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Leaping at Thorns: Fifteen Impalements Penned by L. Andrew Cooper
Leaping at Fifteen Impalements Penned by Andrew Cooper arranges 15 of L. Andrew Cooper's experimental short horror stories into a "triptych" of themes--complicity, entrapment, and conspiracy--elements that run throughout the collection.
The stories span from the emotionally-centered and violence-mild "Last Move," about a mother and son whose cross-country move might be complicated by a haunted U-Move truck, to the almost unthinkably horrific "Charlie Mirren and His Mother," also about a mother and son, but their lives take a turn that might be traumatic for readers as well. While "Worm Would" offers a psychosexual fantasia on the sheer grossness that is a flatworm, "Tapestry" uses absurd, sometimes comic violence to take Jessica, the young professional protagonist, into a political nightmare. The absurd reaches dark extremes in "Lachrymosa," a story of almost pure hallucination, and stretches back toward the comic in the brain-and-tongue-twister "Heart on a Stick." The 'conspiracy' panel of the triptych, from "The Fate of Doctor Fincher" to "The Special One," is a series of standalone stories that each adds important details to the fictional world and grand scheme of Dr. Allen Fincher, who also lurks in the background of Cooper's novels Burning the Middle Ground and Descending Lines.
"Reading Leaping at Thorns takes me back to my childhood, and those sleepless nights of reading Stephen King’s Night Shift and Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. Cooper can scare, shock, and more than that, get you to think about things you never considered before, and perhaps, were frightened to even contemplate. A real triumph!" — Michael West, bestselling author of Cinema of Shadows, Spook House, and The Wide Game
"Leaping at Thorns, a new collection of short stories from L. Andrew Cooper, will leave you paranoid! The stories make even the bravest souls cringe in shock and horror. For fans of the genre, this is a rare and fantastic treat, sure to give you gooseflesh and nightmares!" — John F. Allen, author of The God Killers
"Once you start an L. Andrew Cooper story, you can’t stop, even if you have to squint between the fingers of your hand as it covers your face. Here’s a collection of 15 such stories. Modern horror at its best, Enjoy." — R.J. Sullivan, author of Haunting Obsession
"Cooper both frequently and brilliantly focuses on the human element in his tales with the protagonists’ flaws and pains exposed for the reader to vicariously revel in while the darkly delightful antagonists/archfiends of all shapes and sizes often take a back seat in the storylines, which many would argue is the hallmark of great writing. Highly recommended!" — G.L. Giles, author of Water Vamps
"Each story reads like a frightening nightmare from which you don’t want to wake." — Christopher Kokoski, author of Dark Halo
"Cooper’s imagination delves into the bizarre, creating horrific images through windows in our minds to view." — Brick Marlin, author of Land of the Dead
The stories span from the emotionally-centered and violence-mild "Last Move," about a mother and son whose cross-country move might be complicated by a haunted U-Move truck, to the almost unthinkably horrific "Charlie Mirren and His Mother," also about a mother and son, but their lives take a turn that might be traumatic for readers as well. While "Worm Would" offers a psychosexual fantasia on the sheer grossness that is a flatworm, "Tapestry" uses absurd, sometimes comic violence to take Jessica, the young professional protagonist, into a political nightmare. The absurd reaches dark extremes in "Lachrymosa," a story of almost pure hallucination, and stretches back toward the comic in the brain-and-tongue-twister "Heart on a Stick." The 'conspiracy' panel of the triptych, from "The Fate of Doctor Fincher" to "The Special One," is a series of standalone stories that each adds important details to the fictional world and grand scheme of Dr. Allen Fincher, who also lurks in the background of Cooper's novels Burning the Middle Ground and Descending Lines.
"Reading Leaping at Thorns takes me back to my childhood, and those sleepless nights of reading Stephen King’s Night Shift and Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. Cooper can scare, shock, and more than that, get you to think about things you never considered before, and perhaps, were frightened to even contemplate. A real triumph!" — Michael West, bestselling author of Cinema of Shadows, Spook House, and The Wide Game
"Leaping at Thorns, a new collection of short stories from L. Andrew Cooper, will leave you paranoid! The stories make even the bravest souls cringe in shock and horror. For fans of the genre, this is a rare and fantastic treat, sure to give you gooseflesh and nightmares!" — John F. Allen, author of The God Killers
"Once you start an L. Andrew Cooper story, you can’t stop, even if you have to squint between the fingers of your hand as it covers your face. Here’s a collection of 15 such stories. Modern horror at its best, Enjoy." — R.J. Sullivan, author of Haunting Obsession
"Cooper both frequently and brilliantly focuses on the human element in his tales with the protagonists’ flaws and pains exposed for the reader to vicariously revel in while the darkly delightful antagonists/archfiends of all shapes and sizes often take a back seat in the storylines, which many would argue is the hallmark of great writing. Highly recommended!" — G.L. Giles, author of Water Vamps
"Each story reads like a frightening nightmare from which you don’t want to wake." — Christopher Kokoski, author of Dark Halo
"Cooper’s imagination delves into the bizarre, creating horrific images through windows in our minds to view." — Brick Marlin, author of Land of the Dead
212 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2014
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About the author
L. Andrew Cooper
30 books31 followersL. Andrew Cooper specializes in the provocative, scary, and strange. His current project, The Middle Reaches, is a serialized epic of weird horror and dark fantasy on Amazon Kindle Vella. His latest release, Records of the Hightower Massacre, an LGBTQ+ horror novella co-authored with Maeva Wunn, imagines a near-future dystopia where anti-queer hate runs a program to "correct" deviants. Stains of Atrocity, his newest collection of stories, goes to uncomfortable psychological and visceral extremes. His latest novel, Crazy Time, combines literary horror and dark fantasy in a contemporary quest to undo what may be a divine curse. Other published works include novels Burning the Middle Ground and Descending Lines; short story collections Leaping at Thorns and Peritoneum; poetry collection The Great Sonnet Plot of Anton Tick; non-fiction Gothic Realities and Dario Argento; co-edited fiction anthologies Imagination Reimagined and Reel Dark; and the co-edited textbook Monsters. He has also written more than 30 award-winning screenplays. After studying literature and film at Harvard and Princeton, he used his Ph.D. to teach about favorite topics from coast to coast in the United States. He now focuses on writing and lives with his husband in North Hollywood, California. Find him at www.landrewcooper.com.
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