Shadows From The Basement by Jay Bower

 "This collection is a nightmarish descent into a basement filled with madness and despair, where the only certainty is the fear lurking in the shadows."

I am a Jay Bower stan! Not only is he an incredibly talented writer with a fascinating brain filled with the coolest of ideas, but he's a fabulous person, and I like to read books written by fabulous people! I've never read anything by Jay that disappointed me, and I just know Shadows From The Basement is going to keep that streak going. Early reviews are fantastic, as expected. This seems like the perfect book for anyone who is new to Jay's work and wants to get a feel for his writing or anyone who likes a collection that has a little taste of everything. 

Here's the synopsis:

A Collection of Tales to Haunt Your Nightmares

From the dusty, cobwebbed corners of the basement emerges a collection of blood-soaked horror stories. Long forgotten, these tales rise from the shadows to once again see the light.

Each story pulses with a life of its own, unraveling the deepest threads of human fear. Reality fractures under psychotic breaks, merciless killers stalk their prey, and ancient demonic entities rise to roam the Earth.

These pages drip with terror, each story unique and gripping, drawing readers into the shadows from which there is no escape.

This collection is a nightmarish descent into a basement filled with madness and despair, where the only certainty is the fear lurking in the shadows.

Come on! If that doesn't have you curious, I don't know what to tell you. Even just the description is chef's kiss!

Jay was kind enough to do a short Q&A with me about his newest collection and his writing.

Q: Do you have a preference for writing novels versus short stories? What is it that made you decide to put together this collection?

A: I used to write a lot of short stories. Like most horror authors, I cut my teeth on shorter fiction. As I grew more comfortable with them, I challenged myself to write longer stories. Ever since then, I do prefer writing novels because I can explore more of the characters. I'll still write short stories on occasion, but I've grown to love novels more. It's kind of funny because in my collections, the stories that tend to be reader favorites are the longer ones.

I wanted to put this collection together because I had a lot of stories without a home. Readers loved my first collection, Hanging Corpses, so I hope they'll enjoy this one as well.

Q: It's common for short story collections to have an overarching theme, but there's a little bit of everything in Shadows From The Basement! Could you share where you got the inspiration for some of the stories within the collection?

A: Sure! About 2/3 of the stories that make up Shadows From The Basement were previously released in one way or another. In anthologies, online, in different collections, but the rights have all reverted back to me. The rest of the stories are all brand new and have never been released before. I'll give inspiration for a couple of the stories.

From Dust to Dust is quickly becoming a favorite among early readers. It was originally written for a themed anthology. The anthology fizzled out before I ever turned it in, so I changed a few things and made it my own. The piece is set in the 1930s because that was my decade for the anthology. I didn't want to change it once it became solely mine and thought the period piece worked well for the story. The location was also somewhat dictated by the anthology, though I did make some changes to better suit the story and mark a clear break from the anthology.

Necrotic Sanitation is gross! It was written to be performed at the Gross Out contest at AuthorCon earlier in the spring of 2024, but I chickened out and didn't sign up for it. I'm kind of glad I didn't go through with it because I had never been to a Gross Out contest before and I got to experience my first one. My inspiration was to just go for something super gross to make the reader squirm. It's not something I normally write and thought it would be fun to give it a shot. Readers seem to respond how I had hoped, which is disgusted. I guess I did it right!

Q: I was lucky enough to hear a little about your writing process from you at a recent signing, and it seems like your brain is always brimming with ideas and pulling inspiration from everywhere! What was your process for choosing these particular stories, and how does your writing process differ with a collection versus a novel?

A: Short stories are inspired by all kinds of things. For example, four years ago I went on a family trip to the Grand Canyon and we stayed at an amazing cabin. The setting of The Forever Cabin is the place where we stayed. The story The Night I Was Born was written as an origin story for my character the Dreamwraith, from the novel of the same name. The girls in the story are also part of the novel, though as adults. The story Achievement Unlocked was inspired by my son and his friends and how they were totally engrossed in gaming. I thought what it would be like if they couldn't separate reality from the game.

I chose all of these stories not because they were centered around a theme, but because they represented various tropes and themes that I wanted to write about at one time or another. Maybe they will in turn inspire me to write a novel about the subject of one of the short stories, something I've done before.

I think one day I'd like to do a collection based on a common theme, but Shadows From the Basement is not that collection. It is instead a weird, unique collection of stories that allowed me to explore different subjects to see how they felt to write them. My hope is that readers will appreciate the randomness and get a better feel of the kind of stories they can expect from me.

Jay is an absolute gem, and you can see it in his answers! His passion for his writing can be felt through the pages of his books, so whether you're wanting to check him out for the first time or you're a long-time fan, get a copy of Shadows From the Basement! You can order a signed copy here or get the book or ebook here.