Coming in 2021, we have Ali House's lit fiction horror novel, Variety Show.
House's third novel follows Wendy, a young actor navigating her way through the difficult — and often political — art scene that surrounds the Quaint Little Theatre, finding out who is friend, who is against her, and who will help her on her road to the stage. All the while, something lurks deep within the bowels of the Theatre... making strange noises and acting on the worst whims of the staff and crew. Can Wendy survive to accomplish her dreams of being on the stage?
Variety Show is the spiritual successor to the 2017 novella Jocobi Street by Matthew LeDrew, one of his most critically acclaimed works. "You can read Variety Show on its own," said LeDrew. "House has created a unique and self-contained narrative that is astonishing. It's some of her best work and draws from her own experiences in the theatre. It's a testament to what an author can accomplish when they know their subject matter and can blend fact with fiction seamlessly." Variety Show takes place on Jacobi Street, and further expands the cast and setting of that artsy borough of the city.
A native Newfoundlander, House is a graduate of the Fine Arts program at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College (MUN). She currently resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she works in arts administration and spends more time than a person should in and around theaters.
House is an avid traveler and foodie, and uses her adventures for her inspiration when she writes.
In addition to her novels The Six Elemental and The Fifth Queen, House is a prolific short story writer, with stories appearing in Bluenose Paradox, Unexpected Stories, Fantasy from the Rock, Chillers from the Rock, Sci-Fi from the Rock and Gathering Storm Magazine. In 2020, Engen Books released her first collection of short fiction, The Lightbulb Forest, collecting forty of her original works.
In The Lightbulb Forest she first dabbled into the larger tapestry of the Engen Universe with her short story The Inevitable. Variety Show is her third novel, and the first set in the Engen Universe, a fictional continuity of stories that includes the ten book Coral Beach Casefiles series, the Xander Drew series, the Infinity series, the spy-thriller Touch Your Nose, and, Jacobi Street.