The Serial Killer’s Son Takes a Wife tells the story of a mild-mannered ice cream entrepreneur named Bobby Blessing- who just happens to be the son of the infamous serial killer, The Brittle Butcher, marking time on Florida’s Death Row. His life pretty much sucks until he meets the girl of his dreams, Cori, and then marries her. No spoilers here. It’s in the title. And just when he thinks his world is looking up, thing go way way down.

For years, Bobby has kept to himself, leaving his nightmares and his hometown far behind, while working hard to keep his family’s disturbing past at bay. (Yeah, his mom is quite the treat, too.) Then, one snowy night, the enigmatic Cori Widdoes turns up with a craving for ice cream, and Bobby’s life takes an abrupt turn for the better. Love and marriage soon follow. and Bobby is happier than he has ever been. The problem is, nothing good in his life lasts for long. Ignoring history is one thing, forgetting it another.

When rumour, hearsay, and mistaken identity target his life, his wife, and their livelihoods, ultimately escalating into violence, Bobby chooses to confront his demons head-on—both the real and the imagined. He and Cori return to the town that had shunned him years earlier, and, almost immediately, idyllic Hillsdale degenerates into batshit crazy Hellsdale with a body count to match.

Watch your back. Lock your doors. Be courteous to everyone, no matter who, no matter what. Yes, everyone. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

CAN KILLING BE PASSED ON FROM FATHER TO SON? Like high cholesterol, male pattern baldness, or a career in confections?

SURVIVAL TIPS FOR SONS OF SERIAL KILLERS

1. Change your last name. Be forgettable.

2. Take comfort. Serial killing is not hereditary. Not usually, anyhow.

3. Never contact your parents, whether on Death Row or elsewhere. You are messed up enough.

4. Choose a dull career. Run an ice cream parlor, for instance.

5. Do not fall in love. Sooner or later, she will ask to meet your mom and dad.

6. Trust no one. Not even her.

7. Do not get married. It cannot end well.

8. Keep what you know to yourself. You were just a kid, after all.

9. Do not return to your boyhood home. No one has forgotten anything.

Available from WordFire Press

Michael Libling is a World Fantasy Award finalist whose short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, and many others. The Serial Killer’s Son Takes a Wife is his second novel. His first, Hollywood North: A Novel in Six Reels, was published in 2019. Creator and former host of the long-running CJAD Trivia Show in Montreal, Michael is the father of three daughters and lives on Montreal’s West Island with his wife, Pat, and a big black dog named Piper. Among other things, he claims to be one of only a handful of North American authors who has never owned a cat. You can find out more about him at www.michaellibling.com, where he has been known to blog on occasion.

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.