Five You Can't Miss 2012 -- James Everington

What Water Reveals - Adam Golaski

Adam Golaski was probably the best author I discovered in 2012, and this story is just one of the many highlights from his Worse Than Myself collection. Recommended to all who love intelligently written, evocative horror.

The Room Upstairs - Sarah Pinborough

Another author new to me, and another where I think I must have been missing out. This is from the haunted house anthology House Of Fear, and I loved the way the story dovetails together the reality of the haunting and its metaphorical aspects, so that whether the ghost is 'real' almost doesn't matter. The ending is inevitable (and brilliant) either way.

Love Songs On The Radio - Iain Rowan
This comes from Iain Rowan's 52 Songs, 52 Stories project, which basically involved Iain writing a story based on a song title every week for the entire year. Iain's taste in music is almost as good as his writing, but he also opened up the blog to requests, and this song was mine. It's by Mojave 3, it's a beauty, and Iain's story really does it justice.

The Long Sheet - William Sansom

I read this in the absolutely vast anthology The Weird; it's a truly odd story about people forced to spend their life wringing dry a vast sheet of linen. The phrase Kafkaesque is chucked around a lot, but this story truly is Kafkaesque (or perhaps Kafka is Sansom-esque). 

Mal De Mer - Robert Dunbar

From the author's Martyrs & Monsters collection, from which I could have picked a number of different stories for inclusion here. This story certainly features some monsters, but exactly how many and who they are, is another question. As is that of whether it features any martyrs, too...

Bio: James Everington reads more short stories than can be healthy. Somewhat predictably, he also writes his own. He rambles on about both those he's read and written on his Scattershot Writing blog.