Building a set of short stories around e track list from a well known album is a terrific idea for putting together a collection, and for the most part I think editor Don Bruns got this one exactly right.

The ties between the stories and the respective tracks of Michael Jackson’s Thriller are for the most part pretty tenuous, but they’re almost all solidly done pieces of fiction, and I didn’t feel like a single one of them ignored the theme, which is a common problem in multi-author submission-based anthologies.

These feel more like what I would describe as Crime stories than true Thriller material, which is a good thing in my book. The writing is sharper than k expected, and I found myself enjoying the work of several authors who I generally don’t consider to be my cup of tea, in addition to a few who are.

The best of the lot are Thriller, Wanna Be Startin Something, and The Girl is Mine, though there’s nothing below a three-star story in the collection and nothing I would recommend that you skip.

Well-conceived and well-executed by both the authors and the editor.

Great to get you in the spooky season mood and/or if you are in the mood for bite size thrills instead of a full length novel. A lot of big name authors on this one! I’m actually really surprised this wasn’t released closer to fall and Halloween… I wanted to wait to read until it got closer and I enjoyed it.

Thank you so much to Blackstone, the authors, and NetGalley for the digital review copy!!

This one was a miss for me. I enjoyed the premise when I requested it, but I only found one of the stories to be enjoyable (Jeffrey Deaver's).

I was definitely not the target audience for this. I thought this was a pretty cool concept with the Michael Jackson songs but it was described as thrilling short stories. These stories were not very thrilling or very well written for the most part. The best one was the very last one by Jeffrey Deaver. However I still didn't care for it much. I feel like this collection is made more for people who enjoy reading James Patterson. It felt very Lifetime or even Hallmark thriller.

I really enjoyed this collection of tales inspired by song titles from Michael Jackson's hit album, Thriller. The concept follows Brun’s first story collection, Hotel California (using the song titles of the Eagles’ hit album.) Some well-known mystery/ suspense authors, including Heather Graham, Jeffrey Deaver, and William Kent Krueger, offer selections. All were entertaining, and several were— thrilling!

I enjoy this short story collection. I only recognized one of the authors that wrote the short stories. I enjoy how all the stories were titled by the songs from the Thriller album. I still need to read the first collection of the Music and Murder Mystery series. It really is good.

received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Great idea for a collection of short stories. Like every collection with different authors, some were better than others.when others, they were all rather hood. I'm planning to look for Hotel California, I'm intrigued to see how authors get inspired with rhat theme.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review, which has not altered my opinion of this book. I would like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

This was a super interesting and fun series of thrillers and got me hooked on trying several new to me authors. I thought they were very different and I appreciated that while they were all thrillers they were almost a different type of thriller each time. Overall, this was a very enjoyable short story collection and I would highly recommend it. There were some that I liked more than others which is why it gets a 3.5 out of 5 rather than anything higher.

I wasn't 100 percent sold on this book but I gave it a go!

It was an amazing experience to read! The whole book is 9 different authors and their take on the song thriller as a short story! I had no idea you could get so many uniquely different variations of the same song into a literary work of art. I liked some more than others but overall I was glad I read it.

Heather Grahams was my favorite by far I highly recommend this clever book of short stories to anyone who loves anthologies.
Thank you netgalley for my gifted copy
#thriller, #DonBruns, #anthology, #netgalley

Thriller by by Don Bruns.
In this second collection in the Music and Murder Mystery series, nine award-winning, bestselling authors have written their own interpretations of the Thriller song list. With original work from some of the best mystery authors out there, the anthology includes stories from Heather Graham, Jeffery Deaver, William Kent Krueger, Dahlia Rose, and David R. Slayton, among others..
Including wanna be startin' somethin'
Baby be mine
The girl is mine
Thriller
Beat it
Billie Jean
Human nature
Pretty young thing
The lady in my life.
Some were more enjoyable than others. It was different. 4*.

I picked this up after very much enjoying the first installment in this series (Hotel California, based on the Eagle's album). Consistent with the series, each story within this collection is titled after a song on the album that inspired it. I couldn't wait to see what twists and turns the contributors would have in store for me in their tales themed around Michael Jackson's epic album. And while the stories both remained firmly anchored in the mystery/suspense/thriller (M/S/T) genres and (mostly) stayed within the "promise of the premise," this collection just didn't deliver the thrills I hoped to find.

Like many collections (or albums, for that matter), I enjoyed some selections more than others. A handful of the stories felt overstuffed, as if the stories "Wanna Be Startin' [too much] Somethin.'" (Sorry, couldn't resist.) Others felt a little on the thin side, and I read to get to the (already guessed) conclusion. Still, some found that sweet spot. Among those, Heather Graham's "Thriller" and Jeffery Deaver's "The Lady in My Life" were my top hits.

It could be that many of these stories just don't fall into my preferred M/S/T subgenres. As a result, others may be justified in telling me to "Beat It." (Last one! "No one can hurt your now.. Ma ma se, m ma sa, ma ma coo sa..." ;))

Though this one wasn’t my favorite, I won’t hesitate to pick up the next one in this series when Don Bruns assembles and releases it. Even the King of Pop couldn’t manage to make every release a huge hit, after all.

I found the concept of this collection to be an interesting idea, but I felt that it didn't quite live up to its potential. Most of the stories are at least entertaining, though. I'd rank most of them as 3 stars- the problem seemed to be that most of the authors tried to cram too much plot into a shorter story, much to the detriment of the stories. This was particularly evident in "Pretty Young Thing" by Rick Bleiweiss, which started off great but then went downhill- it really needed to be at least novella length for the events to ring true.

There were three stories that I liked a lot, with two of them being close to five star reads. First, the Jeffrey Deaver story, "The Lady in My Life", had some nice twists and turns in it, with an interesting protagonist in Miguel. Second was the story by David Slayton, "Human Nature". For not being his usual genre, Slayton did a great job, creating a tableau with a dark mood and chilling ending. Neil Plakcy wrote my third favorite, "Billie Jean", which had an intriguing plot but suffered from the too obvious callouts of the song. Honorable mentions for me would be the stories by Dahlia Rose and Don Bruns.

Super anthology filled with entertaining short stories centered around the songs of Michael Jackson. Well crafted and intriguing tales of crime and mystery fill these pages. Whether you prefer your stories cozy or gritty, there's something in here for everyone. A great way to speed through an afternoon on the couch.

A fun and unique take of tales inspired by song titles from Michael Jackson's hit album: Thriller. All of the writers, established in their own right, churn up a potency in each story, with William Kent Krueger, Jeffrey Deaver and Heather Graham taking the top 3 best of the stories. The good story to bad story ratio leans favorably toward good, in this listing of Thriller and definitely recommended.

I love the concept of this series, where contemporary mystery writers create a story inspired by songs on a famous album!! As will all anthologies, some stories were better than others. My favorite stories in Thriller were:
Wanna Be Startin' Something by Don Bruns (the editor of this collection!)
Baby Be Mine by Dahlia Rose
Beat It by William Kent Krueger

Imagine, if you will, a collection of stories based on Michael Jackson’s album of the same name. It sounds like a fantastic idea. I was all in, with bells on. As a child of the '80s I could sing along with most of these songs.

There are times when ideas and execution just don’t mix all that well. Don Bruns was able to bring in some big names in thriller fiction, but I found the collection to be lacking. There was nothing about this collection to really make me want to continue; the collection lacked a continuity, the only thing holding it together were the story names. It could have been better if one story led to another, I know that this would have been more work for the authors, but the quality would have been better. None of the stories were memorable, they lacked the little something special that can make a short story great.

Despite the large catalogues for the authors involved with this anthology, I have never read a single one before, and this anthology did not give me the desire to add any of them to my TBR. I’m sure that someone will enjoy this collection, I really wanted to enjoy it, but it just wasn’t for me.

*2 Stars

Title: Thriller
Author: Don Bruns + others
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Publication Date: July 11, 2023
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thriller is an anthology of short stories, each one derived from a song title off the iconic Michael Jackson album. It's always a challenge to rate an anthology for me, as each author has their own style and pace. I would like to say that while I enjoyed every story, my absolute favorite was by Don Bruns: Wanna Be Startin Somthing. The pace was fast, and I enjoyed all the different characters and found myself rooting for the mc. It is a terrific start to a great collection of stories. Baby Be Mine by Dahlia Rose was a perfect example of an absolute nail-biting thriller with a touch of romance, which I normally avoid. In this case, I found myself completely indulging in the romance of the storyline and snarky heroine. These are just two of the many stories you will find in Thriller that I was captivated by. A couple of stories were a little more drawn out and had a slow burn feel to them, which is not my preference. Overall, a solid four-star anthology! Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the opportunity to review this ARC.


#booktok #thrillertok #horrortok #Thriller #summerreads #summerreading #anthologies #DonBruns #psychologicalthriller #bookrecs #bookreviewer #fyp #fypシ゚ #thebookishbitch #NetGalley #BlackstonePublishing

Okay, so I am so thankful to Blackstone Publishing/Audio, Don Bruns, Netgalley, and Libro.fm for granting me advanced physical, digital, and audiobook access to this collection of horrific tales, all to the tune and theme of Michael Jackson's Thriller album. Thriller: An Anthology of New Mystery Short Stories is set to hit shelves on July 11, 2023, and you really need to get your pre-orders in now, because this book is worth the listen.

Whether you're cozying up by a campfire and are in search of some scary stories, or cozied up with a blanket indoors, there's always a need for spooky stories and it makes for the perfect evening mood setting.

I wasn't 100 percent sold on this book but someone had recommended it and so I gave it a go!

It was well worth the read! The whole book is 9 different authors and their take on the song thriller as a short story! I had no idea you could get so many uniquely different variations of the same song into a literary work of art. I liked some more than others but overall I was glad I read it.

Heather Grahams was my favorite by far but I would highly recommend this clever book of short stories to anyone who loves anthologies.

4 stars, thank you netgalley for my gifted copy

A collection is always going to be uneven, different writers, different voices, but this one holds together quite well with each story being solid. You'll have your favorites just as I did, but I think you will enjoy them all. The two writers with whom I was most familiar were Heather Graham and Jeffery Deaver, but I am now interested in looking up some of the other writers' works. I like to give the story a chance to sit with me before jumping into another story that might be thematically related and thus weaken the impact of both. That method works well here, these stories offer some things you might want to think about after reading.