Sometimes gentrification brings with it unexpected, sinister results, or your neighbours harbour secrets. Social media has a darker side or maybe it’s your kitchen appliances that are plotting against you. Who knows? The South African HorrorFest Bloody Parchment anthology, Beachfront Starter Home, Good Bones and Other Stories, offers you a selection of tales that will take you from the comfort of your home to deeper, disturbing destinations drawn from its 2013 competition finalists.

Forced into hiding after his first encounter with the immortal magicians of the dreaded House Montu, Ash and his young family haven't had long to enjoy their refuge. Now his enemies have caught up to him, and Ash must choose between keeping a deadly secret or charging headfirst into danger to rescue his loved ones. With the tenuous peace between the rival Houses of Inkarna in the balance, Ash is the only one who can stop House Montu from a power grab that could forever alter human history....

A princess encounters an unspeakable amphibian horror in an abandoned garden. Swarms of killer bees produce a mysterious blue honey. Sometimes evil awakens in the hearts of innocents starving slowly in a snow-locked cabin. These are but a few of the stories contained within the South African Horrorfest’s Bloody Parchment: Blue Honey and The Valley of Shadow.The pick of 2014’s entries, edited by Nerine Dorman, includes Toby Bennett, Dave de Burgh, John Paul Davies, Elaine Dodge, EL Gar...

They are as night to day–but blood will tell when facing a common enemy.A sought-after dancer in the upmarket Moonlit Garden, Isabeau Letier, has not given her future much thought. All that matters is the art of dance, and charming wealthy patrons into parting with a few extra coins. She has her exotic good looks and her youth. What could possibly go wrong?

Jamie Guillaume is the man your mother warned you about, and South Africa's wickedest man is about to raise more than hell. Haunted by the sinister Burning One and hunted by a pack of religious extremists, Jamie's neck-deep in trouble.Who does a black magician turn to when it seems like his carefully constructed world's about to disintegrate?

What is true evil? How do you fight it? Since she was little, Lada wanted to be part of the Order of Fennarin, one of the warrior-monks who are the last bastion in a war against the demons and insurgents that threaten her island home. Yet to achieve her dream, Lada turned blood traitor, her decision leading to the death and exile of her family. Her betrayal comes to haunt her now, ten years later, when her elders demand that she oversees her brother Ailas’s trial. Lada feared him lost fore...

Benedetto de Lyse can pick nearly any lock in the delta city of Ardent. As a common thief and lowly henchman of one of the city's shadow princes, his options to move up in the world are limited. Which makes his fascination with the charming Alessandra all the more tragic. She's a daughter of one of the merchant princes, and there's no way he'll ever be able to unlock her heart. Hell, she doesn't even know that he exists.Yet when a rival organisation threatens to kidnap the princess...

The first time Lizzie dies is a learning experience. Then again, anyone new to an ancient Egyptian reincarnation cult would have no idea what to expect once they've made it past the Hall of Judgment.Now that she's been sent back to find out why her husband from her past life is missing, the last thing Lizzie expects is to wake up in the wrong body, stuck with the mess its previous tenant left behind. In fact, she's in agreement that whoever ran Ashton Kennedy over with a big shiny ...

Sometimes gentrification brings with it unexpected, sinister results, or your neighbours harbour secrets. Social media has a darker side or maybe it's your kitchen appliances that are plotting against you. Who knows? The South African HorrorFest Bloody Parchment anthology, Beachfront Starter Home, Good Bones and Other Stories, offers you a selection of tales that will take you from the comfort of your home to deeper, disturbing destinations drawn from its 2013 competition finalists.

Greater dangers than mere alligators lurk in the swamps near the town of Bad Moon; a tough-as-nails bartender finds herself wondering whether she'll make it past midnight on New Year's Eve; and a vampire and hunter share a last dance with a gun named Felina. Guns & Romances collects eleven tales of lust, love and violence that cross genres and plunge you into a world of gunfights and action, where the shadows have teeth and love can mean forever – if you survive.

In Terra Incognita, Short Story Day Africa is proud to present nineteen stories of speculative fiction. Contained within the pages are stories that explore, among other things, the sexual magnetism of a tokoloshe, a deadly feud with a troop of baboons, a journey through colonial purgatory, along with ghosts, re-imagined folklore, and the fear of that which lies beneath both land and water. Terra Incognita. Uncharted depths. Africa unknowable.

In the far future on the outer reaches of the great human space diaspora Hannali and her husband Mika, third generation Diasporan, toil daily under alien skies on their farm. On a break into town Hannali is spotted by Summer, a childhood friend, on a scaffold waiting to be hanged. What ensues is a touching tale of choices made, different paths taken, bonds formed and broken, what makes us who we are, and how we travel through life.Nerine Dorman is a South African author and editor ...