“A picture is worth a thousand nightmares.” That haunting sentiment danced through my mind as I turned my gaze to Kosoko Jackson’s latest offering, The Macabre, freshly released by Harper Voyager. Seriously, snag a copy, [*] and prepare yourself for a ride! The cover—oh, the cover!—boasts a disturbingly beautiful painting that harkens back to the chilling aesthetics of Rob Sterling’s Night Gallery. At least, that’s what it conjured in my warped imagination.
Let me paint you a picture of the plot: enter Lewis Dixon, a struggling painter whose life takes an unexpected turn when the British Museum suddenly shows a peculiar interest in his art. Now, Lewis always sensed something potent lurking beneath his brush strokes. An unsettling pull that leads him to create a haunting reinterpretation of one of his great-grandfather's ten paintings from over a century ago. His modern twist? Surreal and dripping with a hint of horror, of course.
When Lewis accepts the museum's invitation, he discovers it’s not an exhibition he’s stepping into, but a bizarre trial to see if he possesses the uncanny magic to step into the paintings—and more crucially, if he has the resolve to escape them. Little does he know that those ten paintings come with a double-edged sword: immense eldritch power and a curse that could rival any nightmare. They may hold the key to being the most coveted artworks in existence.