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STORIES I TOLD MY DEAD LOVER

Jo Paquette

A collection of eight short stories pitched as calling to mind Carmen Maria Machado and Kelly Link, featuring pieces in which an underwater photographer comes face-to-face with the enormous gaping mouth of an impossible creature; after the disappearance of her partner, a woman finds herself host to a strange hard growth forming inside of her; and two siblings consider their connection to the cult they live in and ponder the great possibilities of death.
A child is forced to grow up too soon. A woman trusts her doctor too much. An abandoned woman isn't as alone as she thinks. An idyllic holiday masks an unspeakable act of violence. Driven, desperate, fighting for the power to choose their own fate, Paquette's characters dare to push back at the walls that hold them in. Come watch them burn. Jo Paquette's collection of adult stories contains eight searing tales of psychological horror that probe the darkest and most deeply buried parts of the human psyche. Jo Paquette is a literary agent who lives in the Boston area. A graduate of UMass Amherst, she has previously published many books for young readers. Stories I Told My Dead Lover is her adult fiction debut.
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Published 2024-06-10 by Blackstone Publishing

Comments

Paquette was born to write horror. These subtle, varied stories are somehow both creepy and hilarious, and the sharp writing took my breath away. I could not stop reading.

A quick yet haunting read, this suspenseful collection will hit the right note for fans of horror.

Combine Joe Hill's sense of the macabre with Karen Russel's dark whimsy, and you get STORIES I TOLD MY DEAD LOVER, by Jo Paquette. These stories lodge in the imagination like splinters, and must be examined and returned to, time and again.

Paquette's stories are eerie and enigmatic, at times darkly funny, and always unpredictable. This is a strong collection of unsettling tales.