White Trash and Recycled Nightmares

by Rebecca Rowland, Mary SanGiovanni (Foreword)

Foreword by Mary SanGiovanni

A workaholic splits his time between home and hotel rooms until an anonymous cryptic message arrives, setting off a wrinkle in the time continuum and slowly shredding his sanity. Elsewhere, a woman's jealousy over her spouse's connection with their only child boils over, leading her to see monsters everywhere except the mirror. University fraternity brothers discover that a cruel prank has dire consequences but the full extent of their punishment is yet to come, while an intrepid hiker explores an abandoned Cold War facility hidden within a Massachusetts mountain only to realize that military secrets aren't the only things buried within.

From witches, wendigos, and werecats to sirens, sadists, and serial killers, Rebecca Rowland serves readers a twenty-tale meal of cosmic, creature, and quiet horror in platters heaping with unsettling trepidation. In Rowland's long-awaited follow-up to The Horrors Hiding in Plain Sight, a lighted room provides no safe haven, and in the darkest corner of the basement waits a ravenous dread. The most sinister objects of fear are never truly discarded...just repurposed. Includes a foreword by Mary SanGiovanni.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Collections, Anthologies

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 10, 2023

About the author

Rebecca Rowland is a Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author, a Bram Stoker Award-nominated editor, and the recipient of a Godless 666 Horror Fiction Award. She is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association and International Thriller Writers, and having lived in Massachusetts for most of her life, she chooses to set most of her fiction there.
Despite earning graduate degrees in English, Education, and Information Science, she miraculously managed to pay off her student loans before retirement and/or death.
In her spare time, she pets her cats, eats cheese, and drinks vodka, though not necessarily in that order.
She is represented by Becky LeJeune of Bond Literary Agency.

Reviews

[Hail Hydra! ~Dave Anderson~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael poked at the gold with what remained of his index finger and turned the charm over so he could read the inscription. It was only one word.

Muse.

Then he fell to his knees and sobbed.

[myreadingescapism · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always with a collection of stories, some are great, some aren’t… majority of these were good! Fun little collection!

[thevampireslibrary · Rating 5 out of 5]

When deadskypub kindly sent me an ARC of rebeccas new book, I screamed and I haven't stopped since, this was an incredible collection of short dark stories that contain some of my absolute favourite tropes in horror, creepy children, strong female leads, men I can hate on, supernatural beings and just all round sinister AF vibes? I want to absorb the paper its written on into my bloodstream, I CANNOT accurately express how amazing this was, fans of horror this will be your new favourite for sure, individually all of these are worthy of five stars, each one is unique but all have an inherently disturbing vibe, I also felt a strong theme of female empowerment woven throughout the entire collection, I can't get enough of this authors writing style, it makes me angry its that good, an insidious collection of quiet horror that will fuel your nightmares 😍

[Just Another Final Girl Review (Brittany) Levely-Connolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I will grow monsters.”

White Trash and Recycled Nightmares is an anthology based on a theme of human monstrosity and is an exploration of humanity at its worst. Yet it is written in such a way that Rebecca creates an emotional bond or empathy between the reader and all the characters that each story the monster is hidden behind his humanity and often is only revealed in the end.
I loved that she will upend common tropes to create unexpected twists and turns in the plot so that the end is never where you thought the story was taking you.
Many stories had me saying “holy shit , wtf Rebecca”.
Although this book for me wasn’t horror that necessarily gave me nightmares, it is one that totally horrified me.


“My teacher said the perfect costumes are the ones that surprise people. I have an idea for my costume,”…”

I would say that the same applies to short horror stories. The author only has a few pages to create a narrative and emotional, psychological and/or physical impact upon the reader and the best way to do so with horror is to create something that is entirely unexpected and surprising.
Rebecca Rowland’s White Trash and Recycling Nightmares collection is a demonstration of her ability to create shocking, surprising stories that lead the reader in one direction, but leaves subtle clues so when the twist occurs the reader is shocked, thrown off guard and yet isn’t blindsided.

“…that a writer’s motivation to create was like a ghost. It wasn’t something he could call upon at will; it just appeared when it wanted to haunt him.”

Every story is different and disturbing. For fans of American psycho and Maeve fly and The Wasp Factory or Eric LaRocca stories

[Melissa Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't realize this was a bunch of short stories until I had read a couple of chapters. I would have liked to have known what happened to the characters, it seemed most of the stories didn't finish. Finally I didn't always understand what was going on in the stories.

[Kat]

Dnf. Read story 1 . It was meh

[Therese Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of nightmarish short stories are definitely going to be recycling themselves over and over again in my head.

So I better just go and read the rest of Rowland’s work….

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Rowland to be a very fresh & entertaining voice in horror, which i read a lot of - i do think this collection could have benefited by being split in two, as the stories' content/characters (loner women; smokers; borderline alcoholics) and twist endings become repetitive. that being said i enjoyed the atmosphere of Rowland's work along with her voice so much that this didn't detract from how much fun i had reading. will definitely look out for more work from her in the future

[Melissa Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another knockout collection of short horror tales by THE up-and-coming queen of all things creepy! Rowland is a master at creating stories that are both cerebral and visceral, which I fully enjoy. I love a horror story that not only disgusts me, but also makes me think deeper about the underlying themes.

I don’t want to include spoilers since this collection has yet to be officially released, but suffice it to say I disliked most of the male characters (which is a good thing), found all of the children creepy, and loved all the strong females! I highly recommend the story “The Thickening” for its satirical commentary on social media culture. However, all of the tales in this anthology are individually worthy of five stars.

Thank you to Edelweiss for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[K.C. Grifant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deliciously disturbing! I received an ARC copy of this book and could not put it down.

Rowland creates wonderfully complex characters whose stories draw you in like a siren song. With twists reminiscent of Tales from the Crypt (but so much more unsettling), this dark collection will mess with your mind in the best possible way.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

"His body will slowly decay into fertilizer. In the autumn, bright orange pumpkins will grow above him, atop of everything else rotting beside him, the secrets I've hidden deep within the soil. My harvest will be fat and healthy. In the fall, I will pluck orange happiness from the group, scoop out its insides, and carve terrifying faces in its flesh. I will grow monsters."

Jesus, that was some real bleak shit. White Trash and Recycled Nightmares is a collection of suburban horror at it's very finest. Packed to the brim with the most beloved of horror tropes, it feels both comforting and familiar, while being interesting enough to maintain a refreshing and unique edge. It's an intensely depressing little story collection, and it's all really rather eclectic with the horrors ranging from the mundane to the supernatural. It's insanely difficult to express just how brilliant of a novel this one is, there's a heavy sinister atmosphere that lingers around every single story, all of them impactful and brutal and savage. Each story is inherently unique, and absolutely brings something new to the table, yet almost all of them feel interlocked with the same disturbing atmosphere and suburban vibe.

It's a quiet kind of collection, the horrors biding their time until they creep up on you, perhaps it would be fair to say that all of these stories share more than just their unsettling qualities, they're all explorations of humanity at it's very worst, at it's most vile. It's truly a nightmare inducing collection, where there are horrors and monsters at every turn, but most especially, in the mirror. It often takes till the climax of the story for the true terror to be revealed, but each tale does a fantastic job of stringing the readers along, leaving them desperate for answers. Rebecca Rowland writes with a marvelous sense of beauty, injecting some much-needed respite from the utter somber and lonesome feelings brought about by this novel.

"The growling was louder, much louder this time. It was Pete. At least, it was once Pete. Something else had put on a Pete skin and was walking around in it, like a master puppeteer. Once-Pete ducked its head into the tent and positioned its face so that it was facing them. It was impossible to know where it was looking. Its eyes were missing. In their place were wet, black sockets. Once-Pete opened its mouth but did not move its lips. Instead, a Pete voice played from somewhere inside of the ghoul, a record player on a permanent skip."

Although, all the common horror tropes are present, and to most of us, these stories will have a familiar edge, Rowland does a brilliant job of inverting these tropes, yanking the rug out from under our feet and managing to shock us. Sure, there are subtle clues interspersed throughout, but most of the time, the twists creep up on you out of nowhere, making this a really rather unexpected and astonishing little collection. It's a weird little collection, too, full of feral, untamed stories that are at once both intimate and personal, while managing to have mass appeal. White Trash and Recycled Nightmares is the singular collection of suburban American existential dread and spiraling directionless, unmotivated lives. It's the complete and utter shattering of the unremarkable. It's a plunge into a true nightmare.

When it comes to any story collection, there are always going to be favorites - All of them were brilliant, and it's so hard to pick a favorite, but Layover, Thug and Monsters refuse to leave my mind even now.

"The last image in his memory was of its ashen face, its wet, black eyes staring straight into his while the gaping maw of a mouth, awash with jagged yellow teeth, opened wide to attach itself to his flesh."

[C.I.I. Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is jarring in the best imaginable way. Many of the stories start out akin to a 21st Century update to certain John Updike stories - exploring the ennui and existential dread of directionless life in America's middle class. These characters live and breathe, because you, the reader, have met them at some point. Maybe they're your neighbors or coworkers, or just somebody you pass on the street or sit next to in the doctor's office.

That's how these stories START.

Then they take an O. Henry sized left turn. Some of these twists are so surprising, and so sudden, I found myself re-reading lines to assure myself I had read that correctly. The nice lady at the doctor's office suddenly has a dark secret. That neighbor you've been friends with for months has dark, dark plans for her family. Those handheld devices we use to record our every little action start to appear far more nefarious in the wrong hands. These stories had me feeling like the meme of the guy blinking in disbelief at what he's just witnessed. I WAS that guy throughout this collection. I loved every second of it.

There are definitely some full out supernatural scares in the mix that are a pure blast, but the best monsters in this book are the ones you might already know.

[Kimyona Dietter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally getting a chance to read this book by someone who never stops amazing me. It is 20 bite sized stories that can be read individually or as a whole book. Besides being a publisher, Ms. Rowland is a gifted wordsmith who can take ideas and weave them in to gold.

From the first story I was sucked in and thinking to myself, "Where is this going," to unknowingly be catapulted through a twist which left me shocked and unsettled. The crazy thing, when I knew this was Ms. Rowland's modus operandi, she still kept me on my toes; not only amazing me with her endings, but also dragging me into the depths of her deplorable delights.

The pacing of each tale moved smoothly blending confidence in skill with a knowing comfort in the audience for this book. From the title and cover, one does not have to guess the content of this book. There was no turbulence of surprise or dancing around concepts. Just a smooth written flight of dread and terror.

You should give this a read. Recommend this book to your friends and take it with you on vacation. You won't regret it.

[Alexander Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sad to say that this is my first exploration of Rebecca Rowland's work! Took me long enough! I love a collection with an overarching theme or style. White Trash and Recycled Nightmares is just that: the secrets and the lies and the depravity behind everyday life. The horrors in this book will make you lock your doors. Short story horror collections, no matter the subject matter, are just fun, and they always remind me of Halloween and the celebration of horror fiction in general. This book was that, short stories of every trope and subgenre, but most of all filled with my favourite thing in fiction: the shattering of the idyllic and 'normal' by forces of the Other or the Strange. In this case, even by forces in your own kitchen. Rebecca is a great writer and I'm eager to read more.

[John Opalenik · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introduction to Rebecca Rowland's writing if you want a sampler platter to get a sense of her considerable skill and range. My favorite story was The Found Boys. It gives the sense that there's an incredibly rich lore to be explored, but we see the snippet that the characters in the story do. The Perfect Costume also had a creeping sense of dread throughout with a great payoff at the end.

I highly recommend this collection and I'm excited to read more of her work.

[Tracey Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of short stories. The title really is pretty appropriate as you quickly find none of the characters in these stories very likable and some of the stories are quite bizarre. It’s been a while since I’ve read a collection of short stories like this and they were entertaining very different from each other. If that’s your kind of thing, then you will probably like this book.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has solid writing and intriguing characters. A lot of great openings that suck you in, but like many short story collections, they end abruptly. For me, it was difficult to relate or connect to any of the stories as most of the male characters are horrible people. Also, the constant twist ending start to wear thin about halfway through the book.

[Kellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

"ChatGPT, what does a conversation between two men look like?"

After the second story, you can predict the outcome of every tale that follows. I enjoyed the premise and themes of the stories (and the 10/10 title of the book), but the dialogue just fell so flat in so many of the stories. Audible groans.

[Becky]

Rowland is such a hugely talented author! Her work is unsettling and thought provoking. It's also thoroughly entertaining--in a very dark way :)

This collection is a great introduction to her writing. I promise anyone who picks it up is going to want more from Rowland!

[Eric Guignard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wicked fun and frightening collection of horror short stories by award-winning author Rebecca Rowland. I really enjoyed these tales—exciting and dark, many filled with righteous vengeance against wrong do-ers. High recommendation to fans of the scary short form! Five out of Five stars

[Carolynne aka Saucy Chicken · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like short stories, you'll probably like this one. I'm not particularly a fan of short stories, but I can give credit where it's due.

My favorite story was the one about the little girl and her aunt.

[Melanie Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

First time reading this author, very impressed. Much like the great Stephen King these stories run an entertaining gamut, from very scary to amusing, thought-provoking to chilling. Some stories stood out far more than others, but overall an excellent read

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of the stories follow the same format with big twists that mainly land punctuating them, but the writing and fleshing out of the characters are what make this one a must read. I enjoyed the hell out of this and would gladly read anything else this author comes up with!

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

L

[Aaron Lebold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of stories. Very descriptive prose and variation in concept and execution. Definitely worth checking out.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Marc Fitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing is exceptional. Clear, crisp, spare.

[Gevera Piedmont · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebecca is just so good! Every story was great.

[Joel B · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book of short stories, similar themes of lonely characters makes them vulnerable and the stories more tense.

A brilliant mix of stories made this a really enjoyable and fun read

[Clay Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book. Each story was unique in its own way and spooky in its own way. If you love horror, you MUST read this book!