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Faces Beyond the Veil
Watch a tragic nightmare rise out of the muddy depths of the California desert. Paint your spouse’s death portrait with hideous accuracy. Communicate with the dead by way of the northern lights. And don’t forget an axe, so you can release the evil from the hawthorn room. Here are fifteen journeys beyond the veil... into whatever darkness waits on the other side. "In FACES BEYOND THE VEIL, Mitch Sebourn plays the role of our tour guide as he takes us on a road trip across sinister landscapes occupied by desperate characters. Buckle up." —Rayne King, author of The Creek
Kindle Edition
Published July 20, 2021
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About the author
Mitch Sebourn
34 books22 followersMitch Sebourn is currently working his way through law school while (not so) secretly focussing most of his attention on trying to write The Great American Classic. He has published three novels and a collection of poetry in paperback, as well as a new novel, Watershed, available as a Kindle eBook.
He enjoys reading, writing, hiking, and is looking forward to being married next July.
When he is not sitting atop Tikaboo Peak spying on the inhabitants of Area 51, or scaling the slopes of Colorado's 14ers, he can typically be found calling the Hogs in central Arkansas.
He enjoys reading, writing, hiking, and is looking forward to being married next July.
When he is not sitting atop Tikaboo Peak spying on the inhabitants of Area 51, or scaling the slopes of Colorado's 14ers, he can typically be found calling the Hogs in central Arkansas.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 27, 2021
The Lie - a creeptastic way to open the collection, the way Sebourn paints this entity in the loft space gave me chills, the bulbous nature of it, the appendages that seemed broken, how it moved - man that is some visionary work! And it left me wanting to know more, what this thing was and the way he leaves the story also makes for a most disturbing conclusion - Sebourn’s books Folklore and Dust and Time also tread the same ground of supernatural elements like this and I for one love it when he writes that way (X-Files / Fringe).
Refinery - a young man has to face up to the sins of his dead father, and those sins, those dark days have consequences - and the dead have a good memory and all the time they need to carry out their revenge. I enjoyed this tale and the final few paragraphs really drive the nail into the coffin. Also the thoughts of getting sick and dying were well out across and I could feel the protagonists anxiety about this - and we’ll haven’t we all been thinking about that the last few years - a strange illness leading to death!
Cactus Glass - the story opens with our protagonist staring down into a cavern - at the bottom is where his friend died, and he was partly responsible, a bad acid trip made him believe his friend was a cactus and he hit him in the face with a bottle. He fell, died and so the memories of that day haunt him. But this story is more about the unsaid and the unpicking of that day, and Sebourn ensures that these waters are muddy and murky and when we venture down to the bottom of that cavern, what awaits us is something even more troubling.
The Revocation - our protagonist has made a deal with the devil that will see him become rich beyond his wildest dreams, but it would appear that the devil is in the details and he’s about to find out the finer points of the contact and discover the horrors of his actions. This story, something about it, whether prose, voice or story itself reminded me of Ray Bradbury, which is one of the biggest compliments I could give Sebourn.
Badwater - this is an adventure story gone wrong, I loved the subtle dread that Sebourn brings to the story, the isolation he sprinkles through the story that enables the reader to realise how alone this man is with his broken ankle halfway up or halfway down a mountain. I was wondering where the dread and horror was going to come from, as I said it’s subtle, but there is a very Mitch Sebourn turn which makes the story hit home like a hatchet to the face.
My Dear Brooklyn - a heartbreaking story of love and loss and the pain of long term illness. Sebourn does a marvellous job here at pulling at the heartstrings until they snap, and in that ensuing chaos that loss brings monstrous things are born, things that shake the very foundations of belief.
The Apostle - our protagonist who is down on her luck and desperately trying to get her career going again buys a building which once belonged to a climber. He’s died, suicide, but it wasn’t just his body that had been left behind, or his ghost, it was the blood spattered mural on the wall which displayed the mountain range that defeated him. This ones pretty creepy and a great concept that Sebourn delivers perfectly - I got chills, like our main protagonist!
Marianna - this one had some serious Stephen King ‘IT’ vibes, another knock out story from Sebourn who dances that fine line of quiet unsettling horror so well. This story builds from a childhood tragedy, which then turns into a living nightmare for our protagonists wife, but things are building, things are brewing and the moon that visited so long ago, back on that fateful night is bringing something with it, something that won’t leave until it claims what it wanted so long ago.
Feral - a retired police officer finds something in the woods, a key to unlock the puzzle of a case that remains open. One that he wished he and his friend could have closed, but this discovery, this might just blow the case wide open again. I ached to know a little more about this story, it’s paced wonderfully and the reveals as they come are nicely placed causing the story to deepen, but I needed a little more closure on this one.
Bleak - a short tale about a young man who decides to do his school project on a local folklore - a famous but failed artist, not in terms of his artwork, it still remains as stunning as they say he painted it. But in terms of his life, he’s failed - or has he created his greatest work of art to date? It’s eerie, it’s dark and I bloody loved it.
The Loneliest Road - this was a touching story of a mother and daughter and the ties that bind, how beauty can be made from ashes, that it’s never to late to change or be changed and that sometimes nothing sounds sweeter than a freshly strung guitar. But those strings, boy do they have a story to tell, and Sebourn is our conductor for this haunting tale.
The Hawthorn Room - a story that involves some cool body horror, it reminded me of frequency and invasion of the body snatchers - it’s a fabulous story that has a lot of heart, a lot of pain and a suffocating blanket of grief. One of my favourites in the collection - and the ending, brilliantly twisted!
Nondisclosure - an almost court room / investigation piece, this story dealing with a folklore of possible Native American origin. I enjoy these types of stories and it reminded me in its structure of Amityville Horror - I felt a little confused at one point, but kept going and the pay off was a very interesting story.
Thunder on the Mountain - This story was read on Papercuts (Brad Proctor & J’s talk show) and I listened to Mitch read this whilst reading along and it was a special event indeed. I love listening to writers read their work, it adds something to the story and this one is bloody brilliant. It has some creepy vibes to it that really get under your skin, a man who lost his wife on the mountain returns each year to process and hope for a discovery, to locate something he’s missed. This year in particular he finds something, something that he never knew he’d find, and something that will change the way he grieves forever.
The Red Curtain - we have an active shooter story here and Mitch does a wonderful and tactful job in creating this touching story and giving it a heart and soul. The elements of the story and the reason for the shooter are given a supernatural slant which adds the creep factor - a great and powerful story to end the collection on.
Mitch Sebourn shows once again with the stories in ‘Faces Beyond The Veil’ that he is a breath of fresh air in the indie horror scene. Most if not all of these stories find their mark and offer a perfect tasting board for those looking for a new writer - in this collection we get to glimpse the many facets of Sebourn’s writing, and all of them point to his brilliance at storytelling.
Refinery - a young man has to face up to the sins of his dead father, and those sins, those dark days have consequences - and the dead have a good memory and all the time they need to carry out their revenge. I enjoyed this tale and the final few paragraphs really drive the nail into the coffin. Also the thoughts of getting sick and dying were well out across and I could feel the protagonists anxiety about this - and we’ll haven’t we all been thinking about that the last few years - a strange illness leading to death!
Cactus Glass - the story opens with our protagonist staring down into a cavern - at the bottom is where his friend died, and he was partly responsible, a bad acid trip made him believe his friend was a cactus and he hit him in the face with a bottle. He fell, died and so the memories of that day haunt him. But this story is more about the unsaid and the unpicking of that day, and Sebourn ensures that these waters are muddy and murky and when we venture down to the bottom of that cavern, what awaits us is something even more troubling.
The Revocation - our protagonist has made a deal with the devil that will see him become rich beyond his wildest dreams, but it would appear that the devil is in the details and he’s about to find out the finer points of the contact and discover the horrors of his actions. This story, something about it, whether prose, voice or story itself reminded me of Ray Bradbury, which is one of the biggest compliments I could give Sebourn.
Badwater - this is an adventure story gone wrong, I loved the subtle dread that Sebourn brings to the story, the isolation he sprinkles through the story that enables the reader to realise how alone this man is with his broken ankle halfway up or halfway down a mountain. I was wondering where the dread and horror was going to come from, as I said it’s subtle, but there is a very Mitch Sebourn turn which makes the story hit home like a hatchet to the face.
My Dear Brooklyn - a heartbreaking story of love and loss and the pain of long term illness. Sebourn does a marvellous job here at pulling at the heartstrings until they snap, and in that ensuing chaos that loss brings monstrous things are born, things that shake the very foundations of belief.
The Apostle - our protagonist who is down on her luck and desperately trying to get her career going again buys a building which once belonged to a climber. He’s died, suicide, but it wasn’t just his body that had been left behind, or his ghost, it was the blood spattered mural on the wall which displayed the mountain range that defeated him. This ones pretty creepy and a great concept that Sebourn delivers perfectly - I got chills, like our main protagonist!
Marianna - this one had some serious Stephen King ‘IT’ vibes, another knock out story from Sebourn who dances that fine line of quiet unsettling horror so well. This story builds from a childhood tragedy, which then turns into a living nightmare for our protagonists wife, but things are building, things are brewing and the moon that visited so long ago, back on that fateful night is bringing something with it, something that won’t leave until it claims what it wanted so long ago.
Feral - a retired police officer finds something in the woods, a key to unlock the puzzle of a case that remains open. One that he wished he and his friend could have closed, but this discovery, this might just blow the case wide open again. I ached to know a little more about this story, it’s paced wonderfully and the reveals as they come are nicely placed causing the story to deepen, but I needed a little more closure on this one.
Bleak - a short tale about a young man who decides to do his school project on a local folklore - a famous but failed artist, not in terms of his artwork, it still remains as stunning as they say he painted it. But in terms of his life, he’s failed - or has he created his greatest work of art to date? It’s eerie, it’s dark and I bloody loved it.
The Loneliest Road - this was a touching story of a mother and daughter and the ties that bind, how beauty can be made from ashes, that it’s never to late to change or be changed and that sometimes nothing sounds sweeter than a freshly strung guitar. But those strings, boy do they have a story to tell, and Sebourn is our conductor for this haunting tale.
The Hawthorn Room - a story that involves some cool body horror, it reminded me of frequency and invasion of the body snatchers - it’s a fabulous story that has a lot of heart, a lot of pain and a suffocating blanket of grief. One of my favourites in the collection - and the ending, brilliantly twisted!
Nondisclosure - an almost court room / investigation piece, this story dealing with a folklore of possible Native American origin. I enjoy these types of stories and it reminded me in its structure of Amityville Horror - I felt a little confused at one point, but kept going and the pay off was a very interesting story.
Thunder on the Mountain - This story was read on Papercuts (Brad Proctor & J’s talk show) and I listened to Mitch read this whilst reading along and it was a special event indeed. I love listening to writers read their work, it adds something to the story and this one is bloody brilliant. It has some creepy vibes to it that really get under your skin, a man who lost his wife on the mountain returns each year to process and hope for a discovery, to locate something he’s missed. This year in particular he finds something, something that he never knew he’d find, and something that will change the way he grieves forever.
The Red Curtain - we have an active shooter story here and Mitch does a wonderful and tactful job in creating this touching story and giving it a heart and soul. The elements of the story and the reason for the shooter are given a supernatural slant which adds the creep factor - a great and powerful story to end the collection on.
Mitch Sebourn shows once again with the stories in ‘Faces Beyond The Veil’ that he is a breath of fresh air in the indie horror scene. Most if not all of these stories find their mark and offer a perfect tasting board for those looking for a new writer - in this collection we get to glimpse the many facets of Sebourn’s writing, and all of them point to his brilliance at storytelling.
July 25, 2021
Sebourn is our tour guide as he takes us on a road trip across sinister landscapes.
This is my kind of horror - subdued and eerie, with an emphasis on characters and atmosphere. The stories featured in FACES BEYOND THE VEIL are a collection of dispirited people playing with the deck stacked against them. We know them, we’ve met them before. Maybe we’ve even been them ourselves. They’re down on their luck, trying one last time to turn things around.
The landscapes in the stories are bleak and ill-fated, reflecting the characters that inhabit them. We travel from one destination to the next, learning their secrets and experiencing their horrors.
The stories touch on a number of sub-genres, but never feel out of place. They connect on a more profound level, exploring themes of loneliness and desperation. No story gets lost in the shuffle here, which is a testament to Sebourn as a storyteller.
Sip and savor these stories like the whiskey indulged by their characters.
And remember to buckle up for the road trip.
This is my kind of horror - subdued and eerie, with an emphasis on characters and atmosphere. The stories featured in FACES BEYOND THE VEIL are a collection of dispirited people playing with the deck stacked against them. We know them, we’ve met them before. Maybe we’ve even been them ourselves. They’re down on their luck, trying one last time to turn things around.
The landscapes in the stories are bleak and ill-fated, reflecting the characters that inhabit them. We travel from one destination to the next, learning their secrets and experiencing their horrors.
The stories touch on a number of sub-genres, but never feel out of place. They connect on a more profound level, exploring themes of loneliness and desperation. No story gets lost in the shuffle here, which is a testament to Sebourn as a storyteller.
Sip and savor these stories like the whiskey indulged by their characters.
And remember to buckle up for the road trip.
July 25, 2021
Do you ever find that some writing is just an absolute joy to read, whether you fully understand the story or not? I know that might not make a lot of sense to some people, but it does to me. It's how the journey makes you feel, how it can fully immerse you with minimal effort, you know? Well, these are the kind of stories that you just appreciate no matter what the outcome. You take them for what they are, but if you dig a little deeper you know you'll find there's a lot more to it than you initially thought. I hope that makes sense. Anyway, there are plenty of stories in here which are a proper gut punch right off the bat, just crazy good, like Cactus Glass, Feral, and Marianna, to name but a few, but like I say, it always feels like the whole journey.
So, yeah, I've been meaning to read Mitch Sebourn for a while now, ever since I heard Kevin Whitten (WellReadBeard) talk about him, and I'm just so glad I started here.
One more thing I want to talk about. The Loneliest Road, in which the title of this collection comes from, is something very special indeed. It feels like it's almost autobiographical in a way, and I'm sure struggling artists who read it will feel connected to it.
Please pick this one up right now.
Start reading Mitch's work.
It's that good.
I'm going to read one of his novels soon.
Five stars.
So, yeah, I've been meaning to read Mitch Sebourn for a while now, ever since I heard Kevin Whitten (WellReadBeard) talk about him, and I'm just so glad I started here.
One more thing I want to talk about. The Loneliest Road, in which the title of this collection comes from, is something very special indeed. It feels like it's almost autobiographical in a way, and I'm sure struggling artists who read it will feel connected to it.
Please pick this one up right now.
Start reading Mitch's work.
It's that good.
I'm going to read one of his novels soon.
Five stars.
August 11, 2021
Faces Beyond the Veil is a collection of 15 short stories that are deftly crafted, delivering chills and thrills with ease. This was my first time reading the work of Mitch Sebourn and I was immediately impressed with his brilliant storytelling.
Most of the stories here are wonderfully good, although there were a few that hooked me in the beginning but could have used a bit more polish on their somewhat ambiguous endings. I'm not a fan of a conclusion that ends abruptly without a full explanation of what happened and there were a couple that were like that for me. I just don't have patience for endings that leave things open to interpretation, and I admit that's more of a personal preference of mine and not necessarily a reflection on Sebourn's craft.
But that aside, there were a few excellent ones that really stood out for me: "The Revocation" is an interesting twist on the "sold my soul to the devil" trope. "Nondisclosure" features Melody Mailer, an elderly attorney whose introduction sets the stage for what could be a fun bunch of further adventures from this character. I'd love to read more about her. And finally, my favorite of the bunch was "The Loneliest Road" which was murderously sinister but also heartbreakingly poignant at the same time.
Overall, this is a solid grouping that showcases some really masterful writing by Sebourn.
Most of the stories here are wonderfully good, although there were a few that hooked me in the beginning but could have used a bit more polish on their somewhat ambiguous endings. I'm not a fan of a conclusion that ends abruptly without a full explanation of what happened and there were a couple that were like that for me. I just don't have patience for endings that leave things open to interpretation, and I admit that's more of a personal preference of mine and not necessarily a reflection on Sebourn's craft.
But that aside, there were a few excellent ones that really stood out for me: "The Revocation" is an interesting twist on the "sold my soul to the devil" trope. "Nondisclosure" features Melody Mailer, an elderly attorney whose introduction sets the stage for what could be a fun bunch of further adventures from this character. I'd love to read more about her. And finally, my favorite of the bunch was "The Loneliest Road" which was murderously sinister but also heartbreakingly poignant at the same time.
Overall, this is a solid grouping that showcases some really masterful writing by Sebourn.
November 20, 2022
This is a 4.5 🌟 read rounded ⬆️ to 5 🌟.
An exceptional collection of horror reads! Highly recommended.
An exceptional collection of horror reads! Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews