The Roots Have Dug Into My Heart by Peter Fugazzotto

A missing child returns home. But now the horror begins.

Recovering addict and single mom Jessie Milano wakes from a hangover to find her daughter missing from their Northern Californian family farm. After her daughter is found, Jessie senses something different with her daughter and reluctantly begins believing the insane idea that an ancient terror lurks in the marshes, a nightmare that threatens to destroy everything she loves.

The Roots Have Dug into My Heart by Peter Fugazzotto is a horror novella exploring how far a mother will journey to save her daughter.

This was a short supernatural thriller steeped in folklore.

Jessie is a party girl whose good times have run out, along with the father of her child. Vowing to lay off the booze and drugs is easier said than done but that is the promise she makes in order to get her mother to take them in. Jessie tries, or thinks she does, to be a decent mother, but she just can't give up her nights in the bars drinking and drugging the pain away. It is after one such night, when the hangover is at it's peak and the burden of motherhood is more than she's willing to bear, that she wakes to find her daughter gone, wandered (or lured?) into the marsh. When she is found, she no longer seems to be the child she once was. Have the drugs finally addled Jessie's mind or is there some truth to the old folklore? The marsh does not give up it's secrets easily and Jessie may not be strong enough to find the truth.
I would recommend it to all horror fans.

4 out of 5 stars

I received a complimentary copy for review.

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About the author
Peter Fugazzotto is a writer of fantasy and science fiction. His short stories have been published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Grimdark Magazine. His series The Hounds of North was launched with The Witch of the Sands in 2014. He is a lifelong martial artist and a World Champion in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

More information about Peter and his writing, including free stories, can be found at www.peterfugazzotto.com

Until Summer Comes Around by Glenn Rolfe

When fifteen year old Rocky Zukas meets a mysterious dark-haired girl named November, his world is forever changed. The young couple falls under the spell of summer love, but not everyone approves. November’s brother, Gabriel, is the keeper of the family’s secret, and big brother is always watching, growing more sinister as his bloodlust gets the best of him. Directing his attention to Rocky’s family, Gabriel aims to make sure little sister knows who is in charge. 



This will be a summer that Rocky never forgets. He is about to turn 16, get his driver's license, fall in love for the very first time, and find out that monsters are real.
This coming of age Vampire horror is set in the 80s in a touristy beach town in coastal Maine. Rocky is expecting a long boring summer since his cousin/best pal is going away, but meeting November changes everything. At first Rocky is so enamored of her that he barely notices that her arrival coincides with all the missing person posters going up. First love and raging hormones have a way of making a teen turn a blind eye to all else, and the only thing more dangerous than being unaware  of evil, is when evil becomes aware of you.
This is the author's best work so far and if you are looking for a summer read with a lot of bite I highly recommend this.
5 out of 5 stars
I received an advance copy for review.


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About the author
Glenn Rolfe is an author from the haunted woods of New England. He has studied Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University and continues his education in the world of horror by devouring the novels of Stephen King, Richard Laymon, Brian Keene, Jack Ketchum, and many others. He and his wife, Meghan, have three children, Ruby, Ramona, and Axl. He is grateful to be loved despite his weirdness.

He is a Splatterpunk Award nominee and the author of The Window, Becoming, Blood and Rain, The Haunted Halls, Chasing Ghosts, Abram's Bridge, Things We Fear, Boom Town, and the collections, Slush and Land of Bones.
Twitter: @grolfehorror
www.Patreon/GetRolfed

Tales from the Fringes of Fear by Jeff Szpirglas, ills. by Steven P. Hughes

Most kids don't have to stress about things like exotic insects with a taste for human flesh when they go to class. But students at this school have to be ever vigilant. You never know when a supernatural pastry or a clay monster bent on revenge might be lurking just around the corner. Even a simple field trip to a local animal sanctuary can have ssserious consequences.

Dragged fresh from the grave and pulled out of the haunted corners of a school locker, these thirteen new stories are a nod to the storytelling style of Tales from the Crypt and The Twilight Zone. They are guaranteed to make you laugh like a hyena, shake your head in wonder or tremble with fear.

A companion volume to Tales from Beyond the Brain

This is a collection of 13 fun and freaky stories with a target audience of middle graders and yet you really don't have to be a kid to enjoy them. My favorites were Sweet As Pie where a trip to a farmer's market and a sweet treat turn into a nightmare for one unlucky girl, and The Way Of The Golem in which a lonely friendless boy creates some otherworldly companions. While the other stories were spine tingly fun those 2 were full on scary. If your kids have enjoyed Goosebumps or they watch Creeped Out I would highly recommend this book for them, and even for you.

I received a complimentary copy for review.

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About the author

Jeff Szpirglas has had a varied career. He's shoveled manure, worked in a steelyard (he hails from Hamilton, after all), and even frolicked in the offices at CTV Television and Chirp, chickaDEE, and OWL magazines, where he was the kids' page editor. His manure-shoveling days long behind him, Jeff currently teaches children by day and writes books/fights supervillains by night.

Boy in the Box by Marc E.Fitch

Ten years ago a mysterious and tragic hunting accident deep in the Adirondack Mountains left a boy buried in a storied piece of land known as Coombs' Gulch and four friends with a terrible secret. Now, Jonathan Hollis and brothers Michael and Conner Braddick must return to the place that changed their lives forever in order to keep their secret buried. What they don't realize is that they are walking into a trap - one set decades earlier by a supernatural being who is not confined by time or place: a demon that demands a sacrifice.



The story begins with a funeral, and though it is literal I also took it as a symbol of the death of a friendship that never quite survived the events that occurred a decade earlier. Four best friends had set out for a last hurrah, before one of them tied the knot. They returned forever changed. Now the four best friends are merely three. Three who struggle to live with the secret and yet will do whatever it takes to make sure it stays hidden. It is with this goal that they set out to Coomb's Gulch, a forsaken and desolate area where they once hunted but which now holds less of nature and more of the supernatural. These earlier pages moved a bit slow for my taste but once we passed the heavy atmosphere of the road trip and reached the destination the fear factor kicked up several notches and I was hooked. You can't go to Coomb's Gulch and expect to live happily ever after, but God help you if you get out the first time and go back for more.

I received an advance copy for review.

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About the author
Marc E. Fitch is the author of Paranormal Nation: Why America Needs Ghosts, UFOs, and Bigfoot (Praeger) and the novels Old Boone Blood and Paradise Burns, which is forth-coming from Damnation/Eternal Press. His fiction has appeared in such publications as ThugLit, The Big Click, eHorror, Horror Society, and Massacre. He recently won the Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship for his upcoming work, Shmexperts: How Ideology and Power Politics are Disguised as Science. His nonfiction has appeared in the Federalist, World Net Daily, American Thinker and The Skeptical Inquirer. He currently lives in Harwinton, CT with his wife and four children and works in the field of mental health.