Howard Hopkins Puts Some Bite Back into the Wild West

OLD ORCHARD BEACH, ME—SEPTEMBER, 2007— Howard Hopkins aims to bring western and horror readers together with the publication of The Dark Riders.

The Dark Riders is a sweeping epic of a young cattle rancher whose life has been stalked by death and grief—the loss of his parents, his sister and a fateful confrontation with an outlaw that altered the course of his entire existence. But he soon discovers all the tragedy that has gone before was only a prelude to the darkness that invades his life just when he thinks things have finally turned his way as a vicious gang of vampire outlaws invades his uncle’s ranch.

Howard Hopkins, who writes collectible hardcover westerns under the pseudonym Lance Howard and horror novels under his own name, wrote The Dark Riders to satisfy not only his desire to blend two of his favorite genres but to provide readers of both genres with an exciting change of pace and greater scope of story than either westerns or horror alone would normally encompass. The Dark Riders, formerly offered only in electronic formats, is now available for purchase in trade paperback from Amazon.com and at a special discount from www.bn.com The novel was nominated as a finalist for EPIC’s prestigious Eppie award and was a top three Fictionwise bestseller.

“By blending vampires with cowboys and outlaws, fangs with gunfights and saloon brawls, I felt I had a chance to break new trails and bring fresh life to some of the tried and true staples of both genres,” Howard Hopkins said. “I hope readers feel the same affection for both the open range and things that go bump in the night as I do. What better way to do it than transport an archetypical monster (in the vampire) into the Wild West?”

ISBN # 9780615150079

Howard Hopkins lives in a small Maine seacoast town and writes westerns under the pseudonym Lance Howard and horror novels under his own name. He is a longtime fan of pulp series such as Doc Savage and The Shadow and has edited and published forty issues of the pulp journal Golden Perils, plus has written more than fifty articles for various publications. His pulp short story for The Spider Chronicles, an anthology based on the 1930s character that includes authors such as John Jakes, has just been published and his most recent Lance Howard western, Hauntedl Pass, saw print in August, 2007. His personal website is www.howardhopkins.com

ABOUT GOLDEN PERILS PRESS
Founded in 1985, Golden Perils Press published forty issues of the pulp journal Golden Perils as well as many independent pulp-related and fiction projects.

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MEDIA CONTACT: Howard Hopkins, yingko2@aol.com, 207-934-3074.