Harlan County Horrors [Paperback]

Mari Adkins (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2009

In the black heart of coal country, malevolent spirits and unearthly creatures slip from the shadows into the minds and hearts of men. Young women, twisted by pain, call for love and revenge by the light of the moon. A dead dog by the side of the road is more than it seems. In Harlan County, Kentucky, the supernatural and the mundane mingle in the depths of the earth, filling the mines with powerful forces that draw people down and corrupt from within.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Apex Publications (October 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 098215965X
• ISBN-13: 978-0982159651
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,714,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Feast of Good Horror Fiction, November 25, 2009

By 

MDominic (Dartmouth, NS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harlan County Horrors (Paperback)

For me, the short story format is the ideal format for horror. The necessary brevity of the format seems to concentrate the power of fear into a gut punch. It may have something to do with the fact that a short story can be consumed in a single sitting, and the immediacy of the experience is not lost like the drawn out process of reading a novel.
Even my favorite authors in the genre (e.g. Stephen King, Clive Barker) consistently deliver better in their shorter works (although their longer work is still way beyond the average), and the masters of the format such as Robert Bloch, Lovecraft and Karl Edward Wagner can communicate more in the space of a few hundred words than many other authors can in an entire novel.
So, if the short story is the proper meal for horror, then a collection of short stories is a feast, and an anthology is a proper banquet. Nothing serves up quite as well, in my opinion, as a selection of dishes from a variety of authors, and in that regard, "Harlan County Horrors" truly satisfies.
In "Harlan County Horrors", all the stories center on events in and around the mining region of Harlan County, Kentucky, an area apparently well known for its ghost stories. Aside from that uniting factor, the stories in the collection are on a cornucopia of subjects and themes, from demon dogs and Chinese vampires to dark science fiction and true love gone awry. A lot of horror tropes a put to good and novel use in these stories, while cliche is generally skiilfully avoided, making each story an exploration for the reader.
The authors for this anthology are the cream of Apex's alumni, who really shine in these works. Alethea Kontis's "Witch of Black Mountain" is a dark romance that is equally poetic and macabre, while Geoffrey Girard's "Psychomachia" is a bleak humanistic tale built on coal mining, and Ronald Kelly's "The Thing at the Side of the Road" is a fast-paced and bloody monster story worthy of Bloch. Apex publisher Jason Sizemore even comes through with a nasty little surprise in the story "Yellow Warblers". With these and the other authors that make up the dozen in the book, it's practically guaranteed that any fan of horror tales will find something pleasing here, although I don't think that any discerning reader will be disappointed by any of these stories.
Honestly, when I first saw this book listed on their store page, I thought it would hold little to interest me. I didn't know anything about Harlan County, and couldn't see myself caring what these authors had to say about it. However, given the strength of previous works I had read by some of these authors, I thought it would be at least worth a try. I'm glad I did. "Harlan County Horrors" is one of those books that I cherish while reading, and will recall fondly long after I'm done.

"Harlan County Horrors" is available in print version from Apex's store where you can preview the story "Yellow Warblers", or in ebook version from Fictionwise or the Amazon Kindle store. For cost and portability, I recommend the Fictionwise version, but to each their own. In any version, it' well worth a look.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Harlan County Horrors, June 27, 2010

By 

Dwayne Brock - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harlan County Horrors (Paperback)

Harlan County Horrors was a most interesting book of horror stories. I most heartily recommend it.

I could write about individual stories, but others have already done that. Instead, I am going to let you consider what it means to think about horror stories from the point of view of an eastern or southeastern Kentuckian.

I am originally from Manchester, Kentucky, a town whose place in the world was forged historically first through salt mines and then through coal mines. So when I read a story about the Lovecraftian Terrors of Deep Mining, or of the local preacher being surrounded by real evil and monsters, and the monsters that dwell within ordinary people, or of a love curse connected to the pits of the mines and the accidents that surround them, this sends more of a chill up my spine than to hear of some alien creature coming up out of the waters near Boston. I feel this more bacause I have family members working in the mines now. This world is not distant to me.

If you like horror stories and are from or live in eastern Kentucky, where the deep mines have claimed the lives of kin without the aid of monsters, I guarantee these stories will make your spine chill.

I CHALLEGE you to read this book and not react.

But make sure the coal lamp is filled to light your way, you may have a hard time coming back out!

Dwayne Brock

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Eclectic Collection of Chilling Tales, November 14, 2009

By 

Shroud Magazine's Book Reviews (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Harlan County Horrors (Paperback)

"Harlan County Horrors" is an eclectic collection of chilling tales set deep in the hills and coal mines of Kentucky. Edited by Mari Adkins, it features fresh voices and some very unique stories. As is true with most short story collections, not all the entries have the same resonance, but there's enough here to guarantee time well spent in the haunted hills of Kentucky. Among the best are:

"Psychomachia", by Geoffery Girard, in which a boy watches a creeping, dark madness overtake his family and everyone else working in the mines. "Yellow Warblers", by Jason Sizemore, which tells of the deadly consequences of an isolated town's xenophobia, in an alien-occupied Earth. "Kingdom Come", by Jeremy C. Shipp, a tale of manipulated identity, where memories can't be trusted - Shipp at his usual, mind-twisting best. "Trouble Among the Yearlings", by Maurice Broaddus, recounts the inevitability of dark family secrets. "Greater of Two Evils", by Stephen L. Shewsbury, is an excellent Lovecraftian tale told in a contemporary voice.

"Harlan County" ends with perhaps its strongest story, "The Witch of Black Mountain", a dark, enchanting bit of folklore written by New York Times Bestseller Alethea Kontis. Here, a young woman scorned undertakes a dangerous journey in search of death, resolution, revenge - but instead encounters and inherits an ages-old legacy, one which gives her new, dark purpose.