Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls

Mark McLaughlin's darkest tales of wicked grandeur have been compiled in HIDEOUS FACES, BEAUTIFUL SKULLS from Wildside Press. Impossible love is a major theme in this collection: relationships that should not be, and yet they happen because these strong attractions cannot be denied. In "Adroitly Wrapped," the shape-shifting witch Athena Moth tries to help a friend to fulfill his need for love ... but what about her own needs? "Eye Dew" explores the institution of marriage and how it changes the participants, and so often, not for the better. "You Shall Have This Delicacy" tells of a magical woman who can have any lover she desires, yet she wants only one: someone who has been taken from her in a fashion that most would consider irreversible. "ascloseasthis" is about a wildly unlikely pair ... their sexual orientations don't even match. But the lovers learn to change - in startling ways. "Claws of the Internet Witches" and "Prince of the Dark Green Sea" both concern supernatural creatures longing for love ... and really, don't all living things deserve love? Even monsters?Those are just a few of the stories in HIDEOUS FACES, BEAUTIFUL SKULLS, available as a trade paperback or as a Kindle download.

About the Author

MARK McLAUGHLIN is a Bram Stoker Award-winning author whose earliest works were published in literary journals during his teen years. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in more than 1,000 magazines, newspapers, websites, and anthologies, including CEMETERY DANCE, MIDNIGHT PREMIERE, DARK ARTS, LIVING DEAD 2, WRITER'S DIGEST, GALAXY, TOASTMASTER MAGAZINE, and two volumes of YEAR'S BEST HORROR STORIES (DAW Books). He is also an experienced public relations specialist. He is the author of the novels HUMAN DOLL, a tale of suspense, murder, and the entertainment industry ... THE HELL NEXT DOOR, an adventure set in the after-life ... and INJECTABLES, a work of Lovecraftan horror.Wildside Press has released a mammoth collection of McLaughlin's fiction: THE WEIRD WORLD OF MARK McLAUGHLIN MEGAPACK(R). In addition, McLaughlin is the author of many other solo fiction collections, including BEST LITTLE WITCH-HOUSE IN ARKHAM, MIDNIGHT PET SHOW, EMPRESS OF THE LIVING DEAD, and HIDEOUS FACES, BEAUTIFUL SKULLS. McLaughlin is the author of many works in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft. Story collections in this vein,  co-written with his best friend, Michael Sheehan, Jr., include HORRORS & ABOMINATIONS, NIGHTMARES & TENTACLES, THE HOUSE OF THE OCELOT, THE PRISONER OF CARCOSA, and CITY OF LIVING SHADOWS. McLaughlin is the coauthor, with Rain Graves and David Niall Wilson, of THE GOSSAMER EYE, which won the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Poetry.

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