Horror author Stephen Mark Rainey signed copies of his latest book, “The House at Black Tooth Pond,” during a recent event at Magnolia & Main Books in Ridgeway. The novel, released earlier this year, draws inspiration from locations in Henry County and Martinsville.
“It is set in an area that is loosely based on Martinsville, Henry County,” Rainey said.
Two key settings in the book were directly influenced by local landmarks. One is a crumbling house the author and his brother discovered in the woods around 1990, near Everson Falls.
The pair were walking a dog in the evening when they stumbled upon an overgrown structure.
“That’s an old house. It’s just completely overgrown with a tree growing out of it,” Rainey said. “I went back later and went exploring inside. And I thought that I’ve got to use this in a book.”
The title’s pond is also based on a real place—behind Martinsville High School.
“I think when I was in 10th grade, our biology teacher said, ‘We’re gonna go down and take some water samples,’” he said. The pond had old stumps sticking out of the water, inspiring the name “Black Tooth Pond.”
“I would call it sort of a combination haunted house, cosmic horror kind of tale—if you’re at all familiar with things like H.P. Lovecraft.”
The fictional town in the book is called Aiken Mill, located in a made-up Sylvan County, and follows two brothers caught in a strange mystery.
“While exploring the darkest corners of Sylvan County, psychology professor Martin Pritchett and his brother, Phillip, happen upon a crumbling, century-old house beside a body of water called Black Tooth Pond. A strange compulsion leads both men back to the house time and time again, but neither can remember any of the events that occur there.
As both Sheriff Parrott and the Pritchett brothers attempt to solve their respective mysteries, their paths begin to converge—paths that lead inexorably to the ancient, foreboding house at Black Tooth Pond.”
The book began as a short story before expanding into a full-length novel.
Rainey is currently collaborating with author Elizabeth Massey on a new science fiction/horror project. The story follows a group of people who awaken from a cryogenic experiment with no memory of who they are or what happened to them. As they adjust to life 30 years after being frozen, they begin to experience fragmented, haunting visions of a shared event from before their stasis. The memories are fractured and haunting, and as the group begins to piece them together and realize they aren’t done with the past.
“I love people who find my work and enjoy my work,” Rainey said. “That’s the people who actually support me as a writer. Even if it’s, you know, buying a book on Amazon, leaving a review—anything that gives me a way to know that, yeah, I’m not doing this totally in a vacuum.”
