LUCY TAY­LOR

Author of hor­ror and dark fantasy

“Just started read­ing
Lucy Taylor’s new col­lec­tion
and it’s scar­ing the piss out of me.
It’s called Fatal Jour­neys.”
—Alex S. Johnson

Lucy Taylor’s Hor­ror and Dark Fantasy:

5e84e3b6eca28052f189bb7ffc44458577dfac9f thumbRead­ers of hard­core hor­ror fic­tion were first intro­duced to Painf­reak in a col­lec­tion of short sto­ries by author Ger­ard Houarner in 1996. Now Houarner is both a con­trib­u­tor to and edi­tor of the new anthol­ogy INTO PAINF­REAK, pub­lished by Necro Pub­li­ca­tions, Bed­lam Press & Weird West Books.

INTO PAINF­REAK fea­tures all new sto­ries from some of horror’s top authors, includ­ing a new nov­el­ette by Edward Lee. Con­trib­u­tors include Mon­ica O’Roarke, Wrath James White, K. Trap Jones, Linda Addi­son, Charlee Jacobs, and many oth­ers. I’m delighted that my own story “He Who Whis­pers the Dead Back to Life” is part of the line-​up – in my ver­sion of this Land of Erotic Enchant­ment, the entrance to Painf­reak is a casita near Gallup, New Mex­cio, guarded by a hybrid dog who admin­is­ters the cov­eted ‘mark’ with its teeth.

For those not already famil­iar with the ter­ri­ble delights of Painf­reak, this entry from the blog of David G. Bar­nett, pub­lisher, will give you an idea: “Wel­come to Painf­reak, the trav­el­ing club that arises out of the dark and calls to those seek­ing the ulti­mate in plea­sure and pain. Many come to expe­ri­ence the ulti­mate in deca­dence and debauch­ery. And many get lost in a labyrinth filled with depraved sex, beau­ti­ful death, and won­der­fully hor­ri­ble sights. You’ve been given the mark, now step into the heart of…PAINFREAK.”

INTO PAINF­REAK will be avail­able on 12÷12÷16. Look for it at http://​necrop​ub​li​ca​tions​.com/​p​r​o​d​u​c​t​s​/​i​n​t​o​-​t​h​e​-​h​e​a​r​t​-​o​f​-​p​a​i​n​f​r​e​a​k​-​t​r​a​d​e​-​p​a​p​e​r​b​a​c​k– and become lost in its seduc­tive monstrosities.

imagesThe hor­ror the human mind can invent for the pur­pose of inflict­ing suf­fer­ing on our fel­lows is on full dis­play at this macabre and dis­turb­ing museum in the Old City of Car­cas­sonne, France. The focus isn’t on the Span­ish Inqui­si­tion, which lasted longer and is more widely known, but an ear­lier one – the Medieval Inqui­si­tion that fol­lowed a cru­sade by the Catholic Church against the so-​called heretic Cathars. In the thir­teenth and four­teenth cen­turies, Car­cas­sonne and other medieval towns like Bezier and Albi were strong­holds of Cathar beliefs, and the Museum show­cases some of the nas­tier ways the Cathars were forced to con­fess to devil wor­ship before, more often than not, being burned at the stake.

Among the devices on dis­play are the iron maiden, the stretcher, the head crusher and the pul­ley device in which a vic­tim whose wrists were bound behind her was hoisted into the air and then dropped down, often with weights attached to max­i­mize the dam­age. To add to the grotes­querie, before being used, these instru­ments were often blessed with holy water.

Women accused of witch­craft seem to have made up a large num­ber of the vic­tims, but even an ‘overly talk­a­tive’ wife could be silenced behind an iron mask crafted with demon-​like ani­mal ears. One ghastly device was a sharp-​ponted cone the woman was forced to strad­dle while weights fas­tened to her arms inex­orably pulled her lower, for a slow, excru­ci­at­ing impalement.

Even musi­cians were at risk for tor­ture – one sinister-​looking device was, accord­ing to the descrip­tion, used to pun­ish “bad musicians”.

Would I rec­om­mend the Museum to any­one vis­it­ing the south of France? Well, on the one hand, to see these mon­strous but care­fully crafted instru­ments and real­ize they were actu­ally used for their vile pur­pose, is depress­ing in the extreme. The sense of relief, how­ever, upon walk­ing back into the cob­bled streets lined with bistros, bou­tiques, and stores sell­ing fake swords and dag­gers, feels infi­nitely sweet!

A Respite for the DeadA new nov­el­ette from Omnium Gatherum Press.

When Zack, Kaitlin and their two chil­dren relo­cate to New Mex­ico, they plan to start a new life in the “Land of Enchant­ment,” but what they find is some­thing far more fore­bod­ing and omi­nous. Kaitlin’s pho­tog­ra­phy assign­ment takes them on “death jaunts” around the State, their neigh­bor is a man har­bor­ing a ter­ri­ble secret, and three peo­ple who died near their house appear to have been flee­ing for their lives. Before long, Zack is ter­ri­fied of los­ing both his wife and his san­ity, and the fam­ily dis­cov­ers that death may be much closer to home than they thought.

Fatal Journeys

Trav­els to the Lands of the Liv­ing, the Dead, and the Damned

FATAL JOUR­NEYS is a col­lec­tion of sto­ries about trav­el­ers who ven­ture into regions both macabre and seduc­tive, on the planet and within the psyche.

Close to the Bone - a dark fantasy collection

“Intense sto­ries of erotic hor­ror, every­thing from a pair of sex­u­ally obsessed wrestling groupies to a fam­ily whose house mys­te­ri­ously fills up with water. Graphic and gory, with a touch of South­ern Gothic for good measure!”

The Silence Between the Screams, a dark fantasy collection

The Silence Between The Screams is a col­lec­tion of orig­i­nal short fic­tion and a reprint of a pre­vi­ously released novella. Her novella “Spree” has not been avail­able for many years after its ini­tial print­ing sold out almost imme­di­ately upon pub­li­ca­tion. Now “Spree” and this col­lec­tion of orig­i­nal short fic­tion is being pub­lished for the first time.

The Safety of Unknown Cities - A Dark Fantasy Novel

“Lucy Taylor’s The Safety of Unknown Cities is one of the most impres­sive debut nov­els cen­tered around relationship-​driven fic­tion cat­alyzed by hor­rific events mostly real­is­tic, some­times super­nat­ural.” — Edward Bryant, Locus Magazine