Overview
"A mesmerizing and remarkably ambitious mosaic of delicate minds possessed, of spoiled and haunted hearts, of gaping wounds both seen and unseen. This Way Lies Madness weaves a beguiling and profoundly revealing tapestry of psychological terror with such nuance and depth in each collected story."
"It’s a crying shame that there isn’t an Academy Award for anthologies, because This Way Lies Madness surely deserves one, but I guess it will have to settle for the Booker Prize, which it abundantly deserves. This is the best, most tightly written anthology that I have read in a long, long time…maybe ever." "A powerhouse of an anthology [...] Every story holds their own and possesses a sagacity that ensures the entire anthology stays brilliant.""Horror has had a problem with mental illness – but things are changing. This Way Lies Madness challenges the genre’s often lazy reliance on demeaning stereotypes, tired settings, and hackneyed resolutions. Forget psycho killers, creepy asylums, and the ritual expulsion of the monstrous other. This ambitious and genre-crossing collection brings together a range of authors, from luminaries such as Ramsey Campbell to rising stars of a new generation. Many of them write from lived experience. All of them use horror to bring insight into mental illness. While psychiatric jargon keeps lived experience at a distance, these stories and poems bring it close, with vivid portrayals of the borderland between sanity and madness, and the journey from one side to the other – not just the familiar descent into madness but also glimmers of recovery. We find horror in monstrous but revealing form in the supposed safety of intimate relationships, in the mundane setting of the supermarket, and lurking in the bathroom sink. This much-needed volume challenges horror to do better. It also reassures. Many of us will experience mental ill-health during our lives. This book says: as a matter of fact – and never mind Halloween – you aren’t the boogeyman."
In the tradition of Poe’s ''The Tell-tale Heart'', This Way Lies Madness presents fictional interpretations of madness from some of the biggest names in the horror genre – an anthology of dark stories featuring monstrous manifestations of trauma and guilt, paranoia and persecution, anxiety, addiction, and crippling terror. With each contributor giving a unique introduction exploring their inspiration for their bone-chilling tale, This Way Lies Madness will provide a creative benchmark for writers, and challenge mental health stigma, awaken understanding, and offer hope to readers through the lens of horror fiction.
A mix of commissioned authors and stories selected from a hugely popular submissions call, the full list of featured authors in this book is: Alan Baxter, Freddie Bonfanti, Georgina Bruce, Ramsey Campbell, Grace Chan, Ryan Cole, L.E. Daniels, Kayleigh Dobbs, Sean Hogan, Alma Katsu, Amanda Cecelia Lang, Sara Larner, Jonathan Maberry, Marie O’Regan, Cynthia Pelayo, Callum Rowland, Sumiko Saulson, Sayan J. Soselisa, C.D. Vázquez, Emily Ruth Verona, Stephen Volk, Tim Waggoner, and Stephanie M. Wytovich.
Cover artwork and frontispiece by Greg Chapman: dark-designs.com
The Flame Tree Beyond and Within short story collections bring together tales of myth and imagination by modern and contemporary writers, carefully selected by anthologists, and sometimes featuring short stories from a single author. Overall, the series presents a wide range of diverse and inclusive voices with myth, folkloric-inflected short fiction, and an emphasis on the supernatural, science fiction, the mysterious and the speculative. The books themselves are gorgeous, with foiled covers, printed edges and published only in hardcover editions, offering a lifetime of reading pleasure.
- | Author: Dave Jeffery, Lee Murray
- | Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
- | Publication Date: Sep 23, 2025
- | Number of Pages:
- | Language:
- | Binding: Hardback
- | ISBN-13: 9781804179062
- | ISBN-10: 180417906X
