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You Have to Let Them Bleed
Not yet published
Expected 17 Feb 26The collector hunts the darkness for terrible beauty: macabre and marvelous stories worth displaying in their shadow boxes. Tour these horrors with them, but beware: if you're not careful, you might find yourself lost in a labyrinth of fear.
A pickup artist is after your skin. A junk drawer opens into the abyss. The twin sons of an ill-fated magician plot against their abusive mother. A man wastes his life dreading an unseen entity. A senior water aerobics class takes a turn for the bizarre…
You Have to Let Them Bleed brings together the best horror fiction by two-time Bram Stoker Award finalist and nationally award-winning poet Annie Neugebauer. Together with eight new poems, this nineteen-story collection will draw you into the lovely darkness, lure you deeper into the heartbreaking and gruesome, and leave behind its own collection of horrors to fill the shadows of your mind.
A pickup artist is after your skin. A junk drawer opens into the abyss. The twin sons of an ill-fated magician plot against their abusive mother. A man wastes his life dreading an unseen entity. A senior water aerobics class takes a turn for the bizarre…
You Have to Let Them Bleed brings together the best horror fiction by two-time Bram Stoker Award finalist and nationally award-winning poet Annie Neugebauer. Together with eight new poems, this nineteen-story collection will draw you into the lovely darkness, lure you deeper into the heartbreaking and gruesome, and leave behind its own collection of horrors to fill the shadows of your mind.
- GenresShort StoriesHorror
282 pages, Paperback
Expected publication February 17, 2026
71 people want to read
About the author
Annie Neugebauer
61 books144 followersAnnie is a novelist, blogger, nationally award-winning poet, and two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated short story author. She is the author of The Outsiders Sequence (The Extra, The Other, and The Spare) and You Have to Let Them Bleed. You can visit her at www.AnnieNeugebauer.com.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 18, 2025
Reading for review in a future issue of Booklist
Three Words That Describe This Book: disorienting, making the mundane terrifying, range of gore and fear
Other general appeal: Though-Provoking, Weird, unsettling (especially with her endings which can be very open-- leaves room for readers to feel the story though and then think about it), psychological horror but not without gore, unmooring, very deliberate word choices-- in a way that is still making them easy to read, but you can feel and see the writing craft here, unique, original voice, nothing goes where you think it will.
Neugebauer is a name you might not think you know, but her stories have been seen across the horror
publishing landscape including multiple appearances in "best of" anthologies.
"The Pelt" is included and that is the story that introduced me to Neugebauer and I still love that story. But in my review I will write about others.
19 stories and 8 poems--
Poems serve as good interludes in between stories. Starts and ends with poems featuring "The Shadowlings" which helps to give the collection a larger structure. These stories are her shadowlings, that she collects and shares, but at the end, they are still calling to us.
Also the title of the collection sets the stage very well here.
There are stories here that directly draw off of Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allan Poe which also show part of what she is doing here in this collection-- Neugebauer is clearly invoking some great works of horror literature but also grabbing them to make them her own. She is doing it explicitly in those 2 stories BUT I would argue that every story does it. You notice it more when they are collected together.
"Redless" about a woman who goes to great lengths to see the color red is short and taught and immersive and terrifying.
"Cilantro" and "The Little Drawer Full of Chaos" are both focused domestic dramas gone, not just horribly wrong, they are that, but also they go to weird, disquieting and terrifying places. Different places but same idea
"You Ought Not Smile as You Walk These Woods" is a dark fairy tale type story. Reminded my of Cass Khaw a lot.
I am not going to leave comment for each story here. If what I have said in general intrigues you, you should grab this collection.
Bad Hand Books is a solid small press and now with larger distribution, you can easily add all of their titles to your libraries.
Readalikes: This reminded me of the stories of Kelly Link, Cass Khaw, and Samanta Schweblin, as well as the collections Cursed Bunny by Chung and Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Lima. And The Grip of it (novel) by Jac Jemc
There are stories here that directly draw off of Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allen Poe which also show part of what she is doing here
Three Words That Describe This Book: disorienting, making the mundane terrifying, range of gore and fear
Other general appeal: Though-Provoking, Weird, unsettling (especially with her endings which can be very open-- leaves room for readers to feel the story though and then think about it), psychological horror but not without gore, unmooring, very deliberate word choices-- in a way that is still making them easy to read, but you can feel and see the writing craft here, unique, original voice, nothing goes where you think it will.
Neugebauer is a name you might not think you know, but her stories have been seen across the horror
publishing landscape including multiple appearances in "best of" anthologies.
"The Pelt" is included and that is the story that introduced me to Neugebauer and I still love that story. But in my review I will write about others.
19 stories and 8 poems--
Poems serve as good interludes in between stories. Starts and ends with poems featuring "The Shadowlings" which helps to give the collection a larger structure. These stories are her shadowlings, that she collects and shares, but at the end, they are still calling to us.
Also the title of the collection sets the stage very well here.
There are stories here that directly draw off of Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allan Poe which also show part of what she is doing here in this collection-- Neugebauer is clearly invoking some great works of horror literature but also grabbing them to make them her own. She is doing it explicitly in those 2 stories BUT I would argue that every story does it. You notice it more when they are collected together.
"Redless" about a woman who goes to great lengths to see the color red is short and taught and immersive and terrifying.
"Cilantro" and "The Little Drawer Full of Chaos" are both focused domestic dramas gone, not just horribly wrong, they are that, but also they go to weird, disquieting and terrifying places. Different places but same idea
"You Ought Not Smile as You Walk These Woods" is a dark fairy tale type story. Reminded my of Cass Khaw a lot.
I am not going to leave comment for each story here. If what I have said in general intrigues you, you should grab this collection.
Bad Hand Books is a solid small press and now with larger distribution, you can easily add all of their titles to your libraries.
Readalikes: This reminded me of the stories of Kelly Link, Cass Khaw, and Samanta Schweblin, as well as the collections Cursed Bunny by Chung and Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Lima. And The Grip of it (novel) by Jac Jemc
There are stories here that directly draw off of Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allen Poe which also show part of what she is doing here
November 8, 2025
This collection of short stories and poems is amazing! They are weird, thought provoking and so fresh and original....these are not your typical horror tropes! I absolutely loved this book!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews