Go “nuts” for our newly signed author, Patrick Barb!
Undertaker Books is going “nuts” for our newly signed author, Patrick Barb!
We are thrilled to announce that Barb’s novella, The Nut House, will be published in June of 2025, along with an accompanying novelette prequel, The Acorn Run, and interior illustrations by J.C. Amberlyn. The Nut House was first serialized in Cosmic Horror Monthly, where readers first got to meet Asher Black and his bushy-tailed crew.
That’s right. Asher is a squirrel. And this is squirrel horror. Barb is blazing a path for a new subgenre: squorror. Get ready, folks.
The story features Asher Black, the sole surviving black squirrel in the Majestic Forest neighborhood, who’s one of the best acorn thieves in town. He’s compelled by Oakley Grey, leader of the gray squirrels who control the oak tree in the park, to lead a group of Grey’s hench-squirrels to an old house reputed to contain a vast stash of acorns Grey’s ancestor left in the attic. However, they find the owner was a hoarder, with towering piles of old newspapers and puddles of sewage they must negotiate to reach the cache. In addition, the animal inhabitants—a mix of pets, strays, and wildlife—emerge from the home. More like mad cultists who worship a Death God, they pick off Asher’s crew one by one. Can Asher and his friends escape with their tails intact? Find out next June!
A Spanish translation of The Nut House will be published by Dimensiones Ocultas, also in 2025.
Patrick Barb is an author of weird, dark, and horrifying tales, currently living (and trying not to freeze to death) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His published works include the dark fiction collection Pre-Approved for Haunting (Keylight Books), the novellas Gargantuana’s Ghost (Grey Matter Press) and Turn (Alien Buddha Press), as well as the novelette Helicopter Parenting in the Age of Drone Warfare (Spooky House Press). His forthcoming works include the themed short-story collection The Children’s Horror (Northern Republic Press) and the sci-fi/horror novel Abducted (Dark Matter Ink). His short story “The Scare Groom” appears in Best Horror of the Year Volume 16. Visit him at patrickbarb.com.