The beach where his teenage sister disappeared /

Time and dream melt in the mouth of deep weird—

An open mic night bears witness to a fury / 

A life-changing performance before a dread jury— 

A truck stop photo by a touring punk bassist / 

A chase across the country and her most personal places— 

Seven friends mourn a beloved queer icon / A final bequest unleashes the deepest dark of an eidolon… 

Songs of shadow, words of woe! 

A lonely film student attends a free indie screening / 

Will this obscure flick bring the end he’s dreaming? 

Two wilful women climb a hill to watch a storm / 

And learn their town’s history of racism and scorn— 

Grotesque gangsters in a burlesque club dive / 

Trouble erupts when a new player arrives— 

Invited to experience true terror, not a relic / 

A horror film fan runs through a theatre derelict… 

Songs of shadow, words of woe! 

Thirteen morbidly melodic deep cuts from Matthew R. Davis, including the Australasian Shadows Award-winning “Steadfast Shadowsong” and the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated novelette “Heritage Hill.” 

Praise:

“A f**king beauty of a book, every story brilliant.” —Kaaron Warren, award-winning author of The Underhistory 

“Elegant, frightening, and so delightfully strange, this isn’t just a collection—it’s a cabal.” —Aaron Dries, author of Dirty Heads and A Place for Sinners 

“A powerhouse collection filled with rock and roll, the uncanny, the unsettling and the all-out terrifying. A few stories had me looking over my shoulder to see what was lurking in the dark corners of my room.” —Jo Kaplan, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of When the Night Bells Ring