We all hunger. We all desire. We all hope. But more than anything, we all NEED. Need can slice our hearts into pieces like a razor blade. When our need isn't met, our souls shrivel into a singular agony. It's all we can think about; pursuing that need is the only thing we can do. In the end, if we need hard enough for long enough, we are extinguished.

This is a book of need. A woman whose children need something to drink, and her with only the blood in her veins. A young man dying for the attention of strangers, for clicks that may never come. A son who will do anything to keep his elderly father alive, even as his flesh decays around him. An addict whose need is killing him over and over, every morning, every day, every night.

With stories culled from over 400 submissions by horror authors around the world, this anthology curated by Ruth Anna Evans features twenty-two super short entries that will leave you aching for more.

You don't want this book. You need it.

In all of human experience, there is very little that holds more intimate horror than childbirth. Bodies are ravaged, minds are torn, and lives are caught in a precarious balance of hope and fear. In this anthology of seventeen authors, the horrors of childbirth are scalpel-sharp and womb-deep.

The stories in this anthology are painful and dark. A surprising parasite deeply planted in its mother's womb. A harrowing choice made by a mother with no options. Demon babies. Post-partum madness. Lifeblood lost.

Check your triggers (found here), gird your loins, and dive in to this delightful, strange, and horrifying selection of childbirth horror. 

Frank's six-year-old daughter Maddie is sick. Very sick. Her mother is out of town and he's on his own to handle the emergency. But the doctors can't find anything wrong and money is quickly running out. Frank is desperate, and he begins to consider the unthinkable.

Shelly is a social worker with a pill problem. When a case spins out of control, she finds herself out of pills and at the end of her rope. Then she gets a call to check into a tip from an EMT: A father who may be making his own daughter ill. Will Shelly intervene in time, or will she fail to save a child...again?

From the author of OH FUCK OH FUCK IT HURTS comes this gripping, fast-paced novella of medical horror that will make you question: How far would you go when the only thing you can do is Against Medical Advice? 

Jordan Sharp has been writing for the local newspaper for two years. But when a sinister ghost-child emerges from a suspicious house fire and brings to life her darkest memories, she finds herself in the middle of the story. After a life of isolating herself from others, Jordan needs to reach out for help. And there’s a handsome, sympathetic firefighter just waiting for her to ask. But as people around her start falling victim to the deadly haunting, is it worth putting him at risk? And can Jordan resolve her troubled past before it's too late? 

Girls come of age in so many ways. In this book, they come of age by battling monsters, watching their friends die, losing their mothers, and killing for the first time. Their periods are the least of their concerns.

In this anthology of girls' coming-of-age stories by women of many kinds, we get to meet sixteen heroines, girls facing the challenges of adulthood and rising to meet them. Dark Blooms doesn't miss a beat in telling a wide variety of important stories that might have otherwise been buried and ignored.

These fresh and fantastic voices will reach inside of you and make you feel something you haven't felt since your own coming-of-age horror.