Hungry for You by A.M. Harte

Hungry for You by A M Harte is a short fiction collection that examines the links between love, relationships and death.  There are ten short tales each with their own take on these themes. My personal favourites are listed below.

Promises – An infected man watches as his girlfriend begins to turn into a zombie. In just three short pages Harte nicely sets the tone for what to expect from the other tales in the book.

Hungry for You – This story was one of the highlights of the collection for me. It reads like a police procedural but with added zombies. Some interesting ideas about how the undead are seen, and used by the living. This reads like a prologue to a larger story and I would be keen to read more.

A Prayer to Garlic – I like when an author takes an existing mythos and turns it on its head. What happens when an unfeeling creature like a zombie begins to care?

Dead Man’s Rose–A women is trapped in an abusive relationship. She finds the strength to deal with her predicament only to end up even more trapped than before. The author uses both types of entrapment as effective metaphors for one another.

The Cure – The story feels like a homage to the work of George A. Romero. I was pleased to see the inclusion of a shopping mall in the collection. What is a zombie story without an iconic location? Again Harte takes existing mythology and twists it around making something new.

The Perfect Song – A darkly comic story of music, and tea addiction. A very simple story with the bare minimum of characters set in a single location that is made all the more effective by its confines. Fancy a brew?

I really enjoyed Hungry For You. The author has taken time to play around with existing zombie and horror conventions, and this has some entertaining results. Proof again that there is some excellent short fiction currently available if you are willing to look for it.

Currently the collection is only available as an e-book but the good news is that it will have a paper release in March.