Thank you first off, NetGalley as well as Azzurra Nox and your publisher for giving me this book to review.
First of, this book did not come to me as being a short story when I selected it but it was still a great read. I have issues with reading short stories at time because as you finish on you are onto the next so quickly and sometimes I need to digest what I have read before starting a new book or in this case, a new short story. What I really liked was that their were women in these horror stories that were strong. This is quite rare for women to be depicted this way in horror because they are alway left to be running and tripping and falling and never standing their ground.

As said before, I can read short stories but they are not my favourite but all in all, thank you for the read.

Several of these stories by Glaswegian women are built on promising ideas, working through some aspect of the daily horror women face (e.g. predatory men, familial pressure, haunted dollhouses, etc.). However, they tend to feel unfinished, first drafts quickly sketched down, and lacking the final polish to transform these ideas into something truly lasting. The short form of the stories makes it an easy book to pick up and leaf through, with a sharper edge it could have been even harder to put down.

Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology, like any anthology, has some hits and some misses. At least as far as I'm concerned, personally. Horror being somewhat subjective, I feel that a reader may read this and love or hate stories that I felt completely opposite about.

Regardless, Strange Girls really is a classic anthology of scary stories at its core. It is faithful to this more than anything and I loved that. Between demons, gore, haunted dolls, and so much more, this short story collection has a little bit for everyone in it.

If you're a short story fan, check this out. Especially if you like those stories spooky.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A solid collection of short stories. I would have liked it more if the stories felt a bit more connected in some way or another. But overall, this was a good read. I enjoyed it.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and netgalley for this review copy.

I've realized reading this book that I have a hard time reading a collection of short stories quickly. I like to enjoy each story and that makes reading a collection take forever. That being said I enjoyed most of the stories. For the most part I wanted them to last longer, which is a good thing. There were one or two stories that I struggled to read and was happy they were short. I would recommend this anthology to other readers.

I LOVE women in horror. I love the idea of a woman being scary or powerful in a way that she can use to fight back. I love the idea of being the scariest thing walking down a dark street or a lonely alleyway in the dead of night.
Women taking back our power in the form of ripping open a man's jaw and eating his internal organs like Pringles is...it's just extremely my thing.
So I love the idea of a horror anthology entirely written by women. But, I gotta be honest, most of these stories weren't very well written. I hate saying that, because I want to be supportive of this type of anthology but a lot of them read like they were written by inexperienced authors and were heavy on the typos. Some of them were hard to get through.

The ones I really enjoyed were "Sideshow," "The Doll's House," "Blood," "The Girl Who Never Stopped Bleeding," "Leda And The Fly," "My Mirror Wife," "Her Garden Grows," 'Revival," and, the best one in my opinion: "Tribal Influence" about a young Guatemalan immigrant who gets separated from her parents at the US border and is quickly found out to have a very strong and very dangerous ability.

As with "Tribal Influence," a lot the stories in this collection were concentrated on hot-button issues (There's also a story that is told from the viewpoint of a non-binary person, a few stories that centered around lesbians) all of which I really loved! Which was why I wanted to love this, but I just...didn't.
I did love the stories that I listed, which is still a pretty good number and I really, really appreciated that the book put trigger warnings on the story that centered around a really violent rape and murder. I wish more anthologies did that kind of thing.

But overall, three stars. I really wanted to love this but it just didn't work for me.

The cover drew me to the book, I love horror stories and this anthology is a good read, with women as the main characters. Lots of short stories that keep your interest (although a couple did leave me hanging and wanting a bit more). On the whole the book was fun, easy to read and well worth a look.

This book is a compilation of short horror stories, whose main characters are women. There are 22 short stories of all kinds: paranormal, science fiction, contemporary, etc. There are funny stories, very scary ones and others that will break your heart. And definitely some stories would be perfect as books!

It has a very entertaining format for reading and you can perfectly choose a story for each day and read them in any order. All the stories were entertaining, but there are five that won my heart, and I'd love to see extended versions of those stories:

Jenny's Bobo tells the story of a girl who has a very particular creature in her house. This could perfectly be a Middle-Grade book.

Night Terrors left me with a feeling of anguish, much like Black Mirror. A really captivating story.

Self-Portrait With Pears: this was by far my favorite, it's a shocking story with a very current and dangerous theme. This book left me with cold blood because it talks about our reality. It's heartbreaking and terrifying.

The Doll's House: This story also left me with cold blood, I mean... dolls are creepy objects. It's macabre and I really wanted to see more. I would love to read a book about this story. It's so good!!

Sideshow: This story took a turn I didn't expect and was fantastic and disgusting at the same time.

As I told you before, there are many stories and you'll surely find one that will be your favorite. I really love this book, and I want more! I'll definitely recommend this book on my other platforms

I loved this big chunky book full of horror! These are A list stories and I have discovered new authors to look up and add to my never ending tbr list.

February is Women in Horror Month where we celebrate all the amazing female authors and their scary stories.

Having read tons and tons and tons of horror, not a whole lot can scare me and I felt uncomfortable and nervous in quite a few of these.

Thank you Netgalley for being awesome and letting me grab this ARC

I like the premise of the book and the variety of the different stories and characters. Would probably appeal to an audience slightly younger than myself though!

Anthologies introduce readers to new authors they might not otherwise try. Wrapped around a theme, this one is horror, it also allows some of our favorite authors to show us new skills. The short length of each story lets me start and finish each one while waiting on one thing or another. Azzurra Nox has now added many more authors to me TBR pile. This book is excellent for any and everyone who likes a little spooky with their scary.

Unfortunately, I am struggling to get into this anthology so I am going to invoke my reviewer policy clause to DNF it. I won't be providing a public review. I love the concept, but I can't get into the stories.

This was a very diverse anthology. The stories were disturbing, amusing, thought provoking, and some were just confusing. Some of the stories can definitely be skipped but the collection as a whole is worth the read.

I wanted to like this book. I like anthologies written by, and about women. Some of the stories in it are pretty good, but a bit more care should have been taken over the selection of stories and the editing. I was hesitant to post my review elsewhere, because I want to be honest, but I also don't want to be mean when this is from a small press, and it seems unfair to the writers of the better stories.

In particular, The Eyes of the Dead by Danielle R. Bailey has odd mistakes, like the main character's eyes changing from "emerald green" to "icy blue", typos (eg. "her thoughts we incoherent...")and awkward sentence construction. More importantly, it's just plain nasty even for a horror story. Granted, they did give a content warning, but a story in which the main character is raped and murdered a third of the way through, then the rest is just her ghost watching the killer mutilate and have sex with her corpse does not belong in a book tagged "young adult"! It's not as if the author even has a clever idea, it's just torture porn. If you don't believe me, it contains the phrase "peeling away her dead vagina like an Apache war trophy", because at this point why not sprinkle in a little racism for good measure?

Back to the good stories;
Sideshow- I thought this one was clever and evocative
Night Terrors- This one was very creepy, and didn't go where I thought it was going at all.
Leda and the Fly- Slow moving and spooky. It reminded me of the movie, The Blackcoat's Daughter
Extinguishing Fireflies- One for cat lovers. It's very well done.
Jenny's Bobo- A little more light hearted, but still creepy. I like that the creature's origin is never fully explained. It's more intriguing that way.
A Song Only She Can Hear- The best mermaid story I've read in long time. It reminded me a little of the Australian TV show Tidelands.

Women in Horror Anthropology by author Azzurra Nox is a fun, great book filled with wonder. I loved every second of this book and absolutely recommend it! Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 This book was so fun! As with every short story collection, there were a mix of good and bad stories. With this one, that was the case but I was genuinely entertained by every story. I loved the diversity of the characters, authors, and monsters!. The dollhouse story could have been its own book. Overall, this is a fun, quick read that highlights women in a male dominated genre. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC. This book comes out next month.

While some of the stories in here were quite good I felt as a whole this anthology was lacking the punch it needs to secure it's spot in among the other horror stories I have read. I will be looking for future work by some of the authors though so it wasn't a total loss.

I love anthologies of women writers and I love horror, so of course I’m going to pick up a book that combines both. I decided to rate each individual story and average them together for my final rating of 3.09. Overall, these stories were quite entertaining. Although I enjoyed some more than others, it was a solid collection of stories and I would recommend it to people that enjoy horror.


“24 Hour Diner” by Charlotte Platt, 2/5 - a guy meets a girl in a diner, they exchange some awkward dialogue. One of them turns out to be a vampire.

“Sideshow” by Jude Reid, 5/5 - TW: rape. A snake-charmer helps a woman seek vengeance. This one is definitely worth reading.

“The Doll's House” by Alyson Faye, 3/5 - Murderous dolls make for a fun, creepy tale.

“Blood” by Claire Hamilton Russell, 2/5 - a strange tale of lineage, but a stretch to consider this anything other than fantasy.

“Self-Portrait with Pears” by Rachel Bolton, 4/5 - Adam’s entitlement is chilling in this story about a stalker.

“Personal Demons” by Angelique Fawns, 3/5 - TW: transphobia. A teenager becomes best friends with a succubus.

“Friends with Benefits” by E.F. Schraeder, 1/5 - I didn’t enjoy this one.

“Night Terrors” by Angela Sylvaine, 3/5 - A girl recovering from a surgery finds out who she really is.

“The Girl Who Never Stopped Bleeding” by Sam Lauren, 1/5 - a short, religious tale that I didn’t connect with.

“Leda and the Fly” by Marnie Azzarelli, 4/5 - in an uncanny moment, a girl eats a fly and is changed.

“Jenny's Bobo” by Hillary Lyon, 3/5 - a story about a strange pet. I felt like this one abruptly ended right as it was getting interesting, so I couldn’t rate it higher.

“Extinguishing Fireflies” by Rebecca Rowland, 2/5 - a kitten is much more dangerous than anyone ever expected.

“The Eyes of the Dead” by Danielle R. Bailey, 3/5 - TW: rape. This story poses the question, ‘What if the soul doesn’t leave the body when we die?’

“My Mirror Wife” by Ash Tudor, 2/5 - An interesting concept, but I failed to connect with the characters.

“Patterns of Faerytales” by Azzurra Nox, 5/5 - a selkie finds out the truth about her past.

“Campfire Tales: The Bloody Rings” by Emma Johnson-Rivard, 3/5 - Find yourself a kitchen knife.

“Cracked” by Regan Moore, 5/5 - a woman steals a supernatural doll and faces the repercussions.

“Angel of Death” by Phoebe Jane Johnson, 1/5 - a very short story that has odd political undertones that I didn’t quite agree with.

“Her Garden Grows” by Maxine Kollar, 3/5 - Keeping with the theme of the anthology, I would definitely say that Rosamund is a strange woman.

“Revival” by Madison Estes, 5/5 - a medical student believes he feels a pulse in the cadaver he must dissect.

“A Song Only She Can Hear” by Wondra Vanian, 5/5 - a mermaid meets another one of her kind. This story was my favorite out of the entire anthology.

“Tribal Influence” by Erica Ruhe, 3/5 - this one was quite enjoyable, although it wasn’t as strong of a story as I was expecting to finish out the anthology.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an unbiased review.

I made some reading goals for 2020, besides setting my Goodreads goal at 100 books this year, I also want to read more horror and anthologies. When Strange Girls : Women in Horror Anthology curated by Azzurra Nox, popped up on social media, I was super excited. Not only is the book horror and an anthology, but every one of the stories is written by women, which is a wonderful bonus!

All the stories were good, but some were great. The ones that really stood out to me were; Leda and the Fly by Marine Azzarelli, The Eyes of the Dead by Danielle R. Bailey, The Doll’s House by Alyson Faye, and The Girl Who Never Stopped Bleeding by Sam Lauren.

Some of them had themes that are repeated quite often, and while they were still enjoyable, I was looking for something with more of a twist. One of the stories that I felt has been done a lot, made fun of itself a bit though by mentioning Annabelle, so that endeared me a bit more to the story. And even though the few that I thought were not as original, they obviously have an audience since they are told again and again.

There were some that were cute but still disturbing. And my definition of cute may be way different than yours… but I thought Personal Demons by Angelique Fawns was adorable. I also enjoyed having a mermaid and selkie story in the mix since I’m partial to water monsters. A Song Only She Can Hear by Wondra Vanian had a different look at mermaids, making me think of sirens. And Sideshow by Jude Reid, although not an aquatic monster, still had the vibe that goes along with man eating beings.

I really appreciated the author’s information and links to their other works at the end of each story. I will be using that information to read more stories and novels from the writers that I really enjoyed. And I’m sure I’ll find even more authors to read when I check out the various resources.

If you’re a fan of horror or looking to broaden your reading horizons, you should give Strange Girls a read.

I absolutely love reading about strange but empowered ladies. I loved the writing style of the author so much.