The Best of Substack Week 9
The Digest – The Best of Substack Week 9
This compiles my personal opinion of good posts from last week.
The Harlow Case
I feel I must set down the facts of the Harlow case whilst they remain clear in my mind.
It began on the morning of the fourteenth of November. Elena Harlow was found lifeless in the upstairs bedroom of their house at 29 Garston Lane. The house is a perfectly ordinary old house in the Victorian style in the Abbeyfield district — red brick, oriel windows, and a front garden that is nothing but gravel. Her husband, David Harlow, telephoned the emergency services at 7:42 in the morning. He explained that he had just returned from his regular morning walk when he discovered her lying on the floor between the bed and the window. The ambulance crew pronounced her dead at the scene. She was only fifty-one.
I was assigned the case that same afternoon. It was standard procedure: an unexplained death with no immediate indication of foul play, but the circumstances were sufficiently peculiar to warrant further inquiry. In particular, there was the matter of the bedroom door, which had been locked from the inside. David told the police he had been obliged to force it open with his shoulder. The door frame was splintered, which was entirely consistent with his account. The key lay on the floor on Elena’s side of the room, approximately a metre from her right hand.
Non-fiction Highlights
Move Away From KU
Marcin shows you why you should move away from KU in Why Kindle Unlimited is a Financial Trap for Indie Authors
You’re staring at a Best Sellers Rank (BSR) in the triple digits. Your book is rubbing shoulders with titans. You’re “trending” in three sub-categories. On paper, you’ve made it. But when you check your KDP dashboard at 2 AM, the numbers don’t add up. You’re moving thousands of units, yet you can barely cover a week’s worth of groceries.
Fiction Higlights
Speculative & Dark Fantasy
KJ Carpenter’s Strife. This is an ambitious triple-threat of influences. Blending the grounded horror of Stephen King with the world-building of Tolkien and the epic scale of Homer suggests a serial that is as much about the journey as it is about the grit. Read the preview and listen along on YT.
Nick’s Epitimia (Stardust Covered Boots): A five-part commitment that bridges theology and psychology. Short horror is often most effective when it tackles the unanswerable questions of faith and the mind.
Rick from The Inspiration Singularity: A character transcending a space jellyfish pivots into a quiet tragedy when the horror of obsessions and human frailties collide.
Ausiàs Tsel’s The Inevitable Encounter. A gothic fiction in six parts featuring the I Ching.
Human Fragility & Memoir
These selections trade world-building for emotional weight and internal landscapes.
Chris Wagner’s Trust is a goal of mine (part 1, part 2): The emotional anchor of this collection. A poignant reflection on the fragile nature of trust. In this piece Chris Wagner recounts the formative traumas of his youth in North Dakota. It has a raw, conversational style that feels honest, and so I recommend it highly.
Samuel Evans’ The Hummingbird: A quiet tragedy when the horror of obsessions and human frailties collide—a tonal counterpoint to the some of the other stories, focusing on the destructive nature of obsession.
Realpolitik & Modern Myth
The Real Rajko’s Kash Patel’s Valhalla: Analyzing political rhetoric through a narrative lens is the MAGA Chronicles. In this chosen realpolitik bent story, The Real Rajko explores Kash Patel’s strange Valhalla speech.
Horror & Grief
To: The Sea by Molly Lux is an epistolary collection of letters addressed to the ocean, serving as a desperate, one-sided negotiation with a sentient and indifferent deity, portraying a soul driven to the brink of obsession. A format I both liked and loved to read.
Other entries
My star is not destined by Stanislav Saburov, a home video of Saburov performing his favorite Boris Grebenshchikov song. Also checkout The Thinker.
Enpiercèd by Asterion. Mythological short story that reframes the opening of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet through the eyes of a divine assassin. Highly recommended.
Black Roses by Nicholas Warren.
Eight Billion Beating Hearts by Justin Fig
The Silence We Call Strength by Tavisha.
Fallen Races (I-II), a Silkpunk Fantasy. An atmospheric prologue to a post-colonial odyssey. Follows Fardo, an aristocrat returning to his birthplace as he travels through a landscape littered with the architectural and technological corpses of two fallen empires.
Good Notes
If you feel I missed something, feel free to mention me in the notes. My subscriber chat is also open, always.
In closing:
Appreciate the mention. The Harlow Case opener pulled me in: locked room, splintered doorframe, a key just out of reach. That's how you set a hook. And Molly Lux's letters to the sea sound like exactly my kind of desperate theology.
Thank you for featuring my work! Im excited to check out everyone else that you featured as well!