Black Bubbles
Collection
Horror is pessimism at its bleakest. Worst-case scenario. The darker side of reality. The glass half-empty. The situation unfathomable. In Black Bubbles, Kelli Owen presents classic genre tropes—ghosts, murderers, zombies, what you’d expect (sans sharks)—but it’s the characters, rather than the tropes, that experience the story, speak of the horrors, and sometimes survive the inevitable.
Sometimes.
A decades-old crime shocks a family as evidence points to one of their own… An ancient evil hitchhikes its way to freedom… A child has an unusual fascination with decay… A woman excuses premeditation… Death takes a holiday… Science and good intentions make horrific bedfellows… A man hides from nightmares that invade his waking world…
Kelli Owen’s first collection gathers over 60,000 words, including a handful of out-of-print, difficult-to-find previously published work, a plethora of new pieces, story notes, drawings inspired by the title story, and an introduction by the legendary Thomas Monteleone.
Table of contents includes the following (short stories unless noted otherwise): Tin Box, Shadow of Skepticism, The Worst Intentions, Feeding the Animals, Potential, Brian Made Me Do It, The Rabbit, Crash and Burn, Grim Circumstances, Family Reunion, Shadows in a Bowl of Soup (poem), Divorcing the Dead, Dig the Hole, Spell, How’s That Make You Feel?, Spring Thaw, Good Enough, Mercy’s Gasp, Trials and Tribulations of Dr Jekyll’s Third Cousin Twice Removed, Spilled Milk (set in the world of Brian Keene’s RISING), Black Bubbles (novella)
Praise for BLACK BUBBLES
“Double hell if Black Bubbles wasn’t one of the most imaginative stories I’ve come across in some time.”
~ David Spell, The Scary Reviews
“It’s rare that I’ll give a collection of short stories 5 stars. There are nearly always one or two that don’t work for one reason or another. Not the case here. Kelli Owen’s Black Bubbles is filled with gems.”
~ Frank Errington, horror-web.com reviewer
“Reliant on character over shock and awe, I found this collection to be… a solid collection.”
~ Shock Totem
“Story after story, I was hooked and I couldn’t put the book down.”
~ Mandy DeGeit
Available at: Amazon • Bookshop.org