Blush & Bone: A Collection

by Candace Nola

Blush and Bone is an exclusive collection of dark fiction, horror, and extreme horror stories. With a haunting selection of flash fiction, extreme horror, and cosmically inspired short fiction, it is a delicious and dark sampling of the range of Candace Nola.

“Nola’s ability to tell a story is unmatched. Each book proves she is well on her way to becoming a legend.” — Kristopher Rufty, author of OLD SCRATCH.

Genres: Horror

170 pages, Paperback

Published March 25, 2024

About the author

I am Candace Nola, and I am a multiple award-winning author, editor, and publisher. I write poetry, horror, dark fantasy, and extreme horror content. My books include Breach, Beyond the Breach, Hank Flynn, Bishop, Earth vs The Lava Spiders, The Unicorn Killer, Unmasked, The Vet, and Desperate Wishes.

I have short stories in The Baker’s Dozen anthology, Secondhand Creeps, American Cannibal, Just A Girl, The Horror Collection: Lost Edition & The Turquoise Edition, just to name a few.

Beyond the Breach, won the “Novel of the Year” and my Debut Novel, Breach, was nominated for “Debut Novel of the Year”, for the 2021 Horror Authors Guild awards. I am also the publisher and editor of the 2022 Splatterpunk Award Winning Anthology “Uncomfortably Dark Presents: The Baker’s Dozen.”

I am the creator of Uncomfortably Dark, which focuses primarily on promoting indie horror authors and small presses with weekly book reviews, interviews, and special features. Uncomfortably Dark Horror stands behind its mission to “bring you the best in horror, one uncomfortably dark page at a time.”

Find me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and the website, UncomfortablyDark.com. Sign up for the Patreon for exclusive content, free stories, and more.

Reviews

[Allison | crazypageturner · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 rounded down for the overall collection!! This collection was such an adventure! I feel like I entered so many different worlds throughout these stories. I appreciated the great writing, the variety of characters and settings and also the overall messages that these stories had. There was a lot of female empowerment, independence, vengeance and violence. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I dove in and I am so incredibly satisfied. A lot of these you can pick up individually or you can get the collection and enjoy them all in one place! I know I’ll be reading more by Candace Nola and from her authors under her publishing company Uncomfortably Dark Horror. Definitely recommend!

Plenty of 5s with a 4.5 and a 4. I also didn’t rate the two super shorty guys.

Reflections - No Rating (2 pages)
Sleep Demon - No Rating (2 pages)
Earth Vs. The Lava Spiders ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - When a volcano erupts, man eating lava spiders escape and devour everything they touch
The Unicorn Killer ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 - A crazed killer wants his notoriety and comes up with the perfect costume and grand finale gesture
Hell on the Highway ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - A hot woman truck driver tries to hunt down a serial killer whose dumping bodies on her truck route
The Vet - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - A vet takes matters into her own hands regarding animal owners who neglect or abuse their pets
Sirens and Seaweed - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - A ship gets blown off course and apparently finds an oasis of beautiful mermaids
Venus - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - An alien comes to earth and preys upon men while helping empower women

[Clark Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of short stories and novellas is amazing. Candace Nola is described as “an award-winning author”, and I see why. The stories contained herein are varied, and all of them kept me entertained. I will focus on three of them.

My favorite is called “Sirens & Seaweed”. Having the heart of a young boy (thank you, Robert Bloch, but it is not in a jar on my desk), a good pirate yarn always catches my attention. “Sirens & Seaweed” is excellent and something I did not expect from a female writer—just as I would not expect a romance story from a male writer.

The next story is called “The Vet”. If you love dogs or cats, the beginning of this story may be rough. There is much violence in this story and it is very explicit. If you like revenge porn, then this story is for you.

After reading the first seven stories, I was totally unprepared for the final story, “Venus”. Extremely unexpected. It started out predictably, but then it took off in a direction that I did not see coming. If you love science fiction mixed in with your (Splatterpunk) horror, I think you will agree that Candace Nola is at the top of her game!