"Beautifully written, crafted with care, strongly plotted, these 
stories are about superbly developed characters, people whose 
lives matter."—George Garrett

"John Cottle writes like the lovechild of Edgar Allan Poe and 
William Faulkner. The Blessings of Hard-Used Angels is weird and 
beautiful and honest."—Daniel Wallace, Big Fish

"These stories are exhilarating to read; some are breathtaking and 
achingly beautiful. When I finished The Blessings of Hard-Used 
Angels, I walked around for days seeing the world through its 
light. Do yourself a favor, buy this book, get in on the secret 
before everyone else knows what you soon will: here is the future 
of Southern fiction."—John Dufresne, Deep in the Shade of Paradise

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JOHN COTTLE lives on Lake Martin in central Alabama with his wife, 
Nancy, and an assortment of ducks, deer, turkeys, and other 
wildlife. His work has appeared in numerous places, including 
Amaryllis, Literary Potpourri, Ink Pot, Gulfstream, and in an 
anthology titled, Working Hard for the Money: Stories and Poems of 
America's Working