The average adult human male is approximately 60% water.

Blood tastes salty as more than two thirds of the sodium circulating throughout your body is carried in arteries and veins. Which means that your heart is like a miniature ocean within your chest.

Chaz Brenchley has not only been awarded the British Fantasy Society's August Derleth Award but knows all too well the storms and dangers of the heart: the lofty desires, the grieving nadirs, the tempest of love. In Bitter Watters, his first short story collection devoted to gay readers, Brenchley offers men fantastical instances to effleurer, to break for taller timber, to drown in emotions.

And while not every tale in this breathtaking collection involves the sea, tears and bloodshed still need to be navigated.

Table of contents:
Introduction by Geoff Ryman
1. Another Chart of the Silences
2. Junk Male
3. The Pillow-Boy of General Shu
4. In The Night Street Baths
5. The Insolence of Candles Against the Night's Dying
6. Parting Shots
7. Up The Airy Mountain
8. The Light of Other Eyes
9. Septicaemia
10. The Cupboard of Cold Things
11. True North
12. Hothouse Flowers: or The Discreet Boys of Dr Barnabus
13. One For Every Year He's Away, She Said
14. Keep The Aspidochelone Afloat
15.'Tis Pity He's Ashore
16. The Boat of Not Belonging
17. Villainelle

"Brenchley charts the treacheries of the sea and the human heart in this haunting collection ... Deceptively light, allusive titles (Junk Male, 'Tis Pity He's Ashore, Villainelle) give away little of their stories' knotty emotional depth. The discursive, sharply detailed style permits a remarkable control of tone ... This clever and subtle collection, Brenchley's first since 1996's Blood Waters, visits 17 unforgettable ports of call." --A starred review in Publishers Weekly

"Brenchley's horror is most effective when it's understated, a matter of half-seen apparitions and anxious disorientation; ... A fine collection that imbues fantasy, action and horror with real literary depth." --Kirkus Reviews

In June 2015 Bitter Waters won a Lambda Literary Award, in the LGBT SF/F/Horror category.

Cover art Elizabeth Leggett