In the world of Horror short stories, Stephen King rules all. His Kindle books dominate the top twenty list with six entries and 14 of his books are found in the top 40. What’s a new author to do? Dream on?

Well, there’s really nothing that can be done except offer up to the gods and the masses an exceptional collection of horror stories that capture a reader’s imagination right from the first words spilled across the pages like blood. And, it seems Jon Grimcrafter has done just that.

His book, Mysteries of the Macabre, is now available on Kindle with 176 pages of frightfully strange and eerie stories. Nine of them. Each better than the last. The book is part of Kindle Unlimited, so it’s free for those in KU, $1.99 for everyone else.

As for the author, the name is excellent. Really. Grimcrafter. So cool. As for the book, the stories remind me of Stephen King, maybe Clive Barker. Perhaps even Edgar Allan Poe, since the book starts with a poem.

Q: So, Jon, why do you write, and what do you want to say in this book of short stories?

A: Writing for me is cathartic: a method to transform my internal demons into dark plots and nightmarish characters.

Q: That sounds scary all by itself. Where did your idea’s for the stories in this book come from?

A: It is a mystery where my ideas come from for not even I can trace their origins. Perhaps they come from everything I’ve seen, heard and done all permuted and disfigured into one blob of horror, fantasy, and magic.

Q: I liked what you said about nightmares, that they can be beautiful if a master engineers them correctly. Want to give a lead-in to a couple of your book’s stories?

A: How about “Serial killer Jack has a severed human head in the freezer. That head will come back to haunt him,” and “Zendra’s own parents give her up to be sacrificed in a satanic ritual. She manages to escape, but why does everyone she sleeps with die within the hour?”

Thanks, Jon, those definitely fit the Horror genre.

You want a good scary book to read? Be careful what you wish for!