Blood and Teeth
Introducing an exclusive collection of dark fiction for paid subscribers
Greetings, fellow humans. I’m Caroline and I write fantasy and horror—my debut epic fantasy novel, The Obsidian Druid was released in April 2024. This is my newsletter.
The Nibbling Guilt Creature of Doom
Trying to manifest a writing career can sometimes be an exercise in guilt. I own a small business (completely unrelated to writing) so I work for myself, from home. This means every time I take time out of my day to write, there’s a little twinge of guilt nibbling at the back of my brain.
“You could be using this time to sort out those new product photos”, the nibbling guilt creature will say. “You could be updating your website. You should probably be planning an ad campaign, and that SEO software you wasted so much money on isn’t going to populate your product pages with search engine-friendly keywords all by itself.”
It’s annoying, and I know I wouldn’t feel like this if the writing made as much money as the small business does. Nothing else makes me feel the way I do when I’ve had a good writing day. I smile easier, I sleep better, and my hair and nails take on an almost preternatural lustre (okay, that last one was a lie). I feel in my bones that the writing is important, but because I have kids and a cat to feed, the guilt creature will inevitably sidle up and start whispering annoying things in my ear.
I imagine the nibbling guilt creature looks a bit like this. He’s called Irwin and he smells like damp socks. He thinks capitalism is awesome.
Blood and Teeth
This has basically been a long prelude to telling you that in an attempt to wrestle with the guilt creature (known henceforth as Irwin, damp sock capitalist), I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I can offer those of you who switch from a free newsletter subscription to a paid one. I could tell you that every paid subscription means I can spend less time grappling with product photos and more time writing, which will inevitably lead to more novels and stories for you to read, but that feels too vague. I wanted to offer paid subscribers something more concrete, something that truly conveyed how thankful I was for every reader who enjoyed my work enough to support it. This is what I came up with:
I’ve put together an exclusive collection of dark fiction that will only ever be available to paid subscribers, and I’m quietly very proud of it (I say quietly because nobody likes a smarmy egotist, do they?) Blood and Teeth spans the first seventeen years of my writing career. Most of the short stories you’ll find here are either unavailable anywhere else or would be hard to track down (usually because the magazine or anthology publisher has ceased to exist). If this tickles your particular pickle, read on for a brief rundown of the stories.
Wormbound
A gross-out horror story first published in an anthology called Crawling. I think this Goodreads review sums it up best: Worms everywhere. WORMS!!!
Wisdom in the Blood
This is a sword and sorcery flash piece set in a fantasy world I’ve been developing for a while. I’ve written many stories set in this world, but this is the first time I’ve introduced Valash, my brusque solchemist wrapped in a living cloak of shifting shadows. She’s much older here than in my other Valash stories. Her hair is a snowy tangle and she wears a spelled girdle to keep her lower back pain in check, but as you’ll see by the end of the story, you wouldn’t dare cross her.
Alessandro’s Legacy
Alessandro’s Legacy was published in a horror fiction magazine called Hungur in 2007, making it the oldest story in the collection. It’s also the first story I ever had accepted for publication (I can still remember how that felt, and yes, there was a lot of excited screaming). It’s written from the point of view of a sun-loving vampire who lives to regret hooking up with a human tourist. You might never look at a living statue the same way again.
Night Shift at the Triple Crow
Another flash, previously only available to read on my website (or in the Endless Pictures anthology which is still available to buy). This placed 7th in TL;DR Press’s 1,000 Word Herd Flash Fiction Competition and was the first time I ever wrote about Tattie, Midnight Metropolis’s foul-mouthed blood witch. It’s a different incarnation of Tattie, set on a more magickally-inclined earth and not a sunless alien planet, but it’s her. If you’re a Midnight Metropolis reader, you might also recognise the screaming mushrooms.
The Screaming Harpies
A dark fantasy pirate story about the crew of a living ship that sweats blood. It’s set in a shared world created by a group of writers from all over the planet who came together to write In the Wake of the Kraken: Pirates of the Multiverse. There’s a lot going on with this one—goblin raiders, a floating city, a seer wearing a coat covered with blinking eyes, a burping bilge-dragon… Helping to create this world, and then getting to play with it were some of the best times I’ve had writing.
The Taxidermist
This is another of my older shorts, about a reclusive taxidermist who takes on a commission with a murderous secret. It was written so long ago, I can’t remember why I felt compelled to write it. Did I have a fleeting obsession with taxidermy? Was I disturbed by a particularly lifelike snarling fox corpse in some dusty National Trust mansion? All I know is that I’ve always had a soft spot for this strange little story.
Riding the Viper
This is set in the same world as “Wisdom in the Blood”. It’s actually one of the first stories I ever wrote in that world, and it was the Lunar Award Season Three winner :) Malash has lost everything in her pursuit of the fabled Wizards of Eastmoore and their ferocious serpent mounts. When she finally reaches the Wizards' citadel, the place seems long abandoned—but she is about to discover new and unlikely allies that will literally shake the world.
So, have I tempted you to support my newsletter and help me write more fiction? All you have to do is slap the button.
I know times are hard and money is short, so I’ve set the monthly subscription rate to the lowest amount Substack will allow, which is £3.50 in the UK ($5 in the USA, other countries will vary). That means for just £3.50 a month, you’ll receive these subscriber bonuses:
Blood and Teeth: A Dark Fiction Collection (ebook)
Arcanoforge: Midnight Metropolis - fully edited, available once the serialised novel is complete (ebook)
First dibs on advanced reader copies of any future published works—this includes volumes two and three of The Age of Aikana (scheduled for 2025 and 2026)
A warm, tingly feeling knowing that you’ve helped to support an indie writer
If you’re feeling spendy and you want to go nuts, choosing the Founding Member option guarantees you a fully edited ebook copy of every novel I serialise once they are complete. This will include my upcoming cosy fantasy novel, and every other novel I write on Substack from now until forever (or until my fingers shrivel up and fall off from all that writing, whichever comes first).
If you’re not interested in switching to a paid subscription or it’s not something you can budget for right now, please know that subscribing and reading my work is support enough. A writer is nothing without readers, and I love sharing the worlds that I create with you. My weekly serialised novels will remain free to read forever, though if you really want to shower me with some love, a comment always makes my day.
Midnight Metropolis is a sci-fi/fantasy novel about daemons, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and the neon megacity sprawled on the blackened backside of a sunless planet. New chapters are posted every Friday and you can read all available chapters for free.
Want to download some awesome fiction for free? Check out the All-Genre All-Stars BookFunnel promotion.
That’s it for now.
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