You're sooo awkward…
…and you smell like booze…and…is that brimstone?
Welcome to the Dead Sky Publishing Newsletter! We know we’re not the only game in town, so thank you for tuning in. And now, on with the show…
IS THAT BOURBON ON FIRE?
I’ll have what he’s having. Better make it a double.
Damn do we love that cover! How good is Reiko Murakami? Right?!
“Awkward Thom is a bartender you wish was real—pouring drinks, slinging spells, and stumbling into a mystery that could scorch the whole city. It’s witty, fast-paced, and packed with the kind of wild invention only Feldmar can conjure.”
—Kirk Hammett, Metallica
It’s pretty nuts that we are getting a lot of love from bonafide rock stars. Last we talked I was stunned at the Love GNR was giving Consensual Violence, but now we have Kirk Hammett of freaking Metallica giving a blurb to Awkward on the Rocks. Sheer insanity.
“Awkward on the Rocks is a booze-fueled murder mystery…Witty, fantastical, and intoxicating from the first sip to the last drop.”
—Mike D’Apice, host of the Whiskey Morgue Podcast
And is there a more appropriately named podcast show to blurb us?! I think not. Check out Mike’s show—top shelf all the way.
But what is the book about it?
Thomas “Awkward Thom” Dante is a DarkWaver. A Fire Elemental. He also happens to be a fantastic bartender. He pours drinks at the Lost and Found; a mystixology bar built upon the crossroads of the city. When a book of special recipes is stolen and a fellow DarkWaver is burned to death at the bar, Awkward Thom is contacted by his ex-girlfriend; a Detective with the Agentia Obscura.
Since the culprit could have used a curse or a cocktail, Awkward Thom finds himself involved as both a suspect and a consultant. One mysterious murder, one missing book, and all Awkward Thom wants is to hide behind the bar and mix drinks. Unfortunately, he can’t. If evil forces gain control of the Lost and Found, the entire city could suffer.
Maneuvering between immortals, shape shifters, demons, mystical creatures, a Voudou Queen, and his ex-girlfriend, Awkward Thom must use his abilities without breaking any of the DarkWaver laws in order to prove his innocence and help solve the crime. The only problem is, in order to save his city, Awkward Thom might have to sacrifice his soul.
Coming Soon
The Girl, The Priest, and The Devil
December 16th (that’s like real soon)
For fans of The Autumnal by Daniel Kraus and Beowulf by Santiago García & David Rubín, The Girl, the Priest, and the Devil is a captivating horror graphic novel with the otherworldly quality of the Greek folklore of old and a heroine who will do anything to make a better life for herself.
In Ottoman Greece, a motherless girl named Daphne leads a suffocating farmer’s life. When her older brother dies after a short illness, her father curses God for leaving him with only a daughter.
Unable to pay the local priest for his son’s burial, he compels Daphne to go to the village and beg for money. When Daphne gets rejected and mocked by the villagers, she flees to the mountains, where she comes upon a gold pouch, and realizes that she finally has a chance to dream of better things.
But just before she’s about to carry out her escape plan, the Devil pays her a visit. These lands belong to him. And payment is due.
In The Girl, the Priest, and the Devil, Black Mass Rising author Theo Prasidis and emerging artist Staša Gačpar immerse readers in the mystical countryside of 19th century Greece, a land wreathed in legends and superstition, to share Daphne’s story.
Funeral Song
January 27 2026 (new date)
No one mourns the living dead.
In the remote town of Cairney, a gift from the Angel of Death allows the dead to miraculously return to life — after a fashion. For Friede Inkerman, pianist to Cairney’s sacred funerals, Death’s gift is a curse, not a blessing. All she wants after being murdered by her wife and resurrected against her will is to finally rest in peace, free from the grief that ostracizes her from the rest of her death-worshipping town.
On Allhallowsmas, Friede’s hope of passing on to eternal rest is dashed when Death’s gift is stolen and the acolyte who guards it murdered, putting all the dead souls in Cairney at risk of fading into oblivion at sunset. Friede also can’t ignore how much the murder resembles her own.
Clinging to her last happiness, her oldest friend Bastian, Friede races to set things right and see her last wish granted. But Cairney is a town where nothing stays buried, and Friede’s search for answers unearths new horrors that threaten everything she holds dear to her dead heart.
A wrenching, elegant work of supernatural horror about a devout small town’s reckoning with death and the love that transcends it. Perfect for fans of Mike Flanagan and Caitlin Starling.
Wretch
February 24 2026 (new date)
It’s the hottest summer ever in Chicago history, and homicide detective Donnie Lynch is trying to keep his cool as his personal life crumbles and he searches for an elusive fiend who has slaughtered a homicide witness … and who continues to do much worse.
Chicago Outfit boss, Tico “The Meatgrinder” Tortellio, has emerged from the insulated cocoon within his mob world, yearning to get his hands dirty. Tortellio’s grisly mission: to destroy the fiend who vitiated his comatose daughter.
The fiend who is wanted by good and bad is Derek Hoffman, a steroid-abusing-sociopath whose monstrous body and mind have further been grotesquely transformed by an experimental ED-arousal-drug.
Overdosing on the lab-made pills, Hoffman has become a raging beast, high on lust and blood—a pharmaceutically-created monster, he roams the blistering city, committing unspeakable acts and leaving terror and carnage in his wake.
Soon the race is on as both Lynch and Tortellio hunt for Hoffman, the two foes bent on finding Hoffman first to deliver their own brand of justice.
But who can take Hoffman down if they DO find him?
Hoffman is a hulking monster who won’t be taken down easily … he’s hardwired to defile and destroy anything that moves with his big, bare hands. Can anyone subdue this uncontrollable man-beast whose rabid fury and sexual compulsions are in overdrive?
Justice, revenge, and the horrors of Big Pharma are the stakes in WRETCH.
If you made it this far, you’re a rock star in my book. Thanks for stopping by and hey, if you do anything else today, review a book. It is seriously one of the most important things you can do to show your support of an author and publisher.
Till next time,
-Steve
Dead Sky Publishing | Co-Publisher & Chief Creative Officer
These all sound amazing! Wretch had me at Chicago. Lol I know people who will enjoy each of these, can’t wait to check them out myself!