What do you think?
Where You Linger & Other Stories
Bones of extinct species wander a campground, stalking a group of friends in love with
the same woman. The object of their affection seeks solace with a couple in a world with rain
that kills. A woman moves away from her repressed home town, only to transform into a
man-eating monster when she returns. A robot assassin avenges women ruined by capitalism.
Journey to the liminal space with acclaimed author Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam where interconnected stories span from past to future among the dead and the living.
“A welcome entry to a flourishing tradition of fabulist short fiction in the vein of Kelly Link and Aimee Bender.”— Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go in the Dark
“Heartbreakingly haunting, Where You Linger is Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s testament to the ghost of the relationships that never quite leave you.”—Jordan Kurella, I Never Liked You Anyway
“Stufflebeam’s voice is an undaunted guide in a wilderness of whispering bones and lingering dreams that will not release the visitor. Do not turn away from this journey.”—Andrew S. Fuller, Editor, Three-Lobed Burning Eye magazine
the same woman. The object of their affection seeks solace with a couple in a world with rain
that kills. A woman moves away from her repressed home town, only to transform into a
man-eating monster when she returns. A robot assassin avenges women ruined by capitalism.
Journey to the liminal space with acclaimed author Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam where interconnected stories span from past to future among the dead and the living.
“A welcome entry to a flourishing tradition of fabulist short fiction in the vein of Kelly Link and Aimee Bender.”— Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go in the Dark
“Heartbreakingly haunting, Where You Linger is Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s testament to the ghost of the relationships that never quite leave you.”—Jordan Kurella, I Never Liked You Anyway
“Stufflebeam’s voice is an undaunted guide in a wilderness of whispering bones and lingering dreams that will not release the visitor. Do not turn away from this journey.”—Andrew S. Fuller, Editor, Three-Lobed Burning Eye magazine
284 pages, Paperback
First published July 11, 2022
About the author
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
59 books68 followersBonnie Jo Stufflebeam lives in Texas with her two literarily-named cats: Gimli and Don Quixote. Her fiction and poetry has appeared in magazines such as
Clarkesworld
,
Strange Horizons
,
Goblin Fruit
, and
Daily Science Fiction
.
She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program and reviews short fiction at her blog, Short Story Review. You can visit her on Twitter @BonnieJoStuffle or through her website: www.bonniejostufflebeam.com.
She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program and reviews short fiction at her blog, Short Story Review. You can visit her on Twitter @BonnieJoStuffle or through her website: www.bonniejostufflebeam.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 16, 2022
After publishing short stories since 2013, this is my first collection, and I'm psyched to share it with you! I'm here to answer any questions readers might have. Just reply to this review!
May 21, 2022
I've seen Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam's name before in various TOCs for magazines or anthologies. I'm sure that I've read her fiction in the past, but reading it together in this collection was an amazing experience. Her stories often contain ties to other stories, and/or characters that overlap. These stories are dark and some of them quite weird or strange, but that doesn't detract from the amazing emotional impact they deliver. These stories are deeply rooted in personal relationships, and they all deliver on that raw emotion.
I enjoyed each story in this collection. Some I liked more than others, but there were none that I didn't like, none I skipped, and none I rushed to finish. This was a great collection of stories from start to finish.
I enjoyed each story in this collection. Some I liked more than others, but there were none that I didn't like, none I skipped, and none I rushed to finish. This was a great collection of stories from start to finish.
July 6, 2022
I received an early copy of this book from the publisher, and Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam's collection of stories is as haunting as it is smart. The stories are stuck on my bones, haunting me around the house. Some of the lines are so clever that they roll off the tongue long, long after I've read them. It's a cleverly arranged collection that is 1) beautiful, 2) sad, 3) funny, 4) sexy. Highly, highly recommend.
February 21, 2023
A collection of deeply personal, often melancholy, short stories here. Many of them will stay with you for a long time. Highly recommend a copy to anyone wanting adventures of a different sort - tiny skeletons, ghosts at dinnertime, and broken cyborgs await you. Just a breath of fresh air overall; these are a different sort of stories that I've never seen anywhere else.
Shoutouts to the shorts of 'Where you Linger', 'Lifespan of Shadows', 'The Damaged', and 'The Split', specifically. Truly enjoyed these.
Shoutouts to the shorts of 'Where you Linger', 'Lifespan of Shadows', 'The Damaged', and 'The Split', specifically. Truly enjoyed these.
August 4, 2022
First, that cover. Perfect for this book. If that cover draws you in, you'll probably enjoy this book. Here we have a collection of stories that you can tell the writer put her heart into, held them in her arms like each was a baby. A mixed bag of mostly young women in sometimes sci-fi, sometimes fantasy, sometimes light horror situations. Many ghosts. Much nostalgia. Sometimes I was left wondering the how and why of a situation of a story, for example, when talking skeletons of long extinct animals are wandering around. But this is the nature of short stories. They don't always have to explain things to you. So some of these stories, I wished for a bit more detail. But they are memorable stories. My favorite stories were the loosely connected three at the end, reminding me at times of a deranged mix of 'Klara & the Sun' by Kazuo Ishiguro, 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Philip K. Dick and 'The Echo Wife' by Sarah Gailey. Overall, an interesting collection of stories that likes to keep things mixed up! I COULD compare this collection to other short story writers, but I'll let this collection be its own thing. I'm glad that cover drew me in.
August 26, 2022
This felt like a fever dream in the best way possible !
November 27, 2023
I found Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam's WHERE YOU LINGER AND OTHER STORIES to be hit or miss. Its central themes of loss, grief, and unhealthy relationships are presented with oddly different levels of finesse--e.g., the titular story, "Where You Linger," is in part a subtle meditation on unpacking past trauma and exploring what perspective on our current choices a more innocent past self might have, but the story that closes the collection, "The Queen of Kingdom Arts," a tryhard, disorienting tour through a glitching videogame, felt oddly lifeless and read to me like a ham-fisted allegory of a battle between patriarchy and feminism.
The stories also had less variation between them than I was hoping for. Many stories explore the complicated emotions around letting go of problematic romantic relationships, and some explore grieving the death of a parent, but (for example) none explore the grief around the loss of a child or sibling. Some of the stories are interconnected, sharing one or more characters and settings, but not in a seemingly meaningful way, and more of an "the author just happens to like working in this universe" sort of way. The volume has an awful lot of small-town Texas, drug use, emotionless sex, lesbians/bisexual women, and stories that are essentially literary except for one single speculative element that is a metaphor.
Aside from "Where You Linger," my favorites included "The Split" (which isn't afraid to lean so strongly into its speculative metaphor element that the result is refreshingly surreal), "The Damaged" (stories about sex robots are legion, but this author's take on emotionally damaged sex robots pairing with an emotionally damaged human narrator plays right into her major and minor thematic strong suits), "They Come In Through the Walls" (a moving ghost story about losing and grieving a parent gradually, while they're still alive, because of mental and cognitive decline), and "Nostalgia" (wherein the hottest small-town street drug is one that lets you escape into the past). I feel like if 2 or 3 (or 4) of the weaker, more redundant stories had been cut, this would've been a stronger collection. (But then again, if that much material had been cut, there probably wouldn't be enough material for a collection in the first place.)
There is for sure an audience for the niche that Stufflebeam is writing in, but I don't think I'm exactly it.
The stories also had less variation between them than I was hoping for. Many stories explore the complicated emotions around letting go of problematic romantic relationships, and some explore grieving the death of a parent, but (for example) none explore the grief around the loss of a child or sibling. Some of the stories are interconnected, sharing one or more characters and settings, but not in a seemingly meaningful way, and more of an "the author just happens to like working in this universe" sort of way. The volume has an awful lot of small-town Texas, drug use, emotionless sex, lesbians/bisexual women, and stories that are essentially literary except for one single speculative element that is a metaphor.
Aside from "Where You Linger," my favorites included "The Split" (which isn't afraid to lean so strongly into its speculative metaphor element that the result is refreshingly surreal), "The Damaged" (stories about sex robots are legion, but this author's take on emotionally damaged sex robots pairing with an emotionally damaged human narrator plays right into her major and minor thematic strong suits), "They Come In Through the Walls" (a moving ghost story about losing and grieving a parent gradually, while they're still alive, because of mental and cognitive decline), and "Nostalgia" (wherein the hottest small-town street drug is one that lets you escape into the past). I feel like if 2 or 3 (or 4) of the weaker, more redundant stories had been cut, this would've been a stronger collection. (But then again, if that much material had been cut, there probably wouldn't be enough material for a collection in the first place.)
There is for sure an audience for the niche that Stufflebeam is writing in, but I don't think I'm exactly it.
September 13, 2026
This was a lovely collection of sci-fi short stories.
Most of the stories felt like expressions of grief over losing relationships and people, which always hit hard for me. ‘They Come In Through the Walls’ was probably the hardest hitting for me, as anything to do with losing a parent mentally or physically is something I truly fear the most.
The last three stories of the collection were my favorite. These were the ones where I felt the author really had a knack for science fiction. I loved how they connected and the ideas and lore that were built up in such a short time. I would love to read more from this author in that same vein.
Most of the stories felt like expressions of grief over losing relationships and people, which always hit hard for me. ‘They Come In Through the Walls’ was probably the hardest hitting for me, as anything to do with losing a parent mentally or physically is something I truly fear the most.
The last three stories of the collection were my favorite. These were the ones where I felt the author really had a knack for science fiction. I loved how they connected and the ideas and lore that were built up in such a short time. I would love to read more from this author in that same vein.
September 20, 2025
Loved the first half of this anthology; lost me in the last few stories, but rounding out all in all a good collection. REALLY liked that the deeper in we went, the more some of the particular surrealist elements and branding started to reoccur and connect to previous entries. Also The Mammoth made me bawl my eyes out.
April 4, 2023
Not what I was expecting but I still enjoyed it. Reminded me of Black Mirror. Spooky stories but not in a ghost kind of way.
June 30, 2025
Most of the stories were in fact connected… I feel like that one meme “I’ve connected them… you didn’t connect shit”
October 28, 2025
I’m not even really sure what to say about this…
It’s smart, funny, terrifying, emotional, fun and creepy as hell. Such a fun ride, check it out, it will take more than one read to get it all.
It’s smart, funny, terrifying, emotional, fun and creepy as hell. Such a fun ride, check it out, it will take more than one read to get it all.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews