The Child of Hameln: A Supernatural Mystery Night with Max Turner

As the first snow of winter settles over Elk Pass, a long buried evil comes to the fore...

Join Max Turner in the gritty and bitter cold world of The Child of Hameln and Elk Pass, an isolated town haunted by its past and its supernatural residents.

This novella is a dark reimagining of a classic fairytale, infused with the horrors of modern day life.

The event will feature a few short readings by the author, and a high-spirited conversation about the themes in the novella: dark fairytales, retellings, the influence of queerness, and much more, including Max's inspirations. Towards the end of the event, there will be room for a Q&A session from the audience.

Fan of Stranger Things? Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries? Love your mysteries dark and queer? This is the book, and this is the night for you!

The book: Elk Pass is a town cloaked in darkness and plagued by an unknown evil, where twenty years earlier all but one of the town’s children were stolen. That remaining child, now the deputy sheriff, is left to unravel corruption and cover up when his mentor, the town sheriff, dies unexpectedly...

The mystery unfolds as a snow storm blows in, threatening to isolate the town, leaving Deputy Bobby Taylor to deal with a plague of rats and the monsters, both human and fae, that follow.

This supernatural mystery and light horror is a dark fable set in 1980’s small town USA, and is a retelling of the German folktale The Pied Piper of Hameln.

The author: Max Turner writes SFF, speculative fiction, furry fiction, many sub-genres of horror, and LGBTQ+ romance and erotica. More often than not, he writes combinations thereof. Max has written several queer novellas and his short stories have been published both online and in print. He is also the publisher of A Coup of Owls quarterly online and print anthologies.

The chair: Heather Valentine is a queer Scottish writer. Her fantasy and horror short fiction has been published in anthologies and magazines including We Were Always Here, Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology and Shoreline of Infinity. She is currently publishing No Major Glitches, an ongoing queer romance webnovel about rival speedrunners.