Recommended Halloween Reading: One of the most daring independent publishers in the United States today is Grindhouse Press. Among their numerous transgressive offerings is C.V. Hunt's HALLOWEEN FIEND (2019), a short but effective dark fantasy novel about a small town called Strang and its uneasy relationship with a predatory being named "Halloween" who incessantly prowls the village every night just after sundown. The narrative revolves around an annual ritual that takes place on All Hallows' Eve, at which time a human sacrifice--ostensibly chosen at random--must be offered as an oblation to "Halloween."
Imagine a weird mixture of Lord Dunsany's THE BLESSING OF PAN (a novel cited by Aleister Crowley in MAGICK AND THEORY AND PRACTICE as “a noble and most notable prophesy" of humanity's future), Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, and Robin Hardy's THE WICKER MAN, and you might have a close approximation of the peculiar experience waiting for you in the pages of HALLOWEEN FIEND, which can serve as both a trick and a treat on any night of the year... but most especially on the last evening of October.
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