Innocence Ends, which was originally released in August of 2020, is a story of friendship and how far that friendship can be tested. Since its release, it has been one of my most successful titles. It was not, however, successful enough in the opinion of Candace Nola, the founder of Uncomfortably Dark Horror. In late 2023, she asked if I would be willing to remove the existing edition of the novel from publication and allow her to work with me to improve it, slap a brand new cover on it (courtesy of Don Noble), and release it through her publishing house. I agreed, and she quickly got to work. In June of 2024, almost four years from the original release date, the new and improved edition of Innocence Ends found new life.

The concept that forms the substrate of this novel is one that arose from a conversation with an old friend of mine, more than 20 years before the book ended up being published. We’d been discussing that certain B-movie tropes were never played as being serious, and we were sort of disappointed by that fact. You know the tropes I mean, the mad scientist with his manor atop the hillside, the group of friends trapped in a town with a sinister secret, and other such things. Snippets of scenes that would ultimately become part of Innocence Ends were posted on this blog years ago because I’d started writing this book long before I finally sat down and finished it in late 2019 and early 2020. More than two decades in the making, I’m pleased with how this one turned out.

Six lifelong friends meet together in an isolated mountain town in Northern Idaho to commemorate the fifth anniversary of a close friend’s suicide.

A week of hiking, spending time in nature, and a bittersweet reunion soon takes a sinister turn as the friends find themselves fighting for their lives and struggling to survive. A seemingly tranquil community bombarded by late spring storms becomes a trap filled with monsters and threats everywhere they turn.

Terrifying secrets are revealed and the survivors are left to wonder what will be left of the world outside if they can find a way to come through the gauntlet alive.

Advance praise for the new and improved edition of Innocence Ends:

This title is also available through http://www.godless.com at the following link:

Innocence Ends by Nikolas P. Robinson