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eBook Category: Horror/Dark Fantasy Bram Stoker Award Nominee
eBook Description: The Bram Stoker Award-nominated novella "Mama's Boy" is the cornerstone of this 14-story collection from author Fran Friel and Apex Publications. A man whose mother's demented love for him has turned him from an innocent boy to a serial killer to a near-comatose mental patient opens his world to a psychologist determined to reach him as a way of dealing with her own mother's battle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But is she helping, or is there more damage to be done? In "Mashed," a son's simple request for potatoes with his birthday dinner opens up a world of past fears and childhood torments for his mother, while the flash fiction story "Close Shave" presents a horrifically funny solution to an everyday women's issue. From mother and son to broader family ties, Friel explores the bonds of human connection into every dark turn. The humorous yet wickedly creepy "Under the Dryer" begins as a tale told by the family dog and ends in a bloodbath; "Special Prayers," perhaps the most disturbing offering in the collection, exposes a family secret of abuse and power; and the tragically soft and beautiful "Orange and Golden" explores the purest form of the human-animal bond as the sun sets on a natural disaster. FRAN FRIEL is a Bram Stoker-nominated author residing on the coast of southern New England with her husband and their band of animal masters. As a long-time member of The Horror Library, she manages and writes a weekly columns for "The Horror Library Blog-O-Rama" and "Fran Friel 's Yada, Too." Friel's work has been featured in the 2006 anthology release Horror Library, Volume 1, as well as publications online and in print at The Horror Library, Insidious Reflections, Wicked Karnival, The Lightning Journal, Lamoille Lamentations, The Eldritch Gazette, and Dark Recesses Press. Cover art by Billy Tackett

eBook Publisher: Apex Publications, LLC/Apex Publications, Published: 2008, 2008
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2008

14 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [243 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [259 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [219 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [767 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [247 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [231 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [268 KB] , hiebook (KML) [555 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [351 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [205 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [255 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [308 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [338 KB]
Words: 76497
Reading time: 218-305 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
ISBN: 9780981639086

"Fran Friel has a genuine gift for storytelling. Her highly adaptable prose boils over with emotion: love, guilt, fear, and the myriad shades between. Mama's Boy and Other Dark Tales marks the arrival of a stunning new talent."--Michael McBride, author of the God's End trilogy and Bloodletting

"Fran Friel is a rosy-cheeked, cheerful woman with a world-class seductive smile. Her obviously warm nature makes her icy fiction appear all that more unsettling. Her stories are well written, compelling, all with a muscular hard edge, with often surprising but very appropriate endings ... and always absolutely brutally chilling. From the short-short shockers like 'The Widow' and 'Close Shave' that surprise like an unexpected poke in the eye, to the longer moving ones like 'The Sea Orphan' and 'Beach of Dreams,' that jar you and linger like a solid, well-placed left hook to your kidney. Many have the quality of the renown title piece, MAMA'S BOY: At some point they make your sphincter muscle clench and spasm with shock. Scary stories that are not soon forgotten. And from such a nice person. Highly recommended."--Gene O'Neill, Author of COLLECTED TALES OF THE BAJA EXPRESS and THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. ZACH

BEACH OF DREAMS

With dawn still hours away, the storm howled in the cavernous spaces between the carcasses on the beach. Simon Rodan's lantern swayed in the wind, casting a dance of wan light and shadows on the giant forms, impossible to see them in their entirety from his vantage. Beached giants was all he could think when he saw the dark, lifeless shapes crowding the shore. Koma, the villager who had alerted him to the disaster, huddled with the other fisherman around the fire in the cooking shelter between the palm trees. They stayed well away from the bodies on the beach.

Simon overcame the initial shock of the scene, his training as a researcher kicking in. Stomping through the sand, he pulled tools and specimen bags from the pockets of his tattered khaki vest. He took samples of blue and green skin, and some brown, the texture of lizard skin, and he clipped small pieces from golden fish scales the size of dinner plates. Winded from climbing around dozens of bodies in the heavy storm, Simon pushed on, cutting pieces of billowing wet fabric: white linen; colored polka dots; black silk. And finally, with heavy wire cutters, he snipped bits of bright red hair and brown fur, the strands as thick as cables.

Fumbling inside his vest, Simon tried to protect his camera from the rain with a baggie. He ran up and down the spaces between the lifeless giants, snapping pictures, desperate to document the incredible images. He felt a strange split in his mind--focusing on the task at hand and an eerie concern for what he was witnessing. What was he witnessing?