This was an audiobook review (and of course book review)

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for allowing me to listen to this Audiobook. 🤍

This book is a collection of four stories.

The Narrators for his audio book are: Natalie Naudus (narrated: That Skin Was Once Mine), André Santana (Narrated: Seedling), Michael Crouch (Narrated: All Parts of you That Won’t Easily Burn), Steven Crossley (Narrated: Prickle)

This audiobook has clear audio with amazing narrators for each story! I personally enjoyed the fact that each story had its own narrator.

As a fan of Horror and scary I enjoyed the four stories within its pages. All dark, macabre, and unsettling. All of them have left me curious to check out more from the author. I felt personally it was hard for me to keep engaged in some stories and I’d possibly enjoy it more reading it physically. However, I’d still recommend the audiobook.

These were unique and I’d for sure check for trigger warnings before beginning.

(3.5 ⭐️ stars but rounded up for certain places that won’t let me do half stars)
Final Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Eric LaRocca has done it again with the delightful horror story collection. Creeping and dark and centering on the awful and insidious things people can do to one another, ends us a great book for readers what want to read horror without the paranormal or ghosts. Plus, the narrators for this audiobook eye impeccable!

"The Skin Was Once Mine" by Eric LaRocca, is a collection of four short horror stories. Think macabre and grotesque. Each story narrated by a different person which lended well to making each story stand out in this collection.

"The Skin was Once Mine", narrated by Natalie Naudus, follows Gillian Finch, or Jay, during the unexpected death of her father when she returns home. While home, secrets and discoveries begin to quickly unravel into a gruesome tale.

"Seedling", narrated by André Santana is about a nightmarish curse in a family that slowly begins to reveal itself.

"All the Parts of You that Won't Easily Burn", narrated by Michael Crouch begins with an innocent shopkeeper transaction that leads to a monstrous ending.

"Prickle", narrated by Steven Crossley is a tale of two men who play a higher stakes game of dare or double-dare. When does the line get drawn?

LaRocca explores every dark alley in the mind in this collection of short stories. I mean EVERY dark alley. It felt as if a mirror was being held up to the characters and they couldn't look away from their darkest thoughts. The author's writing kept readers interest through plot and I enjoyed LaRocca using a variety of points of view throughout his collection. While the stories were all dark and had the voice of LaRocca, they didn't bleed into one another. They had many differences-- setting, characters, point of view, plot, and more-- that made each one stand out.

I would recommend this book/audio book ONLY to the fans of macabre who are okay with grotesque details-- which there are a lot of! Themes of abuse, control, violence against women/men, assault, manipulation, torture, self-harm, and more or prevalent in this collection. I don't remember hearing any sort of trigger warning before beginning this collection? But then again it's LaRocca.

A new collection of short stories narrated by multiple (great!) narrators by the author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. Each story is eery, disturbing and creepy in its own way, with queerness and fractured relationships as common themes. I enjoyed the book but think I would have gotten the deeper meaning behind the stories better as a physical book rather than an audiobook.

It did get me curious to read more from Eric LaRocca, so if you're new to his work too, I'd say this is an excellent place to start.

LaRocca captures a sort of old world elegance, with his settings, his dialogue, his name choices, that makes each of these stories’ grotesqueness even more sinister.

The first and title story, This Skin was Once Mine, was my favorite. So dark, with such unredeemable characters, I loved its poetic unraveling of all my preconceptions.

My second favorite was All the Parts of You That Won’t Easily Burn, as Enoch learns that he is no better and much worse than he ever thought. I loved watching him be turned inside out and straight down by a shocking obsession.

We all need to be shocked out of our little false conceits and safeties. LaRocca does that for me, whether I like it or not.

This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances is a deeply unsettling, captivating collection of four horror short stories. As per usual Eric LaRocca style this book is very weird and full of unexplained horrors that left me grossed out and squirming in my chair. LaRocca uses these four short stories to explore grief, pain and the connections you can make with people through shared trauma, kinks and similar ways of self harm. All stories are told in a way to get under your skin and make you stew in discomfort from start to finish. My favourite of the collection was the shortest story, Seedling. Some of the descriptions in this story made me nauseous and uncomfortable, and the plot itself made me think about how grief can bring people closer. Overall it was a really great collection of stories that made me think as well as feel unsettled.

I was excited to see an Eric LaRoca title available in the audio section and more excited when I was chosen to list and review. I absolutely love the horror genre and he is a pretty well-known name. I even own 4 of his books already.

I would like to start off by saying the narrator selection was impeccable. I thoroughly enjoyed the voices chosen for each story.
When it comes to the stories themselves, I can't say that I loved each one. Now, it is fairly hard to find a short story collection where each individual story hits the same as any of the others, so it is not an insult to say that I didn't enjoy them all.
I will say that each story seemed very strong at the beginning, and some of them started to unravel at the ending. At least, that is where I think I lost enjoyment.

My favorite story was: ALL THE PARTS OF YOU THAT WON’T EASILY BURN. I was fully invested in where this one may go, and even though the ending was a bit confusing. I still loved it.

SEEDLING was probably my second favorite, even though if you had asked me right after I read it, I would've had a different answer. It felt very imagination focused, and I had a hard time following what was happening. By the end it made sense, so I would say buckle up, this one takes you for a ride and may take a moment to settle after reading.

THIS SKIN WAS ONCE MINE was a bit harder for me to understand, as I don't have the type of relationship with my parents as the main character. It also seemed to change directions and may have lost me in the last 25% I honestly think I may have to go back and listen again, to see if I missed something.

PRICKLE seemed so interesting and different compared to the rest of the stories in this selection. However, it did not pack the punch I thought it would when I read the description. I'm not sure I know what the intended message was.

All in all, I did enjoy the book. I think that it had a nice variety, and most people should be able to relate or enjoy these stories.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC.

I enjoyed All The Parts of You That Don‘t Easily Burn the most but overall I feel like all of the stories were too long, taking away from uneasiness the stories made me feel. During two of the stories I thought they were done just for them to keep going which was slightly annoying and also made me a bit bored.

The different narrators did a very good job conveying the vibes of the stories though!

Eric LaRocca's writing is so beautiful and strange. Deeply poetic while being intriguingly horrific.

A small collection of short queer horrors, this skin was once mine is sad, horrifying, complex, and gross.

I enjoyed the first story the most, This Skin Was Once Mine, and found it to be the most complete and most horrifying story contained here.
The second story, Seedling, I also like because I found it to be a poetic story of loss with a little bit of cosmic horror for the vibes.
The third story, Prickle, was a story that I liked but was left wanting. I wanted more time with the characters and wanted the story to be a bit longer, but beggars can't be choosers and I was still left thoroughly horrified.
The last story, All The Parts Of You That Won't Easily Burn, was my least favourite of this little collection. I found that I didn't enjoy the characters and so when they are experiencing they're horrors I found myself lacking interest there as well.

Overall I still enjoyed the book a lot, and really enjoy LaRocca's poeticism. I think that the maudlin tones and the subject matter are captured so well by his writings.

I received an arc of this audiobook from Dreamscape publishing through NetGalley.

I gave this book of 4 short stories 4 stars. These are in the horror genre but are really different and strange. Definitely nothing I’ve ever read before! I would definitely check trigger warnings with any horror.

I enjoyed these due to their lengths and having unique storylines. My favorite story was All The Parts Of You That Won’t Easily Burn. I thought it was weird and out there yet strangely relatable.

Whenever Eric writes something, I gotta read it. I loved that we had four different narrators and that they matched what we expected for each story. The subject in the two stories is grief. I personally enjoyed the first one the best since it had layers to it. The second one was beautiful, I can’t explain why but I could see the metaphor. It just wasn’t scary, it was just sad. The third one was probably the darkest one since it does talk about self-harm and how sometimes we bring people into the darkest parts of ourself. The last one was a wild ride and more into the psychological horror. Overall the metaphors for the more in depth stories was great and Eric has a way to be original about these things and bring a dark element to them. I can’t wait for their next installation coming later this year!

Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC to review!

3.5 stars rounded up!

Okay, I was excited to get my mitts on this and really did like it. I had an audio book ARC, but I may have liked it more in book form. There are 4 stories, and I liked the first one but wished it wasn't as long, but also wanted some sort of more horror to creep to the surface.

And I also liked All the Parts of You That Won't Easily Burn. The ending to the last story, which I believe was called Prickle, was one hell of a way to end things.

These stories are marked as horror, but some may not really call it that, but horror is different to everyone, in many different ways, there's psychological horror, body horror, cruelty, abuse etc. In these stories. So, be prepared for horror to be in different tastes.

I will always have a read at anything Eric LaRocca will write!

This Skin Was Once Mine by Eric LaRocca
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

This is the first book by Eric I've read, and what a great one to start on! Each story has some similar themes - changes in those we love, or at least changes in the way we perceive those we love, and the effects those changes have on our own thoughts and actions. Do we change to become like them as well, or do we change with them to continue that bond, that sense of closeness and knowing?

The first two focus more on navigating the loss of a parent and the secrets we discover when the people keeping them are no longer alive to guard them.The last two deal more with a focus on pain for the sake of pain, causing it to others and also to ourselves, and what meaning we can draw from the ‘why’ of it over various situations.

In the first story I enjoyed the slow drip of information at the beginning - little bits about Jennifer we found out through her telling Pia, and other bits (some obvious guilt/stress/depression) through her actions of self-harm. I never knew who to trust, who was experiencing the most accurate truth.

In the second story we have a more supernatural problem - an unnatural wound that calls to the narrator. I loved that shift from very normal human behavior horrors to those of a more inexplicable, unnatural draw. It feels more palatable to sit with, as the outside observer.

In the first two there are heavy themes of not understanding those around us, those we're supposed to know the most, is unsettling in all the best ways throughout every representation in these stories. And what we inherit from our parents, for better or worse, may not be what we expected.

The third story steers away from parental connections, and instead focuses on what we're willing to give for those we love, and how that may change us along the way. When what we’re doing crosses the line from ‘I’m doing this for the good of someone else’ to ‘I’m doing this for my own enjoyment’, does it change anything?

The fourth focuses on two older men with a deep connection, who make a game out of scaring strangers. But when that game goes too far, will they stick together in their bond or will one finally leave the other in order to stick to his own morals?

I loved every uncomfortable, squirming second of these 4 stories. They’re a perfect blend of physical and psychological horror, of the things that seem to subconsciously draw us in, to the way pain can sometimes be a comfort.

For anyone considering picking this one up, TW for body horror and self harm.

You know what to expect with a Eric LaRocca book, and that is that the book will be nothing like what you expected.
Unique. Uncomfortable. This is Eric’s specialty…his bread and butter, and he wonderfully executes it time and time again. I truly believe Eric has no equal.
This is a collection of four short stories and each one will have you stumbling, queasy, and questioning your life choices that brought you here and reading LaRocca. Just be thankful that you made all those dubious decisions or else you would be one of those sad LaRocca-less humans that don’t have such fucked-up stories to experience.
I’m not even going to discuss these four tales because I don’t want to ruin your upcoming disgust. You want it. You deserve it. What have you done today to deserve your eyes? -whoops, sorry, wrong book.

Holy shit, what did I just read?!?

I’m not sure that I’ve ever read horror quite like this before. This is a collection of four short stories, and one of them actually made me viscerally feel sick. Which is not something I’ve ever had happen before while reading.

In all four stories, while horrific in and of themselves, each have a twist ending that you really don’t see coming, and that just adds to the horror of it all.

This was an incredible book, but damn, so fucked up.

This is my first taste of horror writer Eric LaRocca, a disturbingly unsettling collection of 4 stories which I listened to on audio, just over 5 hours and 45 minutes long, ably and atmospherically rnarrated by Natalie Naudus; André Santana; Michael Crouch; Steven Crossley. I do not read much horror, but I was drawn by the cover, the skin crawling stories are well written, where if you have a vivid sense of imagination, the more effectively they infiltrate your mind. The twisted tales are:

This Skin Was Once MIne
Seedling
All The Parts of You That Won't Easily Burn
Prickle

There is grief, trauma, abuse, body horror, cruelties, deranged and dangerous escalating obsessions and more to mess with your head, thought provoking content that will likely make you anxious and think beyond the overtly obvious. I am not sure that I will be reading anymore from the author, but I can recommend this collection and audio for Halloween and for the dark Autumn and Winter nights! Many thanks to Dreamscape Media for an ALC.

Sometimes a book takes you by surprise and this one definitely did that to me. The stories in this book will definitely stick with me. I listened to the audiobook and really thought the narrators did a great job. The voices added to the characters narrating which I think greatly added to the creep factor. I think what was creepiest about these stories is that they each started out so normal with a person dealing with something related to relationships and then when I wasn’t braced it turned horrific. I also really liked that these stories all had at least an element of queer and if there is one genre that I see little to no queer representation it is horror so that was excellent. I think the first story was my favorite but also the one that will stick with me in horror. The characters in these stories are normal at first glance: an heiress returning home after 20 years, a family experiencing grief, a young man who meets some new people who introduce him to new experiences, and two old friends reconnecting most likely for the last time. I have not read anything by Eric LaRocca before but I will definitely be looking for more of his.

Publication Date: May 28, 2024
Genre: Horror

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me the privilege of listening to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This haunting, atmospheric book includes 4 short stories that will coil themselves around your beating heart, squeezing it until the end when you've realized you've held your breathe. The tension building was phenomenal and the narration made it even more spooky.

This Skin Was Once Mine: As Jillian grieves upon learning of her father's death, she returns home, only to uncover a terrifying secret. What she learns will have her questioning not only her estranged father, but also, herself.

Seedling: After a phone call notifying him that his mother is deceased, a young man returns to his parents home to find his mother's body and his father grieving over it. However, he notices that there is a wound on his father, and he becomes so intrigued he begins to explore it.

All the Parts of you That Won't Burn Easily: Enoch goes to a shop to buy a knife, but ends up in a devastatingly macabre predicament as he befriends the shop owner.

Prickle: Two older men reunite and relive their boyhood playing a game named "prickle" that is meant to ruin a random person's life in some way. As they play, conscience is questioned and the game becomes more depraved.

Eric LaRocca is an auto- read author for me and this collection was everything I needed!

I am disappointed,.. I thought I would like it.
I was rather annoyed by the notion of wounds having lips and it was often overwritten. If its goal was to scare me, it did not...
Furthermore, I could not connect to the characters and did not feel they were quite realistic.
Overall, this one was not worth the hype (in my opinion).
I hope I will enjoy Eric Larocca's other books more!

Thank you Netgalley for this arc!

This Skin Was Once Mine: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Narrated by Natalie Naudus

I should have known.

It started like a pretty standard story, but damn did it twist! I thought I knew where it was going but of course I had no idea.

Which just made me love it more. It was so tangled and messed up and it kept going. The downside to audio is you can't flick through and work out how many pages left, so you're just swept up and forced to suffer for as long as the story chooses to go. And I mean that as a compliment - after all, we horror lovers to enjoy suffering.

Narration was perfect - interesting and easy to follow characters, with believable performance when it was crucial.

An early standout.

Seedling: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Narrated by Andre Santana

Holy wow this was creepy. I got ICK.

A short but definitely not sweet story about things under the skin. The delivery here was perfect and had my skin crawling. Perfectly awful.

Narrator did a great job of conveying the horror of this one.

All the Parts of You That Won't Easily Burn: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Narrated by Michael Crouch

This took so many turns and I had no idea where it was going. It was twisted and odd and yet completely captivating. I spoke a few 'eww!'s out loud, and felt all kinds of uncomfortable sensations listening to this one. Another brilliant job by the narrator.

Prickle: ⭐⭐⭐
Narrated by Steven Crossley

WOW what a banger of a way to finish this collection. It's horrific but it also made me laugh out loud. Nice.

I really enjoyed the way it escalated. Nasty, nasty lil piece, this one.

Decent narrator, adding believable voices to the characters.

Overall Thoughts
I liked this collection so much more than the author's last. Everything twisted so beautifully, but never so much as to reveal the end destination. Atmosphere was built exceptionally well and I became quickly invested in each story.

Fantastic writing with some excellent, disturbing ideas.

Also appreciated that there was a different narrator for each story - and each one did such a brilliant job bringing these disturbing characters to life.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio ARC