A collection of eleven twisted and terrifying tales by award-winning horror author, Erica Summers. Including stories of gripping psychological horror, cosmic, bizarro, body horror, and extreme.
Dark bleatings, my grinning tribe! Those of you who are familiar with my posts or YT videos will have no doubt heard me bleating on about my love for Erica Summers, who I discovered this year. This is the first short story collection I’ve read by her though, and after becoming a fan of her longer works, I was pretty curious about how well she writes in short form. So, without further ado, let’s dive into her multiple twisted worlds!
Tines
Janice’s dad is out of the picture and her mum is a selfish asshole who drops her off with her (mum’s) brother and family for the summer. They’re emaciated and ill-looking. They worship ‘Tines’, believing it helps their harvest.
What. An. Opener. I can’t believe how much there is to love in such a short story. You immediately get the feeling that something is quite horribly wrong, but in that disturbing sort of “uncanny valley” way, because they look sort of how she expects, and are quite wholesome. This infuses (potential) body horror, creature horror, cult worship – it’s even got some folk-horror vibes going for it. I LOVE it.
Derailed
A woman is horrifically injured in a car accident and needs help, so goes home after years of no contact to stay with her mum. Her mum clearly has some issues, is not the greatest parent, and is obsessed with and paranoid about rats infesting her home.
Holy crap, this story is the stuff of nightmares. I think anyone who has a strained relationship with someone they love would be particularly affected by this one, and the real-world horror of it all is masterfully crafted.
Painted in Vermillion
Savage, bloodthirsty bugs are basically causing an apocalypse, at least locally. A man is holed up with his son.
I really can’t tell you anything about this one except that the real horror isn’t quite coming from where you think it is.
Sated
Erica is so funny. There are things you can teach about writing and things you can’t, and Erica’s flair for dark humour and irony, combined with her semi-splatterpunk approach, and ability to paint a picture, is something borne only out of natural talent. Which she has in spades. Anyway, Sated is about a guy that owns a diner, and one day he gets bad feedback from a critic. He….slightly overreacts.
Very dark, very humorous, very entertaining.
In the Blood of the Martyr
If there’s one thing I love in a story, it’s a church setting presented as normal and godly, and then perverted in some weird or heinous way. Odessa is in the pews eagerly awaiting her turn to get baptised. I thought I’d predicted what might happen but I was wrong. So deliciously wrong.
All the Same Color on the Inside
Greg’s racist neighbour, Harry, cuts his finger opening a can, only to discover he’s bleeding this gross, yellow, oozing puss, rather than regular blood. This one is a tale of wicked karma, and it was really satisfying.
I’m not sure what it says about me that I was rubbing my hooves together with glee, now that I really think about it.
Secondhand Kiss
This one is utterly horrifying but also…kind of beautiful. A 20 year old college kid is talking to the most breathtakingly beautiful girl he’s ever seen. He’s mesmerised. They smoke weed and discuss existence and God. She tells him she’s lonely and when he goes in for the kiss, she…uh…well. How do I…?
It’s twisted, TWISTED I TELL YOU. But also kind of nice. But also, absolutely horrifying, demented, excruciating. But also weirdly sweet. But also not.
Take a Breath
A guy loses his job, and decides to go surfing. But while he’s surfing, he thinks about something else he lost that was much more precious.
This one shows a different side to Erica’s writing, an extra notch in her wheelhouse. I don’t think I used the right phrasing there. My wheelhouse is missing some cheese. Or something? I don’t know. It’s late at night and I’m full of caffeine and festively-themed Haribo.
What was I saying? Oh yeah! Fabulous use of metaphors and analogies, and dazzling descriptions of the guy’s peril. It’s not one of my favourites, purely because my horror preference is a bit more “what the fuck?!”, but the writing is superb here.
Two-Lip Garden
Lana is an old lady with dementia, whose pride and joy is her tulip garden. Her husband Gary has been dead a while, and she’s alone. The nature of this story makes me want to entirely shut up about it for fear of spoiling anything, because there are brilliant, jaw-dropping revelations. But, I will say this…
There’s a lovely analogy at the beginning, I think about moles burying acorns that grow into baby moles and become a huge family network beneath the ground. It’s my favourite example in the book of how well Erica uses language and imagery, but I can’t elaborate on why because, again, spoilers.
Feed the Machine
A twat called Andrew, who considers himself a gaming influencer, signs up for what turns out to be an AR gaming console, and volunteers to test a horror game. Strapping him in and hooking him up to it is barbaric enough but the game itself is a whoooole other issue.
It was grim, nasty. Somehow really satisfying. IT also serves as a great parallel for discussing animal testing and early human medical trials. It’s absolutely vile…body horror coming out of your ears. I loved it.
The Rictus Grin
Two filmmakers are getting B-roll in an abandoned building and looking around, but there’s something hungry in there with them.
This is the scariest of the bunch in the most “traditional” horror sense, and a wonderful closer to the collection.
So, my final verdict, as you have no doubt guessed throughout this review is this: bloody hated it, what a rubbish book, didn’t like it at all.
Just kidding. It’s outstanding, quite frankly. Easily one of the best horror collections I’ve read this year (or in the last few, actually). Variety, depth, and yet another smash hit from Erica Summers. There are also author’s notes that elaborate on the stories a little, which I love (always love a book with some extra content!). Oh, and if you’re an audiobook fan, I happen to know that there’s a brilliant audio version of this, complete with sound effects and everything.
If you’d like to grab a copy or check out the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Happy Goat Horror 
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