Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror

by Lindy Ryan (Editor), Sadie Mother Horror Hartmann (Foreword by)

Overview

New and exclusive short stories and poems inspired by bad mothers from some of today’s fiercest women in horror. Featuring Rachel Harrison, Gwendolyn Kiste, Kristi DeMeester, and Kelsea Yu, edited by Lindy Ryan with a foreword by Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann.
From mama trauma to smother mother, this all-new women in horror anthology features stories about the scariest monster of them all— our mothers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781645481393
Publisher:	Black Spot Books
Publication date:	05/07/2024
Series:	A Women in Horror Anthology
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	216,879
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Lindy Ryan is the author of BLESS YOUR HEART, and a Bram Stoker Award® -nominated author-editor, director, and professor. She previously served on the Board of Directors for the Independent Book Publishers Association and is the co-chair of the Horror Writers Association Publishers Council. Ryan was named one of Publishers Weekly's 2020 Star Watch Honorees and one of horror’s “most masterful anthology curators.” She also writes clean romance under the name Lindy Miller, where her books have been adapted for screen. www.LindyRyanWrites.com. Sadie Hartmann aka Mother Horror is the co-owner of the horror fiction subscription company, Night Worms, and the Bram Stoker Award® -nominated editor of her own horror fiction imprint, Dark Hart. She is the author of 101 HORROR BOOKS TO READ BEFORE YOU’ RE MURDERED. She lives in the PNW with her husband of 20+ years where they stare at Mt Rainier, eat street tacos, and hang out with their three kids. They have a Frenchie named Owen.

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/11/2024

Twisted caregiving and inescapably tainted love abound in this intimate and visceral anthology from editor Ryan (Into the Forest). In these 27 stories and poems, mothers live vicariously through their children (Jessica McHugh’s eerie “So Lovely in the Dark“), annoy even from beyond the grave (Jill Baguchinsky’s fun “Never Love, No Room for Monsters”), and take their controlling urges to monstrous extremes (Emily Holi’s stifling “Buttons”). The dangers posed by domestic life are highlighted in Teagan Olivia Sturmer’s Stepford Wives–esque “The Mom from Upstairs.” A few stories, including Laura Cranehill’s creepy “Cookie Baby,” make the traumatized child the source of horror, and payback for childhood abuse is gross but satisfying in Meg Hafdahl’s “Special Medicine.” Other entries are surprisingly sweet, such as Rachel Harrison’s suburban critique “Dog Mom” or the ghostly mother-love in Kelsea Yu’s “Within the Pink Paisley Walls.” Intentionally blurred lines between the mundane challenges of parenting and being parented (overprotectiveness, child individuation) and supernatural horror create an unsettling aesthetic that will worm its way in toward the inner child in every reader. These chilling tales impress. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"This book delivers something for everyone."—Chandra Claypool, Cemetery Dance

"A brilliant, biting collection, the works in MOTHER KNOWS BEST give new, visceral meaning to the phrase mommy issues. At times heartfelt and always horrifying, with every piece the all-consuming mother digs her teeth in deeper and, oh, it hurts so good." - Katrina Monroe, author of Graveyard of Lost Children

"Deliciously evocative and revealing...Not for the faint of heart.” —Midwest Book Review

"Twisted caregiving and inescapably tainted love abound in this intimate and visceral anthology from editor Ryan... These chilling tales impress." —Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

"Monstrous mothers, abusive but still human mothers, controlling mothers, neglectful mothers—this book is full of them. The horror is anything but shy, as some of these stories truly are horrific." — The Horror Tree Review

From the Publisher