Alex Bell - fantasy author

My new YA horror book, Frozen Charlotte, is now available to download as an ebook - and with a brand new shiny cover:

I love this creepy update to the look of the Red Eye horror series and it’s great to have the Frozen Charlotte dolls featured on the cover. Speaking of Frozen Charlottes, my editor sent me a photo of one of the ones they’ve been using to torment book buyers with recently.

Don’t let Charlotte out of her tiny coffin! Bad things will happen if you do . . .

Is there anything worse than creepy dolls? *Shudders*

Frozen Charlotte will be published in paperback on the 5th January 2015.

Here is the gorgeous front cover for Frozen Charlotte.

I’m so chuffed with this - especially since it has some actual Frozen Charlotte dolls on the cover - and what’s not to love about tiny bloody handprints all over the wall?

Frozen Charlotte

Due for ebook release in July 2014 and paperback release in September 2014 as part of the new Red Eye YA horror series from Stripes Publishing. If you’re the kind of keen bean who pre-orders books, you can do so here.

And be sure to check out the fantastically disturbing cover for Lou Morgan’s Red Eye book, Sleepless, over on her blog.

This creepy thing is a Frozen Charlotte doll - and the inspiration behind my new YA horror novel, published later this year by Stripes Publishing. You can read the official announcement about their cool new Red Eye series here. I’m really pleased to be included in this launch because I loved reading Point Horror novels when I was a teenager - and when I re-read some of them to get in the mood, I found that I still enjoyed them as an adult.

The book will be called Frozen Charlotte and is scheduled for paperback release this September. It may cause nightmares. I don’t think it’s disturbing enough to make anyone have a nervous breakdown, but I guess it depends on how sensitive you are to that kind of thing. So, you know, if you’re at all worried about it then maybe read it with a friend or something. Better safe than sorry, after all.

I’ve also had a short story accepted for Constable and Robinson’s upcoming alternate history anthology - Tales from the Vatican Vaults (due for publication next year sometime) - in which the real truth behind various historical events is finally revealed after a lengthy Catholic Church cover-up. My contribution is about Jack the Ripper. It is quite nasty. So is Frozen Charlotte. In fact, people might try to suggest that this sort of fiction must be the product of a deranged mind - but I promise I’m still all there in the head and everything. There is no cause for alarm. And I’d prefer not to wear the straightjacket, if it’s all the same.

Oops - I don’t seem to have done very well at maintaining this blog recently. My new online boutique, Tickle and Pink, has taken up quite a lot of my time this year. It’s pretty cool. You should check it out:

In the meantime, I have a new short horror story out in this awesome little anthology:

The X7 Deadly Sins anthology contains seven stories from different authors, each focusing on one of the seven deadly sins. My contribution is The Devil in Red and focuses on Wrath. I absolutely loved this as it took me back to my Ninth Circle days. There’s nothing quite like writing truly deranged characters with a whiff of religious fanaticism thrown in and lots of menace and blood. I loved it - and I can’t wait to read what the other writers came up with for the other sins.

I’m also working on another pretty exciting project at the moment, so watch this space.

Here is the suitably creepy front cover for the new ghost story anthology coming out from Constable and Robinson (last I heard, the publication date was 15^th November in the UK, and January in the US), edited by the lovely Marie O’Regan. I have a little contribution in this – The Fifth Bedroom is my first ever published short story. I’m not usually much of a fan of short stories in general but I love a good ghost story and I’m looking forward to reading the others when the anthology is published. Ghost stories are better enjoyed in the winter, I think. I like reading them by a fire late at night whilst it rains outside. There should probably be hot chocolate, too.

The Fifth Bedroom was inspired by the servants’ bell-board in my aunt’s house. It’s one of those old fashioned ones with a little striped flag hanging down in each window, and it refers to a couple of bedrooms that no longer exist in the building. Babysitting there, late at night, after my cousin was already in bed, it occurred to me how freaked out I would be if a bell suddenly went off and I saw the flag moving in the window of one of the rooms that no longer exists. And, believe me, once that thought takes hold late at night, it don’t let go easy. That’s the problem with being a writer, I guess – you’re always thinking: what if this happened? How would I react? Would I grab a carving knife and charge upstairs to protect my sleeping cousin from any spectral intruder? Or would I leave her there and run screaming from the house, jump in my car and drive off without looking back? We shall never know.

But I enjoyed writing this story and am very much looking forward to the anthology coming out so that I can scare myself silly by reading the others in it the next time I happen be babysitting.