Tortured Willows


Book Description

The willow is femininity, desire, death. Rebirth. With its ability to grow from a single broken branch, it is the living embodiment of immortality. It is the yin that wards off malevolent spirits. It is both revered and shunned. In Tortured Willows, four Southeast Asian women writers of horror expand on the exploration of otherness begun with the Bram Stoker Award-winning anthology Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women.Like the willow, women have bent and bowed under the expectations and duty heaped upon them. Like the willow, they endure and refuse to break.With exquisite poetry, Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, and Geneve Flynn invite you to sit beneath the tortured willow's gravid branches and listen to the uneasy shiver of its leaves.




Unquiet Spirits


Book Description

From hungry ghosts, vampiric babies, and shapeshifting fox spirits to the avenging White Lady of urban legend, for generations, Asian women's roles have been shaped and defined through myth and story. In Unquiet Spirits, Asian writers of horror reflect on the impact of superstition, spirits, and the supernatural in this unique collection of 21 personal essays exploring themes of otherness, identity, expectation, duty, and loss, and leading, ultimately, to understanding and empowerment.




Grotesque: Monster Stories


Book Description

In a collection inspired by the mythologies of Europe, China, and her beloved Aotearoa-New Zealand, four-time Bram Stoker Award®-winner Lee Murray twists and subverts ancient themes, stitching new creatures from blood and bone, hiding them in soft forest mists and dark subterranean prisons. In this volume, construction workers uncover a hidden tunnel, soldiers wander, lost after a skirmish, and a dead girl yearns for company. Featuring eleven uncanny tales of automatons, zombies, golems, and dragons, and including the Taine McKenna adventure “Into the Clouded Sky”, Murray’s Grotesque: Monster Stories breathes new life into the monster genre.




One Step Closer


Book Description

"And what if each poem I write Is a step Closer to death?" One Step Closer To Death; is a stirring collection of poems that speaks to the heart of anyone who has ever felt lost or broken. Through the themes of heartbreak, family discord, and shattered friendships, these verses explore the darker side of human emotions and the impact of personal struggles. Honest and raw, this book invites readers to reflect on their own journeys and find meaning in the midst of pain. From my heart to yours, may these words be a lantern in the dark.




The Climbers


Book Description

When Sully's status is challenged by new kid Nottingham, the only way to prove who's best is a race to climb the unnamed tree ... In this compelling story of teenage rivalry and friendship, award-winner Keith Gray captures the subtle agonies and reality of life growing up in a small town.




The Herons Return


Book Description

After the death of his wife in Europe Jamie Jordon returns to New Zealand to discover his grandparent's apple orchard has become an abandoned quarry. The laid-to-waste landscape is a disgrace that Jamie vows to remedy. Hard-nosed businessman, Terry McKechnie, is responsible for this environmental vandalism. He and Jamie's ex-girlfriend, Liz Lawrence, have a marriage of convenience, but Terry wants more and becomes violent when Liz refuses. Jamie decides to restore the worked-out quarry and turn it into a top-class resort and country club, and when Liz leaves Terry he offers her employment. Suspecting the pair have become more than work colleagues, Terry's drunken retaliation backfi res and Liz's hopes for a better life are shattered.




Crawlspace


Book Description

A young girl trapped by generational trauma and an unexpected pregnancy struggles to realise her dreams in the final volume of Mag Vann’s InSecurity Triptych. In 1987, baby Marlene witnesses her father mutilated in a Port Moresby compound invasion, giving rise to a deep psychological scar and a powerful family secret. In 2012, Marlene finds her perfect match in awkward hacker Andy, an American running from his past and desperate for a visa. Their relationship survives on necessity and petty scams, but visa troubles and an unplanned pregnancy threaten their budding engagement. With Marlene’s family watching and struggling to support their daughter, Andy suggests a daring con that could set them up for life. Marlene will sell others out to achieve her dream, but she’s about to learn everyone has secrets and Andy’s are darker than most. Could achieving her dream life come with a price tag even Marlene is unwilling to pay? For fans of Claire Mackintosh, CL Taylor, and Gillian Flynn, Crawlspace is the third book in the InSecurity Triptych — fast-paced and provocative psychological thrillers you can read in a single sitting.




Under Her Eye


Book Description

A showcase of poetry from some of the darkest and most lyrical voices of women in horror. A follow-up to the award-winning poetry showcase Under Her Skin, UNDER HER EYE features the best in never-before-published dark verse and lyrical prose from the voices of Women in Horror, themed on domestic horror and the terror women too often experience in their own homes. Edited by Lindy Ryan and Lee Murray, UNDER HER EYE celebrates women in horror from cover to cover. In addition to poems contributed by over one hundred poets worldwide, the collection features poems from Stephanie M. Wytovich, Jessica McHugh, and Marge Simon, with cover art by noted horror artist Lynne Hansen and an introduction by Bram Stoker Award®-winning poet Sara Tantlinger. This showcase is produced in partnership with The Pixel Project, a global non-profit organization focused on ending violence against women globally.




Damnation Games


Book Description

A horde of criminally good horror writers took a walk down the mean streets of crime. Their task: to make your blood run cold, to scare you witless and to make your skin crawl. The rising dread of a good mystery doesn't need anything supernatural to keep you on the edge of your seat. But put the two together - crime fiction and horror - and all sorts of nasty business can come out of the woodwork. Sometimes literally. The stories herein include urban monsters, outback ghosts, contemporary lawyers, near-future police, and Victorian era mathematicians. Our Damnation Games are played by 19 Aussie, Kiwi and international authors: Gemma Amor, Joanne Anderton, J. Ashley-Smith, Alan Baxter, Aaron Dries, Gemma Files, Geneve Flynn, Philip Fracassi, Robert Hood, Gabino Iglesias, Rick Kennett, Maria Lewis, Chris Mason, Lee Murray, Cina Pelayo, Dan Rabarts, John F.D. Taff, Kyla Lee Ward, Kaaron Warren.




Jim Morrison's Adventures in the Afterlife


Book Description

Part devil, part angel, the specter of Jim Morrison has haunted America's consciousness since his premature death in 1971. His spirit seemed dark, and the graphic despair of his Lizard King persona reigned supreme in his lifetime, but Jim Morrison died with a smile on his face. Was his journey through the afterlife as tumultuous as his journey through life? This is the question Mick Farren answers in his fascinatingly complex novel based on one of the twentieth century's most enigmatic figures. Jim Morrison's Adventures in the Afterlife picks up the story of Morrison as he hurtles through a purgatory-like afterlife in search of some way to bring his soul to peace. Along the way he finds Doc Holliday--and together they find themselves chasing the restless fire-and-brimstone evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, whose soul has broken after death into two warring halves. McPherson's sexier half becomes the object of Jim's obsession, and as the two struggle to find each other in this disordered land, their wild, careening chase through a dozen dystopiae recalls imagined worlds as diverse as Burgess's A Clockwork Orange or Terry Gilliam's Brazil. This is a daring, hilarious romp through the landfill of millennial society. Possessed of an imagination that rivals that of any of our edgiest fantasists, steeped in the detritus and ephemera of three decades of pop culture, Mick Farren has crafted in this new novel a bizarre and compelling fantasia.