"Sweet Tomb" by Trinie Dalton

I’ve foreseen my death since the day my Mom named me: Candy. It will happen after I’ve binged on my gingerbread walls, eaten the frosted windowpanes, and chewed hunks off the peppermint fireplace. The cause: Sweetheart Attack, a.k.a. Sugar Overdose. It’s a classic witch affliction. After all, a witch’s house isn’t solely built to lure starving children. They design them with their favorite treats, with tips from the Witch’s Home Journal. The magazine runs a column called 'Houses To Nibble At.' Last month’s winning house had the following caption beneath its photo: This devilishly delicious Witch’s House, with its broken candy glass path, cookie graveyard, licorice barbed-wire fence, and spooky hilltop shack with graham cracker roof, will delight a crowd of 20. I took the graveyard suggestion and have been busy baking tombstones to give my family some recognition. Everyone I’m related to is out back, mostly in the form of scattered ashes.
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In Sweet Tomb, Trinie Dalton tells the story of Candy, a candy-addicted witch who resents her inherited lifestyle. After a fire burns down her gingerbread house, she leaves the forest and ventures out in search of the excitement of a more urban environment. Along the way she encounters a self-mutilating puppet, tastes meat for the first time, and falls in love with Death, a skeletal woman with a shoe fetish.

Trinie Dalton is the author of the story collection Wide Eyed, an installment in Dennis Cooper’s 'Little House on the Bowery' series for Akashic Books, and of the novella A Unicorn is Born. She is also the co-editor of Dear New Girl or Whatever Your Name Is, an art book of confiscated notes from high school students, and the editor of MYTHTYM, a collection of essays, artwork, and miscellany on a variety of mythological and horror-related subjects.

For more information, or to purchase Sweet Tomb, visit Trinie's Web site here.