In this gripping collection of horror stories, the anthology kicks off with a chilling bang.

This Skin Was Once Mine sets the stage with its haunting atmosphere and twisted characters. The tension builds through unsettling elements like a sinister music box and the slithering menace of snakes, making it hard to shake the feeling of dread it instills.

Seedling takes a disturbing turn with a seemingly mundane black hole that transforms into a nightmarish vortex. The story twists perception and reality in a way that leaves the reader unnerved and wary of the ordinary.

All the Parts of You That Won't Easily Burn delves into the dark obsession that a simple online purchase can spark. The narrative skillfully escalates from everyday curiosity to a frenzied spiral of destruction, showcasing LaRocca’s ability to turn the commonplace into pure horror.

Prickle concludes the anthology with a masterful blend of suspense and subtle terror. It’s a fitting end that wraps up the collection with a profound sense of completion and lingering unease.

Each story in this anthology not only entertains but also explores the depths of psychological fear, making it a must-read for fans of the genre.

Thanks to Titan Books for the eARC!

Horror is as I’ve mentioned before about that reaction it creates. That can be either supernatural in nature or very human. Horror doesn’t need justification or happy endings it’s the sobering idea that bad things in the universe can just happen because. Transgression of normality as we see it is quite key to the format. But great horror I think should be aiming to do that and say more about being human. Otherwise it’s just poking things with sharp knives to get reactions. Eric LaRocca takes this to extremes in their latest horror short fiction collection This Skin Was Once Mine And Other Disturbances but while I appreciate the way these stories can be stretched to the boundaries I do actually wonder now if that is all there is to the stories.

This Skin Was Once Mine - the title story focused on Jillian who we find is a troubled woman in her thirties who is informed that her beloved father has passed away. She returns home to the funeral. LaRocca bounces back and forth in Gillian’s life and the key to this tale is child abuse. Gillian’s ‘perfect’ father we find was abusing her and this has shaped her choices and yet she still doesn’t see it.

I think the story is about how cycles of abuse can generate. Gillian as an adult hasn’t really processed what happened to her and discovering a young woman trapped in her father’s basement leads her to own and take control of her. Yes that’s disturbing but ultimately for me the story falls down with two many loose plot ends and there is no previous indication that Gillian would behave like this. Indeed in her own quasi relationship she prefers people to take charge of her. There is no catharsis in the story and indeed Gillian’s action lead her to become a prisoner. But then plot strands don’t really end very satisfactory certain characters. Is it horror - absolutely but not sure it’s landed it points that well.

Seedling - in this short story we have. An exploration of grief and family secrets. Our narrator is awoken by his father calling to say his mother has passed away. He returns to the family home immediately. His father and he never had a great relationship and the meeting is awkward but then our narrator spots a mysterious black and deep wound appearing in his arm.

Now this is probably the best tale in the quartet. This an exploration of death, family secrets and resentments and can any reconciliation take place. It’s more a strange comic horror tale as these wounds grow and can stretch and absorb. Do they represent the secrets; our own mortality ever coming for us or something else? It is just slightly spoiled by suddenly going very straightforward into a tale of domestic violence and murder - was that going on the whole time? No real indications are given and there seems no real justification for the father to end up dead.

All the Parts That Won’t Easily Burn - Enoch seeks a knife for his humans not just any knife but something special. The shopkeeper decides he will sell his prized possession on condition that Enoch allows him to be cut and a piece of glass inserted in his skin. A moment that then takes over Enoch’s thoughts and brings him into a decent world of similar people all seeking the same experience.

Now this can be a metaphor for people discovering their secret sexual desires and a community that supports it. Things are graphic and escalate as Enoch had to recruit someone and that stranger has even more stranger desires. Things get bloody and messy. That’s about it. It’s a shocking tale in terms of gore but I don’t think it actually goes anywhere you don’t think it will.

Prickling - this is a more Jacksonesque tale of two old men finally meeting after ten years in a park. It touches on old age and just possibly repressed love as these two old men seem always on the verge of sharing true feelings. But instead there is game to be played first. Each bets the others to do something horrible to a park visitor without being caught. Horrible games are played and then to win the day one is asked to make a child swallow a pebble. At that point things go terrible. The build up is strong, the exploration of how age makes people weaker, more selfish and perhaps encourage this type of behaviour is though a little weak. It’s dark and nasty and that’s still an effective horror tale.

I’ve now read LaRocca several times and they’re a talented and effective horror writer but each story follows a certain pattern and I’ve really felt progression. It’s pick often a taboo subject and so something extreme with it. Yes that’s horror but after a while it all feels a little samey. Subtext exists but isn’t ever really tackled head on in favour of a nasty ending alone. I think there is a point you can say I’ve seen enough of an author’s work to appreciate what they can do but perhaps admit that it’s not quite what I want to read. For now I think I’m going to wait until I hear something really special has been written. This is a collection that shows the sharper bloody edge of horror but that’s about all it seems able to do.

actual rating: 4.5/5 stars

eric larocca truly shines in a short story format. his stories always have a way of getting under my skin and living in my head rent free. even if not completely grounded in reality, they always display the truly horrific reality of humanity. the writing is impeccable. the concepts are astounding. and i truly cannot get enough of their work.

this skin was once mine: 4.5/5 stars
seedling 3.5/5 stars
all the part of you that won't easily burn 4.5/5 stars
prickle 4.5/5 stars

thank you to titan books, eric larocca, and netgalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review

If you've read Eric's previous collection of short stories, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, this collection follows well in it's footsteps. I had to step away after each story to let my brain recover but that's to be expected. This collection focuses on family secrets and the traumas we carry between us.

This Skin Was Once Mine - 3⭐️
Seedling - 3⭐️
All the parts of you that won't easily burn - 4⭐️
Prickle - 4⭐️

Eric LaRocca is amazing yet again. The first page took my breath away and made me pause reading because I could not move past it. It was so well written. The stories got stranger and stranger as you read, and I was one of those books where you're scared to turn the page because you're not sure you can take what comes next. A huge fan of LaRocca and can't wait for the next book.

I was looking forward to another short story collection from Eric LaRocca but I was ultimately disappointed. The stories did not make much sense and it seemed like LaRocca was trying to hard to be deep. The story still needs to have a plot and be scary. 2 stars

✨ Review ✨ This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances by Eric LaRocca

Thanks to Titan Books and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!

This is my second collection by Eric LaRocca and it made me just as squirmy and uncomfortable as the first!

There are four short stories inside of it, some of which worked better than others for me.

ALL THE PARTS OF YOU THAT WON’T EASILY BURN
"Enoch Leadbetter goes to buy a knife for his husband to use at a forthcoming dinner party. He encounters a strange shopkeeper who draws him into an intoxicating new obsession and sets him on a path towards mutilation and destruction..." -- this one was absolutely a cringey, creepy, awful delight. I couldn't put this one down!

My second favorite was THIS SKIN WAS ONCE MINE, where Jillian grieves the father she idolized while in her childhood home she was exiled from 20 years ago. Things get creepy fast and it's pretty clear her dad had some serious issues, even while Jillian continues to idolize him. This is weird and creepy and uncomfortable at its core.

Seedling and Prickle were okay but didn't captivate me in quite the same way!

Definitely love how he mixes the cringey and creepy with gross horror. A master too at mixing in queer relationships to these stories!

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3 - 3.5)
Genre: horror, stort stories
Pub Date: Apr 02 2024

to call these tales "disturbances" is perfect. they are sick, twisted, kinky, and positively nauseating, you will cringe and you will keep going. do not read before bed. big recommend.

3 Stars

I've read a few of Eric's books now and just like with those I liked this one just enough to want to finish it, it was okay but honestly nothing mind blowing. I don't think his writing style is for me.

I was first introduced to Eric LaRocca’s work when Titan Books sent me Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes back in 2022. Since then, I have read every published novel/novella/short story collection that Eric has written.

I have always been a horror fan, and I love a short story collection. But no one does horror short stories quite like LaRocca.

The stories in this latest collection are possibly my favourite of Eric’s yet. The titular story was probably my favourite as it really spoke to me on so many levels, as well as being horrifying. This is the first story in the book, and also the longest, so it really grips the reader and tugs on your heartstrings before snapping them entirely.

The other three stories in the collection were prime examples of Eric’s masterful writing, lulling you into a false sense of security by creating seemingly ordinary situations, and then twisting them to within an inch of their lives to become something far more macabre and disturbing.

I absolutely adored this book and will forever recommend Eric’s works to everyone who loves dark and weird vibes. These stories certainly won’t be for everyone due to their extremely dark topics, but there is a warning at the beginning of the book to help you decide if it’s for you or not. It states that all of the stories in this collection “deal with human pain and trauma in some form or another.”, and that there are “graphic depictions of child abuse and self harm.”

If you feel prepared to take on the emotional burden of this book, I highly recommend you do so. I will be thinking about this book for a long long time.

Eric LaRocca does not miss! This made my skin crawl and question so much! I adore the way Eric writes, it’s so captivating! I could not put this down and devoured it almost in one sitting. I would highly recommend this to horror lovers. This Skin Was Once Mine really caught me off guard and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

I’ve been trying to get into Eric LaRocca’s writing for a while now, with mixed results. But this one is easily my favorite that I’ve read so far. It contains four stories- “This Skin was Once Mine”, “Seedling”, “All the Parts of You That Won’t Easily Burn”, and “Prickle”. The first two were definitely my favorite, with the titular story easily taking the top spot. Although there are a few scenes from “All the Parts of You That Won’t Easily Burn” that are seared into my memory, it’s gnarly. This is a more extreme horror novel, so be warned on that, but that’s also what LaRocca primarily writes, so I think most people who know them know that. I don’t think I have a least favorite story, as all of them were memorable in their own ways. The titular story is like the most extreme example of “hurt people, hurt people” I’ve ever read. It was so upsetting.If you want a horror read that packs a pretty gross punch, this is a good pick!

My review is now posted on my Instagram @boozehoundbookclub

Eric LaRocca writes horror and transgressive fiction like no other. These tales, delightfully uncomfortable, are no exception. They stick with long after each tale’s conclusion. Bravo!

My experience with Eric LaRocca's work has been one of ups and downs. I've always found his writing to be very well made, to be interesting, and to be stories that I remember. But I'm not sure I always enjoy them because they're the kind of stories that I remember with a slight shudder and a sense of unease. He's perhaps one of the few writers who I'm always excited to read more of, yet also never want to read again thanks to how well he works the horror centre into truly unsettling pieces of art.

His latest release, This Skin Was Once Mine follows a similar style to his previous work with Titan Books, where you find several small stories collected together rather than one large narrative. And I think this is my preferred method of reading LaRocca's work, as I'm not sure I would bring myself to read a whole novel length story by him as it would feel like too intimidating a prospect; but when it comes to the horror short story format he's become something of an expert. And as much as his stories get under my skin I can't help but delve into one of his short stories with a sense of perverse excitement.

The first story in this collection is the one from which the entire book takes it's title, 'This Skin Was Once Mine', and tells the story of a young woman, Jillian, and her having to return home and deal with her estranged family after the death of her father. Unlike with most people returning to their childhood homes and finding them smaller, them having grown both physically and emotionally since they were last there, Jillian finds a home that feels larger, full of secrets and dark emotions waiting for her. The setting is as much a character as the people in the story, and the tale takes on as strange, psychological horror that twists and turns so many times that you begin to wonder what might be real. It gets into your head in the most perverse way possible. The story has an almost nightmarish, dream logic to it that is easy to imagine, but hard to translate well to the written word; yet LaRocca does so wonderfully, creating an experience that feels like it's crawled out of the back of your mind in the small hours of the night.

The second story, 'Seedling', has a similar theme to it, as it deals with a man learning that his mother has died, and returning home to console his grieving father. The loss of a parent seems to be a theme that LaRocca uses a lot, and despite having two stories in a row in this collection that have that as a basis, the execution of each of them is very different from the other. The story is less about loss and more about obsession. It deals with something twisted and wrong in the worst way possible, a part of your body. Unable to escape it, it becomes all you can think about, it dominates your mind and takes on a life of its own. It's an experience most of us are familiar with, from picking at a wound, to worrying over an odd lump, to having fears about losing a piece of your body. But as with most things LaRocca takes it to a horrific extreme and plays into some primal and disturbing phobias that will at times leave you feeling ill.

'All The Parts of You That Won't Easily Burn' takes the third place in the book, and tells the story of a man who buys an ornate, antique knife and the journey that comes from that simple purchase. A tale about kink, pushing boundaries, and the extremes of consent, it tells a dark story about a spiral of self destruction. This story is one that definitely gets under your skin, pun intended. It reminds me in some ways of 'Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke', a story about someone being introduced to new, extreme experiences, and how the person who does so seems to be leading another human being to willingly destroy themselves. Every story in this collection is dark, but this is perhaps the darkest as for the most part it feels incredibly real. It's easy to imagine the drive for new, more extreme experiences leading someone to do terrible things, and is a theme that isn't new to horror. It's not hard to pair this story up with something like the cenobites from Hellraiser, of monsters pushed to the extremes of physical sensation, and as with those stories, it will likely leave you feeling shocked and sickened in unique ways.

The final story, 'Prickle', is perhaps the more simple of the bunch, and feels much more straightforward compared to the others. It tells the story of two older men who have a special game, whereby they go out of their way to ruin other peoples days. It doesn't sound that bad on the surface, but the simplicity of the concept hides some truly awful acts that occur across the story. The story escalates as the two old friends compete against each other, leading to an ending that will leave you reeling; and on reflection might be the perfect way to round out the collection of stories.

Eric LaRocca has a mind that frightens me. A lot of people who aren't into horror assume that those that are, and those that create it, must be twisted people, with minds filled with awful ideas and darkness. And of course, that's complete rubbish. But LaRocca is one of the few horror creators who makes that sentiment come to mind for me. I wonder what dark and twisted things are lurking in his mind, and what stories are yet to come; stories that leave me feeling sickened and shaken, yet that I can't wait to read.

This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances - all four tales deliver a nauseating gut-punch of horror - just the way I like it.

Eric LaRocca returns to the short story collection game with This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances. These stories arrive April 2, 2024 from Titan Books. Following LaRocca’s usual brand of horror, they promise trauma. They promise pain. They promise to, well, disturb. Like the viral Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes, readers will find few stories in these pages—only four. But they pack a punch.

It feels almost unnecessary to say these stories will hurt. This is what LaRocca does. The titular story and the second tale “Seedling” both deal with grief, in particular. Multiple shades of grief, actually. These two are fun to compare because of that. They both are even about losing a parent. Sure, one loses their dad and the other loses their mom, but that’s not what makes them different. What makes them feel so separate, and they do, is what they’re saying.

“This Skin Was Once Mine” deals with loss, yes. But the real grief of this story is losing someone you didn’t really know. In losing them, learning everything you didn’t in life. It’s a story of identity. Who we are in relation to our bonds with those around us—those who made us. “Seedlings” though, in grief as a bond. It’s a form of connection, a shared experience. Instead of being about a relation, it is about relating. But both of them are dark. And both endings are that type of unsettling dissatisfaction that I expect from LaRocca.

And speaking of what I come to expect from LaRocca, there is the other half of this collection. “All The Parts of You That Won’t Easily Burn” is another long one, and it is absolutely what I think of when I think of LaRocca. There is body horror, there is manipulation, there is carnality. If anything, this feels the most like “Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke”—the story, this time. The lengths people will go to chase a certain feeling. To maintain a connection. Which flows perfectly into the final story.

“Prickle” also feels like older LaRocca. I could see it easily slotting into The Trees Grew Because I Bled There. From that collection, it reminds me a lot of “You’re Not Supposed to Be Here.” But from another angle, a reversal that isn’t. If you know that story, you’ll understand what I’m getting at. But mostly it felt like an echo of “You’ll Find It’s Like That All Over.” For that one we return to Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes. And the reason why these stories resonate is simple. They involve playing games. Well, I say playing.

Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? LaRocca does not play. That’s why they went viral, isn’t it? And these stories are not messing around. I’m really looking forward to this hitting shelves. For me, short stories really blossom in the discussion. So, though this is subject to change, the second half of the collection is the strongest for me. It’s hard to rate a collection of four, so I’m going with that. As for where this collection, these stories, rank with their other works? Well, I’d have to cut them out and rearrange them. And hey, I think that’s how they’d like it.

It's so rare to find a horror story these days that's genuinely disturbing (without going "splatter"). LaRocca does genuine disturbance very well in this short collection of terrifying and surreal excursions. And avoids the splatter. Quite wonderful!

What elevates a book from words on a page to ✨Literature✨? In my opinion, it's about the subtext—the meaning behind the story, the purpose beyond the prose. A meaningful story can be found in any genre, including (especially!) horror. However, this collection of short stories is horror for its own sake. There's no grand message behind it—and maybe that's okay.

It's disturbing! (Not to me, obviously, but to many readers.) It's unique! Sometimes, even well-written! (LaRocca's writing has decidedly improved over time, but could still use some work.) If you like other works by this author, like Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, then you'll probably like this collection, too.

Eric LaRocca never misses! This short story collection is no exception.

I’m always impressed with Eric LaRocca’s imagination and ways in which he can quickly sink you into a story, no matter the page count. Also, their ability to make me feel grossed out and sad at the same never ceases to amaze me.

My favorite story in this collection was “This Skin Was Once Mine” with “All the Parts of You That Won’t Easily Burn” as a very close second. There was something shocking to pull out of each story and that last one definitely had my mouth AGAPE.