Horror Aficionados discussion

This is the August 2025 Group Read with Guest Author, Ronald Kelly. Ronald is a Splatterpunk Award-winning author and a horror icon with a career that’s spanned nearly 40 years. His stellar catalog includes the coming-of-age masterpiece, Fear, along with Hindsight, The Essential Sick Stuff, Blood Kin, and his horror western series, The Saga of Dead Eye.

This month, Ronald is joining us for his howling horrific werewolf tale, Undertaker's Moon. You can grab your copy at the link below . Please help welcome back to HA… Ronald Kelly!

https://www.amazon.com/Undertakers-Mo...

I read this not too long ago... it's awesome!

I've read this one as well, it's great :)

omg Welcome back Ron! hope everyone loves this one, it's a good one.

Welcome Ron!!!

Howdy Folks! It's great being back for this summer reading of Undertaker's Moon. I'm honored! A big thanks to Ken for suggesting we do this one. It's one of my personal favorites, as far as my novels go.

I'll be hanging around here throughout August, so if you have any comments or questions at all about Undertaker's Moon, I'm looking forward to replying and answering whatever you have for me. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

WB Ron. I bought this from you at AuthorCon a couple years ago, and it became one of my faves of yours. A perfect classic old school werewolf story with a unique twist.

Ron - as you know, I’m a sucker for a good cover and Undertaker’s Moon has one of the best covers in horror of this century.
Can you tell us who created it and little about the process of how it came to be?

Ken, Alex McVey did the cover for Undertaker's Moon. Alex has done about 80% of all my book covers since 2009.

Here is a feature on my website that details the history and Alex's process in bringing the "Blue Werewolf" cover art to life.

https://www.ronaldkelly.com/alex-mcve...

Ronald wrote: "Ken, Alex McVey did the cover for Undertaker's Moon. Alex has done about 80% of all my book covers since 2009.

Here is a feature on my website that details the history and Alex's process in bringi..."

It's honestly one of the best and scariest covers I've ever seen, it gives me goosebumps up to my eyeballs anytime I see it.

Welcome Ronald, and thanks for joining us for this group read! I'm really enjoying the novel so far. The multiple POVs makes for great pacing, and some genuinely creepy moments (like ahem ... let's just say the tree). Is it hard to juggle so many POV characters when writing a novel? I imagine it could be challenging to keep track of character A does this, then it will affect character B two chapters down the line, and character C in the end, etc. I always wondered about this, and if you could tell us about your writing process. Do you consider yourself a panster or a plotter?

Kasper wrote: "Welcome Ronald, and thanks for joining us for this group read! I'm really enjoying the novel so far. The multiple POVs makes for great pacing, and some genuinely creepy moments (like ahem ... let's..."

Hi Kasper! I'm glad you're enjoying UM! When I wrote mass market paperbacks back in the 1990s, I was a plotter, mainly because I was required to turn in a detailed outline of the book I was pitching to the publisher. These days I'm pretty much a pantser. I begin a project with a solid germ of an idea and let it take the story where it naturally progresses.

As for multiple POVs, that's another thing that paperback writers were encouraged to do in the 80s and 90s, mostly because novels were bigger and more immersive then. Zebra Books had a clause in my contracts that required me to write a novel between 350 and 500 pages. To stretch a story to such a length, I added multiple characters with multiple POVs but tried my best to not let it bog down the narrative. Also, multiple subplots were handy to flesh out a doorstopper book. Many of today's readers don't seem to want multiple characters or subplots. They just prefer a quick, direct story to blaze through.

I'm currently writing FEAR ETERNAL, the sequel to my coming-of-age novel FEAR, and I'm finding myself using multiple POVs again, although there is mainly only one plot throughout the book. And, like FEAR, this one will probably come in at around 400-450 pages.

Kasia wrote: "Ronald wrote: "Ken, Alex McVey did the cover for Undertaker's Moon. Alex has done about 80% of all my book covers since 2009.

Here is a feature on my website that details the history and Alex's pr..."
Alex really outdid himself with the werewolf cover. I'm blessed to have it gracing this book.

This was the first werewolf story I encountered that tied back to Irish lore, though apparently werewolves have lots of ties to Irish lore. What inspired you to make that connection in the story?

Alan wrote: "This was the first werewolf story I encountered that tied back to Irish lore, though apparently werewolves have lots of ties to Irish lore. What inspired you to make that connection in the story?"
Hi Alan!
I've always been interested in Irish history, and, at the time, I was brainstorming for another novel for Zebra. Werewolves had always been one of my favorite monsters, so I decided to combine the two - Irish folklore and lycanthropes - and wrote Undertaker's Moon. Zebra published the book under the generic title of Moon of the Werewolf. But, later one, I rereleased it under its original title.

Ron, I’m just shy of a 25% in and the character development is amazing. You’ve nailed the small-town vibe down to the stale beer smell in the pool hall. I feel like I know each and every one of these characters. I swear you and Robert McCammon are related. You two do this better than any other authors out there.

I’ve always been a huge fan of werewolves myself, but the subgenre can be tricky to come up with something that hasn’t already been done to death. Combining it with Irish immigrants/folklore is an interesting take I wouldn’t have thought of. Was there a certain feel or mindset you had going into the writing of this one, maybe a scene or an ending you thought of and then built the story off of that?

I'm so happy to see Ronald Kelly featured here because I loved The Halloween Store. It's such a perfectly creepy short story collection.

My question is, what book or short story scares you?