The fourth shuttle to emerge from starship Candlemark’s Reckless imprint is Martha Hood’s The Miasma Is Not for Us to Say: a witty fusion of Stephen King and Elmore Leonard with a pitch-perfect take on small-town bureaucracies, alliances, enmities and intrigues—brought to a head by a semi-sentient cloud of evil-smelling fog.

Today I’m thrilled to share the cover for Miasma, which accurately distills its content, as seen from the synopsis below. The image comes from Unsplash; the background from the talented Alan C. Caum whose covers, maps and interior illustrations grace many Candlemark works.

A noxious miasma returns to the seaside town of Lovely after an absence of seventy-five years, bestowing a living death on those it snares. Mayor Carol Asher, her contractor, and her City Council allies contend with political adversaries and bureaucratic intransigence while battling to defeat the smelly murk and the lost souls within. If their efforts fail, the town of Lovely will be lost.

Martha A. Hood lives and writes in Irvine, California. Her fiction has appeared in a number of publications, including Interzone, Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, The Sockdolager, and Tales of the Unanticipated. She blogs, sporadically, at Speculativemartha.wordpress.com. She shares her abode with a husband and two cockatiels. The Miasma Is Not for Us to Say was inspired by a bad smell during construction in the Hoods’ dining room.

We expect to share The Miasma in mid-July 2020 – we’re aiming for Bastille Day. Mark your calendars for the shoals of small-town politics and keep an eye on your house foundations!