“Accelerates towards a relentless and twist-filled climax.”
From Bram Stoker Award nominee Ronald Malfi comes a brilliantly chilling novel of childhood revisited, memories resurrected, and fears reborn…
When Laurie was a little girl, she was forbidden to enter the room at the top of the stairs. It was one of many rules imposed by her cold, distant father. Now, in a final act of desperation, her father has exorcised his demons. But when Laurie returns to claim the estate with her husband and ten-year-old daughter, it’s as if the past refuses to die. She feels it lurking in the broken mouldings, sees it staring from an empty picture frame, hears it laughing in the mouldy greenhouse deep in the woods…
At first, Laurie thinks she’s imagining things. But when she meets her daughter’s new playmate, Abigail, she can’t help but notice her uncanny resemblance to another little girl who used to live next door. Who died next door. With each passing day, Laurie’s uneasiness grows stronger, her thoughts more disturbing. Like her father, is she slowly losing her mind? Or is something truly unspeakable happening to those sweet little girls?
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
Ronald Malfi returns with a new novel about the past and our attempts to escape from it. Little Girls begins when Laurie returns to her childhood home after the apparent suicide of her father. Laurie can barely remember her childhood, and being back at the house threatens to bring the memories she has repressed back to the surface. But there are other, more tangible, remnants of the past in to contend with… including the little girl Laurie’s daughter has befriended. A little girl who looks familiar to Laurie.
A slow burner, the books starts off low-key but gradually accelerates towards a relentless and twist-filled climax. As much about the darkness and deceit in human hearts as the supernatural, Little Girls promises to be a genuine chiller and another must read from Malfi.
Little Girls is available to release 30th June 2015 from Kensington Publishing Corporation.
“There’s no doubting the quality of twenty-eight dark and disturbing stories collected within.”
The darkness creeps upon us and we shudder, or it suddenly startles and we scream. There need be no monsters for us to be terrified in the dark, but if there are, they are just as often human and as supernatural. Join us in this outstanding annual exploration of the year’s best dark fiction that includes stories of quiet fear, the utterly fantastic, the weirdly surreal, atmospheric noir, mysterious hauntings, seductive nightmares, and frighteningly plausible futures. Featuring tales from masterful authors and talented new writers sure to make you reconsider walking in the shadows alone…
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
The first of the annual ‘best of’ books to break cover this year is the latest edition of The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, edited by Paula Guran. The contents of this sixth edition are varied and eclectic, with the small-press and independent publishers healthily represented. And whilst readers might disagree about some of the individual selections, there’s no doubting the overall quality of twenty-eight dark and disturbing stories collected within.
Particular highlights likely to be of interest to This Is Horror readers are ‘The Quiet Room’ by VH Leslie, ‘Emotional Dues’ by Simon Strantzas, Laird Barron’s ‘(Little Miss) Queen Of Darkness’ and the wonderfully titled ‘Death and the Girl from Pi Delta Zeta’ by Helen Marshall.
Oh and ‘The Elvis Room’ by Stephen Graham Jones, originally published by This Is Horror is also included. Not that we’re bragging or anything.
The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2015 is out now from Prime Books.
JAMES EVERINGTON