Such a wonderful and emotional collection of stories that delve into a lot of dark territories. Written with beautiful prose, imagery and eloquence each piece had something different to introduce and explore with the reader. A great overall collection but my favourites were The Demon L, Little Matrons, Sleep, Ghost Story, Wich, Three for a Girl and Next Door’s Dog. I really enjoyed Holme’s style and themes and I can’t wait to read some more of her work.

Uhmm, some of the stories will haunt me for surely! These are so nice but yet I felt like the spark was missing in some of the stories and it only accentuated the shocking parts like in a horror movie with jump scares but only in this book, those elements were replaced by some uncanny and cliche ideas! I will recommend it though to horror fans!

I was thoroughly confused by this collection of short stories when starting. Whether by accident or design each story flowed into the next without a break or title. While this threw me off initially I ended up enjoying this as it forced me to pay special attention to each story and not take any section for granted. Each story was moving on its own and together they fit in a way I struggle to articulate coherently. I would gladly read another book by this author and especially collections of short stories. There were some that felt like non-fiction, others felt like a folk tale, and others felt like mythology. The breath of type was refreshing and kept me interested to the last story. I have recommended this book to friends and will continue to do so as it was a great read that I found very enjoyable.

Beautifully written and captivating, this collection of short stories ranges from slightly creepy to truly terrifying. I don't usually like anything too scary, but I loved Figurehead. Most of these stories were just on the border of realism, often making me question whether they were paranormal, untreated mental illness, or just the worst of humanity.

I've written a TLDR for each story- each brilliantly beautiful in their own right (asterisks next to my favourites):

-The Demon L: judged by her looks and betrayed by everyone, the demon L takes a violent approach to unwanted attention and disloyalty
-Miss Luna: don't judge a book by its cover unless you want to be disappointed
-Little Matrons: separated Russian Dolls pine endlessly for their lost sisters
-Sleep: what would you do if you found yourself alone, raising a monster?
*-Ghost Story: you should probably take the ghost stories about that abandoned house in the woods seriously
*-Dropped Stitches: next level phantom limb
-Like Water through Fingers: this one went right over my head - love & tragedy & water & reunion?
*-Maria's Silence: silence is golden
-Piece by Piece: a non-traditional love story
-The Glamour: untreated mental illness or faeries taking you home?
*-Wich: when even your fertility can't save you
-Three for a Girl: don't live in haunted houses
-Perspectives: never doubt the power of a good book club
-Runty: beware of observant strangers
*-Into the Woods: a poem about losing yourself in the woods
-Alter: true love survives even the most unbelievable situations
-Before the Fairytale: questionable foxes
-Next Door's Dog: “Give into it, just this once. For all the times you haven’t.”
*-Heartwood: my mother, the tree
-Figurehead: your ship has a life of its own & it might not care about yours
*-They Tell Me: a true horror story that too many women experienced
-Woodside Close: part Doctor Who episode, part fairy tale sprung into being
-A Small Life: when the wilderness tries to claim you
-Tattletale: schoolyard bullies & karma
-Beneath the Skin: the ties that bind us… to a monster
-Rootless: did you read the fine print before offering your first tooth to the Tooth Fairy?

Like poetry, reading these short stories too quickly back-to-back ruins the magic. Instead, contemplation unlocks the imagination, allowing the worlds within to flourish and take hold. I know many of these stories will stay with me for a long time.

"If she were a tree I didn't think I'd mind too much because we could plant her in the garden and I'd water her and scramble up and down her height, swing from the thrust of her topmost branches. I knew she wouldn't let me fall."

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book. All of my thoughts are my own.

This was my introduction to Carly Holmes and, as other reviewers have mentioned, it was a mixed bag. Some stories were amazing and others really didn't capture my attention.

I'm a fan of the esoteric so the stories in the vein of "Like Water Through Fingers" were the ones that spoke the most to me. I'm not a poetry person and the poems in this book did not make me change my mind about that.

If you like the sound of this book, I'm sure there's something in here for you. In a sense, I really appreciate what Holmes has done. She has made her work in this collection relatable to pretty much everyone. And, at least in my opinion, those stories will make the whole collection worth it. I would recommend giving each individual story a fair chance. Don't be put off if you don't like the first one. Holmes has an incredibly varied style and if you go into each piece with a fresh mindset, I know you'll find something that will change your perspective.

I'm excited to see what else this author writes in the future. There's some amazing stuff here and I'd love to see more of it!

A unique collection of weird and terrifying short stories - 4.5/5! My only regret is that many of these stories were not longer!

So captivating, with depth and sensuality, this collection of short stories is creepy, dark and haunted.

Being a lover of the sort of quietly menacing stories of Shirley Jackson and MR James, I relished the chance to read Figurehead by Carly Holmes, which promised to be dark and macabre.

The volume includes stories in length from just a couple of pages to nearly fifty, fantastic for dipping in and out of depending on the reader’s mood!

The stories all have a similar mystery, allowing the reader to work before to story builds to its end and Holmes delivers the reveal. For me, Sleep is a stand-out of this style, while one of the shortest stories, is delightfully reminiscent of a great Jean Rhys story.

For me, the very first story of the collection The Demon L was perfection. The story of a girl becoming what others tell her she is, of her confusion in a world she understand in her own way, and with mention of the fantastical, ‘Mr Bartholomew’s Emporium of Medical Miracles’, it is an excellent example of Holmes talent.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

A diverse range of stories for readers who are interested in a scary story, but don't want to be too frightened.

Figurehead is an impressive collection. I am sure that everyone can find something for themselves here, no matter what length, voices, or themes they are looking for.
I would not necessarily call this collection a horror collection. The themes can get heavy, but it was not particularly terrifying, and very rarely the emotional impact of the stories originated in gory scenes or plot twists. For me, the strength lies in the short stories dealing with loneliness and loss. The nostalgic, melancholic tone really fits the more traditional haunted house stories, family stories, and folk tales. Out of the entire collection, the slower stories that were more sad than scary will certainly stay with me.
I think the collection could benefit from mixing up the order a bit. The first story didn't convince me at all, and I felt like all the best was packed into the second half. My recommendation for people considering reading would be to just skip it if it doesn't catch you- there is enough in the book that not connecting with one story really shouldn't ruin your experience. I would also recommend getting a physical copy - I only wish I could read the stories one by one, with a cup of tea rather than running through my pdf. I will certainly come back to it in the autumn, when I can properly enjoy my favourites.

Following a limited release from the mighty Tartarus Press in 2018, it’s great to see Welsh writer Carly Holmes’ wild and weird debut collection get a wider release.

Figurehead contains over twenty stories and poems, with a huge variety of subjects. Here are some of my favorites:

The Demon L and Miss Luna open the collection beautifully, and very closely linked. Brutal revenge and circus oddities, what more do you need?

Little Matrons is a gorgeous, heartbreaking story of an unconventional family. Read no spoilers about what this is about in advance, the magic lies in how the tale reveals itself.

Ghost Story is one of the most haunting I’ve ever read. A boy speaks to his friend’s grandmother about a local haunted house, and finds some true horrors within.

Like Water Through Fingers is a devastating story about sudden loss, and the memories that remain, whether we would like them to or not.

Three For A Girl reminds us how disturbing pregnancy and motherhood can be.

Perspectives made my skin crawl with horror, and is probably one of the most non-supernatural stories in the collection.

Figurehead, told from the perspective of a ship’s figurehead, is absolutely hilarious and triumphant.

They Tell Me is a “Yellow Wallpaper” for the 21st century. So incredibly sad and disturbing.

All these stories are fantastic. On the whole, I preferred the longer stories, as listed above, but stories such as Wich and Rootless capture a world so deftly in a limited space. It’s truly magical.

I was overjoyed by the synopsis of the book and had started to read it but it felt a bit flat and I ended up dnf-ing it. I hope the book reaches to the audiences who will love it.

A sporadic short story collection that ends up feeling a bit too unfocused and uneven in places to really stick its somewhat-ambitious landing, with a handful of entries that easily outshine the rest. I personally found the overall tone to be consistent enough, though certain stories definitely outstayed their welcome, and the loose threads that tie a handful of the chapters together could have been tied up in a more interesting way. Holmes is a competent writer, her writing style just the right side of overly-fantastical to feel both unencumbered to its more traditional contemporaries yet plain enough to be easily understood and digested.

That being said, some of the stories just simply did not work for me, with a handful feeling particularly bloated with very little point to their extra length. I enjoyed the four longest stories of the novel (The Demon L, Sleep, Three for a Girl, and A Small Life) probably the least; Sleep and Three for a Girl worked the best of those four, having interesting conceits at their cores, but still feeling overly-elongated. I did find many of the other, briefer stories to be of immense interest, with some truly horrific and novel points of view, such as in my favorite of the collection, They Tell Me, which is both gruesome and commendable in its ability to put you in the narrator's viewpoint. Woodside Close would be a close second in my opinion, offering an intriguing glimpse into a world transformed suddenly into a much older version of itself, and thus forcing its inhabitants to adapt or leave; this would have easily been my favorite entry, if not for the genuinely baffling (yet, at least, largely overlooked) addition of fairy tale characters into this otherwise understated and earnest exploration of human nature. Other standout entries include Maria's Silence, Runty, Into the Woods, Next Door's Dog, Heartwood, and the collection's title piece, Figurehead. These entries, and a handful of beautiful passages of prose, made this book well worth reading, even if the rest ended up being a bit forgettable on the whole.

Overall rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Thank you to NetGalley and Parthian for access to the ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review!

This felt like something I would like, but it didn't grab me. I ended up not finishing this title. I really think that others will enjoy it though.

𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐞’𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝, 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝, 𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡, 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐲.

This collection is stitched with cruelty, terror, abuse, myths and ghosts. It begins with a child, born exceedingly pretty and made to atone for stealing her own mother’s beauty. When she hits puberty, the sweet innocence dies giving birth to devilish curves and an irresistible form. Soon she is working at an apothecary, but something cruel is unleashed within her when her own mother fails help her, and so and and so on with all paths she crosses. Next a tale of Russian dolls, layered in dust, apart but side by side as they fade and crack in the sunlight through the drag of days. Happy when forgotten and left behind in the old house, until time ravages each in different ways. Until there are only two left to tell their sad demise. A mother and her troubled little boy move to a town, looking for safety but from what? This one ended with a gut punch of shock.

There are many other tales, women that are trees, another having a breakdown and becoming feral as an animal, yearning to be in the woods. There is a yarn about a pregnant woman ,Georgie, who invites her sister, Marie (whose just had an abortion), to stay at her home, as large as a ‘modern-day Manderley’ and quite possibly haunted. There is something off between them, love and jealousy. A ghostly child visits Marie’s sleep, and the story gets wickedly strange. My absolute favorite was about a woman whose maladies are solved by cruel therapies and cures, like removing her teeth, it escalates to far worse. The best psychiatric minds are sought to make Augusta a complete woman, and more importantly, a pleasing wife again. Madness roots deeper, and the reader has no difficulty in conceiving why. It’s a painful tale and brought to mind women institutionalized against their will in the not so distant past. A time when a woman’s body was not her own. Poor Augusta made the fatal mistake of not adjusting to married life. That is her malady. Beasts, a woman accused of being a ‘wich’ for trying to spell words, a hallucination in the water that may be a real monster, fairies, teeth, and a cowardly sacrifice. Some of the stories were wonderful but not every tale had me as engaged. It is a good read though, and I wonder if a full novel would work more magic on me.

Publication Date: April 5, 2022

Parthian Books

The only word I think of when I think of this book is quirky, it's at times surreal and at others emotional or even terrifying. I love the prose and I look forward to more from this author.

Review available on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4641330549

I enjoy myself a short story collection. My main favourites are those by Rob Shearman, but unlike novels, I find short story collections are better for enjoying over a long period of time. You can just dip in and out wherever you choose and don't have to read them in one go if you don't want to. But reading them in one go adds another layer of depth to the stories because the previous ones are still fresh in your mind. I got a digital ARC of this book to read and I've got to say I wasn't disappointed at all. I saw that this author happens to be from Wales, like me, so it was nice being able to read prose by an author from my home country, so I will be recommending Figurehead to friends who also like to support Welsh authors.

As for reviewing this book, I'm not a big fan of horror in most media, but I do enjoy horror themes in short stories because they don't tend to play to my paranoia so much, hence me enjoying Rob Shearman's works, so reading these hit really hard onto some of those areas I tend to avoid most of the time, but I didn't feel like it really hit me hard enough for me to want to put down the book during any of the stories. It was more fantastical in nature, which fits to what I enjoy. I will definitely be picking up a paperback of this book for my shelf at some point because I'm glad I gave it a read. Thanks Carly for a great short story collection.

There is an almost fairytale-like felling about these short stories. Carly Holmes writes in such a lyrical and beautiful way that helps to evoke that feeling. From the very first sentence the author pulls the reader into the story and makes them experience whatever happens next in such personal way.

All these stories speak of recognizable feelings, emotions, they explore recognizable themes and experiences, but do so by turning them into something darker, more twisted, and even surreal at times. I do have to say that some of the stories really made me believe that there was something lurking in the shadows 😳

This short story collection reminded me of one I read last year and quite enjoyed, “Salt Slow” by Julia Armfield, so I would recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed that one, as well as, to any horror fans out there, and to anyone who is even remotely intrigued by it. I will be definitely checking out more works by this author, and there are some short stories in this collection that I will absolutely return to every once in a while.

Thank you to @netgalley and @parthian_books for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Love this collection of quirky, dark, and eerie tales! My fav is Ghost Story but I like all the other stories too. The writing style is nice, it felt like reading fairytales. Reader have to expect dark twist in each story and I enjoyed the experience. That was a very nice anthology!

This book made me uncomfortable at times, some of the themes being a bit too close to my own experiences. Perhaps that is the point though, the book being written for a female perspective. I liked the Gothic feel to it and I had quite an emotional reaction to some of the stories. There was little delineation between the stories which made it a little difficult to read but I would think that would be sorted out before publication. I would read this authors books again.