad manners. He will seek out the destroyers of "make love, not war" and drink their blood. In many cities of the world, he recruits from the living to aid him in his great work. As a walking corpse, he makes his stand - a dead man's stand.
If Helen Kiln wanted a quiet, no-nonsense life she should never have become a psychic for the PSI division of the Sydney, Australia branch of the Secret Compass. Of late there were ghosts to sort out, vampires on the loose, a Gypsy warning to heed and a young man becoming a monster to befriend. With any luck she’d get in her morning cup of coffee and donuts!
Smashwords book reviews by Night to Dawn Magazine & Books LLC
The Metamorphosis of Timothy Dunn
on Oct. 31, 2011
Timothy Dunn reads nicely. Timothy is a well drawn character, and the story made a great page-turner. I would strongly recommend it from anyone who loves science fiction.