All Things Truly Wicked (Second Edition)

Evil doesn't announce itself. It slips through the cracks in ordinary life -- and then it devours everything.

All Things Truly Wicked is a darkly imaginative collection of ten horror and supernatural stories and seven original poems from a writer who has spent a lifetime at the intersection of folklore, cryptozoology, and the macabre. Inspired by a quote from Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, these tales move across time, geography, and genre -- from a priest confronting a Mayan bat-demon in the Yucatan, to an alien invasion told from the perspective of a teenage outcast, to a centuries-old witch reborn through a grimalkin's curse, to something ancient and hungry growing in a backyard flower bed.

Pugliese's characters are tormented outsiders, flawed believers, and reluctant witnesses to forces that defy explanation. His prose is cinematic and visceral -- blending gothic atmosphere, urban fantasy, psychological dread, and outright horror into stories that stay with you long after the lights come back on.

This expanded second edition revises and deepens the original 2020 self-published collection, adding new material and a suite of dark poetry that rounds out the author's singular vision, featuring a range of genres, including horror, science fiction, and the metaphysical.

Throughout the book, Pugliese isn't afraid to explore disconcerting themes and topics, resulting in chilling tales that provoke reflection. It is also important to note that some of the scenes in the book are quite graphic in their depiction and he draws on elements of religion and folklore, adding believability to the worlds he is creating.

His writing style is atmospheric-his characters, well-rounded, each with motivations and desires, and he intertwines psychological exploration with unsettling imagery. This work of fiction offers something for every type of reader. Stories that will leave a lasting impression on readers who believe the worst things start from innocence -- and end somewhere much darker.

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