#horror novellas

[thefugitivesaint]

R. Shteyn, ''Viy'', by Nikolai Gogol, 1901 Source

[wrongpublishing]

BOOK REVIEW: Dreadstone Press's Split Scream Volume Three

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

Dreadstone Press’s Split Scream series has a simple mission: put two thematically similar novellas together, like an old-school double feature. Th first two volumes were great—Volume Two, with M. Lopez da Silva’s What Ate the Angels might be my personal favorite. Volume Three, with novelettes by indie standouts Patrick Barb and J.A.W. McCarthy,  rocks as hard as its predecessors.

Admittedly, I’m an easy mark for these books. As the world wakes up the hard-punching power of a good novella or shorter novelette, I’m cheering it on, though they’ve always been more accepted in the horror genre—probably thanks to the triune forces of magazines, serializations, and Stephen King. These bite-size books make a perfect afternoon read. I beach-read Volume Three.

Though indie horror novellas tend toward the literary side, they don’t demand the hard braining and intellectual will I often need to summon when I sit down with a full-length work. Call me lazy, but I like it. That lessened investment, I think, gives the reader more incentive to work with concepts like narrative disorientation (a key point in Barb’s So Quiet, So White) and shifting timelines (part of McCarthy’s Image Expulsio: The Red Animal of Our Blood). With less space, we know the answer’s coming soon; we don’t have to spend sixty to a hundred pages wondering what the hell’s going on before we settle into the story. There’s a time and place for that, and I love those works, too. But sometimes, I want to nestle into world more quickly.

Another reason I’m a sucker for Split Scream Volume Three is that its theme is art and artists, specifically how we use it in community (check out Collage Macabre as well if the theme holds specific appeal). Barb’s atmospheric novella is a disorienting, creepy-vibed delight, with its dreary-dark-woods setting playing a major role. In my opinion, he’s a master at building tension and picking apart family dynamics; this novella lets those talents shine. McCarthy’s dual timelines build to a stunning conclusion. You won’t see either of the endings coming, but you’ll shut the book (Kindle) satisfied. Yes. That’s what had to happen. It’s the only thing that could possibly happen. There’s a little glow that comes with that.

Both works ask what we’ll do for love and what we’re willing to give to others. Answer: probably more than we should, but we’ll give it willingly. While Barb shows it in a familial context, McCarthy delves into relationships. Despite their thematic similarities, the works are very different, not only in point of view (Barb’s is third person, McCarthy’s a terrifyingly immediate first), but also in gender and tone. Both serve up some fantastic dread—you know they won’t end well—and while Barb’s slow atmospheric dread draws the reader along, Image Expulsio’s dual timeline will keep you going with its sheer otherness. Both get weirder as they go along, and that’s a very, very good thing. 

Novellas are good. Weird novellas are even better. Pick this one up from Dreadstone so you don’t give bucks to to ‘Zon. Read it on the beach for a serious horror power move.

[authorjacobfloyd]

NO ONE RIDES FOR FREE by Judith Sonnet

I read the afterword, which discusses that which inspired Sonnet to write this book. She listed many films, but I couldn’t help but get the Richard Laymon vibe off this one. The hideousness of the villain – not just his repulsive appearance, but the way he reveled in tormenting his victims – is what really set the book for me. Nearly from the start, the tense atmosphere is set and promises…

[marsadler]

So with tiktok being banned and Instagram rapidly becoming less usable as Zuckerburg does *motions vaguely* that, I'm finding myself wanting to come back here and see if this is a good place to be able to talk about my books and hopefully find new readers.

Queer Indie authors of horror especially, I'd love to connect!

[tart-miano]

angry that your parody has a degree and you don't, victor

[knaif-0700]

[ariannafarricella]

Carmilla and Laura!

After 6 years, I wanted to see how my style is changed with drawing them.

Also, I admit, I miss them quite a lot.

[artie-doko]

A micro-dosage of insanity

[dev-solovey]

"Everyone talks about trans victims. No one talks about trans victories."

This is a quote for my debut horror novella, Fever Dreams. As a trans creator, something that always bugs me is the fact that the majority of media with trans people shows them being depressed and hating their bodies. I hate that, I think it sends a bad message, so I decided to write a story about a kickass trans guy who knows he could fight a God and win. He wakes up to horrors, over and over again, faced with insurmountable odds, and he still retains a will to survive.

This book is now available for purchase and it's only $4 on Kindle. It would mean the world to me if my fellow queer creators could share this, even if you don't have the money to buy it. I want the world to know that, much like Thaddeus Morozov, I and all of my transgender siblings will continue to live on.

[capriciouslyterminal]

All I want…is for Pete to have a white streak in his hair where Wiggly touched him. Okay? Is that too much to ask? For the drama???

[dyrewrites]

At least there's horror -- ebook sale

The world seems to have fallen deeper into dystopia, but at least there's horror. It can't hurt you. Much.

So why not enjoy some fictional horror, for far less than it usually is, and distract yourself from the horrors of reality.

--

LINK

'Can't You See Me?' is about a ghost who would very much like her wife and kids to know she's dead.

'Don't Look' is about a criminal lack of affordable housing forcing a man to take an apartment despite all the red flags. //there's a scene of sexual assault in this one

'Snowblind' is about you. You're lost in the snowy wastes with a terrible hunger and a sweet voice in your ears.

'In The Marrow' is about Hazel and how she's fine. If she closes her eyes and focuses on her tasks, everything is just fine.

'The Portrait' is about how Miriam should be happy with what she's got and stop obsessing about the portraits.

'In Fog' is about loneliness and belonging and nonbinary monsters being erotically murderous.

[wrongpublishing]

BOOK REVIEW: Kate Maruyama's Bleak Houses

by Elizabeth Broadbent, Staff Writer.

Horror writers love coming-of-age stories. Our Biblical origin story is nothing if not humanity’s coming-of-age tale; knowledge is the destructor of innocence. Growing up involves revelation, accepted or not, of some societal truth. The world is never what we wanted or expected, and in this gap between innocence and experience falls the shadow.

The deftest horror bildungsroman mine that territory not for singular revelation, but for the universal miseries that afflict us all. In A Boy’s Life, the terror of a veterinarian’s Nazi past stands in for the knowledge that trusted people can betray us; the dead body may be the least horrid element of The Body. Kate Maruyama steps into this tradition with Bleak Houses: Safer and Family Solstice, her novella double-header releasing with Raw Dog Screaming Press on August 3rd.

Both coming-of-age stories, the novellas deal with innocence lost. In Safer, a twentyish girl takes a nannying job with a famous Hollywood star mid-pandemic; his house and family aren’t what they seem. Family Solstice sees a thirteen-year-old prepping for a literal fight against the unknown on winter solstice. Both Sol in Safer and Shea in Family Solstice come face-to-face with terrifying truths, and both must attempt to reconcile (or not) that knowledge with their own moral code. How must we live when the world betrays us?

In both works, you know the bad stuff’s coming. It’s inevitable. But you never see this particular bad stuff coming—one of the hardest parts of a coming-of-age story. Maruyama keeps a quick pace that ratchets the tension to eleven. There’s something of that proverbial trainwreck here: you know it’s coming, but you’ll be damned if you look away. The crash is all the worse (better) because Sol and Shea are easily-loved, well-drawn characters, endearingly plucky and simple to root for. You can lose your heart to characters like this, which make that upcoming revelation all the more devastating. 

Fans of YA lit will adore these two, but people who avoid it will still find plenty to love (ike RDSP’s Wasps in the Ice Cream, these novellas are suitable for teens, but their themes and craft will satisfy adult readers). Bleak Houses is worth reading for its use of liminal spaces alone: the houses at the center of both novellas could arguably be called anomalous architecture, and if you’re not a fan of that, you’re haunting the wrong genre.

Moreover, Safer is the first full-length work I’ve read that not only acknowledges the pandemic, but uses it as a plot point (Sol takes her nanny job because she’s in lockdown). Maruyama does it well, without sensationalism or sentimentality, and for narrative necessity. 

Put Bleak Houses on your must-read list. It reads fast (I devoured each novella in one sitting), and even better, you’ll believe in these stories. You’ll fall in love with Sol and Shea, and Maruyama’s deft enough to keep the villains from stereotype—so deft that I find myself wondering if “villain” is really the correct term. More than a single person, the antagonist in these pieces isn’t so much one person as a universal truth too terrible to bear.

You’ll see yourself in these. Maybe, more than anything else, that’s the test of great horror. 

Preorder in time for August 3rd:

Twitter: @ KateMaruyama & @ RDSPress Instagram: @ katemaruyama & @rdspress

[itsfullofstars]

It's official: I'm publishing my first work of fiction, the unhinged novella SKIN & BONES, on 10/22/24 (just in time for Halloween). Pre-order the ebook now!

A mind-bending psychological thriller told in first person by a broken man who submits to a bizarre medical experiment in an effort to redeem himself, and loses his mind in the process.

It's Fight Club meets The Parallax View meets E.R. meets Shutter Island... and utterly unique in its own right. A quick, propulsive, hallucinatory read, rich with supernatural elements and medical suspense, SKIN & BONES takes you on a journey into the labyrinth of one man's fractured psyche.

Skull art by @paul.hollingworth - and it's NOT AI!

[ninawolv3rina]

Free Ebooks on Itch.io!

Looking for something scary to read? I have 3 different flavors of horror, 3 different lengths, all available to download for free through itch.io!

Blood in the Water (horror/romance, novella)

Into the Deep and the Dark (fantasy horror, novelette)

I think, Therefore I Kill (sci fi horror, short story)

Content warnings are available on the download pages.

[marsadler]

INTRO

Hello!

I thought I'd do a bit of a more formal intro as I try to move over to engaging more on Tumblr now that other social media platforms are becoming steadily more unusable.

I'm mars or Kaye, I write lots of weird sensual horror and cross-blended speculative fiction with horror, all with trans and queer characters. I first self-published a short story on itchio in March of 2023 after years of wishing I could leave ghostwriting to publish my own work. (I still haven't fully escaped that occupation, but we're getting there.)

I'm a big, huge fan of publishing on itchio, although I'm also published on Amazon as a necessary evil, boo hiss, tomato tomato, etc.

PUBLISHED WORK

2023

FIRST CREATION: my debut novella, 22k words/98 pages, religious horror featuring an angel and a demon on opposite sides of a never-ending war escaping together, and a whole lot of cannibalism and fruit metaphors. It was a finalist in the 2023 Indie Ink Awards. Transmasc protagonist, M/M pairing.

Blood & Flowers (currently undergoing a re-release process that's adding roughly 11k words and a new cover, so it's not available for sale right now): won the Queer Indie Award of 'Best Sophomore Novel' in 2023, enemies to lovers, vague Romeo and Juliet retelling, vampires and haunted houses. I'm so excited to share the re-release of this early this year! Transmasc protagonist, M/M pairing.

EYETOOTH: another novella (I really love writing novellas), 18k words/90 pages, t4t eroguro medkink fever dream. A trans art student undergoes an experimental surgery at an underground plasma donation center, but afterwards, the doctor disappears and leaves him to deal with the aftereffects and strange cannibalistic urges. Transmas protagonist, nonbinary love interest, M/NB pairing.

2024

Dead Cowpokes Don't Wrangle: Probably the coolest thing I did last year was curate this anthology with a good friend and fellow author, H.S. Wolfe. A queer collection of weird west stories and gorgeous artwork from 18 creators, this is an absolute banger, if I do say so myself. My story in there, Red as Blood, Black as Tar, deals with people coming back from the dead, gunslinging outlaws, and a lot of weird, gross tar. F/NB pairing, ~10k words.

UNHOLY FAVORS: 22k words/90 pages, a short story duet about making deals with supernatural entities that go wrong. Featuring trans protagonists, monsterfucking, weird dreamscapes and hellhounds, this is an odd little itchio-exclusive collection. M/M pairings for both, each story is around 10k words.

The Apples of New Eden: 57k words/251 pages, my first full-length novel. Sci-fi horror, taboo romance. Two brothers struggle to reunite for Christmas in a dystopian war-filled future. Featuring cybernetics, wire play, heavy handed anti-establishment themes, and some really weird dogs. Itchio exclusive, transmasc protagonist and M/M pairing.

WIPs For This Year

Sequels: one of my main goals this year is to actually publish a sequel to one of my three started series. (First Creation, Blood & Flowers, and Eyetooth are all the first books in series.)

Sweet Lamb: novel length, religious horror. I tried to release Sweet Lamb early in 2024 but it just wasn't ready. I'm glad I waited, because I'm a lot clearer now on what I want to do with it. It's a very personal book to me, and I want to make it the best it can be. Polyam trans rep, new age cults, weird fucky angels.

Clipped Wings WIP: novel length, religious horror, anti-establishment themes as well as a toxic age gap pairing. What happens when you take an angel's wings away?

Several Novella and novelette length wips: I won't list them all out because I've started SEVERAL, and I'm not sure which I'll get done first, but I'm hoping to get at least a couple of them out this year.

Other work: I'm very excited to be a part of several other cool collaborative projects I can't talk about yet, but there's several things in the works right now, so keep an eye out!

Alright, that's it for now, thank you for reading this, and I'm so excited to meet new people on this platform and get weird about queer horror with y'all! You can always DM me or ask me any questions, I'm chronically online.

All my books have CWs in their front matter for those looking, and on itchio in the listing. They're also available on my website, which is marsadler.carrd.co

[rehnwriter]

New Release - Miller's Academy

And we are live everyone! Miller's Academy is my newest novella! It's available in all formats and on Kindle Unlimited. Miller‘s Academy is a prestigious boarding school, a breeding ground for the kids of rich families and star athletes. Steven, a quiet, bookish student, feels like a complete outsider. When his favorite teacher, Mr. Thomas, starts to act strangely, Steven can’t shake the feeling that something‘s terribly wrong. As he investigates, he uncovers evidence of sinister forces at work beneath the school‘s polished exterior. As the school gradually isolates its students from the outside world, none of his fellow students seem to notice what‘s amiss. With no one to trust, Steven realizes his own life is in grave danger. Miller‘s Academy is a chilling horror novella about isolation, paranoia, and a slowly spreading, ever-growing danger.

Get your copy right here!