#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Bodies of Work by Clay McLeod Chapman (and a bonus story collection)

Today on the giveaway I have two books for one winner, pairing a well known authors ARC with a story collection from a trusted small press. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American Library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Last week's winner was Emily from NY. Now on to this week's giveaway. 

I cannot review every book, even if I really like the author, even if I really want to. Today's book is a great example of that. But thankfully, others are there to do the work as seen below with Chapman's upcoming novella and its starred review in LJ.

Bodies of Work by Clay McCleod Chapman

Library Journal review:

STAR Winston Kemper is alone in the world, working as a church janitor and living in a one-room apartment. In his home he is creating an epic work of words and pictures, written and drawn across the floors, walls, and a number of notebooks. The room is shared with the women Winston has murdered to take their voices. But the Butterfly Girls have found a way to speak to Winston and secretly plot their revenge. Their voices act as a chorus, providing commentary as they argue. These discussions become complicated and uncomfortable as Winston’s history is revealed. Chapman (Acquired Taste) never allows readers to make a simple judgment, and the book is filled with creepiness and unease from the start. Readers will fall into the book even as they sense the dreaminess is filled with nightmares and terrors. 

VERDICT Blurring between dreams and reality, this novella explores the world of a labyrinthine, disturbed mind. Chapman’s short fiction is an excellent introduction to his work, and this latest is another one of his excellent portrayals of complicated emotions in horror. Readers of Cynthia Pelayo’s “Chicago Saga” and her poetry collection Into the Forest and All the Way Through will especially find this book compelling. --Lila Denning

Bodies of Work comes out next week on April 7, 2026. Thank you to Titan Books for the giveaway copy of the ARC.

While I have your attention, I wanted to also let you know about an up and coming voice, and their story collection from a trusted small press.

Nothing Has Happened to You: Stories by Rory Say. From the book description on the Lethe Press site:

Nothing Has Happened to You is a collection of short stories where the ordinary twists into the uncanny and the familiar becomes strange. Memory, family, and grief blur with phantoms that may or may not exist, and the smallest moments—opening a door, telling a story, looking into the dark—carry the weight of dread.

A young girl confides in a silent companion no one else can see, who grows smaller each time he returns. A lover reveals she has been dead for years and will soon be forgotten. A tenant discovers his basement suite may not exist at all, except as an echo of guilt. Elsewhere, lost children, haunted objects, and voices from the grave stir quietly at the edges of daily life.

Rory Say, whose work has appeared in Weird Horror, Dark Recesses, Metastellar, The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify and more, writes with precision, lyricism, and an unshakable sense of unease. Each tale is self-contained, yet together they form a world where nothing is certain, and dread lingers long after the last page.

Nothing has Happened to You is already out and you can add it to your collections here. Thank you to Lethe Press for this copy to giveaway to one of you.

Enter once and you are entered going forward. In the coming weeks, I will be featuring books that I have reviewed in the April issues of LJ and Booklist. Stay tuned.

Good luck!