A green banner with black slime which reads: "HELIRUNA: A HORROR NOVEL by HAZEL E. BAUMGARTNER - SEPTEMBER 18, 2026"
I don't really have anything new to shout out for self promo except that my next book, #Heliruna, is coming out September 18th (but I've already announced that). Follow me on here for updates and eventually the preorder link once preorder goes live. 👀
Oh yeah I suppose #Heliruna has strong themes of social isolation too. Despite being in a small town that might as well all be her family, Sabine is ostracized and othered for being gay (because it's Kansas in the 1970s). That isolation drives her into the arms of the only other gay girl in town...
#Heliruna started as a screenplay that me, my brother, and a mutual friend of ours were trying to get made into a low budget horror film. We played around with a couple short films, but I ended up being an author. That friend (M.N. Jolley, don't think he's on Bluesky) both writes and directs now.
Starting to come up against a deadline and thinking I might not be able to release #Heliruna with the totally awesome cover art in my head on a shoestring budget like I'm on so like... here's some cover concepts I've come up with using stock images and free editing software. Which is our favorite?
#Heliruna is done. Like done done. Editing and all. All that's left to do is formatting, cover, and marketing for release.
I just finished #Heliruna to the point where it's all the boring non-creative work that needs to be done before release left, so in the meantime I've picked up another novel called #BloodReich which is about a coven of vampires defending their homeland during WWII. Very excited.
#HorrorWritersChat
Looks like #Heliruna comes out to 299 pages in print. SO close to writing a 300 page novel. 🤣
A promotional banner for Hazel E. Baumgartner's "HELIRUNA: A Horror Novel". The book's title is in white, in a sort of gothic font, in front of a green background dripping with black slime. At the top of the banner is a date, September 18, 2026.
Alright, y'all, I was going to wait until we were six months out to announce this, but the allure of Friday the 13th is too strong.
WE OFFICIALLY HAVE A RELEASE DATE FOR #HELIRUNA!
Pre-orders will go live sometime in June I think. Mark your calendars! September 18, 2026! #HypeHypeHype
Getting ready to start my fifth draft of "Heliruna" based on my red-pen edits from yesterday and so far I have written 228,302 words for this story, but also it's fun to see just how much of an underwriter I am. My word count goal remains 69,420, but I won't be upset if I go over it. #Heliruna
Another random quote from #Heliruna:
"There was something undeniably romantic about the prospect of mutual immolation, seared together forever in love."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAH!
Redpen time.
#Heliruna
That’s the kind of feedback every horror author hopes for. When a beta reader calls a monster “the scariest thing they’ve ever read,” it means the tension, description, and pacing truly landed. Sounds like #Heliruna is doing exactly what great horror should, sticking with the reader. 👏
One of the beta readers for #Heliruna said that the monster was "the scariest goddamn thing I've ever read". As a horror author, that's all I can hope for.
Screw it, I'll actually take this opportunity to leak my chapter titles.
Note that page numbers are in Google Docs format and aren't indicative of the actual page count of the finalized novel.
#WIPSnips #Heliruna #HypeHypeHype
Just ordered a paperback proof copy of #Heliruna to red-pen for the final line edit and spellcheck. In a few short days I'll be holding my second novel in my hands.
Hardly got any writing done this week but since I'm snowed in today I'm plugging away at it. A week past my self imposed deadline for the semi-final draft of #Heliruna so it would be awesome if I could finish it this weekend and send it to proofreading.
Today's #WIPsnips is "thing", so I am once again posting the first sentence in #Heliruna.
"It was a dark and stormy night, but that's not necessarily a bad thing."
Random sentence from #Heliruna that I love:
"There are things that fathers can help with, and then there are things which are questions for grandmothers."
Call your grandma.
Cynthia - had been eating it raw.
This is my favorite phrase in the whole book because I can't help but take it out of context and giggle every single time. #Heliruna
I accidentally leaked the release date of #Heliruna on my Discord the other day, but the rest of y'all have to wait to find out.
I can't really say without spoiling the ending of #Heliruna, but trust me I do love playing around with tropes. That being said, the entire premise of the book starts with a sort of "bury your gays" except the gay doesn't stay dead.
#HorrorWritersChat
Sexism and homophobia both play a major role in #Heliruna, as well as Christian guilt. Sabine and her partner are made to believe by the church that everything that's happening to them is their fault for being gay, which of course led to the most satisfying revenge scene I've done
#HorrorWritersChat
In my WIP, #Heliruna, the protagonist Sabine is a closeted lesbian who isn't really fooling anyone. At the start of the book, she plans to run away with her lover to Kansas City, and live happily ever after, and throughout the book that's all she wants.
#HorrorWritersChat
There's a running joke in #Heliruna where people consistently think Sabine's name is Sabrina, and it's absolutely making fun of myself for naming a teenage witch Sabrina, realizing you can't have a teenage witch named Sabrina, changing her name to Sabine, and then constantly typing Sabrina anyways.
Definitely Cynthia in #Heliruna. Who can't dance because she's dead. And her favorite soup is being dead.
#ParodyBookChat
I'm thinking about using Kickstarter or something similar to handle the preorders for #Heliruna and raise money for the release. I did a manual preorder for The Woods where I just had people send me money for it, but it was honestly a PITA and people might prefer a more trusted platform. Thoughts?
In "The Woods", Tom dreams that he's back in the titular woods seeing the ghost of his sister. It's literally the opening of the book. It sets up that he's still looking for her all those years later. In #Heliruna, the dreamscape is literally a representation of the...(1/2)
#HorrorWritersChat
I don't want to spoil anything, but suffice to say dreamscapes factor heavily in #Heliruna, funny enough inspired largely by the way Terry Pratchett treats other worlds in the Discworld books, but make it horror. Meanwhile, The Woods literally starts with Tom describing a dream.
#HorrorWritersChat
The last line of #Heliruna is "All fell quiet in Kansas."
