Are the Monday blues getting you down? How about some great fiction to improve your mood? Welcome to FicStack’s second curation post for February. Thanks to this week’s team of curators, and welcome back into the fold Coral Evermore!

This week’s curation brings you another collection of exceptional fiction from across Substack. These writers are crafting worlds, characters, and stories that deserve your attention. If something catches your eye, show them some love: hit that like button, follow their publications, and if a piece really resonates, give it a restack to help spread the word.

Good fiction shouldn’t languish in obscurity, and your engagement makes all the difference to these authors. Let’s dive in.

Wendy Russell, Sass&Sage

These two pieces couldn’t look more different on the surface, but they ended up speaking to each other in surprising ways. Both explore coming-of-age within systems that promise safety, belonging, or transformation — and both linger on the moment when a character realises the rules were written long before they arrived.

• “Anonymous Aaron” by Axton Mitchell, poeaxtry. A quiet psychological horror about growing up inside a story that was already written for you. The first movement in a series, this story unfolds with a deceptive calm, letting the weight of expectation, care, and “good intentions” gather slowly rather than announcing itself. This is a story interested in the small moments where identity is shaped under pressure — the rehearsed answers, the gratitude that’s expected, the silence that becomes a kind of self-protection. What struck me most is how much the piece trusts the reader: it doesn’t rush to explain itself or offer relief, instead allowing discomfort to sit and do its work. Read on its own it’s quietly devastating; read as the opening of a series, it feels like the beginning of a much larger conversation about who gets to decide what is right for a body, and what it costs when refusal isn’t an option.

• “The New Recruit”, Bloodsmith by Richard Pack, Daria, and Wilhelmina Owens, Emerald Wym’s Den. This first chapter draws you in with warmth, intimacy, and momentum, pairing moments of tenderness and desire with the slow creep of something more unsettling beneath them. What begins as a story about competence, belonging, and chosen family gradually reveals its sharper edges — recruitment framed as rescue, purpose offered with conditions, power disguised as protection. I was struck by how easily care and danger coexist here, and by how much the story trusts the reader to notice that slippage for themselves. As the opening chapter of a larger, serial-adjacent project, it feels expansive and inviting while quietly laying track for questions about agency, loyalty, and what we’re willing to give up in exchange for feeling seen.

Inga Jones Writes Thrillers, Thriller Tips for Writers

This week, I’m highlighting two publications that are doing things a little differently. I admire the imagination and skill of both of these writers.

• “One Year Later” by Nina Zolotow, Tasty Literary Bites Nina writes one-sentence stories, but they’re not as short as you would expect. She plays with structure to make something told in one breath share a whole life. I highly recommend her collection of works as an example of masterful control on grammar and structure.

• “The Penthouse Disappearance” by Marta, Marta Have you ever wanted to play detective? Marta creates compelling mysteries and posts them on Fridays. Then the solutions are published a few days later. In the meantime, you’re welcome to share your theories in the comments and talk to the other sleuths.

Melina Chapa, Midnight Letters

Life has been somewhat chaotic lately, and that drives me towards stories that somehow resemble the real feelings behind the stress—or the feelings the stress brings out. In times like these, I always think about my grandpa and how much I miss him. I think, too, about the choices in life I’ve made that got me where I am. And above all, how I wish to voice everything that I feel until there’s nothing else inside. And somehow, all these feelings were put in these stories and poems by authors I just discovered. Thank you for voicing what I feel.

• “The Lantern’s Promise,” by Luna Asli Kolcu in by Luna Asli Kolcu.
  Commonly, I found myself trying to remember my grandmother’s laugh, sometimes like a desperate Endeavour because I’m afraid to forget. The same happens with my grandfather’s voice and his strong handshakes. And I have wondered: what would I be willing to do or give just to remember? And in one of those days, I stumbled across Luna’s story about a Miriam trying to remember her sister and the lengths she’s willing to go for it. I was hooked from the very beginning, at the promise of entering a different world, and the letters pawed me as soon as the mention of this journey to recover something lost came up. I got goosebumps with this story, my heart ached, and when I reached the following sentence, I couldn’t hold back the tears: “That was the whole point, maybe—not to remember perfectly, but to remember at all.” We all have something we wish to never forget: a memory, a person, a sound, a feeling, a taste… Please, give this story a shot and value what you can remember today.

• “Let One Man Fall: Prologue,” by Luke John in Microcosm: The World In Small Scenes.
  It never stops surprising me how many cruel things humans somehow try to justify with the famous “the ends justify the means.” This story made me think of that from the very beginning, and I found myself wondering: what happened to the main character that led him to switch the entire course of his life and choose to do bad things? And, on the other hand, how utterly mundane the meaning could also be: don’t we all do a bunch of things we don’t want to but have to because it’s work? This is just the prologue of a story, and it trapped me: I was able to feel what the character was describing, his doubts and hesitation, and compare it to moments in life where I have maybe felt that way. Give it a try!

• “Happy Hour,” by Shane Bzdok in Matte Black.
  I was drawn to this poem by the title alone, not expecting what I did find. It made me travel to those whispered conversations in the middle of the night, when we share stories no one else is supposed to know, and how good it feels to tell them out loud.

Coral Evermore, Tales From a Wilted Rose

As I slowly return from the dead as a University student drowning in assigned readings, I finally found some time to read the incredible fiction on Substack! This week, I accidentally had a vampire theme, which feels particularly fitting as I am just about to finish reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. What can I say? I guess I’m just a huge fan of vampires. Without further ado, each story I bring you today has a thoroughly gothic atmosphere that feels like two different love letters to the genres of classic gothic literature and vampire fiction.

• “Duskfall” by Nicholas Warren, Speakeasy of the Macabre A father and son ride towards Grimm’s Hollow, New Duskfall as a grave mission looms over them. The son admits his fear of the task at hand, while his father reminds him that he must snuff these fears out if they are to succeed. Before they dare go inside, the man satiates his pistol with blood dripping from his pricked finger while wielding the boy with a wooden stake before they face what awaits them inside. This story drew me in immediately, providing high stakes (no pun intended) in a single conversation cloaked in a grim, dangerous, and melancholy atmosphere. While reading, the prose reminded me a lot of Bram Stoker with its Victorian style. I also appreciated the various references to the classics as well. Although the ending broke my heart, it left me wondering what would happen next. Nicholas Warren with his Speakeasy of the Macabre is an emerging gothic voice you should all read if you love the genre.

• “Salt & Rust” by Evil-izabeth, Bramble & Quill Set in an ancient lighthouse, the narrator guards the vampire sleeping underneath as she slowly descends into madness wracked with guilt in her isolation. Lamenting the loss of this vampire who had once been her lover, she remains trapped by the atrocities they had committed, taking them on as if they were her own. Now, the narrator faces their own immortal life as the guardian to a past they are unable to let go of. First off, I love the Nautical Gothicism of this story and am now obsessed with a new subgenre. I enjoyed how the female protagonist here is allowed to be utterly monstrous and sympathetic, which is not something you see often enough. Oh, and her vampire lover also being a woman? Fantastic. The ending is quite surreal, but more than anything, it is a bittersweet revelation that shows some light out of a dark tunnel. Evil-izabeth of Bramble & Quill proves herself to be a writer you should go to for all things fantasy and gothic.