Matt Wesolowski Books In Order

Publication Order of Six Stories Books

Publication Order of Mad Scientist Journal Presents Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Matt Wesolowski is a British crime and horror fiction author from Newcastle Upon Tyne. He works a day job as a tutor of English to young people in care. He got his start in fiction authoring horror novels before he got his short stories published in a variety of American and British anthologies including “Cold Iron,” “Selfies from the End of the World,” and “Midnight Movie Creature.” He is also the author of “Black Land” a horror novella published in 2013 set in the Northumberland coast. In 2015, Wesolowski’s work was feted at the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival where it won the Pitch Perfect Competition. “Six Stories” his debut novel was an Amazon bestselling title in the US, Australia, the UK, and Canada and was also a WHSmith Fresh Talent pick. He sold the rights to the novel to a major motion picture studio in Hollywood. “Hydra” the prequel to the debut was published to rave reviews in 2018 and also went on to become a bestseller across the world. He made the shortlist for Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the year for “Changeling” which was published in 2019. The novel also won Best Independent Voice and Best Thriller in the Amazon Publishing Reader Awards.

For Matt Wesolowski, writing is something he has always done and had to do from when he was very young. However, he held many jobs before he became an author as he was a chef, shop assistant and school teacher though writing always remained a constant. Matt always felt that he had too many stories bubbling inside his head just wanting to get out. As a teen, he wanted to become a teenage vampire storyteller but has kept a lid on that at least for now. Crime fiction had always been something he enjoyed reading though he never felt confident enough to write pure crime as he is still too comfortable with horror. Nonetheless, in recent times he has been combining elements of both horror and crime fiction which has significantly improved his storytelling. The stories that have always held a fascination for him were true crime, particularly unsolvable cases or anything involving serial killers such as the “Black Dahlia Murder” or the “Zodiac Killer.” He is also big on crime documentaries and true crime podcasts and has often gone to sleep listening to them. He has always been curious about underlying reasons, the causes and looking below the surface into the darkest recesses of a crime story. Wesolowski was first introduced to the podcast format of crime fiction storytelling when he listened to the “Ricky Gervais Show” with Karl Pilkington and Stephen Merchant. However, it was when he listened to the fusion of public service broadcasting with Lovecraftian horror on “Welcome to Night Vale” that he was hooked to the podcast format.

Wesolowski started writing the Six Stories more as an experiment than anything else. It was at a time when the “Serial” podcast was so popular and he thought he should try writing a crime thriller in the format. He almost shelved it and decided to publish the debut Six Stories and was surprised when it immediately became a hit. His inspiration for “Hydra” the prequel also came to him while he was listening to another podcast. Unlike many authors, Matt never bothered with finding a publisher as he only submitted his debut to Bloody Scotland’s Pitch Perfect competition though he expected to be laughed off the stage. In fact, he was surprised when Orenda’s Karen Sullivan approached him after the session and asked for the manuscript. He had never submitted it anywhere else except in a competition held by a literary agency where it had not garnered any interest. Overall, none of his horror works before had ever had any interest in his works and thus the approach from Orenda was a game-changer.

“Six Stories” the first novel of Matt Wesolowski is set in 1997 in the city of Scarlaw Fell, where the employees of the Outward Bound center discovered the body of Tom Jeffries on the premises. The police believe the death was a result of a misadventure but there are a lot of people that do not believe the official narrative. The truth of what happened on that fateful day lies with a tight-knit group of friends that had been on the trip and the insubstantial testimony of a few other eyewitnesses living nearby that may or may have not seen anything. But Scott King the elusive investigative journalist is not one to be deterred by such a challenge. Through his podcast examinations, he has been able to crack complex cases and has rivaled the likes of Serial. However, since he does audio podcasts no one knows his identity and this makes him a cult internet figure. He conducts a series of six interviews trying to determine if the teenagers had decided to reenact a set of ominous legends that had resulted in the mysterious death of the teenage boy Jeffries. Each interview leads to the unearthing of a revelation that forces the reader to piece the clues as to how the teenager died though it may be hard to determine just who is being truthful.

Wesolowski’s “Hydra” is a novel set in 2014, in a small town of England where Arla Macleod a 21-year-old girl just killed her sister, her father and mother with a sledgehammer in a shocking event that came to be known as the “Macleod Massacre.” She is now held at a medium-security mental health institution. Arla has refused to give interviews or speak to anyone except for the elusive Scott King that has made a name for himself with the “Six Stories” podcasts. King is now wading in the intricacies of a complex case as he interviews Arla and five witnesses. As he conducts the interviews, he begins to question if the killer’s responsibility for the massacre was as low as the defense made it out to be. While he picks through the stories of the interviewees, he wades into a world of online trolls, deadly forbidden games and mysterious black-eyed teens. These teens are not just the delusions of a killer but seem to be actual persons. The Hydra is a classic, chilling and compelling murder mystery that shines the light in some of the darkest recesses that you never want to look into.

Matt Wesolowski’s third novel “Changeling” is a novel set in 1988 on Christmas Eve. A father had stopped to check out a burst tire on Wentshire Forest Pass, only for Alfie Marsden the seven-year child traveling with him to go missing. Sorrel had walked away from the car for only a few minutes to call emergency services and come back to an empty car. The child had vanished leaving no trace and despite a frantic search, he was declared dead in 1995. Scott King the elusive journalist with the viral podcast episodes that have made him an internet cult is investigating the disappearance. He has been interviewing six witnesses that include the boy’s father, his ex-partner and his other son, trying to get to the root of the disappearance. Talking a walk through the Wentshire Forest that is synonymous with tales of strange folk and strange sightings, he learns quite a lot. He talks to a psychic that says he can pinpoint the location of the boy and then a company that once tried to establish a plant in the forest and failed. It is an intensely chilling, thought-provoking and dark novel that makes for compelling reading.