Phantom Dlivery is the first installment of my Nostalgiamares series released by the excellent folks at Raven Tale Publishing. It sees 38-year-old Harper Sumner waking up in the form of fictional popular girl Patricia Weaver, one of the protagonists featured in her favorite young adult horror series Deadmares by A.X. Carver.
I wanted to see what would happen if you literally dropped a modern day reader into the nostalgic world of a book series they grew up loving. At the same time, I was interested in engaging with the very idea of nostalgia, of perception vs reality, and question why the media I grew up loving still retains such a powerful hold on me.
The title is meant to evoke those punny titles adored by creators like R.L. Stine that suggest a dollop of camp thrown in with all the terror and suspense. It refers to the main antagonist of the book, a pizza delivery man in a baseball cap that cloaks his face in shadow and who takes out his victims with a mean pizza cutter. Like a phantom, he can be anywhere, and strike when Harper least expects it.
In some ways, this is a self-contained story. The mystery of who the phantom is and who is behind Harper’s mysterious predicament are answered by the end. However, there are much grander mysteries far beyond the typical scope of a vintage YA thriller that can only be answered over the next three installments.
It is set for release very, very soon.
Mark Guyer Writes When He Can 
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