Tag: Short Stories

The Cuckoo Girls Are Coming!

On By PatriciaIn Books, Fiction, Important Stuff, News, Publications, Short Stories, WritingLeave a comment

My debut collection of short stories is now available for preorder from JournalStone/Trepidatio. (And it won’t be a long wait—release date is April 24th!)

The Cuckoo Girls includes sixteen stories, half previously published and half original to the collection, and Publishers Weekly gave it a star!

From the back cover:

THE CUCKOO GIRLS

Mothers and daughters. Sisters. Legacies and prophecies. The inevitable and the avoidable. The sixteen stories of Weird fiction and horror in The Cuckoo Girls, Patricia Lillie’s debut collection, feature female protagonists of various ages. Young or old, they must deal with the expectations of their twisted worlds. Some can’t escape their fate, some accept it—and some will burn it down.

“Lillie makes the unreal feel all too possible…. This grim, witchy collection will grab anyone looking for a subtle fright.” —Publishers Weekly

The stories:

  1. The Cuckoo Girls [Nightscript I]
  2. The Robber Bridegroom [original to collection]
  3. How to Make a Marionette 30 [Vastarien V. 2 I. 3]
  4. Mother Sylvia [Nightscript V]
  5. Three Drabbles Brought to You by the Letter E
  6. Zwillingslied [Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles]
  7. In Loco Parentis [original to collection]
  8. That’s What Friends Are For [Supernatural Tales 42]
  9. Alyce-with-a-Y [original to collection]
  10. Abby [Deep Cuts: Mayhem, Menace, & Misery]
  11. Legacy [original to collection]
  12. And One for Azazel (With Jellybeans)
  13. Wishing You the Best Year Ever [original to collection]
  14. Laundry Lady [MicroHorror: Short Stories. Endless Nightmares]
  15. The Witch’s Granddaughters [original to collection]
  16. Notes on the Events Leading Up to the Mysterious Disappearance of Miss Lotte Clemens [original to collection]

Preorder from JournalStone here. Bonus: When ordering the paperback from the publisher, you get an ebook in the format of your choice (mobi, ePub, or PDF) free.

Available soon from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Big News

On By PatriciaIn Books, Fiction, News, Short Stories1 Comment

I’m pleased (understatement as a rhetorical device) to announce that my first collection of short stories will be published by Trepidatio, and imprint of JournalStone Publishing, in April of next year.

The Cuckoo Girls will include sixteen stories, half original to this collection.

Trepidatio has published not only some of my favorite writers, but also some of my favorite books of the past few years. Not only that, they produce beautiful books. Just look at a few of their pretties:

Pictured above:
Kate Jonez’s Lady Bits, S.P. Miskowski‘s Strange is the Night, Gemma Files’s Spectral Evidence, Gwendolyn Kitse’s The Rust Maidens, and Sarah Read’s Out of Water (coming in November). all beautiful covers for wonderful books.

Can you blame me for being excited?

New Short Story

On By PatriciaIn Books, Fiction, News, Short Stories, Story Sales, WritingLeave a comment

I am happy to announce my story “Mother Sylvia” will appear in the forthcoming Nightscript V from Chthonic Matter. As a reader, the annual October release of this excellent collection of strange tales is one of the highlights of my year. As a writer, I’m delighted to have a second story included in the pages of N. (“The Cuckoo Girls” appeared in Nightscript I.)

No small part of my—I’m running out of synonyms for joy, happy, thrilled, over the moon, squee, etc., so fill in the ____ here—is due to the outstanding company I get to keep as a Nightscripter. Here is the TOC for the 2019 volume, as announced by CM Muller (Hidden Folk, Synth):

“Mother Sylvia”— Patricia Lillie
“The Brambles”— David McGroarty
“American House Spider” — Shannon Scott
“The Plague Victim” — Samuel M. Moss
“Sometimes We’re Cruel” — J.A.W. McCarthy
“The Orchard” — Sean Logan
“Mr. and Mrs. Kett” — Sam Hicks
“Jason’s in the Garden” — Simon Strantzas
“The Parchment Thief” — M.K. Anderson
“The Border”— Dan Stintzi
“Sin Deep” — Tracy Fahey
“Paradise Point” — M.R. Cosby
“The Surgeon” — Mary Portser
“The Surrey Alterations” — Charles Wilkinson
“Eternal Roots of Lane County” — J.C. Raye
“Wed” — Brady Golden
“The Valley” — Casilda Ferrante
“Sitting Shiver” — Adam Meyer
“One For the Wolf” — M. Lopes da Silva

If you’re unfamiliar with this excellent journal of the weird and darksome, check out the previous volumes—along with a Special Bundle Offer for the print editions—here. (Kindle editions also available).

Still on the fence? Don’t just take my word for it:

Nightscript V will be available October 1, 2019.

Before you go, over on his Real-Time Reviews blog, Des Lewis is currently reading and reviewing Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles. Read along here.