Of the Flesh: 18 Stories of Modern Horror (Hardback) - Susan Barker

'Deliciously creepy' NEW SCIENTIST Fear never dies...

'Deliciously creepy' NEW SCIENTIST

Fear never dies...

These stories from eighteen masters of the craft will curdle your blood, haunt your dreams and redefine terror.

An exploited child worker in the silver mines of Bolivia finds an ally - but at what cost? A young woman's workplace affair has terrifying repercussions when her lover's wife dies. A sailor's wife takes her communion with Nature a little too far...

From a hungry young woman who is not what she seems, to a boy who has taken his mother's advice a touch too seriously; from disfigured girls willing to pay any price to fit in, to an immigrant who cannot escape his tormentor; from a new home with a sinister secret, to the discovery that a long-dead parent's corpse is perfectly preserved decades later; this collection plumbs the depths of the psyche and dredges up some very modern horrors.

Featuring stories by: Susan Barker, J K Chukwu, Bridget Collins, Mariana Enriquez, Michel Faber, Lewis Hancox, Emilia Hart, Ainslie Hogarth, Robert Lautner, Adorah Nworah, Irenosen Okojie, Lucy Rose, Lionel Shriver, James Smythe, Lavie Tidhar, Francine Toon, Evie Wyld and Louisa Young.

About the Author

J K CHUKWU is a writer and visual artist from the Midwest. She holds an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University and was a 2019 Lambda Fellow. Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, and TAYO. Bridget Collins trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art after reading English at King's College, Cambridge. She is the author of seven acclaimed books for young adults and has had two plays produced, one at the Edinburgh Fringe. She is the No. 1 bestselling author of THE BINDING and THE BETRAYALS. THE SILENCE FACTORY is her third adult novel. Emilia Hart is a British-Australian writer. She was born in Sydney and studied English Literature and Law at the University of New South Wales before working as a lawyer in Sydney and London. Emilia is a graduate of Curtis Brown Creative's Three Month Online Novel Writing Course and was Highly Commended in the 2021 Caledonia Novel Award. Her short fiction has been published in Australia and the UK. She lives in London. ROBERT LAUTNER was born in Middlesex in 1970. Before becoming a writer he owned his own comic-book store, worked as a wine merchant, photographic consultant and recruitment consultant. He now lives on the Pembrokeshire coast in a wooden cabin with his wife and children. He is the author of The Road to Reckoning, which was a Simon Mayo Book Club choice, and The Draughtsman, which was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Quint is his third novel. Adorah Nworah is an Igbo writer from South-East Nigeria. Her stories have been published in AFREADA and adda magazine. Her short stories, "The Bride" and "Broken English" made the shortlist for the 2019 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the longlist for the 2018 Short Story Day Africa Prize respectively. She lives in Philadelphia, where she practices real estate finance law and is cat mom to her handsome Napoleon cat. James Smythe is the winner of the Wales Fiction Book of the Year 2013, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2014. He is the author of The Testimony, The Machine and No Harm Can Come To A Good Man, as well as The Anomaly Quartet, which currently includes the novels The Explorer and The Echo. James lives in London and teaches creative writing. He can be found on Twitter @jpsmythe Louisa Young was born in London and read history at Cambridge. She co-wrote the Lionboy series with her daughter, and is the author of eight further books including the bestselling My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award, and was a Richard and Judy Book Club choice, and its acclaimed sequels The Heroes' Welcome and Devotion. Her work is published in 36 languages. She lives in London.