Gothic Horror brings specific images to mind—crumbling castles, dark Parisian alleyways, mad wives in attics, dark and lonely moors, cathedrals where more evil than good exists. Georgia Gothic replaces those locations with antebellum plantations, creatures hidden in backyard sheds, rural folks who might or might not be making pacts with a variety of terrors because that's how it's always been done, city folks hiding their secrets in the trunks of their cars or in their correspondence, houses being far more and far less than homes, and cemeteries that can be the truest place of safety. Georgia Gothic teaches that "bless your heart" is often used as a curse versus a benediction, and the escape of racism as a way of life might lead to salvation, but far too often leads into worse horrors.

The Southern façade of perfection holds up politeness as a chief virtue while sheltering ugly truths. In these twenty-four stories and poems, the authors will take you behind the veneer of manners and on journeys you might think you know all about—but you'll find soon enough that you're in uncharted territory. Where alligators and cicadas might be more than they seem, creatures of nightmare might be sitting next to you in church, and humans will always be worse than you've imagined. The façade gets stripped away, the body count rises, the dead have their say.

Because some things just won’t stay buried.