I found the idea of this collection of stories intriguing. Some of the actions and reactions attributed to the presence of the blues guitar a bit more far-fetched than I was comfortable with, but nevertheless the legends were thought provoking and the writing colorful.

I received a free electronic copy of this collection of shorts from Netgalley, J. Stephen Howard, and Amazon Publishers in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

This book was loaned to me as an ARC for review. I read "The Legend of a Blues Guitar" and while it is a short story, it was a chilling and engrossing story about a Martin guitar that kept my attention from start to end. The story is organized in a different way that other stories I've read, having been set up in five discrete short story scenarios independent of one another, but unified by the presence of the acoustic guitar that is the centerpiece of the novelette. The story begins in the year 1900 during a tremendour hurricane in which and older black man and a younger white boy have taken refuge in the basement of a Louisiana mansion. The boy loses his father to the storm flood, and the old man who is sheltering with the boy, and who has a "blues guitar" with him, leaves the guitar with the boy and heads outside the basement. He apparently thinks that his son is in the basement, and the other boy is outside somewhere...confused. He never returns and is also lost in the storm.

The rest of the story, in every short-story vignette, is a tragic event leading to the death of people who have come in contact with the guitar. Clearly the blues guitar is "haunted" by a malign spirit. I found each chapter story more scary than the last until the climax of the plot in the last chapter. The last chapter has an amazing plot with a surprising outcome, but which is reasonable and satisfying to read, but the reader will have to stay with the story right to the very end to get that final "ah-haa" experience. I found the story thoroughly enjoyable and would read it again. I've looked for other books by J. Stephen Howard, and found 3 more that I can pursue.