This Is My Blood Launch Party

JMF It's important to get the venue right for a celebratory launch party! When it came to choosing a site to send off my new book 'This Is My Blood', a definitive collection of my best short fiction so far, I couldn't resist the suitably atmospheric St Peter's Hall, near my Suffolk home.

St Peter's Hall dates from around 1280, but was extended in 1539 using 'architectural salvage' from Flixton Priory, a monastic establishment dissolved by Cardinal Wolsey some decades earlier. The main hall is partially lined with mahogany panelling and a set of French choir stalls, and boasts a huge fireplace. On the south wall is a magnificent 16th c. Brussels tapestry. Above the 14th c. decorated gothic porch is a small chapel with perpendicular gothic windows

On the misty autumnal evening of October 11th, I pushed open the creaking oak doors to this moated 13th century hall, ready for plenty of food, wine and book-related stuff too (it couldn't be helped, I guess). After dining on locally-sourced pheasant, rabbit and lamb, fortifying myself with champagne and red wine, I was ready to unveil and happy to talk about the new book, and when I gracefully staggered out some hours later beneath the dignified gaze of the moon, I was left with many pleasant memories of my latest launch.

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'This Is My Blood' marks the triumphant return of  today's greatest horror writers. Gathering together fiction from Freeman's previous collections, and a good deal of work which has never before been collected.

Featuring 21 tales of visionary horror, skin-crawling atmosphere and forbidden locations. Here are the parts of nature which only the unlucky few will ever encounter, things that dwell in the darkest corners of the city or the human mind, and ghosts the likes of which you have never encountered before and pray you never will again. This is a collection not easily forgotten...