Southern Gods

Nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music - broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station - is said to make living men insane and dead men rise. Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil. But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he'll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell... In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood.

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"A sumptuous Southern Gothic thriller steeped in the distinct American mythologies of Cthulhu and the blues . . . Southern Gods beautifully probes the eerie, horror-infested underbelly of the South." - The Onion AV on Southern Gods

"A brilliant, smartly-written horror-noir novel, and one of those ideas that every writer worth their salt will say 'Damn! Why didn't I think to do that first?'" - Brian Keene, Bram Stoker Award winning author of The Rising and City of the Dead

"A bit of HP Lovecraft, a touch of William Hjortsberg, Southern Gods is an effective combination of cosmic horror and southern Gothic traditions. John Hornor Jacobs will turn heads with this debut."
--Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation

"In SOUTHERN GODS, John Hornor Jacobs turns the classic blues horror story of the devil at the crossroads into a true Lovecraftian nightmare. Steeped in Southern Gothic - and not for the faint of heart! - this is a bold and mighty debut written with breathtaking assurance. Powerful, horrific and beautiful, Southern Gods is a revelation and Jacobs is an author to shout about. Both deserve to go very far indeed." -- Adam Christopher, author of Empire State (Angry Robot, January 2012)

"John Hornor Jacobs' fantastic debut novel, SOUTHERN GODS, is both terrifying and beautiful.  His eye for detail and compelling characters makes this one you'll remember long after you've finished it." - Stephen Blackmoore, author City of the Lost (DAW Books 2012)

"Compulsively readable and definitely memorable, Southern Gods will ensure that you'll never hear radio interference quite the same way again."  -- 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Gary A. Braunbeck, author of Coffin County and Far Dark Fields

"Great Yuggoth, what a great debut novel! With a sure hand for intriguing characters and deft plotting, John Hornor Jacobs establishes himself as an author to heed. The prologue to this exceptional novel is one of the most terrifying things I have ever shivered through. It will kiss your paltry soul with fear. With superbly handled echoes of Chambers and Lovecraft, we encounter the mystery of that Tattered Man, Ramblin' John Hastur, who escorts us to the arcane secrets beyond the sun, beyond the stars, beyond that long black veil!" -W. H. Pugmire, author of The Tangled Muse

"John Hornor Jacobs.  Remember the name, because if there's any justice in the universe, he's going to be a big deal one day soon.  John's prose is by turns lyrical and tough-as-nails.  He effortlessly conjures an eerie southern landscape that will surely haunt the dreams of anyone who reads Southern Gods." --Bryan Smith, Author of Darkened and House of Blood