I would like to thank Titan for an advance copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher - Titan

Published - Out Now

Price - £13.99 hardback £7.99 Kindle eBook

A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award (R)-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

Four devastating tales from a master of modern horror...

Warning - this review covers significantly difficult subjects and I will be spoiling some stories as a consequence

Horror is as I’ve mentioned before about that reaction it creates. That can be either supernatural in nature or very human. Horror doesn’t need justification or happy endings it’s the sobering idea that bad things in the universe can just happen because. Transgression of normality as we see it is quite key to the format. But great horror I think should be aiming to do that and say more about being human. Otherwise it’s just poking things with sharp knives to get reactions. Eric LaRocca takes this to extremes in their latest horror short fiction collection This Skin Was Once Mine And Other Disturbances but while I appreciate the way these stories can be stretched to the boundaries I do actually wonder now if that is all there is to the stories.

This Skin Was Once Mine - the title story focused on Jillian who we find is a troubled woman in her thirties who is informed that her beloved father has passed away. She returns home to the funeral. LaRocca bounces back and forth in Gillian’s life and the key to this tale is child abuse. Gillian’s ‘perfect’ father we find was abusing her and this has shaped her choices and yet she still doesn’t see it.

I think the story is about how cycles of abuse can generate. Gillian as an adult hasn’t really processed what happened to her and discovering a young woman trapped in her father’s basement leads her to own and take control of her. Yes that’s disturbing but ultimately for me the story falls down with two many loose plot ends and there is no previous indication that Gillian would behave like this. Indeed in her own quasi relationship she prefers people to take charge of her. There is no catharsis in the story and indeed Gillian’s action lead her to become a prisoner. But then plot strands don’t really end very satisfactory certain characters. Is it horror - absolutely but not sure it’s landed it points that well.

Seedling - in this short story we have. An exploration of grief and family secrets. Our narrator is awoken by his father calling to say his mother has passed away. He returns to the family home immediately. His father and he never had a great relationship and the meeting is awkward but then our narrator spots a mysterious black and deep wound appearing in his arm.

Now this is probably the best tale in the quartet. This an exploration of death, family secrets and resentments and can any reconciliation take place. It’s more a strange comic horror tale as these wounds grow and can stretch and absorb. Do they represent the secrets; our own mortality ever coming for us or something else? It is just slightly spoiled by suddenly going very straightforward into a tale of domestic violence and murder - was that going on the whole time? No real indications are given and there seems no real justification for the father to end up dead.

All the Parts That Won’t Easily Burn - Enoch seeks a knife for his humans not just any knife but something special. The shopkeeper decides he will sell his prized possession on condition that Enoch allows him to be cut and a piece of glass inserted in his skin. A moment that then takes over Enoch’s thoughts and brings him into a decent world of similar people all seeking the same experience.

Now this can be a metaphor for people discovering their secret sexual desires and a community that supports it. Things are graphic and escalate as Enoch had to recruit someone and that stranger has even more stranger desires. Things get bloody and messy. That’s about it. It’s a shocking tale in terms of gore but I don’t think it actually goes anywhere you don’t think it will.

Prickling - this is a more Jacksonesque tale of two old men finally meeting after ten years in a park. It touches on old age and just possibly repressed love as these two old men seem always on the verge of sharing true feelings. But instead there is game to be played first. Each bets the others to do something horrible to a park visitor without being caught. Horrible games are played and then to win the day one is asked to make a child swallow a pebble. At that point things go terrible. The build up is strong, the exploration of how age makes people weaker, more selfish and perhaps encourage this type of behaviour is though a little weak. It’s dark and nasty and that’s still an effective horror tale.

I’ve now read LaRocca several times and they’re a talented and effective horror writer but each story follows a certain pattern and I’ve really felt progression. It’s pick often a taboo subject and so something extreme with it. Yes that’s horror but after a while it all feels a little samey. Subtext exists but isn’t ever really tackled head on in favour of a nasty ending alone. I think there is a point you can say I’ve seen enough of an author’s work to appreciate what they can do but perhaps admit that it’s not quite what I want to read. For now I think I’m going to wait until I hear something really special has been written. This is a collection that shows the sharper bloody edge of horror but that’s about all it seems able to do.