Martin Treanor, Childhood Fears

Martin Treanor, The Horror of My Life

So, where to start. I suppose my first fascination for the genre happened when I was a seven-year-old with the Friday night double horror feature on television: old Hammer House movies with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Night of the Living Dead and many others. I loved them. Peaking from behind a to-chin-clutched cushion but totally enthralled by the gothic darkness, mutilated monsters and demon worshiping victims.

There it began.

I was smitten.

To the point of constructing my very own haunted house in my bedroom, complete with a hangman’s noose dangling from the rafters. Sleeping in the attic room made the task all the easier … and creepier, until my mother noticed the noose, that is, and the haunted house/bedroom reverted back to plain old room. Anyway, film posters replaced the skeletons and ghosts which led to my seeking out darker productions, which led to books: Stephen King, James Herbert, Peter Straub, Mary Shelley and all the classics, Richard Matheson, Shaun Hutson, Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell.\

I sucked it all in. My absolute favourite two movies of all time being The Exorcist (Director’s Cut) and the original version of The Amityville Horror. Don’t get me wrong, there were and still are some amazingly ominous productions down the years, but – along with George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead – I like to think they turbocharged an already terrific back catalogue into being the brilliant genre we have today.

Oh, and slashers – they emerged in the 60s, were honed in the 70s and changed everything. Finally it was okay to have loads of blood . . . buckets of blood, you might say.

Books got way darker, as did my choices.

I began writing – first: short stories, which led to some getting published, after which I started my first novel (never published but helped me get to grips with the craft). Down the long road of rejections and reassessing my work, I finally got a deal, followed by others and, through it all, I always relate back to the masters of the movies, books, graphic novels, and all other such things that fires my appreciation of their genius and sheer ability to insert a tiny bit of entertaining trepidation into this very normal existence of ours.

To my mind, Horror and the various sub and cross genres are the most underrated and unappreciated of entertainments available in an instant downloadable/streaming world. People need to feel ill at ease sometimes. It sparks neurons, it raises blood pressure. It takes us to those dark places of the mind, of dreams, of age-old stories and the joy of feeling a little unnerved.

Before I go, I also want to mention my extended family –

the uncles who scared us witless as, still only children, they related tales of haunted houses down the road, strange ghostly figures that passed clean through the car, and the spirits of the fields and forests who lurk in the shadows awaiting a passing soul to lure, enchant, or downright terrify.
As an Irishman, such stories were the stuff of my childhood: The Cooneen Ghost and tales of malicious faerie-folk (aes sídhe) who entice children into their underground realm, where they’ll remain for all eternity. This, along with the movies and books, was where my craft was truly honed.
And who could fail to be drawn in by such lore?

To this day, I have never met a single person with the guts to cut down a faerie tree. They might express their disbelief in folklore and superstition. But, when fields are cleared, the tree remains in place, a lonely monument atop the hill, warning us mere mortals to steer well clear and to never antagonise the ominous apparitions, demons and spirits we share this world with.

Martin Treanor is an author and illustrator with DRPZ imprints: Fire Hornet Codex and Tiny Hands Press.

His works include: Curiosity and the Cat, Fire Hornet Codex 2024 – The Logos Prophecy (Book1 of Fall of Ancients). Fire Hornet Codex 2023 – political satire. Fairy-story-esque series: The Tales of Trumplethinskin, Tiny Hands Press 2020 – Hellmaw: Dark Creed, TEGG (The Ed Greenwood Group) – and #1 Amazon Bestsellers in Metaphysical Fiction: The Silver Mist, BK Publishing 2011.

Guest contributor to The Huffington Post, Martin has also published with Canadian & US genre magazines Spinetingler and Zahir, The Spinetingler Anthology 2005, Carillon in UK, Tivoli Member Magazine in Denmark, newspapers and magazines in Greenland, The Dubliner Magazine (Scandinavia and South Africa).

He was also a contributor to New York Times bestselling author, Jonathan Maberry’s non-fiction book ‘THEY BITE’, Citadel 2009.

WEBSITE LINKS

WEBSITE: https://martintreanor.com

LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/MartinTreanorAuthor
GOODREADS AUTHOR PAGE: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4217913.Martin_Treanor

GOODREADS BOOK PAGE: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216383974-curiosity-and-the-cat
AMAZON UK LINK (tinyURL): https://tinyurl.com/3p6wap4k
BARNES & NOBLE: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/curiosity-and-the-cat-martin-treanor/1145985842?ean=9781989960745

Curiosity and the Cat by Martin Treanor

Dark Fantasy/Supernatural Horror

Blurb:
Curiosity is certain she saw fairies at the bottom of the garden.
Little does she know . . . they saw her first.

Emotionally abandoned by her mother and infatuated by a figurine of a fairy ballerina. She discovers in an old toy shop, eight-year-old Curiosity Portland steals the figurine. Unleashing strange and frightening happenings around her home which, in turn, reveals a disturbing family history.

An ominous tale of faerie folk.

A dark, creepy, slow burning story following 8 years old Curiosity. Curiosity doesn’t have the best homelife, nor the nest parents so it’s not surprising when she starts to become corrupted by Fae. Jordan Charlesworth

GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216383974-curiosity-and-the-cat