Let’s begin with the cover, shall we?

The lady in the above picture is Charly (pronounced like Snoopy’s owner) Florence (pronounced like the city…or the mom from The Brady Bunch). I’m very partial to her. She’s one of the three most important character in my serial horror novel Savage Species. In the FREE first installment (available right here) of Savage Species, Charly’s world—which is already difficult due to her heel of a husband—is plunged into nightmare. How and when that happens in Night Terrors I’ll let you discover. But when it does, Charly and her new friend Sam Bledsoe (a friend on whom she has a big crush) will have to summon all their strength and courage to overcome evil.

In the other half of the story…well, here’s the Samhain Horror synopsis:

“Jesse thinks he’s caught a break when he, the girl of his dreams, and her friend are assigned by their newspaper to cover the opening weekend of the Peaceful Valley Nature Preserve, a sprawling, isolated state park. But the construction of the park has stirred an evil that has lain dormant for nearly a century, and the three young people—as well as every man, woman, and child unlucky enough to be attending the grand opening—are about to encounter the most horrific creatures to ever walk the earth. A species so ferocious that Peaceful Valley is about to be plunged into a nightmare of bloodshed and damnation.”

Folks, early word on this novel and its free first installment has been incredible. Here are just a few of the raves:

Andrew Monge, a moderator at the Horror Drive-In had this to say: “The story reminded me of Monteleone’s NIGHT THINGS, which also deals with horrible creatures that are released from Indian grounds. The main difference I see so far is that while Montelone’s creatures were kind of kept in the shadows until later in the novel, Janz wastes no time unleashing his monsters upon the unsuspecting populace of Peaceful Valley. And trust me, folks…..these things are *nasty*.”

Dreadful Tales said of Savage Species, “Janz has prepared a brutally ferocious banquet which opens with such a welter of savage violence that those with an appetite for bloody, shrieking terror will find it hard to wait for the next course […] as the reader is thrust into a maelstrom of fantastic and dreadful, slavering terror. This hard, biting horror which grips from the get go and will leave you trembling in anticipation for the next enthrallment.”

Publisher’s Weekly says, “Fans of old-school splatterpunk horror—Janz cites Richard Laymon as an influence, and it shows—will find much to relish.”

And Michael R. Collings, writing for Hellnotes said, “Which leads to the monster—monsters, actually, since by the end of Night Terrors there are hordes of them, each more vicious and ferocious than the last. They are actually quite fascinating. Think a huge Bigfoot crossed with Rick Hautala’s secretive and voracious Little Brothers; the improbably leaping Yeti from the Syfy channel’s 2008 offering, Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon, crossed with H.G. Wells’ Morlocks (at least as envisioned by George Pal in the 1960s The Time Machine); 1980s beach movies crossed with contemporary tales of urban horrors; ancient tribal legends come horrifyingly to life crossed with inept bureaucrats seeking to squeeze a profit out of a landscape that has apparently been uniquely empty of human life for centuries.

These monsters have two goals—to eat as many people as possible in as gory a manner as possible; and to rape nubile young women who are, conveniently enough, running through the forest in űber-skimpy bikinis. When they final reveal themselves, they fulfill both goals efficiently and graphically.”

So there you have it. I truly hope you all download the free first installment. I also hope you spread the word to as many people as possible.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy Charly, Sam, Jessie, and Emma as much as I do.