Now, and the Hour of Death
Genre: Horror; gothic, eldritch, paranormal
Length: 49 pages
Published: 2023
Format: Paperback, ebook
Five horror short stories with a common theme of Death - whether waiting for it, running from it, or fully embracing it.
It's a mix of paranormal, gothic, and eldritch horror that will take you from a beautiful sunset at the beach, to an old haunted mansion, and to the very end of the world.
"A brief but unputdownable read."
- Goodreads review
And in the Darkness Lies the Grave
A gang of grave robbers pick the wrong church to loot.
Some things are abandoned for a reason...
A Man of the Sea
On the beach stands a man. Every day. Every night. Year after year.
They want him gone, but who will listen to the sea, if he's not there? Who will here her sing?
The Haunting of My Harrowing Heart
A fight for a home that's rightfully theirs. A love that transcends the living.
These two witches just want to be left in peace.
Now, and the Hour of Death
At the end of the world, when nothing is left but cursed beings waiting to eat you, spending a minute dwelling on love may not be the worst.
The Banshee
This murderer is followed by more than the ghosts of his victims.
Vengeance is coming, wearing a summer dress and red lipstick.
Inspiration
This collection started with short stories meant for other places.
I wrote a few of them with the purpose of publication in magazines and was suddenly halfway to a decent collection myself. So why not create a mini-anthology of spookiness?
Short stories are a great medium to explore new genres and point-of-views. I wanted to challenge myself and write out of my usual genre (classic, epic fantasy). I wanted something both eerie and dark, but I let the stories unfold as I wrote them so ended up with an array of genres. There's romance (with a happy-ever-after, so yeah, it's a romance), a bit of dystopian, some true crime vibes, gothic and eldritch, and even paranormal horror blended in.
I played around with point-of-views (POVs) as well. I've worked in my favorite (3rd person, past tense), my not-as-favorite (1st person, past or present), and tried my hand on 2nd person perspective.
I love writing eerie and sinister atmospheres and creating characters whose morals are grey-to-black but that you'll still root for. In this collection I aim to either give you goosebumps with haunting endings or have you smirk like an evil queen watching her enemies being slaughtered.