This exquisite collection of short stories by Brian James Freeman will be released next month from Cemetery Dance Publications. Each story is a delicious bite sized morsel of horror, heart-ache, and loss. From loss of a relationship, to loss of a child, the common thread woven through each story is emotional trauma, each one leaving me more unsettled than before.

I received an advance copy for review ( )

This collection lives up to everything you would expect from its title and its author: absorbing stories of quiet horror about lost and lonely individuals. While the collection is not very long, it is also the right length considering the sadness within the stories. It would have been a bit depressing to read too many more stories of lonely individuals. This is not the book to use in order to pull yourself out of a funk. Anyway, a solid collection that is well-worth reading. The stories are listed below, going from my least to my most favorite.

"How The Wind Lies" - While this was the longest story in the book, I also thought it was the weakest. William Carver has moved his family from a colonial town to the middle of nowhere to avoid a Vampyre. However, all the signs show the Vampyre has followed them. I was disappointed with the ending because it was too ambiguous. There was a fair amount of suspense and tension built up over the story. Then the final confrontation ends with an open door and screams; it left me with more questions than satisfied resolutions. The suspense implied a horrible beast was there in the doorway, causing William to scream, but if there was no beast, William should have been screaming too. A "no beast" ending would have been better but there was nothing in the story to even imply that might be the case. So in the end, I was left more puzzled and unsatisfied than scared and thrilled.

"Losing Everything Defines You" - Originally published as "Something to Be Said for the Waiting". This story is a great blend of "The Tell-Tale Heart" and a found footage movie. It was incredibly easy to get pulled into the confession of what was remembered. Or at least what the protagonist wanted to remember.

"Loving Roger" - This story was similar to a slow motion crash that keeps getting worse. As we follow Patty on her drive, we know something horrible is going to happen. It's just right there around the corner. But every page reveals that there is something worse about to happen instead. And us readers are in the middle of the action but unable to do anything but slide along and hope the end result isn't as bad as we think.

"The Plague of Sadness" - While the shortest story of the bunch, this one still packed a punch. A woman experiences a harrowing event and wonders how it could ever happen. Then mere pages later, she's in a similar situation and about to do the same. The how is left unanswered but beautifully so because at that point, the how doesn't matter anymore. It just is.

"Perfect Little Snowflakes" - This was my favorite of the collection. The title refers to a saying that the protagonist's father used to tell her: that all children are like perfect little snowflakes. It's this image that carries through with the two main characters as the pressure brews. Then it is the sadness at the end covering the loss. The snowflake image fits perfectly with the main character's past and her present. I so wanted to step inside the story and make everything better, but of course I couldn't. ( )

Review copy

Lost and Lonely is a novella-sized collection of five short stories that can be read in a single sitting or stretched out over a week.

Losing Everything Defines You - This short begins with a familiar trope...

"If you're listening to this, I must be dead."

After Wendy and Andrew vanished the question that must be asked is, "Did the husband do it?" They always suspect the husband, but in this instance, he was questioned but never arrested.

I love Freeman's turn of phrase...

"Each night I cower in bed, the covers pulled up to my neck, the darkness wrapped around me like the grip of a dead lover."

Loving Roger - Starts with a riveting opening line...

"Everyone makes mistakes, a truth Patty knew all too well, which was why she believed in the power of forgiving and forgetting."

A story of mistaken identity, or is it?

How the Wind Lies - "Never speak a lie, lest thy lie becometh the truth."

This short is set well in the past, during the time of westward expansion. Something is killing the buffaloes. Each found with two puncture holes and drained of all blood. William, Sarah and their three children had left the colonies to escape this very threat that has now appeared at their doorstep. I don't want to reveal too much, but I loved where this story went.

Perfect Little Snowflakes - Melissa was just 16.

"One day she was a teenage girl in love with her boyfriend, the next day she was a mother-to-be with no idea what to do."

True, they had options, but what happens next is not what anyone would expect.

The Plague of Sadness - A 9-1-1 call that goes awry and its aftermath. A story that is incredibly short, but left me totally drained as a reader.

I found myself hungry for every word on the pages of Lost and Lonely. Each story in this collection is powerful in its own unique way. They are the kind of stories which leave you restless. The kind that stay with you long after you put the book down. Also, Glenn Chadbourne's illustrations throughout are magnificent.

Recommended.

Lost and Lonely is currently available as a Signed Limited Edition Hardcover from Cemetery Dance http://www.cemeterydance.com/lost-and-lonely.html

From the author's bio. Brian James Freeman sold his first short story when he was fourteen years old and his first novel when he was twenty-four. His novella, The Painted Darkness, took the Internet by storm as an eBook during the summer of 2010, reaching more than 30,000 readers in the first few months after publication. The book was published in hardcover in December 2010 by Cemetery Dance Publications, with the signed editions selling out in just 24 hours. Freeman is also the author of Blue November Storms, which was recently revised and republished, and Black Fire.

Since December 2008, Freeman has been the managing editor of Cemetery Dance magazine, where his column "The Final Question" appears. Freeman is also the publisher of Lonely Road Books where he has worked with Stephen King, Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan, Mick Garris, Stewart O'Nan, and other acclaimed authors.

Brian lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, two cats, and two German Shorthaired Pointers. More books are on the way. ( )