Excerpt: Descendants of the Big House (A Horde of Dead Poets) by C. Vonzale Lewis + giveaway

Descendants of the Big House (A Horde of Dead Poets)
by C. Vonzale Lewis
October 14th 2025
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Fantasy, Mystery
Beatrice Monroe is still getting used to the knowledge that she was born a champion for Good and Evil. She spends her days combing through her great grandmother’s journals trying to find answers to what this newfound ability means for her as a member of law enforcement.

When a woman walks into her precinct claiming her aunt was murdered, Beatrice discovers a link between their families that may just have the answers she needs. But those answers are not easy to find. Because this mystery’s roots are buried in the past with five young girls and what they gave birth to…in The Big House.

Descendants of the Big House is a standalone installment in A Horde of Dead Poets collection featuring seven authors and their stories inspired by famous literary poems. If you often find yourself steering toward a dark, mysterious, isolated location; if family curses haunt you and unreliable narrators keep you in suspense, you won’t want to miss a single volume in this gripping collection.

Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Simone St. James, Stephen King, and Shirley Jackson.

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EXCERPT:
“I think somebody did something,” Mr. Taylor announced suddenly, voice raised. “My wife, my children. Not right. Not right at all.” He started crying. “I can’t convince anybody to listen to me.”

I got up and kneeled by his chair. “I’m listening, Mr. Elijah.” It didn’t dawn on me that I might have overstepped. The pain in his plea just pulled at me. I understood the feeling of being lost so well, growing up in a home filled with abuse and no one listening to my own cries for help.

He looked down at me. “I appreciate that. You find ’em. You find the one that took my Mary. She was the only woman I ever loved. And our children. Godsend. No matter what that man told her at the crossroads.”

“What man?” I asked, my blood running cold. Of course, I knew what man he was referring to, but I didn’t dare say it out loud.

He flapped his hand in the air again.

I looked at Gautier and dipped my head toward my bag. I didn’t want to upset him further, but I needed to confirm what I already suspected. Mary had met Papa Sin at the crossroads.

Gautier pulled out the book Odette gave us, still in an evidence bag, and came over and gave it to me. I pulled it out and Mr. Taylor gasped.

“Get that evil book out of my house!” He tried to get to his feet and ended up falling back in the chair. I straightened and, after thrusting the book at Gautier, helped Mr. Elijah right himself.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Cherie asked, rushing over. “What evil?” She looked at the book. “I don’t understand what’s going on, but it’s upsetting my daddy.”

“I’m sorry about that, ma’am. But your sister Natalie sent this book to Odette along with a letter claiming she was going to…” I looked down at Mr. Taylor. His eyes were wild.

“She swore she’d gotten rid of that book. She swore.” He let out a sob. “That man told her she’d birth evil. That twins were broken.” He caved in on himself, chest heaving as he cried.

“I better take him to his room,” Cherie said, her face filled with concern.

Gautier got up and helped her take him in the back. I stood there berating myself for upsetting him. I shouldn’t have asked about the book. But I had to get answers, right?

About the Author:

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Carla Vonzale Lewis likes her martini’s shaken…never stirred. Though she was born in Georgia, please don’t mistake her for a Georgia peach. She’s more like a prickly pear. Speaking of being born, someone asked her recently if she remembered her birth, and all she had to say was, “Yes, I do remember that handsy doctor pulling me out into the cold. Right Bastard!!!”

Despite being born in the South, she grew up in the North. California to be exact. And every once in a great while, she gets to experience all four seasons. But mostly, it’s just heat.

Her debut novel, LINEAGE, was released July 16, 2019 and she fully intends to ride that joy for the rest of her life.

When she’s not concocting her next contemporary fantasy story, she enjoys reading, binge watching shows on Netflix, and trying to convince her husband that getting a dog is a wonderful idea.

GIVEAWAY
Blitz-wide giveaway (INT)
Prize: $25 Amazon gift card
Descendants of the Big House Blitz

Vampires! Penguin Speculative Fiction Series (Penguin Classics) + hardback giveaway

Penguin Classics is proud publish reissues of some of the most blood-thirsty fiction written in a special Speculative Fiction Series: Bram Stoker’s DRACULA; John Polidori’s THE VAMPYRE, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s CARMILLA; and THE GILDA STORIES by Jewelle Gomez.

Designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, the Penguin Clothback classic Speculative Fiction series are bound in high-quality colorful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.

Vampires have always served as dark mirrors for our desires and fears: immortality, seduction, contagion, otherness. From the flickering shadows of early cinema to today’s blood-soaked prestige dramas, they remain eternally potent. Recent box office juggernauts like Sinners (2025) and the Nosferatu (2024) remake prove that the horror genre—and the vampire in particular—is not just back but evolving.

Hit television series like FX’s What We Do In the Shadows and AMC’s Interview with a Vampire reveal the comedy of life through the lives of the undead. Vampires don’t just instill fear – their presence brings up questions about power, identity, and transformation.

THE GILDA STORIES 

by Jewelle Gomez

Foreword by Jewelle Gomez

Afterword by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
On sale: 10/14/2025
ISBN: 9780143138921
Hardcover, Penguin Classics
336 Pgs
First published in 1991 and now presented in a lush hardcover format for the first time, THE GILDA STORIES stands as a revolutionary redefinition of the vampire mythos. Beginning in 1850s Louisiana, a young Black woman escapes slavery and is initiated into a chosen family of immortals. Over two centuries, she traverses America—never killing for blood, always seeking belonging. With themes of ecology, queer identity, and intergenerational memory, Jewelle Gomez’s enduring novel has only grown more prescient. This edition features a new introduction that situates GILDA as both counterpoint and heir to DRACULA—a heroine of compassion and agency in a genre often defined by predation.

Author Bio: Jewelle Gomez is a writer, an activist, and the author of many books, including Forty-Three Septembers, Don’t Explain, The Lipstick Papers, Flamingoes and Bears, and Oral Tradition. The Gilda Stories was the recipient of two Lambda Literary Awards and was adapted for the stage by the Urban Bush Women theater company in thirteen U.S. cities.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs (afterword) is the author of Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde, several works of poetry, and Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Animals, which won a Whiting Award for Nonfiction in 2022. In 2023, she won a Windham-Campbell Prize for her poetry.

THE VAMPYRE 

by John Polidori &

CARMILL 

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Foreword by V.E. Schwab

Introduction by Nick Groom
On sale: 10/14/2025
ISBN: 9780143139003
Hardcover, Penguin Classics
192 Pgs
Collected for the first time in a deluxe, unified edition, these foundational tales reveal the vampire’s earliest steps into English literature. THE VAMPYRE (1819), with its cold, aristocratic predator, established the blood-drinker as a figure of both allure and death. CARMILLA (1872), by contrast, introduced the seductive lesbian vampire—a narrative of queerness, intimacy, and isolation still echoed in film and fiction today. With a historically rich introduction from V.E. Schwab and rare contextual material (including Alaric Watts’s original preface), this volume bridges myth and modernity.

Author Bio: John Polidori (1795–1821) was born in London to an Italian immigrant father and English mother. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, graduated at the age of just nineteen, and in 1816 became physician to Lord Byron. He accompanied Byron on a tour through Europe, famously spending the summer at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland where they regularly met with the poet Percy Shelley, his partner Mary Godwin (later Shelley), and her half-sister Claire Clairmont. It was here that Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein was inspired, influenced in part by Polidori’s conversation and behavior—as recorded in Polidori’s diary. Although Polidori’s fractious relationship with Byron led them to part ways, they remained on cordial terms until the publication of Polidori’s tale ‘The Vampyre’ in 1819, which was willfully misattributed to Byron by the publisher Henry Colburn. Polidori was attempting to realize his literary ambitions by publishing ‘The Vampyre’, extracts from his diary, a volume of drama and poetry, and a novel begun at Diodati (Ernestus Berchthold; or, The Modern Œdipus). However, the controversy surrounding ‘The Vampyre’ sank his writing career and he published little else. He died by his own hand in 1821.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873) was born in Dublin to staunch Protestant parents descended from French Huguenots. He studied law at Trinity College Dublin, and while he maintained a somewhat desultory legal practice after graduating, his chief energies were directed towards fiction and journalism. He published his first novel, the historical adventure The Cock and the Anchor, in 1845, and edited a number of newspapers during his lifetime—notably the Dublin University Magazine, in which he serialized his own stories and, despite his Irish nationalist tory sympathies, took a relaxed editorial line. He found his distinctive authorial voice in mysteries and thrillers such as The House by the Church-Yard (1861–3), Wylder’s Hand (1863–4), and Uncle Silas (1864), and in his collections of uncanny and supernatural tales—most famously In a Glass Darkly (1872)—which are often haunted by Irish politics and history. Known as ‘The Invisible Prince’ in Dublin due to his solitary and nocturnal lifestyle, Le Fanu died a recluse in 1873.

Vitoria “V. E.” Schwab (foreword) is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the Villains series, the Cassidy Blake series and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

DRACULA

by Bram Stoker

Foreword by Robert Eggers

Introduction by Karen Winstead
On sale: 10/14/2025
ISBN: 9780143138990
Hardcover, Penguin Classics
480 Pgs
Terror, eroticism, and gothic excess—Dracula is the hallmark of our cultural understanding of vampires. With a new foreword by Nosferatu (2024) director Robert Eggers that situates the novel in conversation with modern fears—bodily autonomy, gender, and contagion—DRACULA emerges as more than just the origin of the vampire hunter mythos; it’s a fevered dream of Victorian repression and desire, rendered timeless.

Author Bio: Abraham 'Bram' Stoker (1847 - 1912) was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and joined the Irish Civil Service before his love of theatre led him to become the unpaid drama critic for the Dublin Mail. He went on to act as manager and secretary for the actor Sir Henry Irving, while writing his novels, the most famous of which is Dracula.

Robert Eggers (foreword) is an American filmmaker and production designer. He is best known for writing and directing the historical horror films The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019), as well as The Northman (2022) and Nosferatu (2024). His films are noted for their folkloric elements, as well as his efforts to ensure historical authenticity.

Karen Winstead (introduction) is professor of English at Ohio State University. She is the author and translator of a number of books, including Fifteenth-Century Lives: Writing Sainthood in England (2020), and teaches on Special Topics in Film and Literature (“Monsters Without and Within”) and Special Topics in Popular Culture (“Vampires”).

 

GIVEAWAY

I have a hard copy of all three books (They are gorgeous!). 

Fill out form (no emails will be kept after giveaway ends)

Winner will be picked October 31, 2025

US ONLY 

 

Excerpt: The Cost of Magic: The Gathering Storm before The Intrigue of Magic by L.J. Evias + giveaway

What would you risk to prove you belong –
Your life? Your freedom? Or the fate of a kingdom?

The Cost of Magic: The Gathering Storm before The Intrigue of Magic (Prequel)
by L.J. Evias
Genre: YA Epic Fantasy, Swords & Sorcery
She’s young, gifted, and desperate to prove she belongs. But some lessons come with a cost.

Torvia has one goal: to earn her place as a royal guard and repay the prince who saved her life. But despite her powerful magic, the prince refuses to send her into danger, and the princess wants her in court.

Everyone has a plan for Torvia’s future. None of them match her own.

So when a charming older boy offers secret lessons and a chance to escape her overprotective guardian, Torvia is tempted. He’s clever. He listens. And the magic he shows her is unlike anything she’s seen before.

But every step she takes draws her further from the path she planned – and one wrong move could cost her the mission, her future, and the prince who’s counting on her.

The Cost of Magic is a dark coming-of-age prequel to The Intrigue of Magic, a young adult epic fantasy series, perfect for readers who crave fierce heroines, tangled loyalties, and the high price of choosing your own path.

Start The Cost of Magic today and discover how one girl’s ambition can change the fate of a kingdom.

** Only .99cents for a limited time! **

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First duel with a northerner
“Good morning, my lady. Are you ready to practise some magic?” Clearly enjoying the attention, Ramin dipped into an elegant bow.

Pushing away her half-eaten breakfast, Torvia jumped up from the table. Levan had departed with Ademir, but Charla was in the next room, and could still argue with Ramin’s plan. “Do we have somewhere to practise?”

Ramin bobbed his head. “We have a room several floors down.”

As predicted, Ramin’s voice brought Charla out. A frown formed on her face as she focused on him. Torvia’s heart stopped. Would she remember?

“Yes? What do you want?”

Ramin bowed deeply. “The king offers the use of an empty room for Zeela to practise her magic.”

Charla drew a finger along her lip. “That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

Without hesitation, Ramin assumed the perfect imitation of confusion. “Prince Ademir requested it himself.”

Losing her patience with Charla, Torvia put her hands on her hips. “I’m here to study, aren’t I? I can’t practice in here.”

“I’ll come with you then.”

“You don’t need to. I’ll be in the palace.”

Charla strapped a sword to her side – a pointless object in a place like this. “I must. Ademir has entrusted me with your safety.”

Rolling her eyes, Torvia turned to Ramin. “Lead the way.”

As big as their entire guard chambers, their practice room was devoid of furniture, aside from a faceless wooden mannequin. The navy walls and gold border suggested this room had seen far more peaceful functions. Torvia glanced doubtfully at the finely embroidered silk curtains. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be using fire.

Unconcerned, Ramin swept into the centre of the room as Charla leaned against the wall, watching him with suspicious eyes. “Shall we see what you’re capable of first?” With an exaggerated flourish, Ramin adopted a combative stance. “Well?”

“You want me to attack you?”

Ramin’s shoulders dropped. “Do they not duel in the south?”

“Not like this.” It had taken years of special training before she was allowed to cast spells at people, and only at those with similar training. Ramin knew nothing of her abilities, nor she his. What if she hurt him and got kicked out of the palace?

“I see. Can you cast fire?”

Torvia snorted. “Every mage can cast fire.”

“Then cast fire at me.” A smirk lifted the corner of his lip. “Don’t worry, you won’t be able to hurt me.”

Mildly irked, Torvia flicked her wrist and sped a fireball at him. The whirling conflagration crashed into his shield with a bright flash, fizzled out, and shot sparks across the room. With a little concentration, she summoned the fire back into life and wrapped flame around Ramin’s sapphire shield, engulfing him completely.

“Good, but you’ll have to try something else to penetrate my shield.”

His calm tone getting the better of her, Torvia struck with crimson lightning, pummelling his shield over and over, but still it held.

His magic was strong. Annoyingly strong.

As she took a breath, Ramin looked at her curiously. “Rumour has it the Royal Mage used crimson lightning before learning to refine it.” He ducked another of her strikes, but couldn’t shake the fire.

“To defeat a shield, you need a different spell.” As the blaze fizzed away, Ramin sent a dark cloud towards her, drifting slowly through the air. Smokey wisps reached out and clung to her shield. The sapphire wall dimmed and flickered, straining her magic. In places, the darkness seeped through.

Her blood running cold, she focused on strengthening the gaps, but tiny slithers had already slipped through and latched onto her skin like cool kisses, draining away her magic. Numbness spread wherever the wisps touched. She gasped, until tendrils wound around her neck.

The sensation was not pleasant, but not as horrifying as the thought that she might be defeated. Her first duel with a northerner and she was losing.

Heat coursed through her and she let it free, dropping her shield so the blaze could burn away the cloud. The inferno carried on, slamming into Ramin and hurling him against the far wall with a loud thump.

Charla laughed and slid down into a sitting position, finally accepting that Torvia was not in need of rescuing.

Staggering upright, Ramin straightened his tunic. “Prince Ademir was correct. You do possess impressive magic. With the right training and improved spells, you could be a formidable mage.”

Charla snorted. “She already is.”

“It will take more than a lucky spell to defeat a fully trained mage. And that spell must have cost you much of your energy.”

Torvia pursed her lips. She felt fine. And perfectly ready to do it again.

The Discovery of Magic (The Intrigue of Magic Book 1)
A world ruled by magic. A palace full of secrets. A girl who refuses to back down.

Seventeen-year-old Alice Harper had her future mapped out—win an archery scholarship, protect her friends, and stay in control. But when a portal hurls her into a kingdom where magic rules and obedience means survival, she lands in a palace gripped by fear—and under the eye of the most powerful man in the realm.

The Royal Mage doesn’t just control the court—he controls people. With power, with fear, with enchantments no one dares resist. And for reasons Alice can’t explain, he’s taken a disturbing interest in her.

The only person who seems to want to help is the prince. He’s charming, clever—and very possibly lying. Caught between dangerous truths and beautiful deceits, Alice must decide who to trust before her friends are lost forever.

She’s not afraid of a fight. But in a world where magic is control, and trust is the most dangerous choice of all, surviving will take more than arrows—it will take everything she’s got.

The Discovery of Magic is the thrilling first book in The Intrigue of Magic, a YA epic fantasy series perfect for fans of court intrigue, character-driven fantasy, and bold heroines who don’t just survive—they fight for each other.

Buy The Discovery of Magic today to enter a world where freedom is fragile—and every alliance comes at a cost.

What readers are saying:

'A creative first novel in the Intrigue of Magic series, the contemporary characters are endearing and believable figures with magical threats, delicate alliances, and savvy manipulators at every turn. The world-building is strong, with thematic undercurrents pointing back to contemporary life in a way that inspires a continuing sense of empathy for the characters. Evias' care with character interaction and modern-day social parallels make it a distinctly compelling start to a new series.' - Self-Publishing Review, ★★★★

'The world-building is great with detailed political structure and magical elements...Evias dishes up the angst that accompanies young love, and...is authentic in depicting the frustrations of youth...Overall, this is a thoughtful and well-executed entry to a new series and I look forward to seeing where we go next' - Asher Syed, Readers' Favorite, ★★★★★

'...offers a balance of lightheartedness and tension, making it accessible to both younger and older audiences. This first book in the series holds great promise and delivers a charming and enjoyable story.' - Carol Thompson, Readers' Favorite, ★★★★

'L. J. Evias' thrilling fantasy adventure will keep readers glued to the pages...The Discovery of Magic is a well-written, clean fantasy to be enjoyed by fantasy lovers young and old' - Delene Vrey, Readers' Favorite, ★★★★★

'The Discovery of Magic is a compelling start to what promises to be an exceptional fantasy series for readers who appreciate carefully crafted magical worlds and meaningful character growth. I cannot wait to see what comes next.' - K.C. Finn, Readers' Favorite, ★★★★★

'A suspense-filled, magical adventure with a strong, reckless protagonist to root for. Highly recommended!' - The Wishing Shelf, ★★★★

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About the Author:

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L. J. Evias writes exclusively in the fantasy genre, infusing stories with a dash of adventure and mystery. In Evias’s worlds, moral absolutes do not exist, giving life to a diverse cast of intriguing characters.

The Intrigue of Magic is Evias’s debut series, featuring accessible world-building, intricate plots, and unforgettable heroes and villains. Released in 2024, The Discovery of Magic is the first book in this series.

When not immersed in the pages of a novel, Evias enjoys real-world adventures both in the UK and abroad. The enchanting settings of The Intrigue of Magic series draw inspiration from personal travels, notably the unique architecture and evocative landscapes of Morocco.

Bonus material and a sample short story are available from the author's website. 

 

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!
Giveaway
$20 Amazon or Paypal

10th Anniversary release: The Dark Will End the Dark by Darrin Doyle + read the new story here!

Darrin Doyle is celebrating the 10th anniversary of his story collection The Dark Will End the Dark with a cool new release and a brand new story included. The stories all revolve around body parts, and they are incredibly unsettling.

 “In these haunting stories, our gods are dead, our beloved are ghosts, our body parts are burned, deformed, missing, even fed to our children – and still we humans go on hoping, wanting, hurting, and hungering.”
               --Kelcey Ervick, author of The Keeper

The Dark Will End The Dark
by Darrin Doyle
October 7, 2025
A group of tugboat passengers grapples with a disturbing loss. A record-holding hiccuper confronts his condition—and a troubling secret. A wife wonders what to do when her husband’s head stops working—but his body stays alive. A man struggles with the memory of the time he saw his friend swallowed whole by a neighborhood girl with supernatural powers.

In this classic set of Midwestern Gothic stories by Darrin Doyle, we see the strange hold hands with the familiar—and seem all the more strange as a result. A set of tall tales (and medium-height ones) told with Nabokovian prose, this stunning and visceral collection by the author of The Beast in Aisle 34 will linger long after the last page.

Originally published in 2015, this revised tenth anniversary edition features a new introduction by American Mythology author Giano Cromley.

Reviews
"Doyle's stories are lamentations, demented fairy tales, and quests for enlightenment in which the author explores bodily dysfunction and ungainly lust while familial love hums in the background. In the manner of George Saunders, Doyle uses his smart, light language to lift readers above the darkness of shame and humiliation that brings so many of his characters to their knees."
— Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Once Upon a River and American Salvage, finalist for the National Book Award

"Darrin Doyle's a mad scientist who has stitched together a hauntingly beautiful collection from tattered body parts and a strange, ragged heart. It is only after you've been defibrillated by the stories in The Dark Will End the Dark that you realize you've been dozing through the days. Doyle's got his fingers on the pulse of our brave new American psyche and his writing blazes electric."
— Jason Ockert, author of Wasp Box and Neighbors of Nothing

"The human body, logic, and language are all rent apart and remade dazzlingly anew in these fourteen stories. With the droll fabulism of Nikolai Gogol and the moral heft of Shirley Jackson, Doyle's characters face problems both surreal and all-too-real...Fantastical yet close to the bone, these stories are both wounding and wondrous."
— Monica McFawn, author of Bright Shards of Someplace Else, winner of the Flannery O' Connor Award

"Like the Dadaist collages of Raoul Hausmann, The Dark Will End the Dark presents a startling disjunction of body parts—head, foot, mouth, neck—arranged so artfully and terrifyingly by Darrin Doyle that one is confronted with the human body's beauty and brokenness. In these haunting stories, our gods are dead, our beloveds are ghosts, our body parts are burned, deformed, missing, even fed to our children—and still we humans go on hoping, wanting, hurting, and hungering."
— Kelcey Ervick Parker, author of For Sale By Owner

 

Darrin Doyle
Face

Another morning, another foggy mind clinging to the silky threads of dream. Daylight merely a hope, an assumption. Daylight an arrival counted upon for no reason other than each day preceding.

The man washed at the sink. He lathered his cheeks and dragged the razor over the skin. He heard a prickly scraping sound as the blade shore the stubble.

The man tried to recall a moment in his life when he wasn’t standing at the bathroom mirror. Memories floated like vapor. Was he a father? Yes, it seemed so. Were his children boys? Girls? Either way they were not here, either moved or dead or never born. Would he see them again? Yes or no, it was a fifty-fifty proposition. Those odds had a nice balance.

Symmetry in the natural order. Day and night. Light and dark. His face. The distance between eyes. Width and length of nostrils. Equality of the lips.

His wife’s face – if indeed he had a wife – had been beautiful in her symmetry. The lovely harmony of her teeth when she smiled, wrinkling her cheeks which in turn wrinkled the skin around her eyes. The connectivity – yes, it had been inscribed upon her features.

The children had hugged and laughed with him. His wife had hugged and laughed with him. He had reciprocated. Theirs had been a world of connection and balance.

He rinsed the excess lather. He brushed his teeth with a motion that resembled the whorls on his fingerprints.

His life began each morning. Every morning he brushed away the dust of sleep, the encroachment of decay.

In the mirror, the man noticed the aberration.

His left eye had scooted or slid, he didn’t know. The eye was centered, socket and all, on his cheek. He tried without success to push the eye back where it had been, where it had resided his entire life. (Unless, perhaps, it had done this before?)

His face no longer resembled his face. Or it looked like his face but a comical or tragic version. A dis-repaired self, one not ready for the stage of life.

The man’s nose and mouth had also switched positions. His face appeared to scream without sound, then to frown. His nostrils flared while shaving lotion burned his nose hairs.

He wondered if he should cry out. He wondered if it would make any difference if he cried out.

Would his wife come rushing up the stairs? Would his children trail behind?

If she flung open the door, what would she see?

Would she be able to mentally reassemble the man’s face – the face she had presumably fallen in love with? Would she believe that this man was, indeed, her husband?

Or would the man find his wife’s face now unrecognizable?

Her features the same, but out of order. A chaos of identity like a broken vase. Her nose jutting from her temple; eyes looking out from her chin; lips vertical and set where her nose used to be.

His children would huddle behind her, their faces puzzles unassembled.

Together they would be a collection of strangers frightened.

The man would turn calmly back toward the mirror, flip up his shirt collar and loop his necktie. There would be no reason to panic. This sort of thing was bound to happen eventually.

The family would return to their respective rooms, their private locations in the universe.

The house would remain silent, as it was now and had always been.

And the man would stand at the mirror, securing his tie, waiting for order.

About the Author
website
Darrin Doyle has lived in Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Osaka, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Manhattan (Kansas, not the other one). At long last, he has settled in Mount Pleasant, MI, where he teaches at Central Michigan University. He is pretty sure Bigfoot exists but has no evidence. He likes to play a variety of musical instruments, mostly stringed ones. He searches for food that is too spicy.

His short stories have appeared in Puerto del Sol, The Long Story, Cottonwood, Alaska Quarterly Review, Night Train, Harpur Palate, Laurel Review, The MacGuffin, and other journals. He has received fellowships and scholarships from the Sewanee Writers Conference and the NY Summer Writers Institute.

5 Sheep Comic Review: Super Creepshow Special #1from Skybound Entertainment

Super Creepshow Special #1
Series: Creepshow
October 8, 2025
Writers: Dan Watters, Ryan Stegman, Ed Brisson
Artists: Riley Rommo, Andrei Bressan, Carmine Di Giandomenico
Colorists: Andres Mossa, Inaki Azpiazu, Adriano Lucas
Letterer: Pat Brosseau
Cover A: Pye Parr
Image Comics
Lunar Code: 0825IM0309
Age Rating: M
Page Count: 40
THIS ULTIMATE CREEPSHOW EXPERIENCE IS AN ABSOLUTE MUST-READ!

Join the Creep in a special celebration of superheroes new, old, and very, very disturbed in what’s possibly already being called the most important comic book of the year!

First, Dan Watters (Batman: Dark Patterns, Destro) and Carmine Di Giandomenico (Absolute Superman) plan a funeral for the world’s greatest superhero, but his return might be the worst thing that could ever happen!

Then, Ryan Stegman (X-Men) and Riley Rossmo (The Moon is Following Us) introduce the world to the Grave Ghost, a superhero who must solve the case of...his own death!

Finally, Ed Brisson (Wolverine: Old Man Logan) and Andrei Bressan (Dark Ride) unleash the chilling tale of what happens when a super serum gets injected into someone who may be more super VILLAIN than hero.

I've always been a fan of comic horror shorts. Creepshow is right up there with Tales from the Crypt. The cover of Super Creepshow #1 caught my eye immediatley. It's simple but powerful and having the punny Creep striking a superhero pose...

Perfect Sweet GIFfrom Perfect GIFs

If you want to create superhero-horror stories, you should get artists and writers who create superhero comics. Regular Creepshow comics are 32 pages, but Super Creepshow is 40 pages, allowing the writers to give their characters depth and create emotional horror alongside the usual situational horror in the stories.

Using familiar superhero tropes, the writers send their heroes down a darker path of destruction, made more awful because had no control over their fate. The artists did a fantastic job of conveying the emotional horror, along with the gore we all expect, in a Creepshow comic.

I enjoyed this issue. Thanks for providing a Halloween-worthy issue.

5 "super" sheep

 

SharonS