Melancholies & Wanderlust, 2

Throughout the world is found myriad out-of-the-way places, unsettling vistas that travelers pass through quickly, if unable to avoid entirely. Sometimes, the fears dredged up by such places are unfounded, a mere symptom of an unfamiliar road. Of course, there are actual places to be feared too. Masked by vagaries and altered names, a careful listener may find some clue - subtle to the uninitiated, bold elsewise - that a macabre tale comes from such a place, one stranger and to be feared beyond all others. Shiver at the revelation and hope someone similarly knowledgeable has merely latched onto the rumors, deciding by their own twisted purview to attach a lie to something so horribly true.

In short, Hope It's Fiction.

Melancholies & Wanderlust adds twelve more stories to the Hope It's Fiction series. At the heart of that old, misty country, hidden among the towering trees and the enshrouding mists lies a lake with no name. It is a place of surreal stillness, a place that seems untouched by time, untrodden by mortal feet. A place where thoughts are left to wander. This second book forgoes active scares for a creeping existential worry that may see the end of one, many, or all.

Tread near the smooth-stoned shores of that unnamed lake in The Sailor of No Sea I Know and The Beauty of the Lake. Uncover more of the secret of Brickwood in New Neighbor. See characters return, as in Another Day, A Matter of Trust, Coincidence, and Degenerate. And see that mist-shrouded world expand further in Cat Person, Trash, and The Flooding of Mr. Fitz's Cellar. These stories and more await those ready for some circumspection.

Do not be overly entranced by these tales of unsettling and thought-provoking horror, even with their subtle suggestions toward even grander terrors. All you need to do is Hope It's Fiction.