I received a digital ARC of this book from Netgalley.

Ice Cold Lemonade $0.25 Haunted House Tour 1 Per Person by Paul Tremblay: Lots of people love Paul Tremblay. His novels are critically acclaimed, but I really disliked Head Full of Ghosts, so I have not read another one. And while this story builds a disturbing atmosphere really well, it's basically the story of "and then nothing happened." The narrator's mother drops off a box of his childhood belongings, where he finds a drawing he stole from the neighbor girl. The girl and her sister charged him $0.50 to take a tour of their haunted house. They succeed in scaring him, and he swipes the drawing and runs away. 3 stars

Linger Longer by Vincent J. Masterson: Lori is going on vacation with her boyfriend to meet a couple of his friends. Lori has some unnamed psychological problem, and she's constantly answering mental health checklists in her head. When they get to their cabin, they find a young woman in a blue dress in their room, but she leaves before they can find out anything about her. This story seems to be going for a sense of unreality, and playing with reflections and doubling. But it's pretty opaque to me, and I don't really care about any of the characters. 2 stars

Whimper Beg by Lee Thomas: At the funeral of his mentor, Scotty finds an inscribed book on his desk. Since the book is a coming of age story about a young gay Southern man, and Scotty, his mentor, and all of their friends are gross bigots, Scotty swipes the book. The book details the abuse the young man endured and his love for his dog. Very soon after, it comes out that Scotty's mentor was fucking rent boys on the side, and his reputation tanks. While trying to contain the damage, Scotty begins to hear a dog walking through his house and scratching at the door. This is pretty good, a story of ghostly comeuppance. 4 stars

The July Girls by Alison Littlewood: The narrator of this story is a teenage girl who's secretly glad her step-sister is dead. Sophia was a classic mean girl, continually tormenting and excluding the narrator, and when she dies in a motorcycle accident, the family decides a vacation is just what they need to help them move on. But there's a picture of Sophia and her step-sister that keeps turning up, no matter where the narrator hides it. This is pretty good. My biggest problem is that the story is told in first person past tense pov, which implies that the narrator survives the story, when that may not be the case. 4 stars

About the O'Dells by Pat Cadigan: When Gale was a child, she slept through the brutal murder of a neighbor by her husband on Gale's front lawn. Gideon O'Dell stabbed his wife to death and was sent to prison, but his wife's not through with him yet. I like this one a lot, except Gale, who was a child when the murder happened, is the only one to realize that Gideon O'Dell was released from prison and is working as a landscaper/handyman. It's very hard to believe that their other neighbors wouldn't recognize a brutal murderer who lived in their neighborhood for some time. But this is otherwise a pretty good domestic horror story. 4 stars

A Hinterlands Haunting by Richard Kadrey: Nick is a ghost walking through a city looking for his wife. It's not really clear if this world has faced some kind of major catastrophe, or if the hinterlands are just a city becoming a slum, but his old apartment building is a wreck and Nick has to run from packs of stray dogs. It eventually becomes clear that Nick isn't really a ghost, just a guy who killed his wife and keeps coming back to her ghost in the hopes that she will kill him. This is an interesting companion piece to the previous story, also about a man who killed his wife and must face her ghost. It's also the best story of the book so far. 5 stars

The Number of Things You Remember by M.L. Siemienowicz: I was prepared to not like this story when I realized it was written in second person. This can be done very well, but it can also fall very flat. Luckily, the writer has a handle on it, and the pov really highlights the problems the protagonist is having with their memory. The protagonist has to get on a train, and they really do not want to. This is completely understandable, because pretty recently, they were nearly dragged under a train by a woman attempting to kill herself. The woman succeeded, leaving the protagonist holding her severed arm. This is a great mindbender of a story that left me trying to separate out what is the protagonist's PTSD and what is supernatural. 5 stars

Must be This Tall to Ride by Seanan McGuire: I normally really like McGuire's work, but sometimes her short stories feel unfinished to me, like she rushed to the ending. This has that feel. Twin sisters, one of whom is neurodivergent, visit a carnival. One wants to ride a rollercoaster, and the other doesn't. While twin one is on the rollercoaster, the attendant gives her sister a classic horror story choice. 3 stars

The Surviving Child by Joyce Carol Oates: I want to call this Sylvia Plath fan-fic. Elisabeth marries Alexander, whose wife N.K. recently killed herself and their daughter by sitting in the garage with the car running. But for some reason she didn't kill her son Stefan, the surviving child of the title. N.K. was a famous poet known for her mental health issues (Sylvia Plath) and Alexander is the husband in charge of her literary estate who isn't handling her work the way many of her fans think he should (Ted Hughes). The problem is that Alex is completely unsympathetic for the entire story, and Elisabeth has seemingly married a much older man who she barely knows who doesn't seem to like her, or anyone, very much. 3 stars

The Medium's End by Ford Madox Ford: Since Ford died in 1939, this is probably the oldest story so far in this collection. Two guys in a club talk about an experience one of them had with a spiritualist. What really stands out about this one to me are the details that I don't think would be included if this was a written today as a period piece, instead of contemporaneously or nearly so. Like, the house where the seance happens has a wired up and decorated skeleton of an Indian man, and when the medium is tied up beforehand, the guy who does it ties him up in a particularly painful way that he used to use on suspected murderers. Anyway, I really liked this one, and it has an especially chilling closing line. 5 stars

A Shade of Dusk by Indrapramit Das: This is a quiet, melancholy story of an Indian woman who was never able to marry or have children, and, as an elderly woman, is haunted by both actual ghosts and her regrets. There are no overtly "scary story" horrors, just the mundane horror of the tiny life she was forced to live as an unmarried woman in a patriarchal society. The ghosts are practically incidental. 4 stars

Icarus Rising by Richard Bowes: The ghost of an artist returns to New York to... get famous? Punish the man he blames for his death? His motives are not especially clear, and he's kind of a dick. Why does he wait for years after his death to do anything? Why should I care about this character at all? I don't know. 2 stars

The Puppet Motel by Gemma Files: I love Gemma Files. I don't know if Toronto is really as creepy as she makes it seem, but she's definitely colored my impression of it. Loren is living paycheck to paycheck until she can go back to college in the fall. To make a little easy cash, she's acting as the caretaker for a pair of Air BnB's that a friend rents. One of the apartments is fine, but the other is just wrong somehow. When Loren has to move into the apartment herself, she begins to believe it's haunted, although probably not by a person. So creepy and unsettling. 5 stars

Air Valve Semilunar Astern by Nick Mamatas: I haven't read much of Nick Mamatas's work, mostly because I Am Providence was so egregiously smug. This is better than that novel, if only because it's much shorter. We get several paragraphs in the beginning talking about the history of Ouija boards and how they don't actually allow communication with the dead. Then we get what I think is an "artificial" ghost (I think it's a ghost of cloned stem cells) talking to a murder victim to help solve her murder. But the ghost says it committed the murder? Reads like someone filed the serial numbers off of Source Code and then shrunk it in the wash. 3 stars

The Unwrapping by Terry Dowling: Our narrator for this story is a professional dinner guest, called upon when someone is superstitious about having 13 guests and needs a 14th. The latest party she attends is a mummy unwrapping. (People used to really go to parties and watch a mummy be unwrapped. It was gross and colonialist.) Everyone at the party is apparently rich enough that they don't think this a bad thing to do. Oh, also the mummy belonged to Nicola Tesla. I didn't like any of these characters, and I hope the mummy eats them. 2 stars

The Upper Berth by F. Marion Crawford: F. Marion Crawford died in 1909, making this possibly the oldest story in the collection so far. Like the Ford story, it's a "guys at the club" ghost story, which is a genre I am not too familiar with. But this is very good. It's the story of Brisbane, a pretty no nonsense type of guy, finding that his state room on a steam ship is haunted. Seems that at least four people who have had the room before him jumped overboard. Even after learning this, Brisbane refuses to be moved, and is determined to get to the bottom of the haunting. The descriptions of the ghost are really great, visceral and scary. 5 stars

A Burning Sword for Her Cradle by Aliette de Bodard: My first instinct when I realized the premise of this story was that it would be hokey and obvious. But there's so much empathy and real pain here that I was totally won over. Bao Ngoc lives with her younger sister Bao Chau in a city far from their homeland. Immigrants in the city are constantly mobbed by angry ghosts, forever telling them to be grateful and fit in. Bao Ngoc refuses to give up her language, religion, and culture, even though defying the ghosts is painful and exhausting. But her younger sister has chosen to comply to the best of her ability, and now she's pregnant. And Bao Ngoc wants her niece to know her culture, even as Chau wants to save her daughter from pain. 5 stars

Precipice by Dale Bailey: Frank Stanton survived a heart attack. Following his doctor's orders to take it easy, he goes on a luxury vacation with his wife. But his 15th floor room gives him vertigo, and he finds himself constantly imagining jumping from the balcony. Is everything really as it seems at the hotel? It's hard to tell if their are any "real" ghosts in this story, or just a man facing his mortality. The most disturbing moment for me was when Frank's wife slices the skin from her knuckle while chopping broccoli. 3 stars

The Shooter by M. Rickert: Not really sure what to make of this story. Alex walks around getting things for a funeral, like a sympathy card and flowers. Alex is dead, the victim of a school shooter, but he doesn't always remember this. He has a series of surreal encounters, like being shown a box of "sorry your loved one was shot by a school shooter" cards. He eventually makes it to the funeral, which takes on a very fairy tale feel, before being interrupted by the reappearance of the shooter. 2 stars

The Tree of Self-Knowledge by Stephen Graham Jones: It's taken me awhile to warm up to him, but I'm really starting to enjoy Stephen Graham Jones. His stories are consistently intelligent, unique, and scary. In this one, a man has a brief encounter with the ghost of a girl who died in a car accident when he was in high school. Well, encounter isn't the right word. He sees her for a brief moment in a grocery store, hunting for something under a display. If he'd let it go at that, he would probably be fine, but he goes back to see if he can find what she was looking for. Then he starts to see her more often. Then he wonders, if she came back, does that mean someone else has to die? 5 stars

The Other Woman by Alice Hoffman: Too vague and too short and not scary. This is about a woman who can remove ghosts attempting to help a woman exorcise her home. I think it's haunted by the ghost of her husband's dead wife? And the title makes me think there was an affair before she died. Very short and doesn't do anything for me. 2 stars

The Loneliness of Not Being Haunted by Bracken MacLeod: June is an elderly woman desperate to believe in ghosts. Having lost her husband and daughter in a car accident years ago, she's spent the intervening years buying dead people's heirlooms, treasured possessions, and anything that was present when someone died, all in hopes of summoning a ghost. None of it works, until an employee at an antique shop tries to sell her a small box that contains a miscarried fetus. Suddenly, the ghosts are interested in June. This is more sad than scary. MacLeod does a good job creating a sense of loss and grief, almost too good of a job. 4 stars

Mee-ow by Garth Nix: Jules is a runner. On his morning run, he meets an old friend, and spends awhile worried that she's a ghost. She asks him to come by the share house they used to live in together as roommates, and Jules, who is apparently a cheating dickhead, agrees. He's haunted by the last time he saw her, when they had a hookup in an unused bedroom interrupted by someone saying "meow." He's hoping to hookup again, but she tells him that she's heard the same voice saying "meow" in many different times and places, and wants to know if Jules has had the same experience. He hasn't, but his cheating ways lead to a scary comeuppance. 4 stars

Jasper Dodd's Handbook of Spirits and Manifestations by Nathan Ballingrud: One of the more upsetting stories in this collection, this one is the story of a young boy beginning to understand the true extent of his father's abuse. Jasper Dodd keeps a notebook of the ghosts that live on his family's property. The ghost of his dead sister resides in the well, and although Jasper doesn't know why she should be there when she died in bed, he accepts it as a fact of life, like his father's beatings and perpetual drunkeness. When Jasper comes downstairs one night to find his uncle beating the shit out of his dad, Jasper stays to take care of his father, instead of leaving with his uncle. It's hard to like this story, because of how heartbreaking Jasper's life is and seeing him realize what happened to his sister and mother is such a gut punch. 4 stars

His Haunting by Brian Evenson: This one didn't make much of an impression, which is a shame as I usually like Brian Evenson. A man speaks to a therapist about a recurring haunting he's experienced. Several times in his life, a large shadow appeared at the door to his bedroom, but disappeared before he could reach it. The man tells the therapist that his father claimed to have a similar experience before he disappeared. One night, the man sleepily thinks the shadow is his husband and invites it to bed, before realizing his husband is already in bed with him. After telling his therapist about these experiences, the man leaves and never returns. The therapist finds that he's disappeared like his father did, years ago. Some creepy moments, but not enough to really pull me in. 2 stars

The Jeweled Wren by Jeffrey Ford: Jeffrey Ford is another of those authors who I don't really get what all the fuss is about. In this story, we have an older couple who think the house across the field is haunted, so they break in. They have a weird experience and promise to leave the place alone, but they can't. So they go back and have another weird experience. Then the ghosts follow them home. 2 stars

The Air, the Ocean, the Earth, the Deep by Siobhan Carroll: This story is about a case worker for refugees and asylum seekers who, along with the usual bureaucratic and human rights nightmare that is her job, believe she's being haunted by a hungry ghost. The ghost is a physical manifestation of trauma, and someone is going to have to find a way to get rid of it. This one felt a little slight, but still pretty good. 3 stars

The Ghost Sequences by A.C. Wise: This one is a story of an artist collective that ends up being haunted as they work in their different mediums on pieces about ghost stories. It's not bad, just doesn't really do anything for me. I am stuck on the major party foul of breaking out the story of when your mom killed your sister and then herself during a light hearted, let's tell spooky stories since the power went out session. Too real, dude. 3 stars

Deep, Fast, Green by Carole Johnstone: Pinky, her mom, and stepdad live with Gramps, her great uncle. Gramps is an old Scottish submariner who was one of only a handful of men to survive the sinking of his submarine in WWII. Now he, and everyone in the house, is haunted by that experience. At night it gets darker than it should, the corridors narrow, and the walls take on the sheen of steel. They're being haunted by the submarine, and Pinky hopes that if Gramps will tell her what happened, maybe the haunting will stop. This is a very unique story. I wouldn't have expected to like a story about a ghost submarine, but it's very good. The author really captures the claustrophobia, fear, and survivor's guilt that Gramps carries. 5 stars

Natalya, Queen of the Hungry Dogs by John Langan: A man travels to Vermont to visit his friend who's dying of cancer. Because this is a Langan story, his friend tells him of the terrible thing that happened in his past. In this instance, during a near death experience, he saw his dead sister who rules over a limbo of dead children that she transforms into bestial creatures. Since he's about to die, he needs help to get to the afterlife without falling into his sister's clutches. Langan is reliably great. 5 stars

I have elected not to read and review this book due to time constraints. Thank you for the opportunity.

3.8 stars

I love ghost stories and ghostly short stories are the best!

So I really enjoyed this book!

Not all stories were awesome but overall I do recommend it!
I liked the different approaches to horror (supernatural vs psychological) and it had some of my favorite scary setting like the carnival.

** I was provided an electronic ARC by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

I definitely picked this up on the path of delving in deeper to Hoffman, Oates, and a few others. But? I enjoyed so many of these spooky, spine-chilling tales by such a wide wealth of authors I hadn't read before (and now am on the path to trying to find more of some of these post-haste, too). I was amazed not to find any I would rate below 3 stars.

I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed are my own.

Ellen Datlow puts together great anthologies. Even more so when they feature one of my favorite writers.

Overall, this is a good collection. It's definitely a mixed bag of fantasy and more serious, horror ghost stories. But that should allow something for everyone!

As usual, personal favorite goes to Seanan McGuire's "Must Be This Tall to Ride." You can't go wrong when she gets to write about carnies. "The Surviving Child" was also really good and eerie.

This is a solid collection!

The wonderful thing about an anthology is that after you read wonderful story, it is followed by another wonderful story (at least until the end). It is like a great multi-course meal, in which each course is different, yet satisfying. This book is like that. Some authors I already knew about, and others I learned about here. I highly recommend this book!

A fabulous collection of ghost stories, solid and enjoyable and not a stinker in the bunch. Of course there are always stories one likes better than others (I won't mention favorites, yours might be different than mine), all were entertaining and eerie. I expect nothing less from Ellen Datlow!

#Echoes #NetGalley

Yet another great horror anthology edited by Ellen Datlow! Some stories were better than others, of course, but there's nothing in here that wasn't worth a quick read. As usual, I absolutely loved Paul Tremblay's story and thoroughly enjoyed several others.

There are thirty stories within ECHOES: THE SAGA ANTHOLOGY OF GHOST STORIES, and the first book that I have read edited by Ellen Datlow, though I recently purchased THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR VOLUME ELEVEN, and I can’t wait to read and review it!

My favorite stories from this anthology, those that resonated with me the most (I tend to lean toward some of the darker stories, though your reading experience may differ), are as follows:

‘Ice Cold Lemonade 25¢ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person – by Paul Tremblay
‘Whimper Beg’ – by Lee Thomas
‘The July Girls’ – by Alison Littlewood
‘About the O’Dells’ – by Pat Cadigan
‘A Hinterlands Haunting’ – by Richard Kadrey
‘Must Be This Tall to Ride’ – by Seanan McGuire
‘The Surviving Child’ – by Joyce Carol Oates
‘A Shade of Dusk’ – by Indrapramit Das
‘Icarus Rising’ – by Richard Bowes
‘The Puppet Motel’ – by Gemma Files
‘The Unwrapping’ – by Terry Dowling
‘Precipice’ – by Dale Bailey
‘The Tree of Self-Knowledge’ – by Stephen Graham Jones
‘The Other Woman’ – by Alice Hoffman
‘The Loneliness of Not Being Haunted’ – by Bracken Macleod
‘Jasper Dodd’s Handbook of Spirits and Manifestations’ – by Nathan Balligrud
‘The Air, the Ocean, the Earth, the Deep’ – by Siobhan Carroll
‘The Ghost Sequences’ – by A.C. Wise
‘Natalya, Queen of the Hungry Dogs’ – by John Langan

Thank you, NetGalley and Saga Press, for providing me with a copy of ECHOES: THE SAGA ANTHOLOGY OF GHOST STORIES in exchange for an honest review.

An insanely dense and wonderful compilation by the indefatigable, Ellen Datlow.
There are more modern classics within these pages than you can fathom and author Paul Tremblay sets a hard to follow knockout in the opener. Amazingly enough, the other writers in this doorstop tome are up for the challenge and deliver tales to cherish.

Echoes is a great collection of ghost stories by various authors. Well written and interesting stories. I have found some authors I didn't know about.

This eclectic volume of short, horror-laced stories from several well-known authors of the genre, as well as some that straddle the line between horror sand sci-fi/ speculative fiction, is well-rounded and scary.

I averaged the stars from all the stories and got 3.333, so I'll give this book 3 stars overall ("I liked the book"). And I did like it! I always like Datlow's anthologies. This one contained a few gems, but nothing that absolutely blew me away. The standouts for me were stories by Alison Littlewood, Gemma Files, Carole Johnstone, and John Langan.

This anthology contains 30 diverse ghost stories and makes a great October read. Below are quick ratings for each story:

“Ice Cold Lemonade 25ȼ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person,” by Paul Tremblay. 3 stars.
“Linger Longer,” by Vincent J. Masterson. 3 stars.
“Whimper Beg,” by Lee Thomas. 3 stars.
“The July Girls,” by Alison Littlewood. 4 stars. A story about grief and loss, with a creepy, twisted ending that I quite liked.
“About the O’Dells,” by Pat Cadigan. 4 stars. The narrator's voice made this story stand out. A gruesome topic (domestic violence) with ghostly revenge.
“A Hinterlands Haunting,” by Richard Kadrey. 3 stars.
“The Number of Things You Remember,” by M. L. Siemienowicz. 2 stars.
“Must Be This Tall to Ride,” by Seanan McGuire. 2 stars.
“The Surviving Child,” by Joyce Carol Oates. 3 stars.
“The Medium’s End,” by Ford Madox Ford. 3 stars.
“A Shade of Dusk,” by Indrapramit Das. 3 stars.
“Icarus Rising,” by Richard Bowes. 4 stars. I liked this tale of a vengeful ghost--but not the type of vengeance we usually see in ghost stories. Neat ghost lore.
“The Puppet Motel,” by Gemma Files. 4 stars. I almost always like Gemma Files. This story, of a place that's haunted or just "wrong," isn't a typical haunting, but it was spooky.
“Air Valve Semilunar Astern,” by Nick Mamatas. 2 stars.
“The Unwrapping,” by Terry Dowling. 4 stars. Cool story about a mummy.
“The Upper Berth,” by F. Marion Crawford. 4 stars. A "traditional" ghost story set in a ship. Spooky!
“A Burning Sword for Her Cradle,” by Aliette de Bodard. 2 stars.
“Precipice,” by Dale Bailey. 3 stars.
“The Shooter,” by M. Rickert. 3 stars, but nearly 4. Most of the story was too surreal for me, but the last few paragraphs really pack a punch.
“The Tree of Self-Knowledge,” by Stephen Graham Jones. 4 stars. Another more "traditional" ghost story, about being haunted by what could have happened.
“The Other Woman,” by Alice Hoffman. 3 stars.
“The Loneliness of Not Being Haunted,” by Bracken MacLeod. 4 stars. Very pensive.
“Mee-Ow,” by Garth Nix. 4 stars. Short and simple, but effective.
“Jasper Dodd’s Handbook of Spirits and Manifestations,” by Nathan Ballingrud. 4 stars. Wow, what a sad story.
“His Haunting,” by Brian Evenson. 4 stars. Another simple but creepy story.
“The Jeweled Wren,” by Jeffrey Ford. 4 stars. I love the retired (or almost) couple as protagonists.
“The Air, the Ocean, the Earth, the Deep,” by Siobhan Carroll. 3 stars.
“The Ghost Sequences,” by A. C. Wise. 3 stars. At first, this was one of my favorite stories, but the ending was too abrupt for me. I also wanted more characterization.
“Deep, Fast, Green,” by Carole Johnstone. 4 stars. About how tragedy is passed through generations--through people and places.
“Natalia, Queen of the Hungry Dogs,” by John Langan. 4 stars. Once again, the John Langan story (novella?) at the end of a compilation is my favorite.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

Great line up of authors in this anthology. I enjoyed all the stories in this collection and am having a hard time picking a favorite.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley!

This book...... honestly... i'm in love. SO MANY TALENTED AUTHORS IN ONE BOOK!!!!!

My jaw dropped when i saw the list of authors. my jaw dropped with every story.
honestly, there wasn't one single story that i hated.

sooo get this book.. get it now.

I’m not a huge fan of short story compilations in general, so that probably had something to do with this not working for me. Not my favorite. I expected more thrills from ghost stories.

Datlow is, as always, an impeccable editor, and delivers a collection of eerie, excellent tales by a laundry-list of authors. Horror isn't my preferred genre, but this collection provides a spooky sample that is an excellent entry for sci-fi/fantasy readers.

I love ghost stories! One of my favorite fall pastimes is to sit out on my porch after sunset and read ghostly tales on my ipad for awhile. The woods across the street and quietness of our neighborhood just lend a great atmosphere to a bit of horror. Even though it isn't quite fall yet, I pushed the season this year and started my porch reading early. Cup of coffee. Neighbor's cat. Awesome book of ghost stories. Perfect!

Ellen Datlow collected 30 stories for Echoes. This collection of stories is varied and outstanding! Some of the author's names I recognized (Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman) and others were new to me (John Langan, A.C. Wise). I'm not going to include a long list of all the writers who contributed to the anthology. But I will say that there was not a single story that I didn't enjoy. I savored this collection, only reading one or two stories a night. And I'm buying a copy for my keeper shelf. I will enjoy re-reading this anthology! My favorite? The Tree of Self-Knowledge by Stephen Graham Jones. But all the stores are good!

This is the first story collection edited by Datlow that I've read. I'm so glad I did because not only were the stories good....but I have significantly added to my TBR list! Datlow has edited so many story collections (and my library offers many of them on its digital site!) that I will be kept in awesome short fantasy, science fiction, and horror for a long time! Woot!!

Awesome collection! Full stars from me! :)

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this story anthology from Saga Press via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

This was a very strong collection, ranging from campfire ghost stories to more traditional horror with a ghostly theme. Most of the stories held my attention and interest - which is something that doesn't often happen with anthologies. I'm not a short-story person generally, but I went in knowing a number of the authors represented and was cautiously optimistic based on that, but interestingly I found that several of the previously-unknown-to-me writers produced the stories I enjoyed the most - most notably Paul Tremblay's opener, Vincent J. Masterson's "Linger Longer", Gemma Files' "The Puppet Motel, and especially A.C. Wise's "The Ghost Sequences". Richard Kadrey and Seanan McGuire delivered the type of solid story I expect from them, and I also enjoyed the Garth Nix (which was darker than I expected). All in all it was a creepy and engaging set of tales - not to be read at night before bed, which is when I usually read my review books!

Ghost stories are not my usual genre (even though I was born on Halloween), but this is a good collection of solid and diverse stories. Recommended for fans of eerie stories.

I really appreciate the advanced copy for review!!