From Bram Stoker Award-nominated publisher, Crystal Lake Publishing, and the editing duo who brought you the best-selling and critically acclaimed small-town Lovecraftian horror anthology Shadows over Main Street, comes Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories- a disturbing journey into the beauty that rests inside the very heart of darkness.
Awe meets ache.
Terror becomes transcendence.
Regret gives way to rebirth.
Fifteen short stories and one poem span nearly every twisted corner of the horror and dark fiction genres:
A woman experiences an emotional reckoning inside a haunted house.
A father sees his daughter rescued after a cold case is solved, only to learn the tragic limits of his love.
A man awakens a vengeful spirit and learns the terrible price of settling scores.
A boy comes of age into awareness of a secret universe of Lovecraftian scale.
A young woman confronts the deathly price of existence inside a German concentration camp during the Holocaust.
And much, much more...
Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories features the most celebrated voices in dark fiction, as well as a number of exciting new talents:
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[The Acromantula is a monstrous eight-legged spider capable of human speech](Crystal Lake Publishing, 24 June 2016, ebook, 380 pages, Prime Reading)
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Stories included:
- The Morning After Was Filled with Bone by Stephanie M. Wytovich
- Picking Splinters from a Sex Slave by Brian Kirk
- Arbeit Macht Frei by Lisa Mannetti
- The Problem of Susan by Neil Gaiman
- Dominion by Christopher Coake
- Water Thy Bones by Mercedes M. Yardley
- A Haunted House is a Wheel Upon Which Some Are Broken by Paul Tremblay
- On The Other Side of the Door, Everything Changes by Damien Angelica Walters
- Repent by Richard Thomas
- Coming to Grief by Clive Barker
- Cards for His Spades, Coins for His Fare by John F.D. Taff
- Cellar's Dog by Amanda Gowin
- When We All Meet at the Ofrenda by Kevin Lucia
- Hey, Little Sister by Maria Alexander
- The One You Live With by Josh Malerman
- The Place of Revelation by Ramsey Campbell
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This is a cracking collection of short stories. Some household names are featured including Neil Gaiman, Paul Tremblay, Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell. I enjoyed every story in this collection. Some stories are darker than others and there's a good mix of different story types here. I particularly enjoyed Picking Splinters from a Sex Slave by Brian Kirk, Dominion by Christopher Coake, Coming to Grief by Clive Barker and When We All Meet at the Ofrenda by Kevin Lucia.
