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Publisher’s Weekly: "In a genre where twisted souls and violence are the norm, Piccirilli’s work stands out for how it blends these elements with a literate sensibility.”

Ed Gorman, author of The Poker Club, The Autumn Dead and Shadow Games: "Like Richard Matheson and Stephen King, Tom is able to find the mysterious in everyday life, the one wrong thing that can turn a Normal Rockwell painting into a nightmare. That's my kind of fiction and Tom is
my kind of writer."

Richard Laymon, author of The Cellar, After Midnight and The Midnight Tour: "Whether writing
horror, mysteries or thrillers, Tom Piccirilli delivers the goods. His characters have heart, smarts and guts. They come to life in fine stories you'll not soon forget. I'm a big fan."

Joe R. Lansdale, author of The Drive-In, Texas Night Riders and The Magic Wagon: "Tom Piccirilli’s work is full of wit and inventiveness-sharp as a sword, tart as apple vinegar. I look forward to all his work."

Poppy Z. Brite, author of Lost Souls and Exquisite Corpse: "Tom Piccirilli never backs away from a disturbing or disgusting scene in the dubious interest of self-censorship, but neither does he seem to relish it as some perverted writers do (guilty, guilty, guilty). He faces it and follows it through to the consequences, and that requires bravery."

Book Lovers: "Better start revising your favorite author list-Piccirilli deserves to be at the top."

Douglas Clegg, author of Goat Dance and The Halloween Man: "Tom Piccirilli is a master
of the occult novel. He creates an atmosphere like nobody else, one that is terrifying and yet sheds an eerie glow of acceptance upon all the darkness."

Gothic.net: "His fiction is phrased with intricate clarity reminiscent of the postmodern best of Donald Barthelme. He invests his work with potent atmosphere and realistic characterization while maintaining
an economy of words and seamless plot cohesion. His horror fiction is mysterious, and his mysteries border on the horrific, and no matter what genre he employs the plots hold true, developing organically from the actions and reactions of the players."

Edward Lee, author of Creekers, Operator B and The Ushers: "Few writers in the field even come
close to Piccirilli's all-round mastery of the modern horror story. Always original and in a style all his own, he's been scaring the hell out of me for years. Piccirilli has always been one of the best, and with guys like this at the helm, the future of the genre couldn't be in better hands."

Jack Ketchum, author of The Girl Next Door and Off Season: "The first book of Piccirilli's I encountered was Shards, a humdinger of a modern noir. I resolved right then and there that it wouldn't be the last by any means. Piccirilli is one to watch. He's an author who knows how to terrify."

T.M. Wright, author of A Manhattan Ghost Story, Strange Seed and The School: "Tom Piccirilli has style and wit, and it shows in his writing. What's more, he's damned scary."

PRAISE FOR NOVEMBER MOURNS

Publishers Weekly: "The investigation of a young girl's apparent murder takes a sharp turn into Twilight Zone territory in Piccirilli's moody follow-up to A Choir of Ill Children (a Stoker finalist). His adventures among Tobacco Road moonshiners, snake-handling cultists, interbred grotesques and Bible-thumping fanatics interconnect for a sustained and unnerving evocation of the dark side of Appalachia. Piccirilli successfully blends character and incidents to conjure a spirit of the strange that plays a key role in the tale's surprising but fitting finale."

Locus: "There are plenty of horror writers who can effectively conjure spooks and evoke squalor and desperation, but few can match Piccirilli's skill with words…If EudoraWelty had written about wraiths and haunted hills, it might have sounded like this. The taint in the land brings William Faulkner to mind, while the taint in the people is pure Flannery O'Connor. Piccirilli has taken Southern Gothic imagery and woven it with his own poetry to create something uniquely his own, a book of terrible beauty and beautiful terrors.”

Mick Garris, director of The Stand and Riding the Bullet: "Mesmerizing, one-of-a-kind...Piccirilli's fever dream storytelling is spellbinding and surprising."

The Denver Post: "Colorado author Tom Piccirilli is the master of the Southern gothic, quietly building horror where the chills grow with increasing strangeness. When Piccirilli is done, the uneasy horrors of Moon Run Hollow are in your bones."

FANGORIA: "Tom Piccirilli really knows his Southern Gothics. NOVEMBER MOURNS, his follow-up to the amazing A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN, continues to demonstrate Piccirilli's mastery of the form. Piccirilli continues to carve a particularly unique space for himself in the genre. That space may be muted and somber and a place where the spirits roam the corners of your mind, but it's all his own, and is worth repeated visits."

Boulder's DAILY CAMERA: "If Victor Frankenstein had stitched together pieces of Flannery O'Connor, Stewart O'Nan and James Lee Burke, his creature might have risen from the slab to write Loveland author Tom Piccirilli's haunting new novel November Mourns."

CHRONICLE: "Piccirilli's prose is brilliant, his characters superbly delineated, and his plots are always original enough to grab me early on and hold me to the end. This is one of his very best works and is certain to figure highly in the Stoker Awards this year."

PRAISE FOR A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN

Kirkus: "Lyrical, ghastly, first-class horror."

Publishers Weekly: "In this compelling Southern Gothic, Piccirilli (whose 2002 novel The Night Class has grabbed the Stoker for Best Novel) presents a searing portrait of twisted souls trapped in a wasteland. Piccirilli masterfully increases the tension by playing with stereotypes and manipulating the flaws of his subjects' characters, creating a world where what happens on the outside is a pale
reflection of what goes on inside. As such, the novel will appeal both to genre fans and to readers of Flannery O'Connor and even of William Faulkner. James Lee Burke and Harry Crews devotees should also take note."

LOCUS: "Piccirilli has a gift for pitch-black humor that makes much of this novel outrageously funny, until laughter finally drowns amid murderous phantasms."

Rocky Mountain News: "Piccirilli has created a world that is disturbing and compelling."

Dean Koontz: "A wonderfully wacked, disorienting, fully creepy book from which I never once reeled in revulsion even though as a reader I am admittedly a bit squeamish. I didn't reel because the poetic nature of the prose and seriousness of intent carried the day in every scene."

Ramsey Campbell, author of THE DARKEST PART OF THE WOODS and NAZARETH HILL:
"Written with a poet's eye for detail and ear for language, succinct and eloquent and as fast-paced as a good thriller, grimly comic and luminously lyrical, A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN is a feast of Southern Gothic. Tom Piccirilli is a true and wondrous original."

Stewart O'Nan, author of THE NIGHT COUNTRY and A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD:
"Tom Piccirilli's little town of Kingdom Come is filled with granny witches, child killers,
swamp demons, hot honeys, private eyes, wild bikers and all manner of geeks and freaks. Riotous, surprising and marvelously gruesome, A Choir of Ill Children is a plate of Southern comfort food
that's at once hardboiled and deep fried, with lots of squishy, greasy sides."

Thomas Ligotti, author of THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY and GRIMSCRIBE:
"A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN is everything a great horror should be--beautifully written,
ingeniously plotted, richly atmospheric, and single-mindedly devoted to delivering an
uncompromisingly nightmarish vision. This amazing book also exemplifies the too-often ignored truth that the most riotous humor flourishes in the blackest earth. For the die-hard epicure of horror fiction
as a form of both artistic and personal expression, Piccirilli is an oasis of shadows in a glaring desert
of banality. He's one of the few living authors who can mingle with the masters of the genre."

Fangoria: "I’ve used the phrase ‘Neo-Gothic’ to describe Tom Piccirilli’s macabre prose before. His latest book dispenses with the ‘Neo,’ however; A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN is a full on Southern Gothic which is a surreal melange of witchcraft, deformity and ghosts. It has to be said that Piccirilli
has the tropes of the Southern Gothic down cold; in terms of characterization, tone and atmosphere,
this book is indistinguishable from the classics of the genre written decades earlier. And by making
this setting so familiar, Piccirilli is able to explore his ongoing theme of memory and knowledge as damning elements free reign. The low-keyed POV of Thomas adds a further level of surreal absurdity
to the proceedings, until you’re not quite sure which way is up."

SF Site: "Piccirilli delivers a marvelous fable about family, responsibility, and owning up to your nightmares."

Ed Gorman, author of THE DARK FANTASTIC: "In A Choir of Ill Children, Tom Piccirilli takes us
for a walk on the real wild side...an eerie turbulent book that pushes at the boundaries of reality and horror fiction alike. This has the same paranoid energy as Philip K. Dick at his best."

Cemetery Dance: "In A Choir of Ill Children Piccirilli explores monsters of flesh and mind,
intermingling abominations with unlikely saviors in a narrative puzzle as intellectually challenging as it
is slap-your-knee entertaining. Piccirilli creates a geography of pain and wonder, tenderness and savageness. The setting and cast are grounded the darkest summits
of our fears, stirring the nastiest pools our desires. There is as much poet as popular entertainer in Piccirilli’s approach. Get it, read it, wallow in it!"

Michael Bishop, author of BRIGHTEN TO INCANDESCENCE and PHILIP K. DICK IS DEAD, ALAS: "This is a Gothic tale of sustained invention, told in colorful prose. I loved the characters, the prose (which alternates, deliberately, between jazzy and/or bluesy tones and a clipped sort of
Faulknerian picture-making), the imagery, the incidents, and the smart balance between the humorous
and the horrific."

T.M. Wright, author of SLEEPEASY, LAUGHING MAN, and THE LAST VAMPIRE: "Tom
Piccirilli is one of the best stylists working today—not simply in the horror genre but in fiction in
general. His characters are quirky and fascinating, and his imagination is a scary, amazing thing."

Douglas Clegg, author of THE INFINITE, THE HOUR BEFORE DARK, and NAOMI: "A Choir of
Ill Children is spellbinding. Piccirilli writes like lightning, illuminating a dark landscape of wonders."

Christopher Golden, author of STRANGEWOOD and THE FERRYMAN: "Tom Piccirilli writes with
a razor for his pen. A Choir of Ill Children is both deeply disturbing and completely compelling."

Edward Lee, author of CITY INFERNAL and MONSTROSITY: "Piccirilli's brand of horror fiction
is always something deep, daring, and stunningly original—with story concepts that few other authors would attempt. A Choir of Ill Children is brilliantly grotesque, beautifully written and yet shockingly morbid, pulsing with blood that seems a little too real for fiction. This is not just another genre novel,
it's a macabre work of art."

Tim Lebbon, author of THE NATURE OF BALANCE and FACE: "Piccirilli has crafted what must
be his strangest and yet most compelling novel. Whoever said that jet-black humor and horror make perfect bedfellows could use A Choir of Ill Children as a definitive case in point: I didn't know
whether to laugh, cry or try to find Jesus!"

Gary Braunbeck, author of THE INDIFFERENCE OF HEAVEN and THINGS LEFT BEHIND: "A Choir of Ill Children is effing brilliant--Carson McCullers by way of William S. Burroughs...or Ellen Gilchrist on really, really bad acid. It's the kind of novel that makes me shake my head in envy and
awe. In lesser hands this story could have been just a morbid freak show, but in Tom Piccirilli's,
it's a powerful meditation on isolation, pointless anger, and familial obligation that ranks right up there with GEEK LOVE and TATTOO GIRL."

Robert Randisi, author of BLOOD ON THE ARCH and CURTAINS OF BLOOD: "The hypnotic power of Piccirilli's writing draws you into a world you might otherwise run from. It's easy to
believe that this man won a Bram Stoker Award for his poetry because his narrative is infused with
a lyrical voice. I can't imagine who else's mind A Choir of Ill Children might have sprang from."

Flesh & Blood: "This book is brilliant. Surprises abound on every page, and every one of its
characters is unforgettable and sublimely imagined."

Simon Clark, author of Nailed by the Heart, King Blood and Night of the Triffids:"A resonant title for a resonant, powerful, lyrical and disturbing piece of work. I enjoyed it enormously."

Gerard Daniel Houarner, author of The Road to Hell and The Beast That Was Max:“Tom Piccirilli's A Choir of Ill Children is rich with poetry, his characters are vivid and sharp,
and his writing peels away layers of everyday reality. Like all the best authors, he leads
readers into the strange and dark places inside themselves.”

PRAISE FOR THE NIGHT CLASS

WINNER OF THE 2003 BRAM STOKER AWARD

Publisher’s Weekly: "Piccirilli's predilection for emotionally scarred protagonists embarking on
soul-searching quests (The Deceased; Hexes) runs amok in this hyperventilating horror mystery.
THE NIGHT CLASS draws on the venerable tradition of stories that plumb the unbridgeable gulf between school learning and life lessons..."

Asimov’s Magazine: "..exhibits uncommon restraint and ingenuity. In equating
education with a deliberate descent into madness, Piccirilli may have revealed a secret that will mark
him for elimination by the SAT people everywhere."

Locus: "Tom Piccirilli is an accomplished poet as well as a novelist, and it is that control
of language, that gift for the perfect image, that gives THE NIGHT CLASS its considerable power."

Fangoria: "THE NIGHT CLASS is another interesting piece of work from Piccirilli….it once again proves that he is one of the authors you have to read if you are serious about keeping up with literary horror."

Bill Pronzini, author of SPOOK and NIGHT FREIGHT: "THE NIGHT CLASS is a damn good read. I'm a sucker for mystery and horror tales with well-realized college back-grounds. Nice creepy atmosphere, too, with a couple of genuinely chilling
scenes. One thumb, way up."

Cemetery Dance: "The Night Class is peopled with quirky characters, but the mood is unrelentingly somber. The satire is derived from the funhouse mirror Piccirilli holds up to reality. The distorted
images it reflects might be exaggerated but are closer to the truth than we may care to admit. All
serious students of dark literature are urged to enroll in The Night Class. This is one course you
won’t want to drop."

Richard Laymon, author of AMONG THE MISSING, ONE RAINY NIGHT, and BITE: "In THE NIGHT CLASS, Tom Piccirilli—America's Fellini of horror fiction—stirs up a surreal stew of
ambitions gone astray, romance, sex, madness and murder on a university campus in which students need to keep one eye on their GPA, the other eye on their ass."

Ed Gorman, author of THE DARK FANTASTIC, THE POKER CLUB, and SHADOW GAMES: "THE NIGHT CLASS has characters, plot, and story that all work beautifully—but the atmosphere works best of all. Tom Piccirilli has found his true voice in the ominous descriptions of people and place. A first-rate book."

Jay Bonansinga, author of THE BLACK MARIAH and OBLIVION: "Awesome!"

Masters of Terror: "Once again Piccirilli holds reality up to his warped, grimy looking glass as he
lays this bizarre dark mystery out for the reader. Loaded with grim characters, an unusual plot, and a murky, almost surreal atmosphere, THE NIGHT CLASS is a must-read for fans of the macabre."

Locus: "Piccirilli’s strong suit in the novel is the ominous sense of mood as accelerating psychological fractures surpass all the protagonist’s fears."

The Creature Features Vault: "Enroll in the weirdest college this side of Miskatonic University
and take a course in sheer terror with Dean of Horror, Tom Piccirilli. Follow Caleb Prentiss,
who returns to school and finds that his dorm room has been the site of a grisly murder during
winter break. Cal sets out to find the murderer when his hands begin to bleed in stigmata each time
a new murder occurs. The university seems to have gone mad, but as Mr. Piccirilli tells us,
"Sanity is highly subjective." You'll want to replace all the light bulbs in your reading area before cracking open this one, TombRats, because you'll be reading deep into the night. One of his
scariest since HEXES, this novel will elicit screams of sheer delight from fans of mystery, suspense
and horror. Tom Piccirilli scares the hell out of me and I LOVE it! TombKeeper's highest recommendation."


PRAISE FOR A LOWER DEEP

Publisher’s Weekly: "This tale is not for the fainthearted; there's enough bloodletting and
hellish savagery here to give even the most hardened horror fans the creeps."

Bentley Little, author of THE COLLECTION and THE ASSOCIATION: "A Lower Deep is an
intense and intellectually dynamic novel by a gifted and imaginative author."

LOCUS: "A densely packed, steam-heated account of witchery and sacrifice. The
flavor here is something of a tonal resonance combining a bit of Clive Barker and Anne Rice."

Fangoria: "Piccirilli's writing is fulsome, Gothic and poetic…amazingly evocative setpieces, vivid
ideas and sheer narrative momentum…"



PRAISE FOR MEAN SHEEP

Ed Gorman, author of THE DARK FANTASTIC and EVERYBODY’S SOMEBODY’S FOOL: "Excellent work. Award-winning, truly. Tom has developed a take and style all his own, and he’s become one of those enviable writers—a la Bradbury and Lansdale—who’s wholly original."

Fangoria: "Before becoming one of the most prolific (and consistently entertaining) horror novelists around, Tom Piccirilli honed his craft on short fiction and poetry. MEAN SHEEP proves he hasn't
lost his knack for these literary forms. This collection contains 16 stories and a variety of poems, and those readers used to the baroque neo-Gothic voice of most of Piccirilli's novels may be surprised
by his range."

Midwest Book Review: "MEAN SHEEP is an impressive and literate collection of intense,
provocative, and edgy short stories and poems. Each carefully crafted story and poem comprising
this Tom Piccirilli (a nominee for the World Fantasy Award and winner of the first Bram Stoker
Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry) literary anthology, captivates the imagination in
ways that are sometimes exciting, sometimes disturbing, and always page-turning. MEAN SHEEP is especially recommended for those discerning readers who appreciate originality, wit, and emotional impact in their fantasy, mystery, and suspense."

The Chiaroscuro: "Tom Piccirilli is one of those authors who can flat out write. His words have a
lyrical quality that flows, that is simply a joy to read. And there is plenty of concept and depth to
back up his impressive style and command of language. This is a guy who seems able to do it all,
would appear to be headed down a path similar to those blazed by the great Joe Lansdale or the incredibly versatile Dan Simmons, two of the best cross genre authors working today. Horror.
Mystery. Western. Tom Piccirilli has penned impressive tales in each of these fields."

PRAISE FOR FUCKIN' LIE DOWN ALREADY

Al Sarrantonio, author of Moonbane and Orangefield: "A potent mix of GoodFellas and the
classic 1950 Edmond O'Brien film D.O.A. A pedal-to-the-metal cops and mobsters roller coaster
ride— this story delivers!"

Ed Gorman, author of THE POKER CLUB, THE AUTUMN DEAD and THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED: "Short, tight, effective crime fiction. My kind of writing."

Bill Pronzini, author of SPOOK and STEP TO THE GRAVEYARD EASY: "Hard, hard, hard noir,
very well done."

Jack Ketchum, author of RED and THE LOST: "This is a small masterpiece. It's said that the devil's
in the details and Tom got all the details exactly right. I always said Pic was one to watch. Fuck watching. He’s utterly there. A voice to listen to and learn from."

Flesh & Blood: "This gruesome and hard-hitting story is a perfect example of how the darkest
crime fiction crosses the line into the territory of horror. There are no overtly supernatural elements
in the plot, but Clay’s dogged pursuit of justice takes on an unearthly, hallucinogenic aura in the face
of his fatal wounding. In essence, it’s the old EC Comics revenge-from-beyond-the-grave plot in
which the victim clings to life, rather than waiting for his corpse to reanimate before striking back.
The use of Elmore Leonard style characters and dialogue lends a satisfying sense of realism, which
is contrasted by the absurdity of the protagonist’s refusal to lie down until his vengeance is complete. The result is a story with a supernatural feel that never gives in to the temptation of employing the fantastic as an easy escape hatch, consequently making its horrors much harder to dismiss."


PRAISE FOR FOUR DARK NIGHTS: JONAS AROSE

Fangoria: "As for Tom Piccirilli: (sigh) I just love his writing. I'm not sure the events in his story fit
the one-night restriction, but this is a writer you just cannot confine in time or space. I'm amazed he's even able to wrestle his arcane magicks into actual English words printed in ink on paper. His story "Jonah Arose" concerns the journey of a former child preacher and circus geek into the bowels of a massive performance space-city in search of his son."

Bill Pronzini, author of SPOOK and A WASTELAND OF STRANGERS: "I read Jonah Arose in
one sitting. I'm a sucker for carny and freak show stories, but man, I've never read one even remotely like this nasty little allegorical nightmare. Pretty frightening stuff, if you let yourself get down and start crawling around under the surface (as I'm always wont to do in a good piece of fiction), and filled
with raw and powerful images and memorable lines. I was blown away by the story. Best short of
Tom’s I've read to date."

Gothic.Net: "Illuminated by flashes of black humor, "Jonah Arose" is a gripping, addictive read, one
of Piccirilli's best."

Talebones: "Tom Piccirilli’s story "Jonah Arose" satisfies as well. Tom is one of the most literate, versatile and inventive writers working in the field. His story is typical of the "freakshow weirdness"
that emanates from his horror fiction."