If you are interested in reading more it's available both as a paperback and an ebook on Amazon:
Reviewers (whether for magazines, websites or blogs) can get a mobi copy for their kindles, computers, etc., or, if they prefer, a copy of the paperback by emailing me on davidariley@gmx.co.uk.
Published by Blood Bound Books 2013.
There are now links to buy copies of this book on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
Kindle versions of my novel are available for £1.99 at Amazon.co.uk and for $3.19 at Amazon.com.
The cover is by the brilliant Croatian artist Andrej Bartulovic.
The Return is set in Edgebottom, which contains the district of Grudge End, both of which have featured in a number of my stories over the past few years, including Lock-In, The Fragile Mask on His Face, The Worst of all Possible Places, The True Spirit, Old Grudge Ender, and Scrap (out soon in Dark Visions 1 from Grey Matter Press). In his review of my collection, His Own Mad Demons, Jim Mcleod (Gingernuts of Horror) wrote: "Robert Rankin has his Brighton, Terry Pratchett has his Discworld, and so David A. Riley has his Edgebottom, and I for one know which of these worlds I would like to take a return trip to."
REVIEWS
Phantamagoria Magazine
To
paraphrase Shakespeare, there is something rotten in the Northern
English town of Edgebottom, especially within the district of the
appropriately named Grudge End. The ground there is sour, cursed for
centuries perhaps. The powerful Malleson family have owned the now
derelict mill at the epicentre of the area for decades, a family with
some twisted secrets of their own. Over the years, countless horrors
have occurred in Grudge End; brutal ritualistic murders, whole families
massacred with their heads removed, and many others driven to insanity
and suicide by the catalogue of ghastly events there.
Gary Morgan is a man with a rather shady past, to say the least. He grew
up in Grudge End and when he was a teenager his drunken brute of a
father was viciously butchered in what was believed by many locals to be
an occult-related murder. Although having moved away from the area for
quite some time, Gary’s own life has been shrouded with criminal
connections and several failed marriages. He decides to return to his
home town for one last time before the streets and mills where he spent
his youth are pulled down for good. And to escape the clutches of some
quite nasty London-based gangsters as well.
On his return, Gary bumps into an old school friend of his, Kevin Cross,
whose increasingly manic paranoia surrounding ‘something’ in town is
just the tip of the very dark iceberg of what is to follow. When Kevin
has his arm savagely hacked off by a mysterious assailant, a series of
events begin to unravel, all connected to Gary, the vile Malleson
family, and the deep, ancient secrets of Edgebottom. As the bodies begin
to mount up and the baffled police close in, something very Old is
awakening from a long slumber…
Bloody hell, it really is grim up north! And down south in London too,
it appears. Author David A. Riley presents us with an extremely violent,
bleak, fantastically weaved tale that could perhaps best be described
as H.P. Lovecraft meets the Kray twins via the kitchen sink British
realism films of the late 1950s/early ‘60s. It is gloriously dark in
Edgebottom, literally and figuratively, from the highly sinister occult
goings on, to the East End gangsters out for their pound of flesh. Even
the weather here is persistently miserable, with its torrential rain,
bitter coldness and overcast skies.
Riley’s story is expertly created throughout, with the narrative
point-of-view seamlessly switching between the main protagonist, the
investigating police detectives, the gangsters, and so on. The building
tension and mystery surrounding the town is both gripping and morbidly
fascinating. When the real horror kicks in around the second half of the
book, the appearance of the satyr-esque being is indeed a sight to
behold. A truly terrifying, seemingly unstoppable creation of pure
unadulterated evil.
There are the aforementioned homages to Lovecraft, more so towards the
end, however these slide in perfectly to the rest of Riley’s tale, one
that would still stand strong on its own even without the Lovecraftian
influences.
A definite recommendation for fans of grim horror and HPL alike.
In December 2014 there was a great write-up about The Return on the Weird Tales facebook.
Hellnotes review:
Reviewed by David T. Wilbanks
Gary Morgan is a tough-as-nails London gangster as well as the lead character in David A. Riley’s novel The Return. After participating in a gangland shooting, with plans to hide out in his long-neglected hometown of Edgebottom, Gary soon discovers that the mill town’s bad reputation hasn’t improved at all over the years; in fact, strange occurrences are on the rise and he finds himself caught in a situation that gets more bizarre the longer he hangs around. So, with full intentions of leaving town and lying low somewhere less threatening, he instead finds himself slipping further and further toward the dreary town’s evil heart.
The creepy artwork by Andrej Bartulovic on the book’s cover broadcasts where this one is heading. Anyone with a craving for bleak crime fiction crossed with the Lovecraftian/occult should enjoy this well-crafted work of looming darkness. Compellingly, the novel follows Gary and the local police as they experience what turns out to be otherworldly mayhem. Pure malevolence, revealed slowly with hair-raising detail, will keep horror fans riveted as they turn pages toward the chilling and merciless conclusion. Celebrated British author David A. Riley has been in the business of writing horror, fantasy and science fiction for several decades now and this storytelling experience is reflected in his work. The Return is a grim, bloody book set firmly in the UK horror tradition, and will make a fine addition to any collection.
A great review of my horror novel The Return on the Vault of Evil by site administrator Demonik (Kevin Demont):
The Return is included in Robert Essig's Killer Reads in 2013.
"There's always a lot of interest in the Lovecraft mythos. Maybe too much, but, as with zombies and vampires, I will dip my toes into that type of horror tale from time to time, particularly when I know how good the author is. The Return by David A. Riley is a dark, depressing tale of Lovecraftian mystery and plenty of horror. If you haven't read David A. Riley then you need to pick up one of his 2013 releases and rectify that. He's been publishing short stories professionally for decades and I'm glad he has finally given us such a fantastic novel."
Killer Reads in 2013
There's a great 5-star review for The Return on Amazon.co.uk.
"The genres of crime and horror have always skipped hand in hand like a deranged Jack and Jill (see "Falling Angel" and "The Damnation Game") and with "The Return" David A Riley continues this tradition. If you like your cosmic horror to be tinged with the darkness of the human condition that can be seen in noir-ish crime then this is the book for you.
Riley evokes a wonderful sense of place in the rundown Grudge End, a place that is dying but the creatures that dwell within will tear the world apart as they try to enact their own return just as our protagonist does returning to the place where he is from now that he has nothing left.
I would recommend this book to both fans of Lovecraftian fiction and those who like their horror tales to be fused with the gritty reality of the old ones - a kind of "Cthulhu tries to Get Carter""
The Heavenmakers blogsite: (Craig Herberston)
Horror writer Craig Herbertson has provided the first review of my Lovecraftian horror novel The Return on his Heavemakers blog.
"Mr. Fosset, making a brief appearance in this work by David A. Riley says “Dark, bleak, nihilistic stuff. Not the kind of thing to take to bed for a good night’s sleep.” Admirably summarizing this new work by a veteran author who many horror aficionados will have encountered in the legendary Pan Horror series and subsequent ‘best of’ collections. There is a reason why I mention’ best of’. Riley has produced some fine short stories and I was curious as to how his undoubted skill as a short story author would translate on the wider screen
The answer is very well. Fans of Grudge End, a horrible place full of horrible places, will lap this up. “Even in bright daylight the five-storey building looked dark, forbidding, and sordidly utilitarian.” – a good description of Riley’s bleak uncompromising prose – sparse, economical and clinically scary.
Riley has produced one of his marvelous anti-heroes in Gary Morgan. I won’t go too much into plot because a large part of this work is dependant on a slow build up of dark energies contained in the utterly mundane. Gary is not what he seems and the reader will be surprised that at the conclusion of this story you’ll find yourself drawn to a real sympathy with the character.
A thoroughly enjoyable read and I would ignore Mr. Fossett and start it late at night.. You’ll finish before dawn…I hope."
A nice 5-star review on Amazon from Vulpine:
"If you like your eldritch horrors with a English accent, this is the book for you. A nice slow burn of creepy development, with some surprises and a general all around 'do not want to put this book down' feel. The monsters show up fairly early, but the details are vague and misty to start. My only 'complaint' is a desire for more backstory, but there are more stories set in the general area around Grudge End, so I'll go find those and see if they explain things. But that's not a real complaint, just a personal thing when it comes to Lovecraftian stories, I want to know the secrets."
A great review from Douglas Draa of Weird Tales.
"The Long Good Friday" meets "the Mythos",
This review is from: The Return (Kindle Edition)
Folks, if you are only going to buy one book right now then this is it!
You don't even have to be a "Mythos" fan to receive maximum enjoyment!
David A. Riley's "The Return" is an amazing read. Do you like gritty noir? Brit Horror? Masculine (but not macho) protagonists? Eldritch Horror in bleak industrial slums? "The Long Good Friday" meets "the Mythos"? The writing is dense and sleek. Never boring enthralling page turners. Do you like to read just a few more pages even though you need to sleep? Then this is THE BOOK!
I read this in record time. What is amazing is that you get over 270 pages of story. There's no fluff or padding. Every single word is dedicated to moving the plot along. Mr. Riley doesn't waste one single word.
And what a plot it is.
Gary Morgan, a mob enforcer on the run, returns to his hometown of Edgebottom to visit the neighborhood he grew up in. The now abondoned mill quarter of "Grudge End". "Grudge End" was a nest of dispair, pain, deprivity,violence, and eldritch horror.
I won't give anything away, but once Gary returns homes, things go from being bad, but managable, to becoming a waking nightmare as forces from beyond both the law and reality as we know it set their sights on Gary.
THIS IS ONE FINE HORROR NOVEL!
David A. Riley's "The Return" is an amazing read. Do you like gritty noir? Brit Horror? Masculine (but not macho) protagonists? Eldritch Horror in bleak industrial slums? "The Long Good Friday" meets "the Mythos"? The writing is dense and sleek. Never boring enthralling page turners. Do you like to read just a few more pages even though you need to sleep? Then this is THE BOOK!
I read this in record time. What is amazing is that you get over 270 pages of story. There's no fluff or padding. Every single word is dedicated to moving the plot along. Mr. Riley doesn't waste one single word.
And what a plot it is.
Gary Morgan, a mob enforcer on the run, returns to his hometown of Edgebottom to visit the neighborhood he grew up in. The now abondoned mill quarter of "Grudge End". "Grudge End" was a nest of dispair, pain, deprivity,violence, and eldritch horror.
I won't give anything away, but once Gary returns homes, things go from being bad, but managable, to becoming a waking nightmare as forces from beyond both the law and reality as we know it set their sights on Gary.
THIS IS ONE FINE HORROR NOVEL!
