Horror WINNER

2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards

This powerful collection of 13 intimate horror shorts from Thompson (Salamander Justice) derives its scares by pushing mundane Black experiences into unsettling territory. Several pieces dive into simultaneously validating and terrifying expressions of Black female rage…Readers of any background will find that these stark terrors hit close to home.
-Publishers Weekly

This collection of short stories from Thompson (Salamander Justice, 2020) is thrilling and engrossing, with classic horror tropes and experimental new tactics and scares…Thanks to these exquisite stories, readers will look forward to a future library with a shelf full of Thompson's books.
-Booklist

A treasure trove of creativity and a dynamic story collection.
-Independent Book Review, Starred review

Thompson is a master of subtly building a story to shocking revelations.
-Dark Dispatch

In these thirteen stories, the characters are well fleshed out and relatable, the events are harrowing, and they will keep you on the edge of your seat. A rallying cry to all who wish to heed it.
-Divination Hollow

Unique and engaging…there is something for everyone in Unshod, Cackling, and Naked.
-The Library Ladies

The stories in Unshod, Cackling, and Naked pulse with unsettling uniqueness, horrific realities, and the brutalness and beauty of Black experiences. Make no mistake, Tamika Thompson will slither beneath your skin, and once she's there, she's not content until she's thoroughly mutated your DNA for understanding and appreciating horror.
-Christa Carmen, author of Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked

Each story pulls you in, ties you to it for one blistering hard ride after another. They all are certain to leave their own personal mark, whether it's the twisting of everyday common things, people, or animals, or the more reflective, unspoken sorrows and hatred of those closest to us, and of ourselves.
-Bailey Hunter, Dark Recesses Press

Thompson’s writing entices readers to follow her down a rabbit hole full of mirrors that leaves us reeling with the terrifying truth of our lives.
-Regine Darius, Writer, editor

[Bridget Has Disappeared] is a “wonderfully crafted, evocative, and profoundly haunting story.”
-Maria Haskins, Writer

[I Am Goddess] is “Powerful—highly recommended.”
-Mort Stone, The Mort Report

[Bridget Has Disappeared] is an “intimate portrait of mysterious disappearances which mask an incredible secret. Smooth and delicious prose worth savouring.”
-Interzone Magazine Fans

***

A beauty pageant veteran appeases her mother by competing for one final crown, only to find herself trapped in a hand-sewn gown that cuts into her flesh. A journalist falls deeply in love with a mysterious woman but discovers his beloved can vanish and reappear hours later in the same spot, as if no time has passed at all. A cash-strapped college student agrees to work in a shop window as a mannequin but quickly learns she’s not free to break her pose. And what happens when the family pet decides it no longer wants to have “owners?”

In the thirteen tales collected here, beauty is violent, and love and hate are the same feeling, laid bare by unbridled obsession. Entering worlds both strange and quotidian, and spanning horror landscapes both speculative and real, UNSHOD, CACKLING, and NAKED asks who among us is worthy of love and who deserves to die?