Scales and Petals

The sick imagination of nonlinear horror novelist Michael Bailey brings you thirteen dark poems and thirteen tales of the macabre that will make you think twice before turning your room dark for the night. A young woman chews her fingernails raw, unable to stop; a television set dangles from an apartment complex window; a large chest is found containing only a banded bouquet of wilted flowers; a stitched up bear named Thatch bleeds at the neck, his stuffing torn out; a man wakes up duct-taped to a mammoth wooden chair. Between writing the novels Palindrome Hannah and Phoenix Rose, Michael Bailey penned and published a number of short fiction and poetry pieces, some of which can be found in literary magazines and anthologies around the world. A few of these fallen dragon scales and flower petals, as he likes to call them, are reprinted here, while others are seeing print for the first time, hand selected and arranged by the author. Once you crack the spine, there's no going back.

Stories:

1. Plasty
2. Habit
3. Defenestrate
4. Wilted Flowers
5. Without Face
6. The Shower Curtain Man
7. Fix
8. Golden Rule
9. Empty Canvas
10. Unstitched Love
11. The Girl in the Red Flower Pattern Dress
12. Brick House
13. The Trial Chair

Poems:

1. The Seed, Part One
2. Lost
3. Mon Autumn
4. Moth
5. The Box
6. Strangers
7. The Hand
8. Feast of Crows
9. The Most Beautiful Place
10. War
11. Black
12. The Betrayer
13. The Seed, Part Two

Michael Bailey is the multi-award-winning author of PALINDROME HANNAH, PHOENIX ROSE and PSYCHOTROPIC DRAGON (novels), SCALES AND PETALS and INKBLOTS AND BLOOD SPOTS (short story / poetry collections), and editor of PELLUCID LUNACY and the CHIRAL MAD anthologies. His books have been recognized by the International Book Awards, National Best Book Awards, Independent Publisher Book Awards, the USA News “Best Book” Awards, the London Book Festival, ForeWord Reviews’ Book of the Year, This is Horror Anthology of the Year, the Indie Book Awards, and the Eric Hoffer Award. His short fiction and poetry can be found in anthologies and magazines around the world, including the US, UK, Australia, Sweden and South Africa.