Cuttin' Heads by D.A. Watson - Book Tour + Giveaway
Cuttin’ Heads
Aldo Evans is a desperate man. Fired from his job and deeply in debt, he struggles to balance a broken family life with his passion for music.
Luce Figura is a troubled woman. A rhythmic perfectionist, she is haunted by childhood trauma and scorned by her religiously devout mother.
Ross McArthur is a wiseass. Orphaned as an infant and raised by the state, his interests include game shows, home-grown weed, occasional violence and the bass guitar.
They are Public Alibi. A rock n’ roll band going nowhere fast.
When the sharp-suited, smooth talking producer Gappa Bale offers them a once in a lifetime chance to make their dreams come true, they are caught up in a maelstrom of fame, obsession, music and murder.
Soon, Aldo, Luce and Ross must ask themselves: is it really better to burn out than to fade away?
Luce Figura is a troubled woman. A rhythmic perfectionist, she is haunted by childhood trauma and scorned by her religiously devout mother.
Ross McArthur is a wiseass. Orphaned as an infant and raised by the state, his interests include game shows, home-grown weed, occasional violence and the bass guitar.
They are Public Alibi. A rock n’ roll band going nowhere fast.
When the sharp-suited, smooth talking producer Gappa Bale offers them a once in a lifetime chance to make their dreams come true, they are caught up in a maelstrom of fame, obsession, music and murder.
Soon, Aldo, Luce and Ross must ask themselves: is it really better to burn out than to fade away?
Purchase from Amazon UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cuttin-Heads-D-Watson-ebook/dp/B07CG8DN4V/
Guest Post
Guest Post
Jazzy Book
Reviews
My Top Ten
Horror Movies, by D.A. Watson
One of the questions I get asked a lot is
“Why write horror?” Well, as they say, you write what you know, and I’m an
eighties kid. An eighties kid who had two older brothers who loved video nasties
and took full advantage of the fact that video rental places in those days
didn’t really give a fairy’s fart about ratings certificates, and would
cheerfully rent an 18 certificate movie to a prepubescent child with a couple
of quid in his pocket. The upshot of this is that I saw a lot of messed up
stuff before I was ten years old. Sure I was traumatised, had recurring
nightmares, and was nervous as a kitten on crack when faced with a dim lit
hallway or darkened bedroom, but all that exposure to age inappropriate
material gave my burgeoning imagination a blood-soaked baptism, and played a
big, scary part in me becoming the writer I am today. So, dim the lights, grab
a cushion to hide behind, lock all the doors and windows, and make sure your
crucifix and silver bullets are near to hand. Here are my top ten movie
frighteners.
The
Descent (2005)
The first entry on my list by director Neil
Marshall, who was also behind some of the best episodes of Game of Thrones (The Watchers
on the Wall, Blackwater). I’d
already watched Marshall’s Dog Soldiers
at the cinema when it came out in 2002, and was highly impressed by his
approach to action, tension, practical effects and dialogue. Early critical
buzz about The Descent was positive,
and it certainly didn’t disappoint me. Skin crawlingly claustrophobic, some
genuine shit-your-pants scares, wince-inducing injuries, a strong cast and a
brilliantly dark end twist, which was apparently too much for US audiences, who
got the happy ending with Sarah escaping the cave system. Booooo!
The
Witch (2015)
There’s a certain kind of movie that gets
under your skin. That slips insidious little slivers of uneasiness into the
spaces between your vertebrae. The Witch
did this for me. A few minutes in, confounded by the dense ye olde Puritan dialogue,
I admit I was scrambling for the subtitles, but the old world style of the
script, the bleak cinematography, outstanding performances from the cast and the
general sinister feeling of building menace and paranoia combined to give me a
serious case of the fear, and I’m not easily a-feared. Wouldst thou like to
live deliciously?
Fallen
(1998)
Who doesn’t like Denzel Washington? No one
I want to know, that’s who. And pairing him up with John Goodman and a
genuinely freaky, body-jumping serial-killing demon with a fondness for The Rolling
Stones? That’s a winning combo right there. I also love a good detective film,
and this movie perfectly blends a great police drama with a hefty shot of 100%
proof supernatural evil. And it has one of those great endings where the bad
guy wins. Altogether now, Tiiiiiiiiiime, is on my side, yes it is.
Dog
Soldiers (2002)
Another climber from Mr Neil Marshall, and
the first of three hairy palmed monobrowed flicks to make my list. God, I love Dog Soldiers! I have a friend who spent
some time in the army, and he commented on the authenticity of the squaddies’
banter and camaraderie, and I think that’s one of the things that makes this
flick so good. The chemistry and the patter between the characters is
absolutely immense. Any movie that has the line “I am not about to break radio
silence because you lot got spooked by a dead flying fucking cow!” is a winner
in my book. And that’s before we even get to the horror. Shot on a small
budget, the low lighting and dense forest setting mean that the practical
effects for the werewolves work an absolute treat. It’s also a damn fine action
movie, reminiscent of great siege films like Zulu and Assault on Precinct
13. I’m normally of the opinion that great films should be left alone and
not milked to death, but sadly, the planned sequel to Dog Soldiers never made it to development. Bone.
The
Blair Witch Project (1999)
I’ve liked the documentary style of horror filmmaking
ever since seeing The Legend of Boggy
Creek when I was a nipper, and holy handicraft, this once scared the
absolute shite out of me. It really is a mindfuck of a movie, relying on the
audiences’ own brains filling in the dark places, because throughout the whole
film you don’t see a single frame of whatever it is that’s hunting Josh,
Heather and Mike through the woods. That doesn’t stop it being scrotum
shrivellingly scary to a certain type of viewer. A masterclass in psychological
horror.
The
Howling (1981)
Another one from my early youth, and all
sorts of inappropriate for a precocious child. The full frontal nudity, the rape
porn, the foul language, and of course, the big scary as hell werewolves eating
the shit out of everyone. Another tip of the hat to the awesome practical
special effects in this movie, which in my opinion has the second best werewolf
transformation scene there is. Think you can figure out where I’m going with
this…
Poltergeist
(1982)
Scary clown doll? Check. Man eating tree?
Check. Freaky ass kid who talks to ghosts? Check. Poltergeist really has it all, and is probably responsible for
instilling an irrational fear of TV static in a whole generation of children.
This is one movie that I’ve actually found scarier as an adult, due to having a
child of my own now. Seeing what the parents go through after their wee one is
sucked into another dimension and gets tormented and chased around by a
malevolent spirit, it really tugs at the heartstrings. And that face peeling
scene? Bleurgh!
The
Thing (1982)
One of the biggest movie scares I ever
experienced came from the resuscitation scene in The Thing, when that dude’s chest turns into a big fanged mouth and
bites the doctor’s forearms off. Ah, good times! Genuinely disturbing premise
in a literally chilling setting, great performances from the cast, killer
soundtrack, constant sense of paranoia and suspicion, plenty of gory practical
effects that still look good enough to give you the creeps (those poor doggies!),
and an ending that leaves you guessing.
Jaws
(1975)
As my hero Billy Connolly once described
it, a movie about a shark that plays the cello. It’s kind of hard to write
anything about Jaws that hasn’t been
said a million times before. It’s really an icon of cinema in every respect. As
a kid, Quint getting graphically devoured and then dragged into the water as
the blood spurts from his mouth was my hide-behind-the-couch moment. As an
adult, it’s his cheery story about the USS Indianapolis, delivered by Robert
Shaw in probably the finest monologue ever. Farwell and adieu to your fair
Spanish ladies…
An
American Werewolf in London (1981)
The best there is, hands down. It’s funny (Benjamin, have you ever been severely beaten
about the face and neck?), it’s genuinely frightening (to this day I still
beware the moon, and stay clear of the moors wherever I go), it’s got great
characters, a tight script and amazing performances. It’s got Jenny Agutter, a
superb, lunar themed soundtrack, and special effects so good they made up a new
Oscar category just so they could give the movie an award. The iconic
transformation scene and walking meatloaf Jack’s visit to the hospital both
still look about a million times better than anything CGI has ever done. And of
course, it has a werewolf bursting out of a porno cinema and biting a
policeman’s head off, before going on a bloody rampage through Piccadilly
Circus. What’s not to like?!
Author Bio –
Prizewinning author D.A. Watson spent several years working in bars, restaurants and call centres before going back to university with the half-arsed plan of becoming a music teacher. Halfway through his degree at the University of Glasgow, he discovered he was actually better at writing, and unleashed his debut novel, In the Devil's Name, on an unsuspecting public in the summer of 2012. Plans of a career in education left firmly in the dust, he later gained his masters degree in Creative Writing from the University of Stirling.
He has since published two more novels, The Wolves of Langabhat and Cuttin’ Heads, a handful of non-fiction pieces, several short stories including Durty Diana, which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016, and the Burns parody Tam O' Shatner, which in 2017 came runner up in the Dunedin Robert Burns Poetry Competition, and was a competition winner at the Falkirk Storytelling Festival.
He has since published two more novels, The Wolves of Langabhat and Cuttin’ Heads, a handful of non-fiction pieces, several short stories including Durty Diana, which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016, and the Burns parody Tam O' Shatner, which in 2017 came runner up in the Dunedin Robert Burns Poetry Competition, and was a competition winner at the Falkirk Storytelling Festival.
He lives with his family in Western Scotland.
"The Christoper Brookmyre of horror. Readers will be very very afraid."
- Louise Welsh, bestselling author of the Plague Times trilogy
- Louise Welsh, bestselling author of the Plague Times trilogy
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