I loved We Can Never Leave This Place, so I was very excited to read this set of stories. However, these stories just didn't grip me the way I had hoped they would. The titular story left a lot to be desired at the end - some sort of wrap up, police report, something. The other two had interesting concepts, but again, they just didn't hold my attention or leave me feeling the way We Can Never Leave This Place did. A solid three-star read.

This book contains three shortish horror novellas, each of a different story and characters all together. All together, i gave this book a 3.5/5, but individually i’d rate them a bit different.

“Things have gotten worse since we last spoke”
I’d give this one a 4/5, I definitely enjoyed this one the most out of three of them. I really liked the format of the emails and chat messages and I felt really immersed in the interesting, albeit fucked up story.

“The Enchantment”
I’d give this one a 2/5, I didn’t quite enjoy this one as much as I wanted to. I found the story fell flat and the characters were very two dimensional. It had some good gore moments but the ending just left me feeling let down and slightly confused.

“You’ll find it’s like that all over”
I’d give this one a 3/5, It was the middle ground for me. I enjoyed the strange little story and it definitely kept me enthralled the whole time, but again, it felt very lacklustre. I found myself questioning why the main character was going along with anything… just politeness seems waaaay too little for the plot.

Overall, it was a fun read and i’d recommend it to anyone who likes shock value stories.

I thought the premise for this story collection was interesting, but it didn't meet my expectations based on the publisher's description. The build up in each story didn't deliver the explosive revelations the individual stories seemed to promise. There were moments of well-written gore, and the cover is captivating, but overall I wasn't wowed by the stories inside and didn't actually recognize the endings as such when they arrived.

I appreciated the variation in prose and the effort at different narrative styles in each story. This could be an enjoyable read for someone looking for a quick, entry-level creepiness.

Thank you NetGalley & Titan Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke-
Right away I loved the layout and the writing style, which immediately drew me in and left me sitting there grossed out. Although, the immediate comfortability between these two characters first communications was a little unbelievable... and the frantic speed in which their relationship seemed to intensify afterword. I was only able to read about halfway through & had to take a break. To my surprise, I kept finding myself thinking about these characters throughout the day, so I was a bit disappointed with how abruptly it ended.

The Enchantment-
A mother desperately holds onto her faith about the afterlife.
This was my favorite & stood out the most in the collection.

You’ll find it’s like that all over-
One neighbor find himself cornered, after choosing to stay on good terms with the other due to his crushing fear of being impolite

Kindness Kills/ F**k Politeness

These 3 stories are vastly different from each other, yet all focus on the base human need to connect with something or someone. And lastly, the power of persuasion and mental health.

Things have gotten worse since we last spoke is a dark and gripping tale of obsession and love gone to far. The titular tale in this collection had me wanting more. I love the style of the story, set up as emails and IM messenger. Not since Deity by Matt Wesolovski have I been so absorbed

A must read

The main reason I requested this book was the first story being an epistolary story. But sadly I began to lose interest after a few correspondence. Other stories too could not hold my interest. For this genre, the stories (I feel) take too much time to build intrigue. And I am a very impatient reader. I'm sorry but this book didn't work for me.
The cover and title are very striking though.

THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE AND OTHER MISFORTUNES is an unsettling novella collection that takes inspiration from the biblical and the bizarre, with a thematic focus on the base human need for connection – where the horror is in how easily that can be manipulated. The titular story is the stand-out of the three; an epistolary tale of connection and obsession that escalates quickly and skirts into gore territory. It left me feeling deep, unsettled dread (the ideal result).

The cover made me pick it up – it’s such a haunting image, 10/10 would put a print of it on my wall – and the first story made me read on.

Eric LaRocca has a unique writing style. His stories draw you in, disturb you and always contain deeper meanings. They also tend to confuse me in parts,but it's all part of deciphering those deeper meanings. There's just something special about his work.

These stories are tied together by the character's needs for connections. Whether it was a connection with others or with God or faith, those connections were powerful. The author notes after the stories that these were things that he has experienced and therefore influenced his work.

Yes, these are horror stories and they have their disturbing aspects. But, they also make you think and allow you to relate to them in ways that are meaningful to the individual reader.

I will continue to read this author's work and am definitely a fan. I gave this book 5 ⭐️.

I enjoyed the titular story most, however, the other two novellas lacked the same sense of atmosphere and dread. . Whiile THGWSWLS was intentionally vague with specific horrific details, the other two stories seemed underdeveloped. I hope that this author writes a full-length novel, as I would love to read longer works within this style.

I’ve always loved LaRocca’s unsettling writing. I read things have gotten worse since we last spoke about a year ago, and it’s haunted me ever since. In this collection, the Enchantment stood out to me. Reminiscent of King’s The Shining, the story follows a similar plot but delves deeper into the religious back story, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The only thing I’d say is I wish there was more. The story itself was spooky, full of eerie twists and turns, and really did have me on the edge of my seat. But after finishing it, I realised I’d wished I’d known more about the characters, it would’ve added a lot to the shock element of the terrible episodes in their life. Overall, the pieces were brilliant, but escalated too dramatically, too quickly, for their short length.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

A collection of three very unsettling tales. Spooky and macabre but not overwhelmingly horrifying. The kind of stories that fill you with dread and unease and leave you a bit spooked at night time. A perfect fall read.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: none
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

Help, this was awful, and I mean that as a compliment.

What we have there are three thematically connected but otherwise distinct horror stories, which are queer in the sense that some of the involved characters are queer, rather than the horror is itself queer. I’m drawing that distinction somewhat cautiously because I don’t want to make sweeping statements about how queerness should (or does) manifest in modern horror. But I’m still so used to queerness being a direct source of horror to the mainstream that the kind of queer horror I’m most comfortable with is as a reader involves queer characters but isn’t directly queer focused in its themes.

Anyway, how the hell do you talk about horror: “I was deeply discomforted by these stories but in a way that reflected well on the skill and intentions of the author”? I admired the tonal and stylistic range between all three stories, although the first is probably the most impressively “voicey” of the three. In fact, it was probably a little bit unbalancing because, for me, it was the most striking and also incidentally the longest, taking up about the first 50% of the book, while the middle story is takes you to about 85%, and the final story fills up the last 15%. It’s probably an unfair quirk of perception, but the fact there’s only three stories, and they decrease so noticeably in length … it kind of makes the book as a whole feel like it’s deflating as it goes? Like an old party balloon. Or, um, a post-ejaculatory penis. The last story is the closest to optimistic that they get (which is, y’know, a highly qualified statement) so in that respect it’s a softer landing for the reader. But it also, perhaps inevitably, felt like a weaker one.

The first story is about the relationship between two women that evolves following a chance meeting on a queer ListServ back in the early 2000s. The exchange of emails and IMs is framed as part of a longer piece of journalism attached to an on-going police investigation, so you know from the beginning that it’s all going nowhere good. The second story concerns two parents dealing with the aftermath of their son’s suicide and involves hotel-sitting on an island over the winter and a mysterious visitor. And the last, is about an unhappily married man who gets trapped in an increasing series of outrageous bets with his sinister neighbour out of a crushing fear of being impolite. That last story: did the author need to get so fucking personal? Sheesh.

The three stories do complement each other in intriguing ways. As the afterward explains in, perhaps, unnecessary detail they’re all about the human need for connection, be in romantic, in faith and family, or just the overwhelming pressure to feel socially acceptable. While, in some cases, queerness does contribute to these characters’ sense of isolation there is something quite deeply horrifying—at least to me—to see that fundamental search for connection becoming increasingly twisted and detached from anything meaningful or real. The middle story has some explicitly supernatural elements, but in the first and last the awfulness is mostly kind of banal and human. And, because of that, incredibly effective. There’s a sort of flinching despair and incipient dread that wends its way through all three stories. Fun times. Good stuff.

Of the three, the second story is probably the weakest. There’s a lot going on it (death of a child, a failing marriage, an island hotel, a storm, a mysterious visitor who may be an angel, a demon or a child from the husband’s previous marriage, a sudden pregnancy, visions of the apocalypse, poisoned cabernet) and it’s all set against this backdrop of a world where the afterlife has apparently been scientifically proven to not exist. Like, maybe tell me more about that, please? And, now I’ve said it, I think possibly all of these stories could have benefited slightly from a bit more “maybe tell me more about that please”, especially when came to the characters. I mean, I gave up entirely on trying to understand Olive and James in Story II, but I think, in Story III, bit more grounding on how Mr Fowler’s overwhelming need to be accepted in all contexts manifests in his general life would have ratcheted the tension in his “now I am sucked into a sinister betting game” even further. In Story I, the fact we have direct access to Agnes’s voice, via her messages and emails, is extremely successful in creating our sense of her as a person (an extremely damaged person with a phenomenal turn of phrase), but Zoe (after her initial messages) feels just a touch less vivid. And, again, they jump from talking about an apple peeler to kinky sex disconcertingly quickly, even by the standards of a ListServ from the 2000s. And, believe me, disconcertingly quickly by the standards of a ListServ from the 2000s is incredibly fucking fast.

All of which said, this is an impressive, assured and genuinely discomforting trio of stories. I know I’ve sort of whined that I wanted slightly more characterisation and slightly slower pacing here, but I think it’s usually a good sign when you want more from a writer in general.

Do read with care, and check trigger warnings, if you’re not a horror aficionado. Or even if you are because, fucking hell, there’s some stuff in here.

Where to begin? I read this book in one sitting and what a sitting it was. The first part was absolutely fantastic. I loved the layout of the emails/instant messaging. While reading all parts I felt equally uncomfortable, which is great! I love a book that takes me out of my comfort zone and this did it. While, I don't know if all our patrons will love these tales of horror, I believe we will have a fan base.

I die not click with this collection, I don't think I was the reader targeted for it. I felt that the concepts were strong, but the stories themselves need to be longer and more fully fleshed out to really do their job of creating a proper sense of dread and horror.

The story called "Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke" is disturbing, but something was missing for me. I wasn't fully invested in the main characters and I found it hard to believe in the immediate connection between them. Still, the book itself is recommendable, even just for the dreamy writing style.

I had previously read Things have Gotten Worse and enjoyed it, well as much as you can enjoy a disturbing book. The two additional short stories in this book were great. Very atmospheric and in line with the main feature.

I think those wheo enjoy really unhinged, sensationalist horror whose main aim is to shock rather than outwardly say things (a la the work of Clive Barker) will want to pick this up, but I can't quite say the collection was quite for me

After having read Things Have Gotten Worse, I was intrigued to read the additional short stories that were released in this edition.

LaRocca does an excellent job of creating an unsettling and unnerving atmosphere in his writing.

“I feel like a new constellation, scabbed in glittering black”

Finished and I want more of the second story. Kind of want more of third too.
Title story is still making me uncomfortable, but other than those two things I loved everything about it. Second one had animal cruelty too, but it was brief and knowing it would happen, I only cried for couple of minutes. Damn allergies 👀
I usually love reviews that mention what the stories are about, but these are tiny, I'm not saying anything, other than you should definitely read this book. But reader beware, it's not for everyone.
I'm looking forward to reading more books by this author 💀

I was left speechless after reading Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. I do not know what I was expecting, but it definitely was not that. The story follows two women who meet online in the early 2000s and spirals through the dark journey their relationship takes. The story made my skin crawl and was deeply uncomfortable in the best way possible. I absolutely adored this novella and highly recommend for horror fans.

The writing style is fabulous. Intense descriptions of events and objects interspersed with instant messaging chat logs, which made for a quick read. This would have easily been a 5 star for me, HOWEVER. This edition is published along with two additional short stories, both of which were okay, but nothing memorable or as impressive as the titular story. These felt like a real let down after reading the first story. Minus one star for those.

Iconic. Will stick with me for a long time.