A string of disappearances has hit Henley’s Edge, Connecticut in a bad way. While local law enforcement desperately works to find who is responsible for the disappearances, a grieving widower is drawn into a deadly occult ritual with a mysterious man named Heart Crowley.
An unbridled hatred courses through the idyllic community. As this hatred threatens to boil over, it will eventually burst and shatter the lives of all who once found peace in the quiet town.
Why we’re excited about this book:
In just a few short years, Eric LaRocca has proven to be one of the most provocative and innovative voices working in horror fiction today. The author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, They Were Here Before Us, We Can Never Leave This Place, and the short-story collection The Trees Grew Because I Bled There, LaRocca’s short fiction has been featured in such publications as What One Wouldn’t Do, Stiff Things, a Splatterporn Anthology, and The Book of Queer Saints among others. With his latest, LaRocca easily slips into the supernatural with a story of occult horror tinged with the realities of bigotry and hatred. Edward Lee (Header, City Infernal) says: “This is probably the most all-inclusive horror novel I’ve ever encountered, and one of the most riveting. LaRocca’s tight story structure; luminous prose, and in-between-the-lines subtext approach virtuosity in this tale of grievous loss, all-too-realistic violence, and human longing, all which slam-dunks the reader into an inescapable (and keenly original) terror-scape. Part mystery, part crime drama, and part occult fable, Everything the Darkness Eats is the most relevant book I’ve read this year. LaRocca proves to be an absolutely superior crafter of modern fiction.”, and Bentley Little (DMV, The Revelation) says: In Everything the Darkness Eats, Eric LaRocca has created a truly modern horror story that boldly illuminates the harsh realities of life in contemporary small-town America. His Henley’s Edge is not your stereotypical community where everyone’s a neighbor and every neighbor’s a friend. It’s a town where depression and loneliness thrive, where intolerance and bigotry undermine civic institutions, where isolation turns even loved ones into strangers. Horror fiction doesn’t get more emotionally raw than this. A smart, sharp read with echoes of King’s Needful Things and Barker’s The Damnation Game, Everything the Darkness Eats not only has one hell of a good title, it’s one hell of a good book.”
Forthcoming from CLASH Books 13 June 2023, Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA