Five strong and creepy novellas, four of them previously published but all new to me. I always enjoy Malfi's writing style which is horror that also provides fully fleshed out characters, people you can care about. Like all short story/novella collections, I liked some of the stories more than others. A short description of the novellas and my ratings: Skullbelly: three stars. This one is about a young man who goes hiking with friends and comes back by himself, with injuries and covered in blood, also catatonic. The story is from the viewpoint of a PI hired by the families to find out what really happened. I liked this one but wanted more of an ending.

The Separation: 4 stars. This one reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode and had a strong psychological bent. A man whose wife has left him experiences a strange separation from himself and a friend of his who is a psychologist tries to help him with classic horror result. The Stranger: A man checks into a motel with his girlfriend and notices a stranger is sitting in his car. The rest you should find out about yourself. 4 stars. After the Fade: This one reminded me of a Stephen King story. A group of people are trapped together in a bar as mysterious and deadly bugs appear in their town. Another 4 stars. The last novella is Fierce: This one was a five star for me. A mother and daughter are driving in the snow and get into an accident. Only the snow and cold are the least of the worries when they come across a dangerous man on the road. Overall, a really good collection. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this ARC in exchange for a review.

They Lurk is a collection of five novellas, four previously published between 2009 and 2012, and one that’s brand new. All of the stories are of the strange and unusual variety, with a good dose of dread thrown in there.

Skullbelly

Three months ago, four teenagers went into the forest. One returned, and he’s not talking. The families, frustrated by the police’s lack of response, hire P.I. Jeffers to investigate. Wandering around in a forest looking for evidence of … something gave me Predator vibes. I love Predator! This was my favourite story.

“There’s animals, Mr. Jeffers. Things with claws and teeth.”

The Separation

Prizefighter Charlie hasn’t been himself since Gloria left him. Charlie’s psychotherapist friend, Marcus, hopes he can help. I guessed where this one was heading.

“She took a part of me with her when she left”

The Stranger

Someone’s sitting in David’s car. And they won’t get out. I had absolutely no idea where this story was going to take me. In hindsight, I would have been extremely surprised if I’d figured this one out ahead of time.

“God has laid a miserable fate upon us.”

After the Fade

Tommy was planning on breaking up with his girlfriend at The Fulcrum tonight. Then once upon a cheerleader Wendy Pratchett showed up and everything changed. Tommy probably should have stayed home instead.

“It’s still ringing. How can 911 still be ringing?”

Fierce

Connie and her mother survived the car accident but now they’re living a nightmare. There’s a fun connection between this and the first story.

“Keep it together, Connie. Collect yourself.”

I’m keen to read more books by this author. As this is only my third Ronald Malfi read, I’ve got some catching up to do.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

I’m a huge Malfi fan and was so excited to get They Lurk, as I especially love his short stories.

This had 5 stories and they were all horrific and nightmare inducing. From creatures with claws and distended belly’s to apocalyptic show downs with horrible flying insects.

My favorite story by far was Fierce, the last story in the book. A tale of survival and motherhood. Elaine and her teen daughter Connie are driving home on a snowy mountain rode, where they crash and are then pursued by a maniac. There are two timelines, one of a camping trip the two took many years ago and present day. Both are times where mother and daughter had to fight to the death to survive. I’m a mother and a daughter and I loved this story.

Recommend 100% for horror lovers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for this ARC!
This collection is my first introduction to Mr Malfi's work and I really like it. Each story is very different from each other and are the perfect length where they can be a quick read. I enjoyed it overall and would like to read more from this Author.

I do love short story / novella collections. I love novels, too, but it takes a lot of commitment to be able to read a whole book with the same characters and plotline.

I will rate each story:

1) Skullbelly. I LOVED the MC, a tough, sarcastic PI with a nose for the truth and a knack for either getting close to someone or severely pissing them off. If Ronald Malfi starts a series with this PI, I'd be first in line to read it.

2) Separation. This was a weird one, with a great twist. Did not see it coming.

3. The Stranger. Holy balls. This story was screwed up and gory. Not a lot of explanation, and the end was a bit sudden, but enjoyable.

4. After The Fade. Dude. Wow. Loved this one. Again, a great MC, likeable characters and one HELL of a twist at the end.

5. Fierce. This one was good, kind of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe, with a weird part I didn't really get that wasn't explained or expounded upon at all.

All in all, a satisfying read with some excellent stories. Malfi is indeed a Master at his craft.

Thanks to Netgalley, Titan Books and of course, Ronald Malfi for the opportunity to read this ARC. All opinions are my own.

DNF - I am a huge fan of Malfi & have adored many of his books. Unfortunately, I struggled heavily to make my way to the 50% mark. There was something innate missing in these stories; the key factor that makes his other work shine. I am including my comments on the stories I read below & will not be publishing a review of this collection. It was clear to me that these works (those that I read) were from the beginning of his career - what has since been published are among my favourite books of all time.

Skullbelly
A group of young friends venture into a small town near the California border. Once a booming logging location, the town has since been abandoned by the few locals who have yet to move with the masses to greener pastures. After several days out in the woods, a single member of the group emerges. Petrified & bloody, Tommy is affixed to a thousand-yard stare that leaves his body behind. In the hopes of understanding what took place in the woods on that fateful journey, the families of the victims hire Jeffers, a private detective to uncover the truth.

I appreciated this story though, not as much as I would have hoped. We read quite a bit about Jeffers & his domestic history before being met with the scene of the crime. Though I appreciate that this background was intended to create sympathetic ties between the reader & Jeffers, I ultimately felt like he was taking up too much of the narrative. Tommy is unable to play much of a role, if any, in this story because of his debilitating trauma yet, the final scenes left me feeling as though I wished Jeffers stayed around for more. This is not a case wherein the story was bad, rather, I think I bought into the lore of Skullbelly enough that I wanted the intrigue of its possible existence to be real—a real threat, a real villain.

Overall, I appreciated the aspects of lore that drove this plot forward. The descriptions of Skullbelly were gruesome & creepy. The imagery I had in my mind of this lone creature roaming the abandoned woods was harrowing. Had we been given just a bit more time—an instance to understand why the teens were gobbled & not Jeffers, or if there were more disappearances than just these youth—I would have found this story wonderful.

The Separation
The story opens with a journey. Marcus, a licensed therapist, is headed to Germany from London to meet with an old friend. Charlie hasn’t been well since his wife opted for a divorce, took all her assets, & left. The unpleasant feeling that looms in the house is certainly due in part to Charlie’s catatonic state with a mix of the whispering winds of ghostly movement in the night. What becomes of the shadow that Charlie sheds after his ex-wife is found dead?

The setting in this story felt very reminiscent of traditional gothic stories; a large estate, a milky character lost to the sorrows permitted by the wealthy, & a cast of side characters with the gumption to coattail the story forward. Yet, the time period is ambiguous. I often find it more difficult to accept gothic stories presented in our current time when the characters might have less patience for the flamboyancy of ghosts & morose wanderings. Charlie seems stuck in a period in time that is unknown & yet, he teeters through the pages as an antiquated Uncle Silas.

Overall, this was a nice if predictable story. The characters had distinct voices & played their role in similar fashions—worrying for Charlie without necessarily imparting their actions toward the overall story. I appreciated the swift ending which brought my suspicions to fruition as Charlie's charming & slumbering essence marooned the staircase only to turn away from real life once more.

The Stranger
David is running away from a past life. His cross-country journey has been nothing short of unfortunate. Whereas once the main character was a successful man in love & life, David’s choices have led him to dwindle—he is no longer the person he once was. The reader meets him as he maneuvers the old car into a motel parking lot, hoping to pivot the direction his life is taking, eager to adjust his surroundings in the hope of being at peace once more. Instead, a stranger sits in his car & practices auto-cannibalism; he drives away into the night & David is once more on the road to passive despair.

What I appreciate about Malfi’s writing is that it is intentional. This story did not feel long enough to explore the facets that I assumed we were meant to be absorbing. Is despair a reality of the destroyer of self? What metaphor does cannibalism play in the reality of a man whose past is kept secret from us? The pacing of this story was slow only to quickly close in ranks & finish without any semblance of an explanation. One cannot eat the entirety of oneself but one can be consumed with malaise—is this what I am meant to deduce from this story?

I found every character gruesomely annoying, whining, & troublesome. Every secondary character impeded my ability to get to the point of this story which left me feeling frustrated rather than miffed by the man sitting in the car eating his limps. With a bit more of what makes Malfi’s novels so wonderful, this story could have spooked the reader into unease. I’m disappointed by the vanishing act performed in the confusion.

I think I'm still processing this book and how it made me feel. These horror stories are unlike anything I've ever read and weren't necessarily my kind of horror. I like a good scary story that will keep me up at night. These just made me feel like I'd witnessed something terrible.

Overall written very well, but clearly outside of my comfort zone.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for this ARC! This was my first read by Malfi and I see why his books are so popular. I really enjoyed all these novellas and found it hard to choose a favorite! The pacing was just right for all the stories and I felt they were all just long enough to hold your attention, but not bore you. They all had a creepy tone and satisfying endings.

Definitely will be reading more from Ronald in the future!

Rolald Malfi follows ‘Ghostwritten’ with another collection of novellas

For the last decade or so Ronald Malfi has been on a serious hot streak, which includes the exceptional novels; Bone White (2017), Come With Me (2021) and Black Mouth (2022). This has been backed up by an ultra-slick interconnected sequence of novellas Ghostwritten (2022) and We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone (2017) a collection of career spanning short stories. If you are new to this author he has one of the finest back catalogues in horror, which has strengthened as he has matured as a writer.

Although They Lurk was a very enjoyable read, it failed to hit the same sweet spots as most of his very recent fiction and in a straight ‘novella versus novella’ comparison is not a patch on Ghostwritten. Four of the five stories are reissues which were originally published between 2009-12 by the small press DarkFuse who ceased trading in 2017. They have not been rewritten in any manner and are presented in their original format. The stories are not connected or themed and can be read in whichever order you fancy.

The collection opens with Skullberry with a slightly down-at-heel private detective hired to investigate the disturbing circumstances behind the disappearance of three teenagers in a small rural town which clearly has lots of secrets and does not open up to outsiders. The detective was engaging company, an ex-cop with personal problems desperate to get to the bottom of why the only survivor (who is lying in a coma and prime suspect) made it out of the forest alive at the expense of his friends. Although this was a fun and very solid story, the direction it took did not hold much in the way of surprises and seemed to be warming up when it finished, with the reader desperate to know more about the elephant in the room.

The Separation was a fascinating change of pace with Marcus arriving in Germany to find Charlie, his old friend and successful boxer in a deep depression, losing weight, having marriage trouble and on the verge of abandoning his career in the fight game. The story is built around Charlie’s erratic behaviour, which includes stalking his estranged wife, disappearing in the middle of the night and either memory loss or blackouts. The story is seen from Marcus’s perspective, who works in the medical profession, with the easy answer being that Charlie is having some sort of breakdown, but increasingly strange events point to something more sinister. This was an odd and rather striking story, which included a bizarre scene of a guy boxing/fighting a horse (a rather sad one-sided contest), and I enjoyed the sombre melancholic mood as Charlie spiralled to god knows where amongst a myriad of personal demons.

The Stranger was a particularly eye-catching story containing some wincing bone-crunching moments which may well have you turning away from the page, I am not going to provide the context as that will ruin the wince inducing surprise! The story opens with David considering when he is going to ditch his latest girlfriend, it is implied that she is the latest of many, with this level of general unhappiness and discontent bubbling away in the background of the story. After finding a motel for the night the action unfolds predominately in a rural Florida parking lot where David returns to his car to find a stranger sat behind the wheel. The doors are locked and there’s a gun on the dashboard. He does not recognise the man, calls the police and all the other model residents quickly get involved to varying degrees, adding edge to the story as they disagree and argue over how to manage the increasingly desperate situation. To be frank, what happened next completely caught me by surprise and I was as riveted as grossed out. I am not sure it made much sense, but it did pack a huge juicy punch, or should that be crunch?

After the Fade was an old-fashioned and catchy creature feature which recalled Stephen King’s The Mist. A blues musician brings his girlfriend to his favourite Annapolis bar with the intention of dumping her until a young woman walks through the door and turns everything on its head. After collapsing and dying, upon closer investigation the patrons of the bar realise something akin to a huge insect, bigger than a fist, had attached itself to the base of her skull. After killing the monstrosity they realise it was not an isolated incident with the paranoia ramping up when they lose contact with the outside world and events spiral from bad to worse. This story certainly had the legs (or maybe that should be wings) to be expanded into a bigger piece.

They Lurk concludes with the only new novella, in survival horror style. A mother and daughter are involved in a car accident on a snowy desolate stretch of road, but this very cleverly blurs into an incident from many years earlier when the pair had another unforgettably horrible happening and the trauma connected to it. This was stalker crossed with hillbilly horror at its finest which packed a real whack as it silkily manoeuvred between stories and the increasingly bizarre present circumstances set on an isolated snow-covered road and forest area with a maniac on the loose.

It looks like Ronald Malfi has found a long-term home with publishers Titan, who have released his last four books and I will be interested to see whether they intend to dip further into his outstanding back-catalogue for other choice cuts. Another of his strongest novellas Mr Cables was rereleased by another publisher back in 2020 and so it would not surprise me to see others bounce back into print. Long-term fans will have undoubtedly read the original DarkFuse versions but these rereleases are no bad thing as Titan have definitely widened the readership of one of the world’s leading authors of horror and dark fiction. But personally I hope 2024 brings us a new novel.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher and the authors for the ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

A collection of four previously published novellas and a new one for this republished edition.

I have read from Ronald Malfi before, some of which were hits and some misses! However I had not read this collection before so they were all new to me!

I enjoyed each story and felt like they packed a great punch and didn't overstay their welcome. I was however left wanting more of Skullbelly! I think my favourite was 'After The Fade' followed by the newest 'Fierce'.

Each novella was quite different from the next so if you're not enjoying one I'd say give the next one a go or read a brief description of each story as I think there's something for everyone here!

Rating: 3/5 stars

Sensitivity warnings at the bottom, below the spoiler-tag.

With They Lurk, Titan Press have rebound and rereleased 4 of Ronald Malfi’s out-of-print novella’s, together with a brand-new tale in this new collection of short-horrors.
Being a more recent fan of Malfi, after only first discovering his work back in 2021, I was all too happy to be offered a second chance at checking out some of his older work. Overall, I wasn’t disappointed. While I generally prefer his longer novels, each of these novella’s had his signature sense of ominous atmosphere combined with memorable characters, and a perfect balance between supernatural- and psychological threads.

In Skullbelly, a weathered detective investigates the disappearance of three teenagers in a nearby forest, and the urban legend on what happened to them that haunts the town.
In The Separation, a psychotherapist chases down his friend/client; a washed up boxer who’s moved to rural Germany, and is exhibiting increasingly odd behaviour. Is this a simple case of depression, or is something more malicious at play…?
In The Stranger we follow the cuttingly tense situation that arises when a man returns to his car in the parking lot, only to find a stranger at the wheel. A stranger with a gun…
In After the Fade, we witness the start of an apocalyptic event from the point of view of the regulars of a bar, after a young woman stumbles in with something strange protruding from the back of her head.
Finally, in Fierce, a mother and daughter narrowly survive a carcrash in the snow, only to end up in an even more intense survival situation that strangely mirrors one from their past.

I’ve compared Malfi’s novels, stylistically and thematically, to some of the works of Stephen King. Most recently Black Mouth, which reminded me a lot of It, without some of the big problems I had with that book. This collection too was reminiscent of Kings style, in both strengths and weaknesses. The latter is most apparent in their endings. Although I know Malfi has proven he can stick an ending (e.g. Come with Me and the aforementioned Black Mouth), he seems to struggle with this in his older works. Where the final and most recent novella Fierce goes out with a bang, the first four go out with various levels of whimpers.

My final issue that brought me to round my initial 3.5 star rating down instead of up, was the lack of cohesion in the collection. This might be a matter of personal taste, but when a publisher releases something as a joined collection, I like there to be an overarching theme/style or other factor to bind the individual stories together. That isn’t the case here, as these stories were never written to be released together. This is made worse by the fact that the final story was obviously written years later, by a more experienced Malfi, which makes it stand out a bit from the rest.
Overall, I’m a big fan of Malfi’s work, and I’m happy to add this book to my list of reads by him. I’d recommend it if you’re in the market for a good collection of horror novella’s, although I think I personally preferred the authors previously collection Ghostwritten over this one.

Many thanks to Titan Books for providing me with an in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

SENSITIVITY WARNING:
this book contains depictions of violence against animals. The final story also contains the depiction of children with physical deformity in a way I didn’t personally agree with. Depicting those with physical disabilities or deformities as savage or villainous is a trope I personally very much dislike, so do with that information what you will.

This author can do no wrong and his latest The Lurk is everything I expect from this author and so much more. Personally I prefer one complete story but here you have five novellas which start off gradually in the fear factor then gradually leads the reader on a rollercoaster read of fear and horror. Each story gets scarier than the last and I must admit by the time I was reading the last story I was reading with all the lights on. Loved it and so highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the Arc in return for an honest review.

I’m a huge Malfi fan, and this is the first time I’ve read any of his short stories. This selection covers a great selection of different ‘vibes’ from creature in the woods scary, to psychological, to gory.
I do think I prefer his fleshed out novels though, as his ability to world build and bring in well developed characters seems better suited to the novel form, but nonetheless this was a great read.

Does ronald malfi write anything that isn't great? No. Loved this, all the creepy atmospheric spookiness I expected and loved, plus who doesn't love a short story collection? auto buy author, thankyou so much to netgalley for the earc

Ronald Malfi is quickly becoming an automatic selection for my TBR. He writes in the style of Stephen King, but gets twice as much done in half the page count.
They Lurk contains 5 novellas/short stories that dont have a theme, unlike the last collection Ghostwritten, other than how unsettling they are from early in the story. I had two favourites and no duds within the collection. Skullbelly has a private detective looking into the disappearance of a group of teenagers from the woods that might be the home of a Bigfoot type horror. After the Fade is a Apocalypse is starting, our heroes first night type story with a great twist in the tale. This story has the most humour of the collection, but it also has the most scary heart stopping moments .
3.5 Stars

I am becoming a huge fan of Ronald Malfi especially his collection of short stories and They Lurk did not disappoint! They Lurk is the definition of what you want horror fiction to be. Fantastically gory, stomach churning, and absolutely addicting from the first page! Thank you Titan books for access to the ARC of They Lurk by Ronalf Malfi!

A long time fan of Malfi’s work, who manages to land each and every tale no matter what the format, I was very, very excited to read ‘They Lurk’. To me, this is quintessential Malfi, he uses 5 novellas to tell tales which other novelists may have expanded to novel length and lost a lot in the process. He knows when to stop, and whilst readers may be unhappy with that stopping point, each and every one of these stories makes sense ending where they do. And although technically these have not been gathered elsewhere, but 4 have been published elsewhere, they do match each other in ways that are complimentary and make sense.

I haven’t read Algernon Blackwood, something I will be looking to remedy, however, if this refers to a pare down, very naturalistic style of writer which leaves gaps for the reader’s imagination to fill it with dark and nasty otherworldliness, then I think I will be a fan.

The placing of each tale, whether in the exposed outdoors, a relatively limited space of a public bar, or a barn, becomes important in and of itself as it relates to the protagonists and whatever internal or external force is trying to reach them.

In ‘Skullbelly’. you turn yourself in knots trying to work out if the title which refers to an urban legend, means that the community which told the tales brought its existence about, or whether it’s a dark and dirty secret hidden in plain sight-this makes sense when you read it-and you, the reader, are brought in with the perspective as an outsider, seeing the town and its people through the eyes of the private investigator protagonist who is investigating why 4 young people went into the woods, and only one survived. And ‘survived’ is a very loose term. As he digs deeper into the whys and wherefores , he finds that maybe some things are best left undisturbed.

‘The Separation’-in which a friend reconnects with another in the aim of helping him come out from a depressive and concerning state. There is money at stake, and an invested interest, both professionally on Marcus’ behalf as a therapist and money for upcoming boxing bouts. It’s a race against time to try and work out how and why prize boxer, Charlie, has lost himself in the breakdown of his marriage and is also in the process of losing himself physically and spatially.

‘The Stranger’- bloody terrifying. A nightmare dive into a ridiculous-on the surface-situation that digs down and keeps on digging. Faced with an impossible situation, what would you do? What you see and what is happening sometimes have a tiny sliver of a gap between which things creep in…

‘After the Fade’-there may be inevitable comparisons to ‘The Mist’, because it involves a small bunch of people who would not choose to be with each other in ordinary life, stuck in a bar with unknown horrors pulling the known world apart outside. Not the ideal place or time to break up with your girlfriend as the world appears to be ending. But does the threat come from within or without? Would you choose to run outside and die quickly or hunker down and wait for things to pass? If indeed they ever do? Genuinely chockful of body horror and gruesomeness that underpins the feeling of restlessness and fear, you, the reader are caught up in this relentless slaughter without any explanation and find your feelings shoved head first into a mangler. Relentless is the word which keeps coming to mind because I had to put this away and take a break and walk the dog to try and shake the feeling of doom and despair after finishing this one.

‘Fierce’ –this final novella ties up some of the earlier threads, it’s tonally consistent in that it drips with existential dread and fear whilst a young woman and her mother face peril for the second time in their lives. Bickering and disconnected, they are driven off the road in a horrific car accident in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snow, ice, and those ever present areas of forestry where human and non-human monsters like to hide. At once hidden and exposed-hidden away from any means of help, hidden in the woods whilst exposed by the blinding white of the snow-this is a nature versus nurture tale explored through the mother/daughter relationship of the protagonists. Just how far will you go for those you love? The complex nature of Connie and Elaine’s lives are examined in flashback at the same time as Connie is pushing forward to escape the monstrous presence which is tracking her down. It’s a fight to the death, but whose and how is both grim and unexpected.

As the title says, ‘They Lurk’ , these stories really do as they represent this hinterland between reality and what we cannot accept as reality. These things are happening whilst our brains say this is absolutely not possible. And in the space between what is and what is not, these stories and characters begin to seep in and take root. They are like those impressions you get of something in the corner of your eye, something not quite right yet somehow you are positive that it is there, no the less. Read these stories and weep. And check your peripheries.

Four previously published novellas join one brand new story in this glorious collection from one of my favorite authors.
All five novellas were new to me since I missed reading them before they went out of print.

Each novella stands alone so you can read them in any order you choose.
In the first story, an urban legend may prove to be real when some unsuspecting teenagers go camping where they shouldn't. Only one returns but he is too traumatized to speak. Did Skullbelly kill his friends? This was my least favorite only because it takes place after the fact and deals mostly with the private investigator the families have hired to find out what happened to their missing kids. This is a case of it's not you it's me. I just do not like police or detective work.

The Separation has been hard on Charlie. He hasn't been himself since his wife left. He says he feels displaced. His friends want to help him but this is well beyond a case of depression and they are not equipped to handle it. Trigger warning here for animal abuse.
I mostly liked this novella. It had a twilight zone/old-timey vibe to it that I enjoyed but I had to skim when I got to the animal abuse.

What would you do if you found someone sitting in your car and they refused to get out? That is the situation faced by David in The Stranger. This was one of my favorites in the collection. It's creepy and gory and my favorite form of horror when a normal situation turns bizarre and then goes totally off the rails.
Another favorite was After The Fade, which reminded me a lot of Stephen King's The Mist. But instead of a grocery store, we find ourselves trapped in a bar during a very strange occurrence.

In the new novella Fierce, a mother and daughter survive a car accident on a snowy desolate stretch of road., but that was the easy part to live through compared to what happens next. I loved this one, it was survival horror at its finest.

Wanted more from Skullbelly- It left me hanging and I would love to read a whole book on this creature. The Stranger was weirdly intense and interesting. After the Fade would is a perfect locked room scenario.

This book has all the atmoshpere, creepy, get under your skin vibes you could ever ask for. I loved each story and how they all told something super twisted and wicked. I applaud the author for making me cringe and get the heeby jeebies while reading this!