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.įrom mother and son to broader family ties, Friel explores the bonds of human connection into every dark turn. But is she helping, or is there more damage to be done? 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. The Bram Stoker Award-nominated novella “Mama’s Boy” is the cornerstone of this 14-story collection from author Fran Friel and Apex Publications. In a final tension-packed life-or-death confrontation, Carol is desperate to prevent the disastrous outcome that both she and Andre foresee as inevitable. Her one thought becomes an obsession: escape Andre and this nest of vampires!īut soon Carol is forced to return to the lair of the undead Andre because now more than just her life is on the line. Suddenly, the impossible happens, and both mortal and immortal are swept to the edge of madness. Andre is not a man but a vampire, cruel, intent on making Carol his next kill, and she has to find a way to save herself.Ĭarol’s bargain with the devil leads to her being dragged further and further down into the murky world of darkness, leaving her at the mercy of the merciless blood drinker. At a small sidewalk café she meets the enigmatic Andre and her life changes forever in a brutal and shocking way.

In The Sheila Na Gig, Tom Smith is on a ship in steerage and bound for New York from his native Ireland after facing down the constraints imposed by his family, overcoming the loss of his first love, circumventing his grandmother's wiles and occult knowledge, and trying to save his younger, mentally challenged sister, Delia, from both witchcraft and sexual abuse.Ĭhild of the Night is the first book in the Power of the Blood world.Ĭarol Robins is vacationing in Bordeaux, France trying to recover from the tragic failure of her marriage and the possibility that she has been infected with a fatal disease.

He intends to take advantage of Stuart's expertise and vulnerability but unbeknown to both men, the supernatural force in the house has an agenda-and a will-of its own. They are also Siamese twins and their father, a doctor with grandiose dreams, means to separate them surgically. Instead, he discovers that his charges, Abby and Eleanor, have never been to school of any kind. In Dissolution, Stuart Granville is a would-be medical student from the South who's been expelled for drinking and believes he's heading north to Hyde Park, New York to tutor twin girls.

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