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Out of Water Kindle Edition

by Sarah Read (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

18 ratings

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THIS IS AN INVITATION TO DROWNING.

These are the stories of things out of water--of sea bed deserts choked with ghosts; of the lonely, roving children of the fen. Here your garden grows belowground. You will be born into a cradle of your own bones, shadows will burst from your eyes, and your mouth will fill with thorns. Storms will twist inside you, and the ghosts of your past will follow you and chart your future.

Here, things are out of place--ectopic and unviable--and you will mourn the unborn, those underwater things out of water.

Print length

207 pages
Language

English
Publication date

October 25, 2019
File size

4193 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"In Sarah Read's Out of Water you will find monsters with human faces and humans with monstrous hearts. There are secrets dark and deep, and dreams darker and deeper still. And there are characters who stretch their hands from haunted shores in hopes of reaching a happier one. Read's collection is filled with grim humour, heart-wrenching horror and, sometimes, dire hopes."

--Angela Slatter, author of the World Fantasy Award-winning The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings

"Sarah Read is one of my very favorite voices in horror and dark fantasy, and I've been waiting a long time for her to release a collection. So let me say this loud and clear: that wait was absolutely worth it. Out of Water is a gorgeous, sinister, and incredibly lovely dive into all the darkness the horror genre has to offer. Sarah knows exactly how to draw the reader in and then send chills up their spine, all while breaking their hearts. Whatever you do, don't miss this book."

--Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award(R)-winning author of The Rust Maidens

"Sarah Read's short stories are wonderfully creepy, heartbreaking, scary, and delightful! Highly recommended!"

--Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of V-Wars and Glimpse

"Read's stories left me emotionally wrought and viscerally disturbed. With unforgettable imagery and characters that come to life on the page, Out of Water is one of the best collections I've read this year."

--Kaaron Warren, Aurealis and Australian Shadows-award winning author of Tide of Stone

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Sarah Read is an author, editor, and librarian living in the frozen north of Wisconsin with her husband, two sons, a cat, and thousands of spiders. Her novel The Bone Weaver's Orchard was released from Trepidatio Publishing in early 2019. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07ZMH3TKK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ JournalStone - Trepidatio Publishing (October 25, 2019)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 25, 2019
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4193 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 207 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #1,049,618 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,149 in Horror Short Stories
- #16,844 in Single Authors Short Stories
- #24,859 in Short Stories (Books)

Customer Reviews:
18 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		68%
4 star		23%
3 star		9%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Sara Tantlinger

Simply captivating

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2019

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Sarah Read's short story collection is simply captivating. Each story transported me into its unique world, yet they all held threads of grief, of hope, of otherworldliness that helped everything feel just connected enough to make this collection perfectly comprised. It's hard to pick favorites, but I think "Through Gravel", "The Eyes of Salton Sea", "Renovation", and "Scavengers" might be my top 4. However, each story offers something powerful that I know will stay with me -- like the utter grief yet importance of "Underwater Thing"; the beautiful depiction of how one cannot tame a storm in "Crosswind"; and that ending for "In Tongues" -- ah! So good. Read is a powerhouse of a short story writer, and this collection certainly highlights her ability to write beautiful prose that pierces through your skin and makes no apologies as it drowns you beneath its sea salt charm.

2 people found this helpful

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K. A. Y.

Great collection with varied themes.

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2020

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OUT OF WATER is a collection of stories from Sarah Read. As I previously read her novel THE BONE WEAVER'S ORCHARD, I couldn't wait to try out some of her other tales.

These ranged all over in theme, from poignant, loss, revenge, and more obscure issues. The writing was lyrical--poetic in cases--and each story had a beauty all of its own.

In regards to the individual tales--which ranged in length as well as topic--my personal ratings were between 3 and 5 stars, in general; therefore the 4 star rating.

An excellent way to discover the writing of a great new talent on the scene.

Recommended.

Helpful

Sadie Hartmann

Richly atmospheric and compelling stories

Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2020

Review originally published in Black Static Magazine Black Static #72 (Nov-Dec 2019)

A collection of short stories, OUT OF WATER by Sarah Read is a grim buffet set with a variety of offerings for horror readers to feast upon; something to satisfy every appetite.
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of reading Sarah’s first novel, THE BONE WEAVER’S ORCHARD. The connection I felt with Read’s storytelling voice was immediate and intense. Her style is painstakingly detailed, richly atmospheric and compelling. It’s those carefully crafted and intentional details that spark a familiarity between the author and the reader-a formative trust developed instantaneously. This opens the door for Read to present even the most painful of subjects to her audience and they will graciously subject their hearts to it.
One of my favorite books of 2019. As soon as I heard about a short story collection, I began to anticipate it with a rabid need-truly a writer’s skill set shines the brightest in a collection of short stories.

OUT OF WATER is aptly named. It’s as if to tell these stories, Read recklessly drew them up out of strange murky depths against their will and pressed them into words on pages.
Perhaps these stories didn’t want to be told. Perhaps they desired to remain hidden and secret.
I’m thinking of one in particular, MAGNIFYING GLASS. This tale felt like an intrusion on an intimate time a lonely mother set aside for herself and her grown son to spend together. The reader will feel like an unwanted guest peering in on their awkward interactions and broken relationship. You will bear witness to the horrifying events that take place and it will destroy you. That story still haunts me.
Here you will encounter relatable characters committing hideous, shameful acts done in secret. You, the reader will feel complicit in the atrocities because you know what Sarah Read’s characters are denied--the truth.
UNDERWATER THING is the story of a man who wrecks his step-daughter’s life, hides his evil deeds, disposes of the truth and then casually returns to his life completely unhindered by guilt. But Read shows us that the murky depths won’t hold a man’s secrets forever.
Of particular note is how fastidious some of Read’s characters tend to be. It’s fascinating to read about an archaeologist as she examines the contents of a clay jar that has never been opened. Or a painter as she goes above and beyond to capture the most authentic, botanical still life.
OUT OF WATER collectively explores the idea that curiosity can take an individual further than they originally wanted to go-a terrifying experience often ending in catastrophic tragedy.
Considering Read’s first novel and now this collection, it is this reader’s conclusion that I will forever stand in line for anything she publishes now and in the future. Undeniably talented and unmistakably original in the art of horror fiction.

2 people found this helpful

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Fenrix

On the Stoker Award shortlist for good reason

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2020

There are many lessons to be gleaned from this collection. Never trust the fae. Never trust your body. The lovely “Endoskeletal” is chock full of disturbed funerary sites and poetic body horror. It is inhabited by well-drawn characters and tense pacing. “Still Life with Natalie” makes a valiant call to revitalize our traditions of visiting old cemeteries, but maybe we shouldn’t try to recreate them.

So many of these deal with motherhood and the water, and this intersection is particularly effective with “Tall Grass, Shallow Water” and the lure of Genny Greenteeth. “Intersect” and “Grave Mother” work together as a flash couplet attempting to deal with the wreckage caused by pregnancies that don’t make it to term. While “Renovation” veered more into metaphor than haunting, I really would love to read a full-on haunting story by Sarah.

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Philip Cowgill

Heart Shattering

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2020

I read in an interview by Sadie Hartmann that Sarah Read's original title for this book was Underwater Things Out of Water, after the title of the short story Underwater Things. Not all the stories are related to water (though a good majority are), but the central theme is things that are unsettling, or out of place, especially in regards to seeking out wants and dreams. Some of the stories were fairytale-esque and the writing throughout was lush. If authors write what they know, then Sarah, my heart is thoroughly shattered for you. I have never before read a collection of stories so beautifully honest and painful.

One person found this helpful

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Movie Lover

Brilliant and unpredictable

Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2020

This book of stories is wondrous, dreadful, inexplicable, stories about lives that spill off the page and into the murky lived experience of our imaginations. Usually I can see how a narrative works--the structures of its bones and the framework joists of its designs, but these stories defy interpretation. They are wholly and utterly of themselves. True magic.

2 people found this helpful

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Oliver Zornow

Dark short stories

Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2019

I bought this collection right away because I've read Read's fiction before. I expected short stories filled with monsters and killers--and those were definitely there--but the darkest things in this book are especially terrifying because of their common place in the real world. This horror for everyone who spends their days thinking about micro-aggressions and #metoo and motherhood.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Jamie Stewart

Great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2021

Verified Purchase

🌟🌟🌟1/2 Stars to Out of Water by Sarah Read.

Sarah Read has a way with words that recalls to mind the rich, poetic style of Carlos Ruiz Zafon. For those you haven’t read either of these authors please know this is the biggest recommendation I can give anyone. Not that the writing here is a copy; Sarah has her own unique gothic voice and while it flows like water it has all the power of a waterfall. Sarah Read’s stories have teeth that bite deep and leave scars, whether from their surprise twists or the characters that inhabit them, characters that are mostly monsters. The darkest and deeply affecting of these for me was the story Underwaterthing. In reading this collection I was thrilled immensely to find that many of the stories take place from the point of view of characters that would be deemed monstrous. There are child killers here, abductors and all sorts. Even characters that have more empathic qualities still have uniquely cruel aspects to their personalities for example the brother and sister in The Eyes of the Salton Sea. Amongst these stories are several very short tales that contain a distinct power to render the reader gobsmacked at how engrossing they can be in such a short span of words such as Golden Avery. On completing this collection I couldn’t help but be aware that there is no one in literature right now quite like Sarah Read. Her stories a unique gothic exploration of modern themes and characters and they are boundless.

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