Ghouls! It is with immense pleasure that I get to finally announce the release of Ryan C. Bradley’s Say Uncle, a coming-of-age horror comedy that we’ve been pitching as Uncle Buck meets Hellraiser. Here’s Luke Spooner’s cover art:
HE’S CRUDE. HE’S CRASS. HE’S FAMILY.
AND HE’LL TEAR YOUR SOUL APART.
It’s 2005 and 15-year-old Braden O’Riley is hoping for the best summer of his life. Instead, he finds himself sleeping on an air mattress next to his brother. In the wake of a marriage separation, their vulgar, misogynist uncle has moved in, bringing along a mysterious book full of strange occult symbols. What could this book mean? Who, exactly, is this man sleeping in Braden’s bedroom? And what other devastating secrets could he be hiding?
Read the first chapter over on Paste Magazine.
Here is a trailer we made featuring the author strangling our mutual friends:
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR SAY UNCLE
“Say Uncle starts like the best of coming-of-age story: one about family, young love, and identity. Then the rot rears its head. Cultists, murder, unwanted obligations, and your favorite uncle stealing your bedroom – then trying to sacrifice your girl. Bradley has dropped an absolute wrecking ball of a story. Thoroughly recommended.”
—Zachary Ashford, Australian Shadows-nominated author of POLYPHEMUS.
“Say Uncle is an inventive story of family, monsters, and the horrors that shape us. Blending imaginative gore, dark magic, and the childhood experiences that never truly fade, this story delivers both chills and heart. Packed with plenty of laughs and a big dose of adventure, Say Uncle is a wild ride.”
—Celso Hurtado, International Latino Award Winning author of The Ghost Tracks
“Say Uncle is a wild cross-genre romp in which Ryan C. Bradley effectively uses nostalgia, humor, and evocative grotesqueries to deliver a unique angle on coming-of-age horror.”
—Jessica McHugh, 3x Bram Stoker Award nominated author of The Train Derails in Boston
“A viciously fun story of family dysfunction meeting dark magic.”
—Johnny Compton, author of The Spite House
If you’ve already pre-ordered a copy directly from our webstore, all orders were dropped off at the post office bright & early Monday morning. We’re mostly out of copies at our physical shop currently, but we have a rush order of restocks on the way from the printer. So, if you’d like to order a copy NOW, you can still buy it from our webstore (although it’s briefly backordered). We also sell eBook versions directly from our site, too. Additionally, you can order Say Uncle via your local indie bookstore, or Bookshop.org, or B&N, or Amazon, or wherever else you normally buy books.
Here is what Ryan C. Bradley posted on his public Facebook earlier this morning, to celebrate the release:
SAY UNCLE is ALIVE!
I hope you read that title in Dr. Frankenstein’s voice from the 1931 flick.
I’ve been pushing this book as hard as I possibly can since it was announced back in March of 2024. I’ve been posting on socials every week day (I can’t bring myself to post weekends. This shit drains me), I’ve done 10 events since reading at University of Hartford on March 12th (That shit fires me up. I love performing!), and I’ve got 2 more podcast appearances dropping this week.
I’m putting in all this effort in for two reasons. The first is that I’m going to die one day. I don’t want to look back at the end of my life and think that I could’ve done more to chase my dreams. The second is that Say Uncle is a dream come true.At the risk of sounding like a kiss-ass, I told Max Booth III that I’d wanted to work with them for nearly 10 years on the Ghoulish Podcast when we recorded on Sunday. Both of us had stories in The Gothic Blue Book V: The Cursed Edition in 2015, which is how I discovered and fell in love with their work. (It was my first published horror story. Don’t quote me on this, but I think they had a couple of books out at that point.) I’ve followed Max’s career since and have a tremendous admiration for their writing and the work they published, first as Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing and now as Ghoulish Books.
They, and their partner Lori Booth, accepted my story “Jake’s Duty” in 2017 for Dark Moon Digest #28 and then my story “No Point Crying” in 2021 for Dark Moon Digest #42. Betsy and I decided to move to Austin in 2021 for a lot of reasons—the main one being her family lives in Dallas—but a minor reason was that I’d get a chance to perform at “Something Indecent with Max Booth III.” That didn’t pan out, but I performed on nearly every episode of the sequel, “The Ghoulish Show,” sharpening my chops as a live performer.
It was a late night, post-show conversation that led to them asking to take a look at Say Uncle (at the time called Our Gods are Our Monsters; they came up with the excellent new title), and here we are. My favorite of the books I’ve written so far is releasing with one of my favorite publishers of all time. I’m so dang proud!
Thank you to everyone who’s bought a copy, told a friend about it, and came out to a show! Thank you to Max and Lori for taking a chance on this book with me! If you want to see me perform live or get a book signed:
5/7/25 – 6pm – Say Uncle at Interabang Books with Preston Fassels, Dallas, TX
5/24/25 – 7pm – Say Uncle at Haunt Happy Books in Lockhart, TX
6/12/25-6/15/25 – Stokercon in Stamford, CT
7/17/25 – Say Uncle at Magic City Books in Tulsa, OK
