About
Lonnie Busch is an award-winning author whose short fiction has appeared in Southwest Review, The Minnesota Review, The Baltimore Review and other magazines. Among his awards for fiction are the Clay Reynolds Novella Prize for his novella, Turnback Creek, finalist in the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction, the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award, and others.
Busch is also a painter, animator and illustrator, and has created artwork for numerous corporations, ad agencies and institutions, including the “Greetings from America” and “Wonders of America” Commemorative Stamps for the USPS.
Featured Work
ASSIMILATION
They’ve only visited her in dreams… until now.
Kercy Powell loves spending summers at their secluded island cottage in Ontario; a place where her birth defects and wheelchair are never on display. Just before her eighteenth birthday, Kercy is shocked to learn her mother sold their island paradise, offering only this grave warning, “Don’t ever go back there!”
The ensuing years bring Kercy a miraculous metamorphous, making her wheelchair unnecessary. Upon her mother’s death, she inherits the family fortune and buys back her most treasured getaway. Kercy is soon plagued by old nightmares; strange beings who visit in her sleep. One night, two men boat out to her cottage and try to assault her. She manages to escape, only to witness the unholy cries of her attackers being savagely killed.
The inexplicable murders trigger a visit from Special Agent Mallory, a cagey FBI officer who is only interested in how the two men died. But Kercy has no idea, until she comes face to face with her “protectors,” creatures who live beneath the deep, icy waters of Georgian Bay. And while they’ve rescued her before, Kercy can’t shake the notion that their intentions are nefarious.
[CONTENT ADVISORY: Intended for adult readership and contains scenes of violence, sexuality, aliens, and language that may be uncomfortable for some readers.]
[TRIGGER WARNING: Rape]
