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Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories Kindle Edition
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A disturbing journey into the beauty that rests inside the very heart of darkness.
From the Bram Stoker Award-winning Crystal Lake Publishing and the editing duo who brought you the critically acclaimed small-town Lovecraftian horror anthology Shadows Over Main Street, comes Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories.
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:
Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Paul Tremblay, John F.D. Taff, Lisa Mannetti, Damien Angelica Walters, Josh Malerman, Christopher Coake, Mercedes M. Yardley, Brian Kirk, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Amanda Gowin, Richard Thomas, Maria Alexander and Kevin Lucia. Edited by Doug Murano and D. Alexander Ward.
With a foreword from Cemetery Dance magazine founder Richard Chizmar.
Proudly brought to you by Crystal Lake Publishing – Tales from the Darkest Depths
Interview with the Authors:
So what makes Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories so special?
John F.D. Taff: Usually, horror stories tell us the dark side of dark stories, the bad stuff that happens during bad times. It's expected that there will be horrors in the kinds of stories horror generally tells. But Gutted explores the other side of things, the darkness that's there in moments you might not otherwise expect; those moments that touch our hearts or resonate more strongly with our other emotions. It's that beauty—that unexpected emotional resonance that can reside comfortably, side by side with fear, in a good horror story—that separates the stories in Gutted and makes them quite unique.
Tell us more about your story.
Ramsey Campbell: Occasionally I try to repay my debt to specific writers. Midnight Sun was my attempt to scale the awesome peak of Algernon Blackwood’s achievement, while The Darkest Part of the Woods clambered the Lovecraftian. “The Place of Revelation” goes for another giant of the field. If anybody guesses which one, I’ll count the tale some kind of a success. The naïve voice can be a highly effective way to tell a tale of terror, creating a tension between what’s told and how.
John F.D. Taff: My story is a distillation of my childhood. I grew up in the '70s, and I wanted to capture that time period as much as anything else. I also wanted to explore one moment during my childhood, when I got my first 10-speed bike—the freedom that bought a kid like me. It opened so many doors, the ability to go out on my own, far beyond my neighborhood. To explore the world, to discover new things. And then, of course, I wanted to explore the dark side of that, the dangers that same key also unlocked. It all boiled down, at least to me while writing it, to a central idea, that question of "How do you let go of things?"
Gutted eBook categories:
- Horror Anthologies
- Genre Fiction
- Short story anthologies
- Urban Fantasy
- Horror Short stories
- Disturbing psychological horror
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJune 24, 2016
- File size3604 KB
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From the Publisher

Our anthologies include the likes of Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Josh Malerman, Damien Angelica Walters, Orrin Grey , Brian Keene, Graham Masterton , Kathe Koja, Gemma Files, Lee Murray, Christopher Golden, Kevin J. Anderson, Jonathan Maberry, Gary A. Braunbeck, Rick Hautala, Tim Curran, Elizabeth Massie, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Mercedes M. Yardley, Kevin Lucia, John Skipp, Mary SanGiovanni, Jonathan Janz, Glenn Rolfe, Jeff Strand, Rachel Autumn Deering, Patrick Lacey, Bev Vincent, John Palisano, Tim Waggoner, Lisa Morton, Rena Mason, Tim Lebbon, Aaron Dries, Richard Chizmar, Mark Allan Gunnells, Kenneth W. Cain, Kealan Patrick Burke, Gene O'Neill, Maria Alexander, Michael Bailey, Lucy A. Snyder, Jason Sizemore, Laird Barron, S.P. Miskowski, Gwendolyn Kiste, Seanan McGuire, Richard Thomas, Taylor Grant, Armand Rosamilia, Todd Keisling, John Boden, Chad Lutzke, Gary McMahon, Jasper Bark, Jeremy C. Shipp, John Claude Smith, Scott Nicholson, William Meikle, and many more.

Editorial Reviews
Review
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "We've grown accustomed to horror that pulls us into the depths and leaves us there, but this compilation shows that even at the worst times, humans instinctively cling to any ray of hope they can find. While it may not be the hope they thought they were looking for, sometimes, it's still enough."—Bleeding Cool
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Enough big-hitters to propel this collection to the top of any horror enthusiast's to-read list."—This is Horror
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Have you ever been punched in the stomach? You know, just hit so hard that it knocks the wind out of you and all you can do is sit there and try to catch a breath. That's how I felt after reading this book."—Horror Novel Reviews
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "I would say this collection is appropriately named and deserves to earn each and every author worldwide acclaim. Yes, it's that good."—Mass Movement magazine
"It's a book for readers who love language as much as story, who understand that horror can be beautiful, ecstatic and revelatory as well as down-right scary."—James Everington
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "Up-and-coming writers such as Mercedes M. Yardley, Brian Kirk, and Maria Alexander deliver the goods alongside Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, and other established writers. If you only buy one collection of stories this year, this should be it."—JG Faherty, multi-award nominated author of The Cure, The Burning Time, and Ghosts of Coronado Bay.
Product details
- ASIN : B01HALT6YW
- Publisher : Crystal Lake Publishing (June 24, 2016)
- Publication date : June 24, 2016
- Language : English
- File size : 3604 KB
- Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 318 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #177,387 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #111 in Horror Anthologies (Kindle Store)
- #215 in Horror Anthologies (Books)
- #251 in Horror Short Stories
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Lisa Mannetti's debut novel, THE GENTLING BOX, garnered a Bram Stoker Award and since then she has won the award for short fiction and has been nominated five additional times for the award in both the short and long fiction categories. Her work has been translated into Italian, and her story, "Everybody Wins," was made into a short film by director Paul Leyden starring Malin Ackerman and released under the title Bye-Bye Sally. "Dissolution" (a Bram-Stoker nominated novella in her collection, DEATHWATCH) will soon be a feature length film also directed by Paul Leyden (Come Back to Me, The Factory).
Recent short stories include two Bram Stoker-nominated tales, "The Hunger Artist" in Zippered Flesh II (February, 2013); "Arbeit Macht Frei" in the anthology, GUTTED: Beautiful Horror Stories (2016); and the Stoker Award winning short story, "Apocalypse Then" in NEVER FEAR: THE APOCALYPSE (April 2017).
She has also authored THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER AND HUCK FINN (new adult and YA editions from Smart Rhino Publications), two companion novellas in DEATHWATCH, (new edition Nightscape Press, December 2013), a macabre gag book, 51 Fiendish Ways to Leave your Lover, (Bad Moon Books, Feb 2010) as well as non-fiction books, and numerous articles and short stories in newspapers, magazines and anthologies.
Her novella about Houdini, THE BOX JUMPER has won the 2015, "This is Horror Award" and was nominated for both the Bram Stoker and the Shirley Jackson Awards.
She is currently working on several longer works including a historical, paranormal novel, RADIUM GIRL about the dial painters tragedy in the post WW I era.
Lisa lives in New York.
Visit her author website: www.lisamannetti.com
Visit her virtual haunted house: www.thechanceryhouse.com
Mercedes M. Yardley is a whimsical dark fantasist who wears poisonous flowers in her hair. She is the author of many diverse works, including Beautiful Sorrows, Pretty Little Dead Girls: A Novel of Murder and Whimsy, and the Stabby Award-winning Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love.
She recently won the prestigious Bram Stoker Award for her realistic horror story Little Dead Red and was a Bram Stoker finalist for her short story "Loving You Darkly." Mercedes lives and creates in Las Vegas with her family and menagerie of battle-scarred, rescued animal familiars. She is represented by Italia Gandolfo of Gandolfo Helin and Fountain Literary Management.
John F.D. Taff is a multi-Bram Stoker Award short-listed dark fiction author with more than 30 years experience, and more than 100 short stories and seven novels in print.
He has appeared in Cemetery Dance, Eldritch Tales, Unnerving, Deathrealm, Big Pulp and One Buck Horror, as well as anthologies such as Hot Blood: Seeds of Fear, Hot Blood: Fear the Fever, Shock Rock II, Lullabies for Suffering, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Behold!, Shadows Over Main Street 2, Horror Library V, Best of Horror Library, Dark Visions Vol. 1, Ominous Realities, Death's Realm, I Can Taste the Blood and Savage Beasts. His work will appear soon in The Seven Deadliest and I Can Hear the Shadows.
His novels include The Bell Witch, Kill-Off and the serialized apocalyptic epic The Fearing. Thunderstorm Books and Grey Matter Press will release a one-volume version of The Fearing in 2021, in limited edition hardcover, soft cover and digital. Short fiction collections include Little Deaths: The Definitive Collection and Little Black Spots, both published by Grey Matter Press.
Taff's novella collection, The End in All Beginnings, was called one of the best novella collections by Jack Ketchum and was a Stoker Award Finalist. His short "A Winter's Tale" was also a Stoker Finalist.
His upcoming anthology Dark Stars, a tribute to that seminal '80s work Dark Forces, will be published by Tor/Nightfire 11/2/21.
His website is at johnfdtaff.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnfdtaff.
Damien Angelica Walters is the author of The Dead Girls Club, Cry Your Way Home, Paper Tigers, and Sing Me Your Scars, winner of This is Horror’s Short Story Collection of the Year. Her short fiction has been nominated twice for a Bram Stoker Award, reprinted in The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror and The Year's Best Weird Fiction, and published in various anthologies and magazines, including the Shirley Jackson Award Finalists Autumn Cthulhu and The Madness of Dr. Caligari, World Fantasy Award Finalist Cassilda's Song, Nightmare Magazine, and Black Static. Until the magazine's closing in 2013, she was an Associate Editor of the Hugo Award-winning Electric Velocipede. She lives in Maryland with her husband and a rescued pit bull named Ripley. Find her on Twitter @DamienAWalters or on her website at http://damienangelicawalters.com.
Doug Murano lives somewhere between Mount Rushmore and the mighty Missouri River. He is the Bram Stoker Award-winning editor of Behold! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders and the co-editor of Bram Stoker Award-nominated Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories.
Since 2008, his short stories have appeared in a number of venues. He is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association, and was the organization's promotions and social media coordinator from 2013-15. He is a co-recipient of the HWA's 2014 Richard Laymon President's Award for Service.
Follow @muranofiction on Twitter.
Since its founding in August 2012, Crystal Lake Publishing has quickly become one of the world’s leading publishers of Dark Fiction and Horror books in print, eBook, and audio formats.
While we strive to present only the highest quality fiction and entertainment, we also endeavour to support authors along their writing journey. We offer our time and experience in non-fiction projects, as well as author mentoring and services, at competitive prices.
With several Bram Stoker Award wins and many other wins and nominations, Crystal Lake Publishing puts integrity, honor, and respect at the forefront of our publishing operations.
We strive for each book and outreach program we spearhead to not only entertain and touch or comment on issues that affect our readers, but also to strengthen and support the Dark Fiction field and its authors.
Not only do we find and publish authors we believe are destined for greatness, but we strive to work with men and woman who endeavour to be decent human beings who care more for others than themselves, while still being hard working, driven, and passionate artists and storytellers.
Crystal Lake Publishing is and will always be a beacon of what passion and dedication, combined with overwhelming teamwork and respect, can accomplish. We endeavour to know each and every one of our readers, while building personal relationships with our authors, reviewers, bloggers, podcasters, bookstores, and libraries.
We will be as trustworthy, forthright, and transparent as any business can be, while also keeping most of the headaches away from our authors, since it’s our job to solve the problems so they can stay in a creative mind. Which of course also means paying our authors.
We do not just publish books, we present to you worlds within your world, doors within your mind, from talented authors who sacrifice so much for a moment of your time.
There are some amazing small presses out there, and through collaboration and open forums we will continue to support other presses in the goal of helping authors and showing the world what quality small presses are capable of accomplishing. No one wins when a small press goes down, so we will always be there to support hardworking, legitimate presses and their authors. We don’t see Crystal Lake as the best press out there, but we will always strive to be the best, strive to be the most interactive and grateful, and even blessed press around. No matter what happens over time, we will also take our mission very seriously while appreciating where we are and enjoying the journey.
What do we offer our authors that they can’t do for themselves through self-publishing?
We are big supporters of self-publishing (especially hybrid publishing), if done with care, patience, and planning. However, not every author has the time or inclination to do market research, advertise, and set up book launch strategies. Although a lot of authors are successful in doing it all, strong small presses will always be there for the authors who just want to do what they do best: write.
What we offer is experience, industry knowledge, contacts and trust built up over years. And due to our strong brand and trusting fanbase, every Crystal Lake Publishing book comes with weight of respect. In time our fans begin to trust our judgment and will try a new author purely based on our support of said author.
To date we’ve published around 100 books, and with each launch we strive to fine-tune our approach, learn from our mistakes, and increase our reach. We continue to assure our authors that we’re here for them and that we’ll carry the weight of the launch and dealing with third parties while they focus on their strengths—be it writing, interviews, blogs, signings, etc.
We also offer several mentoring packages to authors that include knowledge and skills they can use in both traditional and self-publishing endeavours.
We look forward to launching many new careers.
This is what we believe in. What we stand for. This will be our legacy.
Welcome to Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.
Kevin Lucia is the ebook and trade paperback editor at Cemetery Dance Publications. His short fiction has been published in many venues, most notably with Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, David Morell, Peter Straub, Bentley Little, and Robert McCammon.
His first short story collection, Things Slip Through, was published by Crystal Lake Publishing in November, 2013. He's followed that with the collections Through A Mirror, Darkly, Devourer of Souls, Things You Need, October Nights, and the novellas Mystery Road, A Night at Old Webb, and The Night Road. His first novel is forthcoming from Thunderstorm Books in October 2022.
For three free ebooks, sign up for his monthly newsletter at www.kevinlucia.blogspot.com.
D. Alexander Ward is an author and anthologist of horror and dark fiction. In addition to his latest novel POUND OF FLESH, he is the author of numerous short stories and the novels BLOOD SAVAGES and BENEATH ASH & BONE.
As an anthologist, he edited the Bram Stoker Award-nominated anthologies LOST HIGHWAYS: Dark Fictions From the Road and GUTTED: Beautiful Horror Stories (co-edited) from Crystal Lake publishing as well as the anthologies THE SEVEN DEADLIEST and SHADOWS OVER MAIN STREET, Volumes 1 and 2 (co-edited).
He is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association and very involved in the small press publishing world of horror and dark fiction, where he runs Bleeding Edge Books.
His online footprints can be found everywhere and he can regularly be spotted on various and sundry social media outlets.
Along with his beloved wife and daughter and the haints in the woods, he lives near the farm where he grew up in what used to be rural Virginia, where his love for the people, passions, and folklore of the South was nurtured. There, he spends his nights penning, collecting, and publishing tales of the dark, strange, and fantastic.
(Art by Erik Wilson) Richard Thomas is the award-winning author of seven books: three novels—Disintegration and Breaker (Penguin Random House Alibi), as well as Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications); three short story collections—Staring into the Abyss (Kraken Press), Herniated Roots (Snubnose Press), and Tribulations (Cemetery Dance); and one novella in The Soul Standard (Dzanc Books). With over 150 stories published, his credits include The Best Horror of the Year (Volume Eleven), Cemetery Dance (twice), Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders (Bram Stoker winner), PANK, storySouth, Gargoyle, Weird Fiction Review, Midwestern Gothic, Shallow Creek, The Seven Deadliest, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Qualia Nous, Chiral Mad (numbers 2-4), PRISMS, Pantheon, and Shivers VI (with Stephen King and Peter Straub). He has won contests at ChiZine and One Buck Horror, has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, and has been long-listed for Best Horror of the Year six times. He was also the editor of four anthologies: The New Black and Exigencies (Dark House Press), The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers (Black Lawrence Press) and Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press) with Chuck Palahniuk. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and Thriller awards. In his spare time he is a columnist at Lit Reactor. He was the Editor-in-Chief at Dark House Press and Gamut Magazine. His agent is Paula Munier at Talcott Notch. For more information visit www.whatdoesnotkillme.com.
Amanda Gowin lives in the foothills of Appalachia with her husband and son. She has always written and always will.
MORE INFO: http://lookatmissohio.wordpress.com/
Maria Alexander is an Amazon #1 Bestseller of Young Adult Horror. Her short stories and nonfiction essays have appeared in numerous publications and acclaimed anthologies alongside living legends such as David Morrell and Heather Graham.
Her debut novel, MR. WICKER, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her first YA novel, SNOWED, won the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel, and was nominated for the 2017 Anthony Award for Best Children's/YA Novel.
When she's not wielding a katana at her Shinkendo dojo, she's being outrageously spooky or writing Doctor Who filk. She lives in Los Angeles with three ungrateful cats, a Jewish Christmas caroler, and a purse called Trog.
Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous magazines and anthologies such as Weird Tales, Nightmare Magazine, Southwest Review, Year's Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8, as well as many others.
Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, an adjunct at Western Connecticut State University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Point Park University, and a mentor with Crystal Lake Publishing. She is a recipient of the 2021 Ladies of Horror Fiction Writers Grant and has received the Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for non-fiction writing.
Wytovich is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection, Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, An Exorcism of Angels, Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare, and most recently, The Apocalyptic Mannequin. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press.
Follow Wytovich at http://stephaniewytovich.blogspot.com/ and on Twitter and Instagram @SWytovich and @thehauntedbookshelf. You can also find her essays, nonfiction, and class offerings on LitReactor.
Customer reviews
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Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2019
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Stephanie M. Wytovich — “The Morning After Was Filled with Bone”
Read this poem and then look at the cover again, this is a poem of empowerment. It encompasses the body of the book and is a great introduction to the stories within.
Brian Kirk — “Picking Splinters from a Sex Slave”
A child abducted, and as hope begins to wane of ever seeing her again the unimaginable happens… she is found. But, can things ever go back to what they were? A father’s love is pushed to the limits.
Lisa Mannetti — “Arbeit Macht Frei”
It is said, ‘All’s fair in love or war’. But, what does that really mean, and how far should one go?
Neil Gaiman — “The Problem of Susan”
Survivor’s guilt, what a cross to bear. Or is it remorse? ‘Why not me?’ one may ask.
Christopher Coake — “Dominion”
I’ve heard it said that the soul will linger at the site of death until it can find a resolution. A group of kids ready to party are soon to find out whether this is true.
Mercedes M. Yardley — “Water Thy Bones”
Love comes in many strange forms, it’s just a matter of finding someone who is willing to accept what one willingly has to offer.
Paul Tremblay — “A Haunted House is a Wheel Upon Which Some Are Broken”
This is a splendid interactive story where you, Dear Reader… are able to choose your path through the chapters. The outcome is up to you!
Damien Angelica Walters — “On the Other Side of the Door, Everything Changes”
Such a sad story of choices. How can one be sure which is the correct answer, until the choice has already been made?
Richard Thomas — “Repent”
When one’s soul has been blackened so darkly can there be any room for atonement?
Clive Barker — “Coming to Grief”
The grieving process comes in many forms, if one is not careful it has a way of swallowing you whole.
John F.D. Taff — “Cards for His Spokes, Coins for His Fare”
Oh my, I wanted to cry. How could a birthday gift go so terribly wrong?
Amanda Gowin — “Cellar’s Dog”
As in Androcles and the Lion, we find good deeds are rewarded when Laticia summons the courage to rescue a dog.
Kevin Lucia — “When We All Meet at the Ofrenda”
Ah, Day of the Dead… it’s the one day every year that we can visit with our loved ones long gone. Whitey has a date and a promise he aims to keep.
Maria Alexander — “Hey, Little Sister”
A brother’s love for his little sister can be a powerful thing. So powerful in fact, that it can raise the dead!
Josh Malerman — “The One You Live With”
Does anyone truly know who we are? Or, better yet, do you truly know who you are?
Ramsey Campbell — “The Place of Revelation”
To tell a story you must first own it. Uncle Lucian has been telling young Colin stories for years, now it's Colin's turn to tell his story.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Luke Spooner. His beautifully done artwork graces the pages of this fine book. Or, Crystal Lake Publishing for bringing this book our way! Truly one of the best anthologies I have ever read.
"Picking Splinters From a Sex Slave" by Brian Kirk is heartbreaking. In this day and age where everyone (even those who don't have children) are armchair generals in regards to parenting, this story is a super painful reminder that love and parenting is never easy and that you can never judge what someone chooses to do until you have placed yourself in their shoes.
"Water Thy Bones" by Mercedes M. Yardley explored a different kind of love, a dark love, an infatuation with what a person is within; a love for their bones. Beautifully written and fascinating, if not just a bit taboo.
"Cards for His Spokes, Coins for His Fare" by John F.D. Taff quite literally broke my heart. The love and devotion good parents have for their children, and the desire of a child to branch out and explore the world he lives in could not have a more painful ending than this. My childhood came screaming back at me with all those small pleasures that meant so much as a child and it made me thankful that none of my adventures took me away from my parents.
"Hey, Little Sister" by Maria Alexander was a quick exploration into the intoxicating emotion of revenge that typically leaves us more than a little dissatisfied and often more broken than we originally were.
This book has something for every genre of horror-fan, or even for those who realize that life itself can be a horror, but still possesses something darkly beautiful as well.
I gave this 4 stars since there is a chapter I found to be distracting due to missing punctuation, but that's only me.
The stories are:
* The Morning After Was Filed 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 Gaimen
* Dominion by Christopher Coake ( I had a real problem reading this story, some punctuation is missing and I found it very distracting)
* Water Thy Bones by Mercedes M. Yardley
* A Haunted House is a Wheel Upon Which Some Are Broken by Paul Trembly ( this was a cool book to read, it had links to take you to different parts of the house, so you had a choice where to go).
* On the Other Sid of the Door, Everything Changes by Damien Angelica Walters
* Repent by Richard Thomas
* Coming to Grief by Clive Barker
* Cards for His Spokes, Coins for His Fare
* Cellars 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
Each story is very different, unique and twisted, lol. I enjoyed the short stories since it gave me a spot in which I could put it down, lol. I enjoyed this book but personally, it did not thrill me. I will finish it and may check out some of the other authors books at a later date. As with other books of this type thee were stories that I enjoyed and some not as much as others, but judge for yourselves.
For bonus material be sure to start from the cover and go thru.
I would recommend for those that enjoy twisted stories. I personally would not consider this as horror but maybe thriller.
Top reviews from other countries

I totally connected with what Richard Chizmar said in the foreword regarding the reasons people write horror. When asked, "Wouldn't you rather sit down and write about something happy and filled with golden rays of sunshine?" he responds, "What makes you think I have a choice?"
Each and every story in the collection not only fits the theme but is of very high quality. Of course I had my favorites, I always do when reading an anthology. Stories by writers such as Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman will never disappoint, but what I loved about this anthology, and in fact almost every anthology I read, is that I get the opportunity to discover authors I haven't read before. Authors I'd heard of, but not read. Out of those, my favorites were:
Stephanie Wytovich's opening poem, The Morning After was Filled With Bone (Such powerful imagery!)
Brian Kirk's Picking Splinters From a Sex Slave (Such a tragic ending!)
Mercedes Yardley's Water Thy Bones (Poetic imagery which I loved! Great rhythm, too. Fitted the brief to perfection.)
John F.D. Taff's Card for his Spokes, Coins for his Fare (A pacy, adrenaline ride of a read with heartfelt emotion.)
Amanda Gowin's Cellar's Dog (Strong voice, packs a punch.)
Having said that, every single story earns its place, and then some! I'm sure others will have their favorites.

But, in the selection of stories and in the writing of them, this volume shows a haunting quality, a mesmerising style. The beauty lies not so much in the eye of the beholder as in the ear of the reader as elegant sentences and paragraphs wrap themselves around horrific cores. A juxtaposition reflected in the stylish cover of flowers sprouting from a skeleton.
Time prevents me from reviewing all the stories and, to be fair, some worked for me better than others. But below I have written more about my five top picks. Other readers may find different favourites, such is the nature of anthologies - and indeed of readers!
Water My Bones by Mercedes M Yardley
Those used to Miss Murder's writing will be familiar with the challenge she offers to conventions of victim and villain. This story is again about two people, in some ways it reminds me of her piece Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu. Again two damaged people meet, drawn into each other's gravity like a binary star system, swirling closer the one feeding off the other, the other more or less willingly giving. Nikilie is a woman much abused by those around her and - in turn - she abuses herself, fresh wounds in her flesh to match each cut the world makes in her psyche. But then she meets Michael and everything changes. He sees an inner beauty she did not know she had. "That night she took a razorblade to her inner thigh, but the cuts were heartless and shallow."
Picking Splinters from a Sex Slave by Brian Kirk
It is every parent's nightmare to lose a child to abduction, but what if the child is returned years later and the restoration of what was lost is a still greater nightmare. Kirk paints a vivid picture of a father reunited with a daughter abducted and abused long ago. It has echoes of all the real life abduction stories we have seen in the news, in some ways it reminds me of the Fritzl story in Austria. How can those freed return to a normal life, more importantly how can they find happiness after an experience that has changed and damaged them. The father in Brian Kirk's story will make many sacrifices to restore his daughter's happiness but the reader may ask - could they do as much?
On The Other Side of the Door Everything Changes by Damien Angelica Walters
Is it an accident that parenthood and horror are so akin? That having a child opens up a whole new vista of ways in which to fear the dangers of the world? Or is it that, being a parent myself, this story and others like it strike a resonant note more so than others. I also work in education, where everyday we have to confront another exploitation of new technology in old evils. Cyber bullying, the risks children are exposed to in the privacy of their own bedrooms, a world away from my own childhood. I've also relatively recently moved house and job dragging children in the vulnerable teenage years from their embryonic circle of friends. For my children it has worked out well, but those experiences and anxieties made this story sing for me. A two handed tale of child and mother, the one displaced, sullen, angry brooding with a horror she dare not share. The other, anxious - like all parents of teenage children finding that every word is the wrong word and so they stay on opposite sides of the same door trapped in a failure of communication. Beautifully written, horrifically real.
Coming to Grief by Clive Barker
As a child when I walked home from school (a school I shared with Nigel Farage - but that's an entirely different horror story) there was a lane I had to walk up Low Cross Wood Lane, it had a kink in it - a sort of chicane - which made the top half invisible from the bottom. As a small school boy I always had a fear of what might lie unseen around that corner. Would it be kids from the other local school waiting to beat me up - in truth I was only hit once there - but I try to remember the vulnerability of that fear when imagining what it is like to be a woman in today's world, a vulnerability that grown men cannot so easily empathise with.
There is much more in cleverness in the writing of Barker's tale than the ingeniously punning title. Miriam has returned home to tidy up the affairs of her estranged and recently deceased mother. The antagonist in this story is the Bogey-Walk a curving lane along the edge of an old quarry that haunted her youth and still has the power to terrorise the older successful woman that the child has begun. Besides the obvious resonance with that not-forgotten Dulwich lane - this story appealed because of the exquisite writing as Miriam picks through the bones of her relationship with her mother, rekindles an old friendship, and all the while orbits the old fears of the Bogey-walk in ever decreasing circles.
A Haunted House is a Wheel upon Which some are Broken by Paul Tremblay
Skilful evocative writing abounds throughout the anthology along with some innovative takes on the horror genre. Most innovative perhaps is Paul Tremblay's Haunted House story which took me back to a childhood of Steve Jackson scripted adventure books (anybody remember the Wizard of Firetop Mountain?) where after each page the reader had a choice to make and - depending on that choice - would turn to a different page to advance the story in a different direction. The miracle of embedded links in ebooks makes that all so much easier and the reader gets to choose how far and which route they take through a Tremblay's tale of a woman revisiting a house that scarred her childhood and still plagues her dreams


Favourites include 'On The Other Side of the Door, Everything Changes' by Damien Angelica Walters and 'Cards For His Spokes, Coins For His Fare' by John F.D. Taff. These two stories were really moving. Brian Kirk's 'Picking Splinters From A Sex Slave', Mercedes M. Yardley's 'Water Thy Bones', and 'Repent' by Richard Thomas were notably dark tales. But I enjoyed every single story.
And, given the context of the story and the style in which it is written, 'Hey, Little Sister' by Maria Alexander may have the best last line ever! But I won't spoil it for you. Just check it out! You won't be disappointed.
