Mississippi is land of mystery, unique unto itself. A sense of timelessness exists here, a slow-paced mesmerizing and deceptive calm that lulls the mind and dulls the will. Yet beneath the surface run dangerous undercurrents. It is a land clinging to the cultural and socio-economic values of the old South, yet struggling to claim a productive place in modern times.

The Southern mystique evolves from the land’s ethnic and racial diversity and its dark history of slavery and voodoo. The red clay seeps into one’s blood and the scent of honeysuckle intoxicates one’s mind until the outside world becomes a distant dream.

From the dark rolling hills of the northeast, home of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha and Paul Rainey’s Tippah Lodge, to the delta and famous Blues Highway 61, to the southern and Gulf Coast regions, where Indian mounds and ancient forts whisper secrets of the past, the land reverberates with folklore and legend.

Southern Gothic is so much a part of Mississippi’s heritage that oftentimes the edges blur and the lines between reality and fantasy become hard to define.

Perhaps the strange stories all have rational explanations. Perhaps the old Civil War and slave graveyards, the dark piney woods and swamplands only inspire overactive imaginations to believe in ghosts, devils and curses.

Perhaps.

But when the full moon rides high over Dixie and the north wind blows down from the hills on the wings of the night, it is easy to believe.

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Includes the story of the Witch of Yazoo, the Legend of bluesman Robert Johnson, the strange life and death of  Paul Rainey and more.

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Available now on Barnes and Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle.

Nathaniel Peterson is not only an avid admirer of the great H. P. Lovecraft, he is something of an authority on the man and his work and a true believer. A speaking engagement with the Fantasy Authors of the Northern Guild, FANG, at a Christmas gala in Lovecraft’s home town of Providence, Rhode Island brings Peterson to famed Miskatonic University where he pours over books such as The Pnakotic Manuscripts, R’Lyeh Text, Books of Eiben, De Vermis Mysteries and the infamous Necronomocon.

Visiting a house where Lovecraft briefly lived, Peterson makes a startling discovery. He finds a carefully hidden volume of the most forbidden work of all, The Hatchie Chronicles. Through careful study of the text and cross referencing information he finds in it with books from the university library and Lovecraft’s own writings, Peterson concludes the return of the Old Ones is imminent.

People believe him mad, and with the fate of civilization hanging in the balance, in desperation he summons the only man skilled enough to battle the descending hordes of evil, Lovecraft himself.

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Available on Barnes and Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle.