First published 2025
Death takes many forms in these twelve interconnected tales. Vampires slip through dimensional barriers while ghost girls wander between the living and the dead. Fathers return as blank spaces in family photographs. Day-old peaches carry messages from another realm. Famous paintings serve as doorways that pierce one world and open into another. Each story reveals characters caught between states of being, struggling to understand the rules that govern their strange existence. The entities that populate these tales bring both humor and unsettling wisdom as they navigate the boundaries between life and death. Marie-Helene Bertino creates a collection where the ordinary and extraordinary collide, forcing characters and readers alike to pay attention to the thin places where worlds touch. These stories explore what it means to be alive when death-shaped beings walk among us, offering glimpses of truth that cut through the veil of everyday existence.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, fantasy, horror
Vibes: dark, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: magical-realism, supernatural-elements
210 pages · Kindle Edition · FSG Originals
Content warnings: death