“The Worm in Every Heart” horror anthology is an excellent and much braver follow up to Gemma Files first release of short stories entirely comprised of her own work- “Kissing Carrion”. Gemma Files work has become most relevant, highly respected and regarded as one of the “Gold Standard” authors in the Horror genre; especially her Cosmic & Gothic Horror- much of which tapping deep into the “Lovecraftian Mythos” vein; not leaning entirely on “Cthulhu” or otherworldly hideous monsters- the “Elder Gods”, but delves more into the daily life of the people and lifestyles of the Inmamouth and Dunnwich influenced society. Much like Caitlin R Kiernan, Files is not bashful or the least bit hesitant to explore the mysterious sexual relationships between humans and “the tainted” or “deep ones” and aliens as a whole that knowingly or unknowingly engage in highly charged sexually explicit exploitation; exploration and copulation. This of course is not the case in all of her work; not at all, that said- this second collection of horror is definitely in theme with matters of the heart and passion just like the title suggests: “Kissing Carrion” or with this release: “Worms of the Heart”. What’s important with this excellent collection of stories like all of her stories is her exceptional writing style and flow; she is not the splatterpunk author using foul language, graphically horrific scenes of gore and violence with over the top impossible story plots, not even close. Rather she writes intelligent, congruent, very interesting and most intriguing tales of terror that cross all terrain of the horror genre, some SiFi, fantasy, adventure, crime, and Macabre Gothic classical noir. Like Laird Barron, Chuck Palahniuk & Windig, Ligotti and Caitlin Kieran- when there is gore or sexually explicit material if not both, it’s done with the artistic creativity eased with some light if not down right hilarious humor to keep us engaged in the story and not throwing the book across the room due to complete disbelief and disgust of the unnecessary tripe and pure gutter level imagination of the depraved deviant that must of written the trash! No, nothing like that at all, however, if sensitive to sexually explicit or descriptive content or graphic violence; gore, I would advise staring in small doses or another one of Gemma Files novels or anthologies. The narration is outstanding with an epic cast of narrators including Rudniky and Xe Sands.