Behold! The cover reveal for my upcoming horror/mystery novel, THE OCEAN HUGS HARD, is here! Gregory Chapman did an amazing job with a cover that doesn’t skimp on the tentacles. It’s no secret I enjoy cosmic horror and H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos. With THE OCEAN HUGS HARD, I wrote a tale that captures Lovecraftian elements but set in the Jersey Shore in the 1960s. There’s the boardwalk, the beach, and an insidious cult that controls a resort town. Amid innocence and carefree summer moments lurks a horrible evil, one that will challenge the protagonist’s sanity. Maybe even yours.
Here’s the blurb:
Surfside City, New Jersey. 1966.
Cub reporter Harman Bass is cutting his teeth in the fast world of local journalism and getting out-scooped by the competition. Facetious, cocky, and always quoting Nietzsche, Harman isn’t making any friends both in and out of the newsroom.
All that changes when the daughter of a prominent family is found dead on the beach, handing Harman the juiciest news story of the year. But she wasn’t any old beauty pageant queen; she was his high school girlfriend. Harman’s dogged reporting into the young woman’s death reveals pushback from the authorities and pulls the newshound into the resort’s darkest corners.
After one of his sources is murdered, the routine story becomes dangerous and personal. Something watches Harman from the shadows, something ancient and hungry, worshipped by powerful men who kill to keep their secrets. Harman’s job and life are soon threatened, and the once brash reporter must battle his boss, rival journalists, and his own sanity before filing what could be his last story.
THE OCEAN HUGS HARD is a mystery with the salty whiff of the ocean, a tinge of nostalgia, and a dollop of mind-shattering eldritch horror.
If you want a perfect beach read that’ll have you warily staring at the ocean and listening for voices in the surf, then pre-order your copy of THE OCEAN HUGS HARD here.
Eric Avedissian 