{Contest} Carson Winter’s Reunion Special

What if Survivor meant you had to survive. What if the Amazing Race finished in Hell? What if Below Deck was WAY below deck. Reunion Special the newest from Carson Winter asks those questions and more. Leave a comment below with your scariest reality TV moment and you might win a signed copy of Winter’s newest novella.

What if…

No one’s ever seen Deserted. But people talk about it.

The “reality television event that never was” crashed before it ever took off. Now, all that survives is snippets—images of contestants staring off into space, the heads of snakes peering out from the backs of their throats.

18 years later, host Edgar Reyes invites them back to the island, for a reunion special. But as the truth begins to slither out, the host and contestants question who’s really pulling their strings.

Critical Reception for Reunion Special

“Carson has penned a truly atmospheric horror with a dreadful mystery at the heart of it. The pages go so fast that the only thing that kept me from finishing it in one sitting was a child that needed to eat and a migraine that put me on my ass for a day. Maybe it was my brain tripping a fuse. Maybe a snake was chewing on my cerebral cortex.

Either way, this novella is going to haunt my dreams in the same way Sour Candy and blanky by Kealan Patrick Burke does!”

“Carson Winter, a name we’ll be hearing more from in the future, has created a thrilling and thoroughly creepy chiller in his debut novella. Dynamic characters that are just a couple inches off kilter from our own mundane world take center stage as they try to unravel the mystery that has been hidden deep in their own memories. They are led by the broken, but still charming Edgar Reyes, who is as much a victim of what’s behind the camera lens as he is a guide and orchestrator. And they are followed by the omnipresent narrator who silently heralds a power both greater and more sinister than they could possibly imagine. With a premise that hearkens back to the early days of reality television and a google dominated internet, this story will delight with its relentless pace that doles out clues like morsels of chocolate. Too good to stop, but we know we shouldn’t take the next bite.”

“In 1997, a reality show known as Survivor captured America’s attention and would change TV forever. Meanwhile, in an alternate reality, Deserted was filmed in much the same manner. 8 contestants were brought to a tropical island to compete for the cash prize at the end, but…something happened. The show was never aired.
You may have heard of it.
I think I did.
Weren’t there some disturbing clips of the doomed reality show available online?
Yeah, I remember that.
Don’t you?
I read about it somewhere . Think I even saw a clip.
But maybe I’m not so sure, because Carson Winter’s debut novella threads that dreamlike quality that makes the prose take up refuge in your subconscious where you start to have confusions as to what is real and what is a false memory.
A great premise if there ever was one: over a decade later, the remaining contestants of Deserted are scheduled to appear in the Reunion special where they will finally confront what happened and what went wrong.
I was only disappointed that this was the only story available by Mr. Winter.
Anxiously awaiting his next release.
In the meantime, I am back to scouring the internet for clips from Deserted. I could’ve sworn I saw something before.”

CONTEST ENDS ON MONDAY MAY 17th at 8:00AM CST.

Check out Reunion Special out now!