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Bitterly
King has Castle Rock, 'Stranger Things' has Hawkins...
Welcome to Bitterly.
Twelve stories, one location, and a number of dark corners not mentioned on the village Wikipedia page.
In the summer of 2018 the moors of Winter Hill, Lancashire, burn for three weeks. The fire services finally get it under control, and the area is made safe again...
But something breaks free of its ancient bonds and finds its way into the streams, rides high on the winds, oozes out of the hillside, and comes to rest in the sleepy village of Bitterly.
It manifests itself in many ways, draws to it unique evils, and insidiously torments the residents.
Father Jimmy Walsh is cursed with an impossible puddle in front of his church, which brings despair to anyone who comes into contact with it...
Teresa Ingram wakes up to find a naked man in her garden who says he's tethered to her for twenty-four hours...
Geraldine Austin may well have just rented a cottage to a coven of witches...
And four teenage boys expect a night's camping on the moors to be nothing more than a farewell gesture to the village they've been wanting to be free of all their lives. But they'll never be free.
Read it as twelve distinct stories or as one overarching folk horror tale, 'Bitterly' is part collection, part novel, all chills.
From the author of 'A Very Bad Year' and 'Unlucky Numbers'.
Welcome to Bitterly.
Twelve stories, one location, and a number of dark corners not mentioned on the village Wikipedia page.
In the summer of 2018 the moors of Winter Hill, Lancashire, burn for three weeks. The fire services finally get it under control, and the area is made safe again...
But something breaks free of its ancient bonds and finds its way into the streams, rides high on the winds, oozes out of the hillside, and comes to rest in the sleepy village of Bitterly.
It manifests itself in many ways, draws to it unique evils, and insidiously torments the residents.
Father Jimmy Walsh is cursed with an impossible puddle in front of his church, which brings despair to anyone who comes into contact with it...
Teresa Ingram wakes up to find a naked man in her garden who says he's tethered to her for twenty-four hours...
Geraldine Austin may well have just rented a cottage to a coven of witches...
And four teenage boys expect a night's camping on the moors to be nothing more than a farewell gesture to the village they've been wanting to be free of all their lives. But they'll never be free.
Read it as twelve distinct stories or as one overarching folk horror tale, 'Bitterly' is part collection, part novel, all chills.
From the author of 'A Very Bad Year' and 'Unlucky Numbers'.
- GenresHorror
351 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 15, 2020
78 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Barnard
60 books44 followersStephen Barnard has been writing fiction (and non-fiction cricket exploits) for a number of years. The success of his short story collection 'A Very Bad Year' encouraged him to push further. He now has over 20 published works, mainly in the horror/suspense genre. When he's not writing he teaches, reads, snoozes and binge-watches horror films.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 27, 2024
This is a collection of short horror stories that reads like a novel. They all share commonalities and take place in the small town of Bitterly.
I love anthologies that are all linked together by a single location or characters. And this one has a lot of terrifying stories to tell.
A strange man with a headless dog, a trio of witches, a group of eleven men who show up naked to...well... you'll have to read about that! I'm just saying that these interconnected stories are weird, bloody, frightening, and speculative, often at the same time.
Characters and location scenes pop up throughout each tale and this gives the effect of being a single book instead of just a collection of stories. It's bookended by a story that serves as a prologue and another which acts as an epilogue tying everything together nicely.
From hail with flesheating creatures falling from the sky to a camping trip that goes horrifyingly astray, you'll love the stories in here. I highly recommend this book.
I love anthologies that are all linked together by a single location or characters. And this one has a lot of terrifying stories to tell.
A strange man with a headless dog, a trio of witches, a group of eleven men who show up naked to...well... you'll have to read about that! I'm just saying that these interconnected stories are weird, bloody, frightening, and speculative, often at the same time.
Characters and location scenes pop up throughout each tale and this gives the effect of being a single book instead of just a collection of stories. It's bookended by a story that serves as a prologue and another which acts as an epilogue tying everything together nicely.
From hail with flesheating creatures falling from the sky to a camping trip that goes horrifyingly astray, you'll love the stories in here. I highly recommend this book.
October 26, 2020
Very good Tales
A great Anthology Book that you can read on a dark stormy night. I love to Tales I love the stories and they all connect. Five anthologies out of 5
A great Anthology Book that you can read on a dark stormy night. I love to Tales I love the stories and they all connect. Five anthologies out of 5
August 4, 2022
I read these short stories awhile ago but I still remember them.
I read each story as a connection to the next one.
Definitely a good book to read inbetween some novels.
I read each story as a connection to the next one.
Definitely a good book to read inbetween some novels.
December 3, 2020
Genre: horror, story collection
Content warning: Graphic/gory deaths, monsters, nudity, occult elements
SPOILER ALERT – spoilers throughout
Stephen Barnard’s Bitterly: Horror Stories Have Found a Home is…different. It’s somewhere between a short story collection and a novel but can’t rightly be called either. Whatever you call it, it works. Another reviewer likened the town of Bitterly to Stephen King’s town of Castle Rock, and I guess I understand the comparison. The distinction, though, if I understand King’s works, is that Castle Rock is almost a magnet for evil things, and those evil things may or may not be related to each other outside the ties to the town, whereas the evils of Bitterly all stem from a single source event – the Winter Hill fire of 2018. And while the town of Bitterly itself is fictional, the fire and other historical events mentioned are quite real.
The premise here is that the wildfire on the Winter Hill moors released something malevolent, which has concentrated in and around this little English village. The book is comprised of a dozen separate – but not fully independent – stories, with the first and last serving as a type of framing device. The “Prologue” introduces the reader to the darkness in Bitterly via the perspective of a boy named Alfie, who thinks a story from his substitute teacher means she can see into his nightmares, and who has a rather macabre method of staving off those evil dreams. Then, we have ten tales, covering a span of about 18 months, that further illuminate the wickedness that has infected Bitterly: these accounts range from ghosts to a despair-inducing puddle to a hail storm that honestly made me wonder when Mulder and Scully were going to show up even though this is in the UK. Finally, the “Epilogue” brings everything back together as Lucy McIntyre (the aforementioned substitute teacher) ponders her role as a sort of recorder of the events in Bitterly – both those in the previous tales and others not covered in the book – and how those happenings have some type of alignment with the cards of the Major Arcana of tarot.
Overall, I quite like the way this book is structured. The area of Winter Hill, from what I can find online, isn’t prone to wildfires at all – let alone ones the size of the 2018 burn. I live somewhere that wildfires happen nearby every single year, and I can understand how those who aren’t used to it could view such an unnatural-for-them blaze as having unearthly implications, as being a wellspring of evil. Using the fire to produce a common thread for the plots ties everything together handily, giving a feeling of cohesiveness, a sense of “the whole is more than the sum of the parts,” that a collection of random stories and perhaps even a themed anthology would lack. It’s why the book has the essence of a novel without actually being a single tale, and that appeals to me.
I also like the addition of a second level of commonality in tying each story to a Major Arcana card. The catch with doing something like that, of course, is that people like me hear that and feel the need to delve deeper, to match each narrative to the correct card and understand the connection. Some pairings are identified in the “Epilogue”: for example, the story “Hunter’s Moon” involves a werewolf eliminating some neighborhood vandals, and this is paired with the tarot card of The Moon. That seems a bit literal to me on the surface, but The Moon card carries a meaning of “illuminating an animal nature” as well as things like darkness and hidden enemies. So the association actually works well once you investigate it. Another tale is of a young witch coming of age by completing a spell on her own and is connected to the High Priestess card. Upon reflection, I can see how this fits as that card means things like “secrets and invitation to esoteric mysteries,” and that’s a decent description of the practice of witchcraft. But the story focuses on the effects of the spell, how it’s a bit of a comeuppance for the local Karen. For me, this obscures the correlation of tarot card and tale because that focus suggests that the outcome of the spell is as important as (if not more important than) the basic fact of the spell being performed, and I’m having difficulty reconciling the card’s meaning with that outcome.
Most of the pairings, however, are not explicitly stated. Part of me enjoys this as a mental exercise; I’ve spent a fair bit of time since finishing Barnard’s book attempting to figure out which story goes with which card. But the other part of me is frankly annoyed at the omission because either I don’t understand tarot well enough (even with research) to identify the associations or those links simply aren’t clear enough to recognize. The only connection I’m reasonably sure of is that the story “Heart Shapes” relates to The Lovers card, which refers to relationships and kindred spirits, because the plot there is two odd teens developing an attachment. And I have to say that even though this was the only non-specified match I figured out, this story was my least favorite of the whole book. The relationship that grows between these peculiar teens is uncomfortable, disquieting, and sets off all of my “mom alarms,” but it doesn’t read like a horror story. (Remember: the subtitle of the book specifies that these are horror stories.) It’s more like the beginning of an episode of the true crime TV show “Killer Couples,” where it’s clear that this liaison is all kinds of unhealthy – red flags out the ass – but the horrendous part hasn’t happened yet. I feel like that tone doesn’t fit with the rest of the book all that well, and it makes me wonder if perhaps this story was written/included just so that readers with the inclination to do so would be able to match at least one tale/card pair on their own rather than as a good representation of the malice and misfortunes faced by the residents of Bitterly.
I have to say, though, that while I enjoy the second level of connection between the stories that’s created by the ties to tarot’s Major Arcana, I’m not sure it’s truly necessary. As mentioned before, the happenings in Bitterly all stem from whatever evil was released by the Winter Hill fire and are further united by Lucy McIntyre’s creation of a record of said events. My two favorite tales, “On the Moors” and “Eleven Lords,” are ones where I don’t have the slightest idea which tarot cards apply. Yet each story is strong both on its own and as a representation of how deeply the malevolence of the area runs. Neither benefits from the supposed tarot alignments, and I feel like that’s true for all of the stories here – even the ones where the relevant card is identified for the reader. It’s a fun concept but ultimately superfluous if the book as a whole isn’t gaining something from including it.
Now, before anyone gets on my case about it, I want to say that I’m well aware that I haven’t really discussed much about the actual writing here despite that supposedly being the focus of my reviews. I’m not getting into the nitpicky details of syntax, grammar, word choice, and so on because all of those attributes of Barnard’s writing are solid. Nothing stood out as amazing, but neither was anything problematic enough to catch my notice. What I want to draw attention to is the overall narrative structure because that’s what works so well here. I’ve seen more than one writer comment on how difficult it can be for them to create a plot that can be sustained for the length of a novel, and that they only work on short stories as a result. To me, Bitterly: Horror Stories Have Found a Home represents a kind of “middle ground” – a more involved plot than a short story without having to make one single storyline last for a few hundred pages – that those writers might benefit from looking into as a possibility for themselves. And I think that’s worth talking about.
Content warning: Graphic/gory deaths, monsters, nudity, occult elements
SPOILER ALERT – spoilers throughout
Stephen Barnard’s Bitterly: Horror Stories Have Found a Home is…different. It’s somewhere between a short story collection and a novel but can’t rightly be called either. Whatever you call it, it works. Another reviewer likened the town of Bitterly to Stephen King’s town of Castle Rock, and I guess I understand the comparison. The distinction, though, if I understand King’s works, is that Castle Rock is almost a magnet for evil things, and those evil things may or may not be related to each other outside the ties to the town, whereas the evils of Bitterly all stem from a single source event – the Winter Hill fire of 2018. And while the town of Bitterly itself is fictional, the fire and other historical events mentioned are quite real.
The premise here is that the wildfire on the Winter Hill moors released something malevolent, which has concentrated in and around this little English village. The book is comprised of a dozen separate – but not fully independent – stories, with the first and last serving as a type of framing device. The “Prologue” introduces the reader to the darkness in Bitterly via the perspective of a boy named Alfie, who thinks a story from his substitute teacher means she can see into his nightmares, and who has a rather macabre method of staving off those evil dreams. Then, we have ten tales, covering a span of about 18 months, that further illuminate the wickedness that has infected Bitterly: these accounts range from ghosts to a despair-inducing puddle to a hail storm that honestly made me wonder when Mulder and Scully were going to show up even though this is in the UK. Finally, the “Epilogue” brings everything back together as Lucy McIntyre (the aforementioned substitute teacher) ponders her role as a sort of recorder of the events in Bitterly – both those in the previous tales and others not covered in the book – and how those happenings have some type of alignment with the cards of the Major Arcana of tarot.
Overall, I quite like the way this book is structured. The area of Winter Hill, from what I can find online, isn’t prone to wildfires at all – let alone ones the size of the 2018 burn. I live somewhere that wildfires happen nearby every single year, and I can understand how those who aren’t used to it could view such an unnatural-for-them blaze as having unearthly implications, as being a wellspring of evil. Using the fire to produce a common thread for the plots ties everything together handily, giving a feeling of cohesiveness, a sense of “the whole is more than the sum of the parts,” that a collection of random stories and perhaps even a themed anthology would lack. It’s why the book has the essence of a novel without actually being a single tale, and that appeals to me.
I also like the addition of a second level of commonality in tying each story to a Major Arcana card. The catch with doing something like that, of course, is that people like me hear that and feel the need to delve deeper, to match each narrative to the correct card and understand the connection. Some pairings are identified in the “Epilogue”: for example, the story “Hunter’s Moon” involves a werewolf eliminating some neighborhood vandals, and this is paired with the tarot card of The Moon. That seems a bit literal to me on the surface, but The Moon card carries a meaning of “illuminating an animal nature” as well as things like darkness and hidden enemies. So the association actually works well once you investigate it. Another tale is of a young witch coming of age by completing a spell on her own and is connected to the High Priestess card. Upon reflection, I can see how this fits as that card means things like “secrets and invitation to esoteric mysteries,” and that’s a decent description of the practice of witchcraft. But the story focuses on the effects of the spell, how it’s a bit of a comeuppance for the local Karen. For me, this obscures the correlation of tarot card and tale because that focus suggests that the outcome of the spell is as important as (if not more important than) the basic fact of the spell being performed, and I’m having difficulty reconciling the card’s meaning with that outcome.
Most of the pairings, however, are not explicitly stated. Part of me enjoys this as a mental exercise; I’ve spent a fair bit of time since finishing Barnard’s book attempting to figure out which story goes with which card. But the other part of me is frankly annoyed at the omission because either I don’t understand tarot well enough (even with research) to identify the associations or those links simply aren’t clear enough to recognize. The only connection I’m reasonably sure of is that the story “Heart Shapes” relates to The Lovers card, which refers to relationships and kindred spirits, because the plot there is two odd teens developing an attachment. And I have to say that even though this was the only non-specified match I figured out, this story was my least favorite of the whole book. The relationship that grows between these peculiar teens is uncomfortable, disquieting, and sets off all of my “mom alarms,” but it doesn’t read like a horror story. (Remember: the subtitle of the book specifies that these are horror stories.) It’s more like the beginning of an episode of the true crime TV show “Killer Couples,” where it’s clear that this liaison is all kinds of unhealthy – red flags out the ass – but the horrendous part hasn’t happened yet. I feel like that tone doesn’t fit with the rest of the book all that well, and it makes me wonder if perhaps this story was written/included just so that readers with the inclination to do so would be able to match at least one tale/card pair on their own rather than as a good representation of the malice and misfortunes faced by the residents of Bitterly.
I have to say, though, that while I enjoy the second level of connection between the stories that’s created by the ties to tarot’s Major Arcana, I’m not sure it’s truly necessary. As mentioned before, the happenings in Bitterly all stem from whatever evil was released by the Winter Hill fire and are further united by Lucy McIntyre’s creation of a record of said events. My two favorite tales, “On the Moors” and “Eleven Lords,” are ones where I don’t have the slightest idea which tarot cards apply. Yet each story is strong both on its own and as a representation of how deeply the malevolence of the area runs. Neither benefits from the supposed tarot alignments, and I feel like that’s true for all of the stories here – even the ones where the relevant card is identified for the reader. It’s a fun concept but ultimately superfluous if the book as a whole isn’t gaining something from including it.
Now, before anyone gets on my case about it, I want to say that I’m well aware that I haven’t really discussed much about the actual writing here despite that supposedly being the focus of my reviews. I’m not getting into the nitpicky details of syntax, grammar, word choice, and so on because all of those attributes of Barnard’s writing are solid. Nothing stood out as amazing, but neither was anything problematic enough to catch my notice. What I want to draw attention to is the overall narrative structure because that’s what works so well here. I’ve seen more than one writer comment on how difficult it can be for them to create a plot that can be sustained for the length of a novel, and that they only work on short stories as a result. To me, Bitterly: Horror Stories Have Found a Home represents a kind of “middle ground” – a more involved plot than a short story without having to make one single storyline last for a few hundred pages – that those writers might benefit from looking into as a possibility for themselves. And I think that’s worth talking about.
April 25, 2024
I loved the idea that all of these stories would be set in the same place, giving it familiarity and cheeky mentions of characters or incidents in different stories. Some of the chapters had me really engaged. One of my favourites being Hunters Moon. I loved the idea that it was set out like a facebook group! Really unique and different.
All these stories come together in the final chapter, which was the perfect way to sum up the novel. Fantastically done.
This is a great read for anyone who loves short stories!
All these stories come together in the final chapter, which was the perfect way to sum up the novel. Fantastically done.
This is a great read for anyone who loves short stories!
June 9, 2022
If this all started with a wildfire and me living in an area that has seen it's fair share of wildfires, I am disturbed. Some really good stories that make you pause to think, and lots or gruesome and gory to satisfy for the horror lover.
May 10, 2024
Normally, in a short story collection, I would rate each story individually. I decided not to do that this time, since all the stories were supposed to be related and take place in the same small town. I thought maybe I'd made a mistake at first, but the epilogue brought everything together nicely. I enjoyed the whole collection. 3.5 stars
April 9, 2022
Home, Where the Heart Is?
Once again, I have thoroughly enjoyed another book of short stories by Stephen Barnard. Each story is another building block of this mysterious world that is Bitterly. There are no cliff hangers but I would truly love another book set in the alluring world of Bitterly. Well done, sir. I am looking forward to the next book from this author. I have several downloaded.
Once again, I have thoroughly enjoyed another book of short stories by Stephen Barnard. Each story is another building block of this mysterious world that is Bitterly. There are no cliff hangers but I would truly love another book set in the alluring world of Bitterly. Well done, sir. I am looking forward to the next book from this author. I have several downloaded.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews