Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts. Overall, I look forward to reading North American Lake Monsters and his new novel The Strange next year as he is currently one of my favorite horror and dark fantasy writers working today. So if you haven't read it, read it in order. I did love how some stories connected to others. Love is Hell's Breath is such a simple but deep line that thematically connects all the stories. Insights: In The Maw, the passage about people being like warped records was beautiful to me. That there is a large history of events that have led to the current events in the story. It always feels like there is more happening besides what is being shown. Particularly in Skullpocket, The Maw and The Butcher's Table. The settings: I love the worlds he creates. I love it when a writer realizes that his characters don't have to be these perfect people and can fuck up. He even is willing to write characters aren't good or rather they have lots of flaws. The two novellas gives him breathing room but the characters are still just as strong as the smaller stories. His characters: Despite the weird, horrifying and fantastical elements that happen in these stories, he keeps the characters grounded and they feel so real within a small amount of space. It's the purest definition of horror being beautiful. His writing style is so beautiful and poetic. I would say this collection is up there with Books of Blood as one of my favorites. So after reading Books of Blood by Clive Barker (which I loved) I was itching for something with a similar feeling and was recommended Wounds by Nathan Ballingrud.

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Wounds ballingrud