From Bram Stoker Award-nominated publisher, Crystal Lake Publishing, and the editing duo who brought you the best-selling and critically acclaimed small-town Lovecraftian horror anthology Shadows Over Main Street, comes Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories— a disturbing journey into the beauty that rests inside the very heart of darkness.

Awe meets ache.

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 * Horror Short stories * Disturbing psychological horror

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Review

"There is inky glimmer to these dark tales ... together they open up that wondrous space that dark fiction at its best inhabits, where it's just you and the story and whatever is scratching at your window, and where no one can hear you scream. And you will."  -  LitReactor

"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."  -  HorrorNovel Reviews  

"I would say this collection is appropriately named and deserves to earn each and every author worldwide acclaim. Yes, it's that good."  -  MassMovement 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-comingwriters 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.