Blood and Beauty and Other Weird Tales

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Blood and Beauty and Other Weird Tales Page 8

by Jeff Chapman


  “You have been steadfastly loyal to me, Joab. But this....” He gestured at the bodies. “Have we come to the end?”

  The old prophet shook his head.

  “Your sighs will harry you; every night you will drench your bed with tears.”

  Thank you for reading the stories in Blood and Beauty and Other Weird Tales. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

  Please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

  I read all the reviews and am grateful for any feedback. Reviews make a huge difference in attracting new readers.

  Want to get a free ebook and stay up to date on new titles and special offers?

  Consider subscribing to my Very Important Reader List.

  My fairy tale “The Ivy and the Walnut” is only available to readers on my VIR List.

  Click here to get started: jeffchapmanbooks.wordpress.com.

  About the Author

  Jeff Chapman writes software by day and speculative fiction when he should be sleeping. His tales range from fantasy to horror and they don’t all end badly. He lives with his wife, children, and cats in a house with more books than bookshelf space.

  You can find me on twitter @JeffChpmnWriter, on my Amazon Author Page, on my Goodreads Author Page, on Facebook, or check out my musings on words and fiction at jeffchapmanwriter.blogspot.com.

  ~~~

  Want to get a free ebook and stay up to date on new titles and special offers?

  Consider subscribing to my Very Important Reader List.

  My fairy tale “The Ivy and the Walnut” is only available to readers on my VIR List.

  Click here to get started: jeffchapmanbooks.wordpress.com.

  ~~~

  Check out these other titles from Jeff Chapman:

  Last Request: A Victorian Gothic

  “For the love of God, cut off my head off.” The last request in Uncle Silas’s will shocks everyone speechless, everyone except his favorite niece, Anna. More than death itself, the claustrophobic Silas fears a premature burial. Will her elders carry out his request? Anna is certain they will not. It's up to her to do the right thing, even if it is a bit grisly. Armed with butcher knife and candle, Anna heads for the crypt underneath the church in the dead of night. All does not go according to Anna’s careful planning.

  “Anna is a strong character worth rooting for. The situation is grisly and intriguing, and the end came as a surprise.”

  —H.G. Estok

  ~~~

  Give Me Your Teeth: A Fae Tale

  Like most children, ten-year old Jimmy wonders where the Tooth Fairy keeps all those teeth. It's a silly question to laugh about. He plays along to get some coins, confident there's no such person. As he and his friends know, their mothers play the role of the Tooth Fairy, but in the middle of the night, Jimmy's world turns upside down. He learns there's more to his mother than he ever imagined, and the Tooth Fairy isn't so harmless.

  “This ‘coming of age’ story intertwines themes of trust, revenge, maternal love, and the acceptance of mystery in our lives.”

  —Lyn Perry

  ~~~

  Highway 24

  Take a ride down Highway 24, where dark deeds and tragedy live on in ghostly form and a father’s secrets come shrieking into the present. A young traveling salesman runs down a teenage girl on a lonely country highway, an accident. Why was she wandering around in a pink, formal dress? He flees the scene, absently taking one of her shoes with him. An old memory, something familiar about that shoe, struggles to surface. As he speeds away from the corpse on the road, he thinks his nightmare can’t get any worse, until he sees a pair of green eyes in his rear-view mirror. The shoe and those eyes lead him to a small town where he meets an all too knowing preacher and a sheriff obsessed with the girl’s tragic demise. As he digs deeper into the mystery of the girl and her shoe, he comes face-to-face with a dark secret from his father’s past.

  “This is a really effective ghost story. It was a compelling tale and one I read through avidly.”

  —Simon Kewin

  ~~~

  Tales of Woe and Wonder

  Tales of Woe and Wonder collects nine short stories. There are original fantasy stories and fairy tales as well as classic fairy tales retold. You'll find a mix of fairy tale wonder and tragic woe, ranging from a young boy's first brush with the harsh realities of war in "A Gift from over the Sea" to a miraculous bridge in "The Master and the Miller's Daughter" to a young girl's encounter with a witch's insidious spells in "Esme's Amulet." The fairy tale "Why the Squonk Weeps" tells the story of a mythical beast and a witch's plans that go horribly awry. A mother's plans to save her son from the grief of pain go horribly awry in "A Mother's Gift." "The Fletcher's Daughter" is a humorous take on Cinderella. The flash story "Under the Bridge" comments on trolls and story telling. "The Hand with the Knife" expands on the Grimm tale of the same title. And what happens when a princess resolves to take a vampire for a lover occupies "The Princess and the Vampire."

  —"A Gift from over the Sea" originally appeared in Everyday Fiction.

  —"The Princess and the Vampire" originally appeared in The Midnight Diner, Volume 3.

  —"The Fletcher’s Daughter" originally appeared in Residential Aliens.

  —"The Hand with the Knife" originally appeared in Mindflights.

  —"Why the Squonk Weeps" originally appeared in Digital Dragon Magazine.

  —"A Mother’s Gift" originally appeared in Silver Blade Magazine.

  —"Under the Bridge" originally appeared in Apollo’s Lyre.

  —"The Master and the Miller’s Daughter" originally appeared in Residential Aliens.

  —"Esme’s Amulet" originally appeared in Golden Visions Magazine.

  “These stories move along quickly, and they are, in some cases, a retelling of familiar fairytale fare in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, with Chapman's unique twist.”

  —AL Peevey

  “Imagine, if you will, a return to the genre of the fairy tale, but not the sanitized worlds of Walt Disney, but the darker visions of the Brothers Grimm with their tales of tragedy, a sometimes not-so-happy ending, and a body count.”

  —Alan Loewen

  Publication History

  “Blood and Beauty” originally appeared in Songs of the Satyrs, 2014 and 2015. Copyright © Jeff Chapman, 2014.

  “Sutter’s Well” originally appeared in Plasma Frequency Magazine, Issue 9, December/January 2013/14. Copyright © Jeff Chapman, 2013.

  “Morphine and Chocolate” originally appeared in Midnight Diner 4: Wastelands Under the Sun, 2013. Copyright © Jeff Chapman, 2013.

  “The Facts in the Case of M. Hussman” originally appeared in Bards and Sages Quarterly, July 2013. Copyright © Jeff Chapman, 2013.

  “Shafts to Hell” originally appeared in How the West Was Wicked, 2011. Copyright © Jeff Chapman, 2011.

  “Good King David” originally appeared in King David and the Spiders from Mars, 2014. Copyright © Jeff Chapman, 2014.

 

 

 


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