These I Know by Heart

4.5/5 ( ratings)

Seventeen stories, including, for the first time in ANY collection, 1999 Bram Stoker Award winner "Five Days in April" -- along with the preceding Watchers story "Ten Days in July." Also includes "These Are the Moments I Live For," a new story written especially for this collection. From the back cover: "Brian A. Hopkins is the author of over a hundred short stories published in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres and the Bram Stoker Award winning novel The Licking Valley Coon Hunters Club. His story 'Five Days in April' not only won a Bram Stoker Award in 1999, but was also a finalist for both the Nebula Award and the Ted Sturgeon Memorial Award."

"Of the seventeen stories in this handsome trade paperback collection, fully twelve I consider outstanding examples of the storyteller's art. The other five are merely superb ... A deep spiritual, naturalistic streak runs through much of Brian Hopkins' work, though it's tempered by a strong nod to realism -- often seen as a scientific element or context -- and a sense of social commentary sadly lacking in much of horror today. Hopkins brings emotion back to [the horror] field..." -- from a review by William D. Gagliani

"...poignant, thought-provoking tales of love, death, angels and miracles ... Absolutely stunning." -- Lesley Mazey, Eternal Night Science Fiction

"Yippee. Please forgive me for being pleased, but this here is a new book we should sell very well indeed. Now that I have all these Hopkins fans on my hands, a new collection in a pretty package signed by ol' Brian himself should virtually fly out of here. You'll like this guy. Obviously well-read, obviously has a passion for the classic, obviously a fearless and highly imaginative storyteller. We've usually got several Hopkins collections in stock - try any one of them - I'm confident you'll be back for the others. As I've said before, for whatever this is worth, we've sold more trade paperbacks by Brian Hopkins than any other writer over the course of the last year or so." -- Mark V. Ziesing, Bookseller and Publisher

"It's this collection of some of Hopkins' best short stories that will make the cold winter nights warmer, because what Hopkins does best with his words is reach inside and yank at the heart. And the soul. ...With his Michener-like eye for research and detail and his John D. MacDonald penchant for spinning an easily read yarn, Hopkins is quickly gaining his own fine reputation as a writer." -- Judi Rohrig in the Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press

"This is a collection about experiences of the deepest, darkest, and most excruciating kind. Loss and love, fear and regret, splayed in all its black and painful glory . . . Nothing in These I Know By Heart is easy, and that, perhaps, is exactly as it should be. There are lessons to be learned in the turn of a phrase written by a talented hand and a knowing heart, and Brian Hopkins excels indeed in the role of teacher." -- Yvonne Navarro, from the Introduction

"Brian Hopkins is a skilled writer whose stories show that he's always in control of the elements that make for great fiction: mastery of his craft, a keen sense of story, and boundless imagination. These I Know By Heart is the work of a true artist." -- Edo van Belkom, Bram Stoker Award Winning Author of Teeth

"Brian Hopkins should take five steps forward and join the masters. His writing is eloquent, poignant, touching and delirious. Hopkins manages to both repulse and enchant within a single story, and writes with a quiet melancholy that is reminiscent of Bradbury at his best." -- James A. Moore, Author of Under the Overtree

"Brian Hopkins is one of the most promising new horror writers of the past decade or so.