Finally, the re-designed covers and formats for Little Lunacies and the separated focused short stories have gone live on Amazon! As a thank you for your patience with these works and me, I’ve made the singled-out short stories 99 cents. They will remain this way.
The collection of short stories known as Little Lunacies is up in digital format as well.
For those that have eagle-eyed the social media pages, you’ll have seen the new covers for Human Ouija, The OWLS, Just Underneath, and Little Lunacies. Whether it was at the currently defunct Patreon on page, newsletter, or Facebook page, you’ll have seen these.
For a short period, the short story collection, Little Lunacies, in its paperback format will be unavailable for purchase, the Audible edition will remain. I plan on updating this book with better formatting, different edits, and a different cover. What goes back up will be version two.
In the immaterial depths lies a layer of darkness. In this absence of light, voices bellow. Crying out their stories and begging for acknowledgment of someone… anyone. For some, they have been given a breath of life over the years, for others they’re just now being released. For the first time, they have been gathered in an ensemble.
Written by Lynn Lesher under her penname L. Bachman, the award-winning author invites you to delight in tales of magic, macabre, and dreadfulness. Whether it is the story of a sorrowful lover reaching into the unknown toward their deceased loved one, or even the story of alien abductee experiencing trauma and Men in Black you should be able to find something in this multi-genre collection you enjoy.
Stories Included
Just Underneath
A Farmhouse Haunting
The Gaze of Destruction
The Owls
Human Ouija
The Painting of Martel
A Man Named Sowder
and more.
This collection, as previously mentioned in yesterday’s post, was a labor of love. This is the only way to read the short stories I wrote for the serial anthologies once published by Burning Willow Press called Crossroads in the Dark. Each of the books included in that series had a theme. This is where I was encouraged to try new things in my writing. From aliens to what lies underneath the bed all the stories from these books really stirred my thoughts in new directions.
A Farmhouse Haunting, The OWLS, Just Underneath, and A Man Named Sowder come from the Crossroads in the Dark series. They had invited me into another collection titled And the World Will Burn: A Dystopian Anthology. From that anthology you could find my short story A Gaze of Destruction, a tale of a vampire waking up to the world destroyed.
Alongside these works, The Painting of Martel, is included it came via the anthology PaintedMayhem. It was the first collection I had been invited to take part in and themed “killer clowns”. It wasn’t the theme that excited me, honestly, it was the charity it was and is still raising money for. Its goal was to raise money for those suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and the families living with them.
Human Ouija is in this book. It is my bestselling and award-winning short story. The idea for this book and the beginning of its writing began before my first novel, Maxwell Demon, even had even been started. I tabled it for a few months as Maxwell Demon came to the front. The short story and this novella worked together for me in that I got ideas during the planning process for Maxwell Demon that I felt worked better for the short story. Human Ouija also became known as a “branch book” from The Blasphemer Series as in Harvest, the story hinted to. I don’t want to ruin Harvest and the secret, but readers of both the short story and the second installment of The Blasphemer Series know where the reference is!
There are two previously unpublished stories included in this collection. Both have been mentioned to those close to me. My family and friends knew of the raw ideas for The Clockwork Children and Mishnah: The Immortal Man for years, but never got to read the works. I finally found the time to polish them and here we are.
The Clockwork Children is the tragic tale of a couple that lost a child and have aged until they cannot have anymore children. Depressed, the wife is a shell of her former self and her husband is grieving the loss, still, of his child and wife that he’s watching slowly slip away. He is able to turn things around, thanks to magical blessing.
Mishnah: The Immortal Man is a story that began with the question “what did cavemen believe in?” From there the story grew. You’re introduced to Mishnah, a tribal boy, whose sister was an oral storyteller in their tribe. They expel her for teaching lies to the children. The tribe believes the only stories that should be told are survival based. If you cannot see it, it isn’t real. Living with his expelled sister, he entertains her with stories of his own. This eventually leads him to darkness; a dark evil has been listening to his stories from the shadows. A glimpse of the future of Mishnah and his sister leads him to take a deal that grants him immortality. A must read for those interested in new takes on subject matters like father time, immortality, and what life was like before modern man..
What did you think of the post? Like the insights? Let’s start a conversation!
February 14th, 2020, this collection of short stories is releasing; in digital and paperback editions from Dark Books Press. Every story included was a labor of love. Many stories included have pushed me into genres I hadn’t written before and I’m proud that I have been able to stretch my legs on the individual projects that came together in this beautifully detailed anthology.
This is a horror short-story collection. Meaning though not all stories will stir fear, but have horror elements. Stories cover many genre tropes such as dark fantasy, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic/dystopia, serial killers, ghost stories, demon possessions, urban fantasy, magic, and re-telling of myths/legends.
As my career moves forward, I know that not all publishers I work for or will are always going to grant me the ability to do the work for myself on my personal projects through them. This means that formatting or graphics may not be in my control in the same way they currently are. This project and this publisher have allowed me to.
This is not a book written by Dahl. Instead, this is a collection of authors he wanted for a collection with the theme ghost stories. The introduction told helped me fix my initial mistake. I’m glad I usually flip through a few pages and read before picking up and purchasing, read the summary, and really break a book down now that I’m older. It really becomes a matter of ‘is this worth my money’ when I approach a book to enjoy and not because of the industry I work.
E. F. Benson’s story In the Tube stood out the most to me. I really enjoyed it. The other stories included, are very well curated, but I enjoyed this one the most. I found each story to be well written and just the right amount of fear. It seems I come across too many stories that rely on gore to scare in their tales, not enough anticipation with delivery. This collection is the type I enjoy. A dribble here and a dot there of ‘what’s going on’ cleaned up with the reveal and the exhale of making it to the end. A thrill-ride.
In the introduction, the tale of the book’s conception is shared. The struggles of finding a good or even a great story when wanting to create an anthology. I’ve been down this road myself and it can be a frustration, but it also tells of the gems that can be found. A reflection of today, for me. Now and then you come across a book you can really sink your teeth into. This collection is worthy of a chomp again from me.
This review is a part of my 2020 yearlong self-challenge to read and review. I have reread some books for the purpose of reviewing them on my website whereas I have read others for the first time. Check out Book Reviews and Recommendations to find other book reviews, book recommendations, and more information about the books I’m reading, have read, or are sharing.
Have you read this book? What were your thoughts? Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? Let’s have a conversation about it.
So far, the information about this collection is that it will include Human Ouija. This is a collection signed to the wonderful press Dark Books Press publishing company and will be the continuing of a project originally discussed and was in progress when the doors closed at Burning Willow Press. I had already begun collecting short stories, polishing stories, and reworking several unfinished or finished works that needed to be adjusted for publication more.
As of right now, this collection has moved into the editing phase. I still do not have a date for the release as this post goes live, but the publisher and myself have high hopes of it coming out sooner rather than later.
Contents of collection so far:
Just Underneath (psychological thriller)
A Farmhouse Haunting (ghost story)
The Gaze of Destruction (post-apocalypse vampire tale)
The Owls (Sci-fi horror)
Human Ouija (Paranormal) (Bestselling and Award-winning short story)
The Painting of Martel (supernatural, possession, serial-killer)
A Man Named Sowder (psychological ghost story)
The Clockwork Children (supernatural, emotional)
Readers may recognize many of these stories. Several have been published in other anthologies, mainly in the Crossroads in the Dark series that was published by Burning Willow Press. The Clockwork Children has never been published before. There are a few more stories I want to add to round the collection out, but this is up to my publisher.
Over the years, I announced different projects. Works in progress that never seemed to come out. Things that readers requested either by pm or by email. Sometimes these requests would come in the form of questions that gave me inspiration such as Whatever happened to Eshu or Will we ever get information about the other past lives of Lilith? Some questions were answered if you knew where to look, for example Eshu from The Blasphemer Series appeared in Chasing Shadows by Kindra Sowder. He also misbehaved from what I was told.
Stories were announced and were written on, but never made it to publication. Sometimes this happens in the writing industry. Now, with that said, I fully planned on publishing many stories. If I hadn’t planned on it, I wouldn’t on some level mentioned or announced them. The Lives of Lilith and more on Maxwell were both written, but I had never finished them. Maxwell’s book was written with Lilith/Adele telling the stories to their youngest family members, so they would learn along with the readers. Martel, the prequel work of The Painting of Martel also got worked on, but I put a pause in it to work on more pressing matters.
I even worked on a more children
friendly work, but it never came to light. My feelings on it were that it wasn’t
feeling finished when I wrote all the stories for it, so feeling it incomplete
I didn’t want to move forward on that project.
The Mephistopheles Chronicles a co-authorship project between me and Kindra Sowder was put on pause as both of us got busy with work projects. It’s a crossover of The Blasphemer Series and her Van Helsing characters. This project is paused, but not permanently as I’m aware, so it remains a work-in-progress between the two of us.
Many stories, upon their writing being finished, felt better in a short story format and were and are being polished to be in a series of releases, by whom I’m not fully sure, now of writing this. I can say, with full confidence, some of them are being cleaned and polished to be included in Little Lunacies. I will cover this fully in an official announcement.
This post was inspired when I began digging through older files. I then realized all of my ‘back-burner stories’ reminded me of a story I read: Fiction by Ryan Lieske. The tagline of that book is ‘Sometimes, a character is so strong, it refuses to be buried’. I highly recommend every reader check this out. All I kept thinking about was all the stories that were not finished, characters that had personalities and lives and how they were ‘living’ without being given life.
With this update I will say, in some fashion or form all that I have worked on will eventually make its way to all of you. I will make an announcement when something from The Unwritten Stories log comes to life, perhaps even a book dedicated just to the unfinished but becoming finished. The sky is open right now for me; I have no limits on my creativity, and I will take advantage of this new spark fully.
My short story The OWLS is in this collection and great news it’s up for pre-orders right now, currently it’s 99 cents what a deal! Check out the free sample below or buy from Amazon!
Synopsis:
Crossroads in the Dark V: Beyond the Borders
A light in the darkness followed by a young boy. An infestation set to take over the warm Florida coastline. A robot that finds his inner strength. From a derelict ship with dark secrets to enlighten to a politically correct future to trouble for a team of scavengers, and weirdness along a country road…
Welcome back to the Crossroads for a fifth volume. Beyond the Borders is a collection of volatile stories about fantasy, horror, and science-fiction from some of the best in independent writing. Every page is ready to be turned with anticipation for the next twist as your thoughts race with fear of what will come next. For these tales are pure heart-pumping entertainment and told by some of the most unique minds in the science-fiction world.
Stories from: James Master, Bryan Tann, Nikki Collins-Mewha, S.L. Kerns, Donna Marie West, Joseph J. Madden, David H. Johnson, Brian G. Murray, Josh Matthews, Veronica Smith, Cindy Johnson, Kerry Alan Denney, Jeffrey G. Roberts, Edward Kenyon, Jeff Prebis, Carol Browne, David Solar, Frank Martin and L. Bachman.
All profits for this anthology will be sent to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital Network in hopes that one-day medical science will catch up to science-fiction and be able to cure childhood cancer and disease.
To add to the fun happening Feb 13th, a rafflecopter has been created. 1 winner to win all the donated books! Check it out here. Throughout the event, Noon – 8pm central time, giveaways will be going on held individually by the authors themselves, so for many authors in the rafflecopter you may be able to have more than one chance to win a digital copy of a book!
PM Barnes – Digital copy of Viral Snow
L. Bachman – Digital copy of Human Ouija
Brenda Tetreault – Digital copy of The Witcher Legacy
Erin Maxwell – Digital copy of Broken Veil
Michelle Rabe – Digital copy of Cast in Blood
Rob Shepherd – Digital copy of The Grays Anatomy
Kindra Sowder – Audiobook of Follow the Ashes: Book 1 of the Executioner Trilogy
The event’s line-up
Noon – Erin Maxwell
1pm – Tj Weeks
2pm – Kindra Sowder
3pm – Rob Shepherd
4pm – L. Bachman
5pm – Michelle Rabe
6pm – Vampy’s Ramblings
7pm – Brenda Tetreault
8pm – Amy Alice
This event has paranormal, horror, and thriller authors involved! This event is being held by Bachman’s Blasphemer, the fan club on Facebook by L. Bachman. Please join if you’re a fan!
The Official Website of L. Bachman 