A great selection of short stories from some authors that I had read previously and also some new to me authors.

An interesting collection of short stories alluding to Halloween.
It includes themes such as kidnapping and murder, giving them a very sinister touch, appropriate for the darkest holiday of the year.
Some of these stories are better read during the day!
I thank the author and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
The opinion I have expressed above is based solely on what I think and feel about this book.

Another solid anthology. Highly recommended. Every story had much to offer. The longer pieces were my favorites.

This is five stories by five different authors all based around halloween.

This selection is a lot better than volume 2. I found myself not wanting to turn the page. You know how it is when watching a movie and the need for a cushion. They were definitely scarier.
My only real complaint was I would have preferred them to be longer.

Some great stories for halloween. Enjoy!

Such a great series. Like a taste test of great authors working in the horror field. I can't get enough of Cemetery Dance books. I would read anything they put out.

This book is composed of several extremely well written and terrifying stories that I have never read before. Many of the authors are the types that I see as rising stars or at least authors who should be more well known among horror fans, not one of them will disappoint..

Each story creepier than the next! I recommend reading in the daylight with all the lights in the house on just in case. Or if you're a glutton for punishment like I am, read in bed with only a low lamp on for full atmospheric effect LOL. Either way I guarantee you'll be unsettled at the very least by at least one story in this collection.

One thing you can always count on is well-written prose when you see the Cemetery Dance logo on the spine of a book. Too often the spine is all you can see in the brick and mortar stores; you have to know what you are looking for. It's harder to browse there than before.

Kelley Armstrong was the carrot on a string to pull me into this highly enjoyable tome of temptation. all the stories are readable and may cause you to squirm in your chair. Recommended.

The Way Lost (Kelley Armstrong)
My favorite story in the collection with a great solution. *****

La Calavera (Kate Maruyama)
The ending provided a nice, though foreseeable twist. **

The Devil's Due (Michael McBride)
This felt like a routinely written story with enough details and a clever plot, but it did not provoke any strong feelings while reading it. ***

A Thousand Rooms of Darkness (Taylor Grant)
It was OK I think, but also the least memorable - I must admit I already forgot most of it. **

The Last Night of October (Greg Chapman)
The last story was also the longest, which is my main complaint: the whole 'foreplay' between the old man and his nurse was lengthy and slowed the story down considerably. Only when Gerald finally told his story things got interesting. **

The first story was the only one that really excited me and made this anthology worth reading.

Fantastic. One of the best Halloween compilations I've read in years. Each story pulls you in and does not let you out of it's clutches. Kelley Armstrong stuns, as always. The collection is a must for Armstrong fans.

I never tire of horror anthologies, and so far the Halloween Carnival books have been great. Freeman curated some amazing stories in volume three. Review for Monster Librarian forthcoming.

4 Stars!



I enjoyed the first couple installments of the Halloween Carnival series but was not able to finish the rest of the series by the holiday. I decided to dig back in to the series with Halloween Carnival: Volume 3 to see is the stories work as well on a cold March night as they do in the darkness of October.



This volume kicks off with "The Way Lost" by Kelley Armstrong. The residents of Franklin had grown accustomed to losing one of their own every Halloween. Every year, one child would wander into the woods and not come back. Life would then go on as if nothing had ever happened. Dale promised his mother that he would not go near the woods. Curiosity, however, got the better of him and now he knows the secret behind the annual disappearances. He survived that fateful Halloween night and moved far away from Franklin only to find that he could never run away from the dark secret of the woods. This was a bit of a quiet horror story but it had a nice twist that I suspected yet still found thrilling. I had enjoyed Armstrong's work before without feeling as if it went beyond simple entertainment. This story is the best I have read from the author so far and a five-star way to start the book.



Kate Maruyama has the unenviable task of following this story with a strange tale of her own. "La Calavera" is the story of two friends who had made a ritual of attending the Dia de los Muertos festivities every year. It was a ritual that bound Trish and Jasmine together in friendship over the years. This year would be different. This would be the year that would define the rest of Trish's life. This story takes a couple twists along the way but was fairly predictable from the outset. Still, the story was a quick and entertaining read that was familiar and comfortable in a slightly uneasy way. This story serves as an entertaining three-star interlude to the stories yet to come.



Michael McBride has been one of my favorite horror writers for a long time so I looked forward to his entry in this collection. "The Devil's Due" is a horror story as only McBride can write it. The small town had found a relative measure of peace with the evil that surrounded it through a regimented schedule of sacrifices. It was an uneasy truce but one that kept the town safe. Then one man decided not to make the traditional offering and instead stand up for his family. While the story is not a work of extreme horror, there is a hard edge that runs under the story as one may expect from McBride. As with every story I have read from McBride, this is a strong tale of horror that had me hooked from the first sentence and another five-star story for this anthology.



"A Thousand Rooms of Darkness" by Taylor Grant is next up. I was not familiar with the author but was eager to see what this story had in store for me. Anna is afraid of two things: ghosts and Halloween. Halloween was cursed for Anna's family as they tended to die on the last day of October. Her boyfriend had promised to spend the day with her to keep her safe so she thought she would have nothing to fear this time. She was nervous when he had to go out of town but he had promised to be home before Halloween. She finds herself alone to face her fears when his car breaks down and she has to hope that she will not become the holiday's next victim. While this story had tension and a sense of dread hanging over it, the way it progressed felt a little too convenient for it to be a great story. It was still a quick read with a bit of a bite and a three-star addition to the collection.



The final, and longest, entry in the collection is "The Last Night of October" by Greg Chapman. This novella takes up more than forty percent of the book so I was hoping it would prove an explosive ending to a strong collection. Gerald was an old man who had a dark secret that came to visit him every Halloween. The boy in the Frankenstein costume had come knocking at his door every year and every year Gerald had kept him out. The substitute nurse that came to visit him this Halloween night did not know about his fear of the holiday and his need to keep the boy out. Now she has become an unwitting witness to the horror that has haunted the old man for decades and the terrible price that he must now pay. The sins of the past must always be paid for and Gerald learns that those sins can wait a lifetime to collect. While the story did not have the fireworks I was hoping for, it was a creepy story that had a strong payoff at the end. While not the strongest story in the collection, Chapman builds the tension at a slow simmer and then cuts loose at the end to give the collection a four-star ending.



Halloween Carnival: Volume 3 is not the strongest book in the anthology series so far but it is another strong collection of dark fiction. Freeman and Random House Hydra have become adept at putting together novella-length collections of dark fiction and this book is another fine example of the power of the darkness found in the shadows of even the brightest room. These stories pack a punch even long after Halloween had passed and readers should not hesitate to pick up this book or any others in the series.



I would like to thank Random House Hydra and NetGalley for this review copy. Halloween Carnival: Volume 3 is available now.

This was a collection of stories by various authors all taking place at Halloween. The stories vary in nature. They also vary in the audience they are serving and in the quality of the story. Some of them I liked and some of them I didn’t.

Halloween Carnival, Vol. 3 ...

The Way Lost ... by Kelley Armstrong
That was an interesting short story with a wicked twist! Dale ... did you remember it right?

La Calavera ... by Kate Maruyama
At first you think this is going to go one way ... twist! Very SWF!

The Devil's Due ... by Michael McBride
Wow ... this was delightfully dark! It was well written and scary when you put yourself into the story. I liked that depending on your take it how you felt the ending would either be happy'ish or tragic.

A Thousand Rooms of Darkness by Taylor Grant
Holy Samhain! At first I was unsure about this story & if I would like it. I'm glad I kept reading! I love the Celtic twist at the end!

The Last Night of October by Greg Chapman ...
A Spooky well written Horror/suspense story ... no spoilers here! Want details ... read the book.

Reviewed by Jennifer of the GothicMoms Review Team

The third installment in the Halloween Carnival series. McBride's is the anchor in this installment, but newcomers, Armstrong and Grant, give nice little additions as well. Let's get right into them:


The Way Lost - Kelley Armstrong

Every year, in the town of Franklin, a child disappears. No one talks about it and everyone goes about their business. Dale Tucker knows what happens. Or does he?
A fun tale of small town legend meets reality.

4.5 out of 5 stars


La Calavera - Kate Maruyama

A roommate is a little too obsessive over her friend getting a boyfriend and moving on with her life. An okay story that you knew how it was going to end long before it did.

3 out of 5 stars


The Devil's Due - Michael McBride

The small town of Pine Springs, CO has enjoyed over a century of prosperity. On Halloween, it's time to pay for that prosperity. But this Halloween, Thom isn't willing to pay the price. Great story telling that only McBride can do.

5 out of 5 stars


A Thousand Rooms of Darkness - Taylor Grant

Anne suffers from a debilitating phobia of Halloween. Her family members were killed in freak accidents, all on the October 31st. She decides to move to Colorado for a fresh start, but the holiday is fast approaching. Bad stuff starts happening and Anne is slowly consumed with dread. The story seemed slow until the ending which brought a whole new light to the tale. Loved it's uniqueness.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars


The Last Night of October - Greg Chapman

An elderly invalid anxiously awaits the nightmare from his past to visit his door on Halloween. Oh where to start with this one? Let me start by saying that I think this was a decent story. It had many elements that I would've enjoyed a whole lot more if the delivery was better. Let me explain. First, Chapman didn't do his homework with his dates. If you're going to do a flashback to a bygone era, get the information right. When he goes back to set up how Gerald's loathing of Halloween came to be, he uses the year 1952. He then goes on to describe Gerald's new friend wearing a Minnesota Twins hat. The old Washington Senators didn't relocate to Minnesota and become the Twins until 1961. He then describes how the neighbor boys talked back and forth between their bedrooms with walkie talkies. Those types of wireless walkie talkies weren't available until the 1960s. The ones from the early 1950s had wires that connected to them and didn't use antennas. If it were only those two items, I'd still think the story was sloppy, but I could still overlook it. What I can't overlook is the dialogue between the characters. In the beginning, Gerald and Kelli were at each other's throats. Gerald was the crotchety old man that just wanted her out of the house. Then, once they're trapped, he immediately calms down and begins talking completely calm to her which leads into him spilling his guts to let the reader in on the backstory. Again, sloppy delivery. There was such an abrupt shift in his disposition that my suspension of disbelief crashed and it could never get back on track. This was only one example of the many times this happened and it made what had the makings of a really fun story. To me, a story like this that has so much potential but doesn't deliver is much more frustrating than a story that completely stinks with very little redeeming qualities.

2 out of 5 stars



Overall, a decent collection marred by a couple of clunkers. Still worth picking up, if only for McBride's tale.

3 3/4 out of 5 stars

Another super score, a great Christmas present!! The Way Lost and the Devils Due will freak you out and holler for Santa! Nice collection

Had a very hard time finishing this book. Stories were just not interesting at all.

This is an intriguing collection of 5 Halloween stories. The standout for me was definitely Kelley Armstrong's "The Way Lost", the opening line :

"Every Halloween, one child in Franklin lost his way and never came home."

hooked me in and didn't let go. The story was unexpected and left a lot to the imagination.It definitely unnerved me and had my mind racing.

The other stories were a little hit and miss for me, "The Last Night of October" started off strongly, but I just didn't like the direction it went in.

"The Devil's Due" wasn't a new premise, but the story itself was creepy and well written.

"A Thousand Rooms of Darkness" had a completely unexpected ending, which is always good.

"La Calavera" was the story I liked the least. But this is just my personal preference.

Overall there is something for everyone and it's a good collection to add to your horror library.

Thanks go to the publishers and netgalley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

Another great collection to this series. Very nice selection of short stories.I must say I enjoyed this addition a tad bit more than the others. The writing had me visualizing what I was reading.. Favorite story in this addition: The
Way Lost. I love these anthologies of short stories. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.