No one cares when Lila Carson’s ten-year-old brother Beau disappears. He can’t speak. He throws tantrums. He’s a useless Carson, one of those kids in a broken-shuttered house that lost its glory when his father died.
When the sheriff and his good ol’ boy deputies show up to investigate, they eye up Lila and call her twin brother names. A closeted bisexual girl in the South, Lila's terrified.
Lower Congaree recites it like an eleventh commandment: Don’t go in that swamp. But as the long night drags on, it’s clear Beau disappeared behind those ancient trees. The sheriff’s deputies refuse to go back there.
Lila might not have a choice.
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Raw Dog Screaming Press, April 2025
"Can't Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction," Reactor, March 2025
"Genre-Stretching Works of Fiction," Publishers Weekly, April 2025
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Praise for Blood Cypress
“Broadbent brings this warped novella to a close with a series of stunning final twists—including a devastating reveal about who is narrating the story. This is coming-of-age fiction at its creepiest.”
Publishers Weekly
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"Elizabeth Broadbent doesn’t just waltz up to trauma—she stomps in with a lit cigarette dangling from her lip, a box of gasoline-soaked matches in one hand, and a middle finger raised in the other. By the time she’s done with Blood Cypress, the seventh gut-punch in the Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena series, you’re either sobbing into your beer, reeling like you’ve been slapped by a wet gator, or sniffing your bathroom tiles wondering if that mildew’s hiding your grandma’s pissed-off ghost."
The Blog without A Face
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“With echoes of Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Eliza Broadbent’s southern gothic, Blood Cypress, seethes with swamp-rot and small-town prejudice. Dark and lush and deeply, deeply disturbing, it’s an exquisite tale of grief and trauma, solidifying Broadbent’s place as a champion for the outsider. A revelation.”
Lee Murray, five-time Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of Grotesque: Monster Stories
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“Broadbent’s storytelling is equal parts captivating and unnerving. Blood Cypress is a magnificently layered tale where gender and sexualty dynamics are intricately woven into a poignant southern gothic layered atop a devastating family tragedy. Her carefully crafted words grip you by the throat and squeeze.”
L. Marie Wood, award-winning author of The Realm Trilogy and The Promise Keeper
“Elizabeth Broadbent discovers a creek that connects directly to Michael McDowell’s Blackwater mythos, leading readers through this beautiful backwater novella. This missing child manhunt is steeped in so much southern gothic, it feels like Faulkner, O’Connor, and Sheperd have all joined the search party.”
Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
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“Mesmerizing! Broadbent weaves a tale about the pain of growing up ‘different’ and the desperation of a failing family legacy. Much like the swamp at its center, this story is filled with southern heat, twists and turns, and insidious monsters waiting to swallow you whole.”—Aimee Hardy, author of Pocket Full of Teeth
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“Like the dark swamp at its heart, this book melds Southern Gothic with folk horror in a delightful way. A bold, assured narrative voice that will lure readers into its fetid darkness.”
Tim McGregor, author of Eynhallow