NO ONE DIES FROM LOVE: DARK TALES OF LOSS AND LONGING.
Published May 30, 2023. With stories from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nightmare, Black Static, The Dark, Shadows & Tall Trees and more. Introduction by Paul Tremblay. Get it now at Word Horde, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and wherever else sad bangers are sold.
A young boy’s father becomes obsessed with interplanetary visitors; an adolescent’s game reveals devastating possible futures; twin siblings receive a visit from an aunt they don’t remember in the wake of their mother’s disappearance; a grieving widow finds herself drawn into a crypt and the companionship of other mourners left behind; a group of teenage girls at summer camp discover something powerful—and hungry—in the woods; a writer reeling from a splintered relationship attends an infamous theatre devoted to macabre spectacle and fear, discovering forbidden desire and malevolent designs…
From Lambda Literary Award and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Robert Levy (The Glittering World) comes debut collection No One Dies from Love: Dark Tales of Loss and Longing, featuring twelve tales of horror and desire, love and loss, including the critically acclaimed novella “Anaïs Nin at the Grand Guignol” as well as “Giallo,” longlisted for the 2023 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction. Featuring an introduction by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Paul Tremblay.
Advance Praise:
"Levy delivers a viscerally unsettling collection of 12 horror shorts rooted as much in human psychology as in the fantastical and speculative... Levy’s stories are made all the more powerful by his unwillingness to shy away from the illicit. By embracing the taboo with the tools of horror and speculative fiction, he at once demystifies these subjects while imbuing them with a magic of his own… The result is a triumph."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"Robert Levy's No One Dies From Love may well end up being the book of the year for me. There is a frankness, a boldness, and a compassion in these stories that give real weight to the darkness they hold. It's easy to caricature human pain and vulnerability in service to a horror story, but Levy writes with honesty and depth, and it makes all the difference. I saw some of my own dark corners reflected back to me in this book, and felt the peace that comes from recognition. And that, to me, is what stories are all about."
—Nathan Ballingrud, author of The Strange and North American Lake Monsters
"Robert Levy’s No One Dies From Love is a masterful collection of dark fiction—a consecrated and intimate ceremony of human loss and longing. With sumptuous prose and a keen understanding of how grief reshapes us, it’s impossible to not be enthralled with Levy’s macabre vision."
—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since Last We Spoke
"No One Dies From Love is one of the most original collections I have read in recent years. Again and again I found myself stunned by Levy's stories: their depth and range at making the heart expand to encompass the wonders of the world."
—Morgan Talty, National Bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez
"Shocking, erotic, and horrific. Robert Levy proves that, one way or another, love will be the end of us all."
—Priya Sharma, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of Ormeshadow
No One Dies from Love: Dark Tales of Loss and Longing includes the acclaimed novella “Anais Nin at the Grand Guignol.”
Written as a lost volume from her celebrated diaries, ANAÏS NIN AT THE GRAND GUIGNOL follows the iconic feminist author into an erotic and twilit realm of dark fantasy and sexual obsession, a world of forbidden desire and deadly consequence from which she might never fully return.
Paris, 1933. In the aftermath of her love triangle with novelist HENRY MILLER and his dancer wife June, thirty-year-old ANAÏS NIN is left reeling. Stifled by her bourgeois marriage, she retreats into the midnight world of the GRAND GUIGNOL, the legendary theatre of horror and fear whose devoted patrons thrill at the macabre spectacles depicted on the black box stage. It is there that she falls under the spell of the actress PAULA MAXA, known as THE MOST MURDERED WOMAN OF ALL TIME, who awakens Anaïs to a secret realm of bewitchment and vice, of pleasure and pain.
Only Maxa already belongs to MONSIEUR GUILLARD, the lustful night creature that haunts the dark streets of Pigalle. As the demon lover's insatiable hunger grows stronger by the hour, Anaïs finds herself trapped in a far more dangerous triangle, a cat-and-mouse game with Maxa's very soul as the ultimate prize.
SELECTED PRAISE:
"Levy’s disquieting erotic imagery masterfully evokes Nin’s original prose. This sensual confection will enthrall readers looking for an intimate, disturbing thrill."
— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“Readers looking for a concentrated cocktail of Années folles splendor will find that this short erotic novel quenches their thirst. A finely crafted, Anaïs Nin–centered fantasy with unexpected depths.”
“Enchants right from the title [with] nary a false note… Levy’s prose is elegant and restrained without being fussy or lifeless. His action sequences are fully as suspenseful as his philosophizing is deep. The book strikes the perfect balance between the quotidian and the fantastical.”
“Robert Levy gives us the best seat in the house for the only show that matters, the dark delirious battle of sex and death, in Anaïs Nin at the Grand Guignol. Applause!”
— Kathe Koja, author of Cipher and the Under the Poppy trilogy
“The writing is beautiful, from the descriptions of place, to the sex, to the macabre world of the bizarre theatre. A mysterious, whirling fantasy.”
— Jeffrey Ford, author of A Natural History of Hell and Ahab's Return
“Lush, erotic horror, as decadent and chilling as an overgrown garden of decaying roses. Robert Levy has created a mesmerizing tale of desire and death, just as Anaïs Nin would have written.”
— Livia Llewellyn, author of Furnace and Engines of Desire
“Robert Levy's excellent novella incorporates figures drawn from literary and theatrical history, placing them in a vividly realized Paris in a story that races to a climax worthy of the Grand Guignol itself. Highly, highly recommended.”
— John Langan, author of Sefira and Other Betrayals and The Fisherman
Purchase now at Word Horde, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, or from your local bookstore.