Author Anne Michaud has a new book coming out in April, a YA dark fantasy/horror anthology. Anne is another author from Kelley Armstrong's message board; that board sure does produce a lot of authors!
While Anne has had stories in other anthologies, this is the first one that is
exclusively her own stories.
Anne is an author of many talents, especially getting
distracted by depressing music and dark things. She likes to write and
read everyday, and speak of herself in the third person.
Since her Master’s degree in Screenwriting from the University of
London, England, Anne has written, directed and produced three short
films, now distributed by Ouat! Media in Toronto, Canada. The lyric
documentary Worth a Thousand Words (2006) can be seen
here.
And then, after hundreds of hours spent on studying and making films,
she changed her mind and started writing short stories, novelettes and
novels. Some have been published, others will be soon enough.
Keep your eyes open, she’s behind you.
Find Anne online:
blog
twitter
facebook
Book Blurb (from goodreads)
This dark but uplifting collection of five Young Adult novellas includes:
Death Song: Liz is in love with Joe, but the monster of the lake has other plans for them.
Black Dog: Scarlet is engaged in a struggle for her sanity, but according to the voice in her head, she may be too late.
A Blue Story: When Katherine's beloved dog goes missing, she fears her strange new neighbor might be involved.
Dust
Bunnies: Christiane faces her childhood arachnophobia and ends up
confronting even greater fears in this test of sisterhood.
We
Left at Night: Brooke and her family must abandon their home and their
lives to make it out of a disease-plagued town overrun by zombies.
Girls
& Monsters is for everyone who has ever been brave enough to
confront their childhood fears...and lived to tell about it.
Publisher: DarkFuse
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Horror
Format: Paperback
Release Date: April 30, 2013
I love the colors! So pretty and eye catching. Also, the top half of the book with the girls and the peppy pink color looks bright and cheery, then you move down the cover and the color becomes darker and gloomy with monsters and only one girl. It's a fantastic contrast, well done. What do you think?
And now, an excerpt!
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Death Song Excerpt
Something catches in the back of my throat. I
hide my face in my hands to quiet the sobs.
But then,
something ain’t right. Air moves around me
and I
stop. I look between my fingers, but the blur
of my
tears thickens everything: the bathtub, the
towels,
and someone on the floor.
A woman’s in here with me, door still closed
and
locked. An exhale, like after a deep swim,
and a smell,
like the swamp close to my empty home. A
chill runs
down my back, I wipe my eyes, rub and scratch
them
to see more clearly. And I do.
Two gray hands scratch the floor tiles, nails
green
with algae, putrid flesh sagging on her legs,
arms
and torso, hair so long and wet and heavy, it
drags
her down. Diluted, impossible to focus on,
like little
waves rippling over her body from head to
foot, seaweed
in the water. Scales and fins, mermaidlike,
little
knives, those are. And they scrape the floor,
like a
fork on a plate. It’s her—Limnade.
She opens her mouth of scissor-teeth and the
rotten
smell of fish wraps around my throat like two
hands trying to choke me.
“You can’t be…” I don’t finish my breathless
thought and jump backward, knocking over the
dish
of decorative soaps. Blurry waves, vision
impaired,
out of focus, unreal. She crawls toward me,
eyes unblinking,
lethal, hands inches from me: my legs refuse
to move, as my body feels like stone. Frozen,
hypnotized, a statue. Then I hear something
coming
from within her…
A melody, reminding me of something lost,
tickles
my ears. It drags on until the sweetness
turns sickly,
vibrating into a full-on super-scream,
hyenalike,
enough to pop my ears and make them bleed.
Her
large mouth deforms her face into one gap of
black,
the cry so high and strident, I scream from
the pain.
Limnade stares at me, everything but her
fades
away—Jo’s nice bathroom, Jo’s new life, Jo
himself—
none of it matters anymore. Her fingers brush
my
forehead, they’re cold and sticky like clams.
And I let
the darkness take me away.
