Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes

Three dark and disturbing horror stories from an astonishing new voice, including the viral-sensation tale of obsession, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. For fans of Kathe Koja, Clive Barker and Stephen Graham Jones.

A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s — a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires.

A couple isolate themselves on a remote island in an attempt to recover from their teenage son's death, when a mysterious young man knocks on their door during a storm...

And a man confronts his neighbour when he discovers a strange object in his backyard, only to be drawn into an ever-more dangerous game.

From Bram Stoker Award finalist Eric LaRocca, this is devastating, beautifully written horror from one of the genre's most cutting-edge voices.

What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

'A startling affair...I’ll be cleaning up particles of darkness in my office for weeks.' — Josh Malerman (Bird Box, Inspection)

'When broken people do broken things — especially in the name of love — we all get broken, too. What starts as sweetly genteel swiftly descends into everything that's brutalizingly ugly about the abusive master/slave dynamic. A hauntingly elegant, masterfully written, and ultimately devastating indictment of cruel manipulation and even crueler submission. This is one deeply fucked-up heartbreaker. You have been warned.' — John Skipp (The Light at the End)

'Part Dennis Cooper's The Sluts, part David Cronenberg's The Brood...Eric LaRocca's Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is a masterpiece of epistolary body horror.' — Max Booth III (We Need to Do Something)

'Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is a tight, merciless epistolary, each piece of correspondence coiling the reader around its finger and never letting go. LaRocca skillfully weaves a grotesque, unforgettable page-turner of manipulation and depravity.' — Hailey Piper (The Worm and His Kings)

'With darkly poetic prose and chilling stories that peel back layers of skin to reveal a beating, bloody heart, Eric LaRocca is the clear literary heir of Clive Barker.' — Tyler Jones (Criterium, The Dark Side of the Room)

'Eric LaRocca is a fierce talent that knows no limit, masterful and utterly unmissable!' — Ross Jeffery (Juniper, Tome)