This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances

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Description

A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award (R)-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

Four devastating tales from a master of modern horror...

This Skin Was Once Mine. When her father dies under mysterious circumstances, Jillian Finch finds herself grieving the man she idolised while struggling to feel comfortable in the childhood home she was sent away from nearly twenty years ago by her venomous mother. Then Jillian discovers a dark secret in her family's past - a secret that will threaten to undo everything she has ever known to be true about her beloved father and, more importantly, herself. It's only natural to hurt the things we love the most...

Seedling. A young man's father calls him early in the morning to say that his mother has passed away. He arrives home to find his mother's body still in the house. Struggling to process what has happened he notices a small black wound appear on his wrist-the inside of the wound as black as onyx and as seemingly limitless as the cosmos. He is even more unsettled when he discovers his father is cursed with the same affliction. The young man becomes obsessed with his father's new wounds, exploring the boundless insides and tethering himself to the black threads that curl from inside his poor father...

Prickle. Two old men revive a cruel game with devastating consequences...

All the Parts of You That Won't Easily Burn. Enoch Leadbetter goes to buy a knife for his husband to use at a forthcoming dinner party. He encounters a strange shopkeeper who draws him into an intoxicating new obsession and sets him on a path towards mutilation and destruction...

Content warning found inside book.

Reviews

Praise for This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances:

"Dreamy and gut-churning...Readerssearching for visceral horrors need look no further." -PublishersWeekly

"LaRocca (Everything the Darkness Eats) is a viral sensation for all the right reasons, showcasing why extreme horror is so resonant, thought-provoking, and necessary. Suggest to fans of Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica and We Are Here To Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe."
-Library Journal (starred review)

Readers will be mesmerized by these stories and their engaging narration, experiencing the full gamut of emotions, from disgust to wonder, held rapt as the illicit lure of the shadowy side of humanity is tantalizingly revealed.
Library Journal (starredreview)

"Listeners seeking classically told horror with the bite of visceral splatterpunk need look no further. A mesmerizing and unputdownable collection that shocks, provokes, and appalls." - Library Journal starred review (Audio Edition)

Eric LaRoccas distinctive literary voice is a welcome addition to queer horror. I look forward to seeing his legacy grow.
Poppy Z. Brite, author of Exquisite Corpse


Eric LaRocca keeps getting better. Grotesque, heartbreaking, and deeply unsettling, this is the kind of transgressive horror that exposes the vulnerable human heart, that reminds us of our shared pain. Just the byline on his workby Eric LaRoccashould be considered a trigger warning. You know going in that its going to hurt. Caveat lector.
Christopher Golden, author of The House of Last Resort and Road of Bones


Eric LaRocca distorts spaces, both internal and external, creating new cavities within our bodies, fresh chasms in our minds, and flooding them with nothing but absolute terror.This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbancesmakes for exquisite suffering and confirms LaRoccas mantle as the heir apparent to Clive Barker and Poppy Z. Brite. Glory be to the new king of Horror.
Clay McLeod Chapman, author ofWhat Kind of MotherandGhost Eaters


Eric LaRocca is a singular talent, who writes ruthlessly, beautifully, bravely about brutality, who challenges readers to find their humanity, and ultimately hope, in the face of such horrors.
Rachel Harrison, author of Black Sheep


A twisty, intricate gathering of bleak fates. Beneath the skin of delicate prose lies indelicate menace. Eric LaRocca has penned a book thats obsessively captivating,
wherein even hope hurts like a shard of glass.
Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author ofQueen of Teeth


An intense collection that stalks its way around the kinship between pleasure and pain. LaRoccas tremendous empathy allows him to look unblinkingly at the dark corners that others turn away from, in a way that makes his horror not only devastating but heartbreaking.
Brian Evenson, author ofThe Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell


These raw and brilliant stories lure you in and then slice you to the core. Their terrors and scarswill persist. Cutting, insightfulhorror from a new master.
Tim Lebbon, author of The Silence and Among the Living

Author Bio

Eric LaRocca (he/they) is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of the viral sensation, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. A lover of luxury fashion and an admirer of European musical theatre, Eric can often be found roaming the streets of his home city, Boston, MA, for inspiration. For more information, please visit ericlarocca.com.