There’s no pleasure quite like a top-notch collection of horror stories, and I’m always on the lookout for one. Gemma Files’ latest collection Spectral Evidence, released in February from Trepidatio, sounds like a great candidate. Just check out these story descriptions.

An embittered blood-servant plots revenge against the vampires who own him; a little girl’s best friend seeks to draw her into an ancient, forbidden realm; two monster-hunting sisters cross paths with an amoral holler-witch again and again, battling both mortal authorities and immortal predators. From the forgotten angels who built the cosmos to the reckless geniuses whose party drug unleashes a plague, madness, monsters and murder await at every turn.

Monster-hunting sisters? Ancient, forbidden realms? Reckless geniuses and holler-witches? Why don’t I have this book already?

Spectral Evidence gathers nine stories from major anthologies of the past few years, including Ellen Datlow’s Fearful Symmetries, Hauntings, October Dreams II from Cemetery Dance, and many others. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

“A Wish from a Bone” (Fearful Symmetries, 2014),
“When I’m Armouring My Belly” (Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead, 2010)
“Crossing the River” (Mighty Unclean, 2009)
“Spectral Evidence” (Hauntings, 2013)
“Guising” (October Dreams II: A Celebration of Halloween, 2015)
“Black Bush” (Arcane, 2011)
“Imaginary Beauties: A Lurid Melodrama” (Daughters of Frankenstein: Lesbian Mad Scientists, 2008)
“His Face, All Red” (Stamps, Vamps & Tramps, 2014)
“The Speed of Pain” (Mighty Unclean, 2009)

Gemma Files’ previous collections include Kissing Carrion (2003), The Worm in Every Heart (2004), and We Will All Go Down Together (2014). Her Shirley Jackson Award-winning novel Experimental Film was released by ChiZine in 2015, and she’s published three novels in the Weird Western Hexslinger series, starting with A Book of Tongues (2010).

Spectral Evidence was released by Trepidatio Publications on February 16, 2018. It is 212 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback and $7.95 for the digital version. The cover artist is uncredited.

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