The Lebo Coven

Barry Riggs returns to his hometown in search of his brother, Matt, who has mysteriously disappeared. His house has been ransacked - and branded by the strange word "LEBO," painted in blood on the bedroom wall. Despite having mixed feelings about his brother, Barry decides to do some detective work of his own. Along the way, Barry meets a young woman named Jennifer Brand, whom he had once treated with contempt because she suffered from a repulsive, crippling affliction. After some awkward moments, the two become friends, and together they begin to unravel the mystery. Stephen Mark Rainey is well known as editor of the acclaimed Deathrealm magazine, which ran from 1987 to 1997 and won numerous best magazine awards. Currently a resident of Greensboro, North Carolina, Mark lived in Chicago for several years during the 1980s and still considers the Windy City his second home.

From Publishers Weekly

A young man battles dark forces overwhelming his home, family and friends in this formulaic supernatural thriller. When Barry Riggs returns to Aikens Mill, his Virginia hometown, he finds his family house ransacked and the word LEBO scrawled in blood on its walls. His estranged younger brother, Matt, is missing, and the locals suspect it's the work of Ren, a drifter and supposed Satanist whom Matt rented rooms to. By luck, Barry reconnects with old acquaintance Jennifer Brand, whose recent delvings into the Kabbalah help them discover that the house is a locus for an evil far worse than the satanic. Though Rainey gives his horrors an original cosmic twist, he depends heavily on large dollops of arcane occult lore, which drop thuddingly into conversations and make the characters speaking it all sound alike. A few twists and a well-executed climax raise this novel above more routine horror fare. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Stephen Mark Rainey is author of the novels BALAK, THE LEBO COVEN, DARK SHADOWS: DREAMS OF THE DARK (with Elizabeth Massie), BLUE DEVIL ISLAND, and THE NIGHTMARE FRONTIER; the short story collections FUGUE DEVIL & OTHER WEIRD HORRORS, THE LAST TRUMPET, LEGENDS OF THE NIGHT, OTHER GODS, and THE GAKI & OTHER HUNGRY SPIRITS; the scripts for three DARK SHADOWS audio dramas (THE PATH OF FATE, CURSE OF THE PHARAOH, and BLOOD DANCE); and over 90 published works of short fiction. For ten years, he edited the award-winning DEATHREALM magazine, and has edited three anthologies (SONG OF CTHULHU, DEATHREALMS, and EVERMORE). Mark lives in Greensboro, NC.

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