Sometimes, survival is a sin.\nKo Mai Phaaw, a remote island off the coast of Thailand, awaits its visitors. They will cross the sea at dawn. They always do. All creatures seek retreat in the end.\nOn the rickety boat is Amity Collins and her brother, Caleb. They have waited years to leave behind their claustrophobic Australian town, an overbearing mother, and their shared traumatic past. For them, this is the long overdue trip of a lifetime.\nAlso aboard is Robert, a burned-out American businessman in the throes of a midlife crisis. Only he's not alone. Bedbugs and regrets he can't shake have hitched a ride, too.\nTobias, the German backpacker, is in wanderlust. And denial.\nFinally, there is Susan Sycamore, a woman with a horrific secret. She has journeyed from country to country, leaving a trail of carnage in her wake.\nAll of these lives are about to converge on a single strip of sugar white sand. "Discover paradise," the advertisement read. "Come and feed the monkeys!" It sounded like such a good idea at the time.\nBut on this beach, blood will be shed, and no one will ever be the same.\nAn uncompromising novel of surreal terror from the author of HOUSE OF SIGHS and THE FALLEN BOYS.

A Place For Sinners: A Novel of Survival Horror

Literature & Fiction

Dries, Aaron

Genre Fiction

Aaron Dries

Shock Totem 11: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

Malerman, Josh

Matthews, Mark

Trent, Brian

Ford, Robert

Stroup, Chad

Totem, Shock

Theodoridou, Natalia

Firetog, Trevor

Kuriata, Chris

Shock Totem Publications

A Novel of Psychological Horror 
Memories scream behind every blink: the footage of Marshall’s son, Noah, and of his long, fatal fall. Remains beneath a blood-stained morgue sheet. Good times, shattered. 
Marshall’s hunger to understand the reason for his son’s suicide devours his life. It appears that the boy’s secret will remain buried with him—until Marshall discovers something tucked into the seams of a musty, old teddy bear. It is a portable thumb-drive, the contents painting a chilling portrait of a child who was desperate to be heard, and his mysterious Internet friend who was only too happy to listen. And whisper, whisper, whisper.
Step by step, Marshall must track these digital footprints into very real and very dark woods, unaware that he is being led into a maze of lies and violence from which he may never return.
The Fallen Boys is a gut-wrenching novel of extreme psychological horror from the author of House of Sighs and Where the Dead Go to Die.
“…A terrific book. Beautiful and brutal. Heartbreaking and incredibly emotional.” – Mick Garris (director of Stephen King’s The Stand, and creator of Masters of Horror)
“A tale you will never forget, as told by one of the most important new voices in the genre.” – Hellnotes

The Fallen Boys: A Novel of Psychological Horror

Black T-Shirt Books

Review\n"To call Aaron Dries anything less than a master of horror is to misunderstand the deftly precise nature with which he can affect a sleepless night. Wielding otherness like a carefully honed weapon, Dries reveals the monstrosities of the mundane and the beauty within the things that haunt. A storyteller like no other, it's a pleasure to be at his mercy." 
- Michael Varrati, filmmaker\n"Aaron Dries is a powerhouse in horror fiction." 
- Kaaron Warren, author of The Grief Hole\n"Instead of using ink, Aaron Dries fills his pen with residue that nightmares leave behind on the inside of your skull. If you love horror in its purest, most elemental state, you'll love his work." 
- Attack of the Queerwolf! Podcast\n"Aaron Dries writes horror that lodges in your gut and heart like shards of glass. Powerfully emotive, confronting, intense, and endlessly compelling." 
- Alan Baxter, author of The Gulp\n"An artist of the sublime, the surreal and the sickening, who paints with gore and splintered bone richly emotive portraits of trauma and personal tragedy." 
- J. Ashley-Smith, author of The Attic Tragedy\nThe story of a boy who dreamed of becoming a man… But dreamed up a monster instead\nYou’re on the run. Marked. Don’t think about the kid you used to be when you’re homeless and dumpster-diving in the rain. Just eat whatever you find to keep your engine full. Because the shadow with too many teeth wants you tired.\nYou’re easier to catch when you’re tired.\nIt has hunted you since the summer of 1994, back when we confessed who we were through mixtapes. When every movie at the video store had dirty heads. You were thirteen and thought you knew who you were. Only the shadow with too many teeth knew you better. It still does. And it won’t stop. Not until you come home.\nBack to where it all began.\nPart cosmic horror, part coming-of-age monster story, DIRTY HEADS is a terrifying read from the author of HOUSE OF SIGHS, THE FALLEN BOYS, and A PLACE FOR SINNERS

Dirty Heads: A novella of cosmic coming-of-age horror

A busload of captives on an express ride to terror!
It’s the summer of 1995, and the passengers of the Sunday bus into town have realized that something is very, very wrong with their driver. They don’t know that she began her day planning to kill herself. But they know that she’s threatening to kill them. They began the ride as her passengers, but now they’re her captives. She’s already shown she won’t hesitate to use that gun in her hand, and no one wants to be the next to die. They have no idea where she’s taking them, who will be left alive when they get there, or what‘s in store for the survivors. With a madwoman at the wheel, the bus has gone far off its route, deep into insanity. And for most of the passengers, the next stop will be their last.

House of Sighs

Samhain Publishing

The road to forgiveness is covered in blood! Marshall Deakins has tried to come to terms with the tragic suicide of his young son.  But it still tortures him. His search for answers will lead him down a twisted path paved with secrets and grotesque lies. Instead of peace he finds madness, held captive as part of a deranged plan filled with suffering…and blood.  As the nature of his captors’ insanity is revealed, Marshall will need to confront the truth about his son and his own past if he hopes to have a future.

The Fallen Boys

Sometimes, survival is a sin. Amity Collins has been deaf since she was seven. That was the day the wild dogs attacked, fighting for her bones. The day her father died. This trip to Thailand is exactly what Amity and her brother, Caleb, need-freedom. As their boat slits through saltwater, Amity, Caleb and the other passengers are having the time of their lives. They watch the island emerge on the horizon. Its trees twitch, as though impatient or hungry. Within its shadows, secrets best kept hidden will be unearthed. Sacrifices will be made. Terror will reach out to grasp Amity, as real and frightening as what's lurking in the dark.

A Place for Sinners

This award-winning, psychological experience is back in print, and includes the exclusive sequel The Sound of his Bones Breaking, a novella that will leave you truly shaken. "This taut, grisly thriller reads like a sick and twisted extreme horror SPEED. You don't know who, if anybody, will make it. Catch this bus at your own risk." - Eric Red, The Hitcher and Near Dark Board for free. But the cost might be your life. In House of Sighs, Local bus driver, Liz Frost, pulls the gun from her mouth and decides to live with her loneliness for one more day. She dresses, combs her hair, and goes to work. Nine souls board her route that fateful morning in rural Australia, nine souls who Liz drags back to her home against their will. She wants to build a new family from these passengers, men and women who are willing to kill to avoid becoming her kin. The bus leaves a trail of carnage in its wake as it rockets towards a house that has held its secrets for far too long, a place where crows now gather, ready to feed on whatever is left behind. "Prepare to be blown away." - Dread Central Includes the sequel novella The Sound of his Bones Breaking: Trauma has teeth. Big ones. And it's always hungry for seconds. Aiden and Danny down their beers in the open bar overlooking the road, legs brushing together, about as far as they let their public displays of affection go in that part of Australia. The warm breeze and pounding music--their last happy memory. Everything changes when the taxi pulls up and its drunken driver stumbles out, starting a street brawl that leaves Danny broken and bleeding on the ground. In an attempt to give his lover the space he needs to heal, Aiden accepts an employment opportunity in Thailand, and the two men set off overseas, their fates sealed air-tight within the confines of the airplane. But in the claustrophobic hush of their tiny Bangkok apartment, and while Aiden goes off to work, instead of mending, Danny's old scars begin to sing. The lonely walks. The woman cooking bones in a vat of broth, whispering at him to eat the parts that hurt. The flies nobody but Danny can hear. A burning desire to trace his heritage of hurt back to ground zero, and there, find someone to blame. The Sound of his Bones Breaking is the dread-infused sequel to House of Sighs. "Aaron Dries is a master of emotional horror. And there is horror here, but it's heightened by his authentic characters and their raw emotions. Dries makes you feel, makes your heart break. He also surprises you, taking the story in directions you'd never see coming." - Mark Allan Gunnells, author of Asylum and Companions in Ruin Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing--Tales from the Darkest Depths.

Crystal Lake Publishing

There are monsters in this world. And they used to be us. Now it's time to euthanize to survive in a hospice where Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. Euthanize to survive Post-infection Chicago. Christmas. Inside The Hospice, Emily and her fellow nurses do their rounds. Here, men and women live out their final days in comfort, segregated from society, and are then humanely terminated before fate turns them into marrow-craving monsters known as 'Smilers.' Outside these imposing walls, rabid protesters swarm with signs, caught up in the heat of their hatred. Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. But in a world where mortality means nothing, where guns are drawn in fear and nobody seems safe anymore - at what cost will this pursuit come? And through it all, the soon to be dead remain silent, ever smiling. Such is their curse. This emotional, political novel comes from two of horror's freshest voices, and puts a new spin on an eternal topic: the undead. In the spirit of George A Romero meets Jack Ketchum, Where the Dead Go to Die it is an unforgettable epilogue to the zombie genre, one that will leave you shaken and questioning right from wrong...even when it's the only right left. It won't be long before that snow-speckled ground will be salted by blood.

Where the Dead Go to Die

Gunnells, Mark Allan

Sometimes, survival is a sin. Amity Collins, a 20-year-old deaf woman, and her gay brother Caleb, have lived a sheltered life since the death of their father thirteen years ago, a day of gunshots and wild dogs. Now the time has come to escape their mother's hoarded home in Australia, and a history of trauma they haven't been able to reconcile--until now. Their adventure abroad isn't just wanted. It's essential. With flights booked, they leave their claustrophobic town behind, nervous yet hopeful. The Collins siblings backpack through the jungles of Thailand, drink and dance in Bangkok, accumulating friends. There is laughter, budding love, delicious risk. Amity has never felt more awed. Or alive. Everything changes when they purchase boat tickets to a tourist trap the locals call Bastard Island. 'Discover paradise, ' the advertisement reads. 'Come and feed the monkeys!' But there on that remote beach, surrounded by people Amity doesn't know or trust, the trees twitch as though impatient or hungry. From within those shadows, savagery is about to be unleashed. The tide of teeth is near. Those sands will run red. And on Bastard Island, even survival is a sin. A Place for Sinners is a surreal, ultra-violent odyssey into the absolute heart of darkness in us all. It will snatch you by the throat, blindside you with its twists, and leave you too broken to ever travel again.

A Place For Sinners

Poltergeist Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dries, Aaron. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Dries, Aaron

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dries, Aaron. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Place For Sinners: A Novel of Survival Horror

Shock Totem 11: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

The Fallen Boys: A Novel of Psychological Horror

Dirty Heads: A novella of cosmic coming-of-age horror

House of Sighs

The Fallen Boys

A Place for Sinners

House of Sighs

Where the Dead Go to Die

A Place For Sinners