What is the title of your latest release?
THE SOUND OF THE DARK
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Cally Darker, a true-crime podcaster investigates a murder from the 1980s – a kind, gentle family man slaughtered his wife and children and then killed himself, leaving only the words WORLD’S END written on the wall of their burned-out home. Cally learns that the deaths are somehow linked to a long-abandoned airfield called Warden Fell. When she finds the dead man’s tape-recorded diary, she thinks she’s about to learn the answers – but they might be too late to save her from the same fate.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
North Wales, where a lot of the book is set, is my favorite place in the world. The little town of Bala has popped up in a few other things I’ve written, but I’d never set anything there properly, so I thought it was about time.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Oh, definitely. In fact, Cally’s partly based on one of my best friends.
What are three words that describe your heroine?
Scared. Brave. Determined.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
The first unmanned aerial vehicles – aerial drones, in other words – flew during the First World War!
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
As I go, usually, otherwise the task of rewriting the book can be as onerous as that of writing it! Once I think the story’s found its feet, I edit a chapter at a time. if there’s stuff I need to research or retcon or foreshadow I make a note, and set time aside at the start of a writing session to fix it.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
If we’re talking a big meal, it’s got to be Chinese food, or Korean if I can get it. If it’s something lighter, a bacon sandwich. For a sweet treat, egg custard tarts.
Describe your writing space/office!
A spare room in our house, where all my bookcases are. I’m a little on the bulky side, so I sit at one of those overbed tables they use in hospitals with my laptop and headphones. I’ve got a kettle, tea and coffee, and I’ve just bought a mini-fridge for the milk, so I can work away there till the cows come home.
Who is an author you admire?
There are so many. Ramsey Campbell’s probably done more than any other living author to champion horror as a form of literature, but as I go on I also have a lot of time for the pulp writers I grew up on in the 1980s, like Shaun Hutson – completely different kind of writing, but there’s a work ethic and sheer bloody-minded attitude that anyone who wants to a writer should learn from. Gemma Files is one of the best authors of her generation, as a prose stylist and as someone who crafts dark, nightmarish, gruesome fiction. Hailey Piper is one of the best horror authors to emerge in the last decade. John Linwood Grant is one of the most versatile horror authors – he can be funny or dark, writing historical or present-day fiction, and in each story the setting and characters have an authenticity I can only envy – one of those authors who make me wonder why I even try! There are so many, like I say. Ask me tomorrow and I’ll list
Is there a book that changed your life?
There’ve been too many to pick just one! But I’d probably say what really started me off were all the Dr Who novelizations I read as a little boy, especially the ones by Terrance Dicks, and all the horror and SF anthologies edited by the likes of Richard Davis, Mary Danby, R. Chetwynd-Hayes and Ramsey Campbell. That’s how I discovered authors like Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson and so many more.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
This one’s my third book as Daniel Church, and the second on a two-book contract. It all started with Anne C. Perry at the Ki Agency – now commissioning editor at Arcadia – who read another book of mind and liked it enough to see what else I had – so I sent her a part-finished novel which was then called Tatterskin. She asked to see the whole thing when it was done, then after some edits she sent it out, now titled The Hollows. Angry Robot pretty much bit her hand off when they read it and wanted to bring it out the same year (2022.) The Hollows was a hit with reader and reviewers and made the shortlist for the British Fantasy Awards, and Angry Robot. So we signed a contract for two more books: The Ravening, which was published last year and has also made the British Fantasy Awards shortlist (the results are announced on 1st November – I intend to be somewhere else all that night so I’m not thinking about them!)
What’s your favorite genre to read?
Horror, with crime and thriller as a close second. But I’ll give anything a chance – you should always read widely and outside the field you write in yourself.
What’s your favorite movie?
Monsiuer Hire by Patrice Leconte.
What is your favorite season?
Autumn.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
With my wife, and if possible, with friends and a nice meal out.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I’ve just finished reading John Linwood Grant’s upcoming collection, Miss Linwood Entertains, which is amazing. Grant’s an incredible writer. And Johanna Van Veen’s astonishing Gothic ghost story, My Darling Dreadful Thing, which deserves to win all the awards and be made into a wildly successful film.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Probably Chinese, although Korean and Thai are very close as well.
What do you do when you have free time?
What is this ‘free time’ that you speak of…?
What can readers expect from you next?
I’ve completed a queer horror novel set in the trenches of World War One and its aftermath, and have nearly finished another horror novel, set in the present day. I’ve plenty more planned, as soon as I can get them down on paper – it’s just a matter of finding homes for them!
Fans of Catriona Ward and Stephen King will find plenty to enjoy in this biting horror novel where not all is what you see... or hear.
In 1983, artist Tony Mathias began work on a new installation – a collage of visuals and sounds, exploring the history of the abandoned RAF base on Warden Fell.
Tony was a gentle soul, a devoted family man. But after visiting the site to tape-record the sounds there, he killed his wife and children, set their home on fire, and turned his gun on himself. The closest thing to a reason why were two words, scrawled on a fire-blackened wall: WORLD’S END.
Decades later, true-crime podcaster Cally Darker begins researching the murders, aided by Tony's actress sister Stella. When she finds Tony’s recordings, she thinks she has a fantastic exclusive – perhaps even a chance to solve the mystery. But Warden Fell, for centuries the focus of folklore, mysteries and fearful legends, has a far older and more terrifying story to tell.
Cally’s about to learn what turned Tony Mathias into a killer. But it might be too late to save her.
Paranormal | Horror | Fantasy Urban [ Watkins Publishing, On Sale: October 28, 2025, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781915998408 / eISBN: 9781915998415 ]
DANIEL CHURCH is a British horror writer. His writing is inspired by a lifelong passion for the genre and its roots in folklore and a fierce connection with the underdog and the marginalized in society. He grew up in Lancashire and now lives in the Wirral with his wife, who is also a writer.
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