2.5 Stars.

I was really disappointed with this anthology. It started out quite enjoyable, I liked the story and I felt the tone carried over from one story to the next but then it went downhill.

"Lights" might have been my favourite short story and I enjoyed "Be Not Afraid" and "All My Best Friends Are Dead".The Teeth Come Out At Night" was okay but I didn't love it. I felt the writing style was easy to read but after a while the story dragged and while I understand it was a short story, I felt the ending could've been wrapped up a bit better. I absolutely hated "I Love Your Eyes". The writing itself was not well-done and the plot twist made absolutely no sense given the POV we were in. "The Consumption Of Vienna Montrose" just left me confused and uncomfortable but not in the way I want to be when I enjoy a horror story. The writing itself was enjoyable but the plot was . . . . not. The rest of the stories felt very average to me and my biggest takeaway was that there seems to be an obsession with teeth.

Outstanding. Although I hate to compare this with Out Here Screaming, I'm going to. Story for story this was a much more solid antho. Standouts include the Wellington, Coles, and Douglass.

These were the definition of hit and miss, although unfortunately the majority were more on the miss end of things. I feel like what often happens with short stories is that a) the author tries to cram too much into too few pages or b) they write too many pages in order to accommodate a novella-length story idea. Short stories are meant to be short, sweet, and almost a snapshot of a story. Several of the ones in this book were either way too long or were confusing because of their crowded brevity. I love the idea of a Black horror anthology but it just needed to be better...

As with all short story collections, there were some I liked and some I didn't, but overall I did enjoy this collection. I think YA horror is a big thing right now and this is a great collection to add to the growing list of horror titles.

A stunning, haunting collection of stories about all manner of monsters. Whether it is dolls or witches, body horror or the slow-burn of dread; each story held something new and exciting. I recognised several of the writers as people I’ve followed for years, eagerly awaiting their work being published and here we are!

Circe Moskowitz did an amazing job collating these stories, as despite their differences, there is a cohesion to the stories found within this collection. I look forward to reading more of each authors’ work and am so grateful to have received an arc (apologies for how long it took me to get to it, unmedicated ADHD is excruciating!)

Since I heard about this anthology, I had been very excited to dive into the stories. One of my favourites was by Joelle Wellington — no one does haunted places quite like this author, and it’s fantastic. Brent Lambert’s story finds a way to make time and clocks terrifying while Donyae Coles’s story of motherhood horror will stick with you long after you’ve put the book down. It’s about so much more than family superstitions and of uncovering disturbing truths, of how a child with ties to the Devil grows up, hoodoo, tooth horror (oh the tooth horror), and was my absolute favourite of the stories. I also loved ‘Papa Pearlie’ from Ryan Douglass.

This anthology was so amazing! It has so many authors I love and it really felt like it was a chance for them to be really just weird and wonderful.

3.5 stars - Let me start out this review by saying short story collections will always be mid-range for me because I either have stories I absolutely love and some that I don't, which was the case here. The first three short stories in here were phenomenal. I was genuinely spooked and very excited to continue reading. However, once we got to around the middle portion, I did start to find the stories (while still very creepy!) to be either confusing or dipping a little in terms of shock value. However, this collection ends with a bang and I think if you really love short horror, this is a collection worth picking up. My favourite stories overall were: Lights, All My Best Friends Are Dead, and the book's closing novel No Harm Done.

All These Sunken Souls is an incredibly solid YA horror anthology, providing fresh spins on familiar tropes. It boasts some amazing new voices and established gems of YA - keep an eye on everyone involved because they are going places.

As always, anthologies can be such tricky beasts. This one was so, so good and the perfect thing to pick up as the nights draw closer. A lot of them riffed on very familiar stories and tropes, but always provided something unexpected and new. I’m going to run through each of the stories to give a sense of my overall thoughts.

Lights by Kalynn Bayron was twisty and enjoyable. Bayron has high expectations from me and smashes them every time. Be Not Afraid by Ashia Monet was haunting, brilliant and incredibly well written. Liselle Sambury proved again to be one to watch with All My Best Friends Are Dead - creepy, twisty, excellent.
I was already very hyped for Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis and The Teeth Come Out at Night heightened this with a gory, dark and twisted story. I Love Your Eyes by Joel Rochester was a wonderfully twisted little tale of revenge and darkness, with a twist of academia and a riveting story at its core. Rochester has such a distinctive authorial voice.

To no one’s surprise, Joelle Wellington smashed it out of the park with The Consumption of Vienna Montrose. This was a stunningly written and inventive take on haunted house trope, with a bloody, raw and Gothic story that meditated on themes of family and grief. It was a total standout for me.

The Landscape of Broken Things by Brent Lambert gave me that twisty, time wimey wobbly wobbly brilliance. It was amazing and that ending was a pretty good cliffhanger. Mother Daughter and the Devil by Donyae Coles sold me completely from the opening line. With its depiction of intergenerational trauma and rage, it evolved into this bloody twisted monstrous thing.

Papa Pearlie by Ryan Douglass had an incredibly intriguing concept, which Douglass played on so well. It was very atmospheric, claustrophobic and twisty. Finally, No Harm Done by Circe Moskowitz closed us off in style. This was another one that took some shocking turns and was up to its knees in blood.

All These Sunken Soul features short horror stories, from bestselling to rising new authors. I was super excited to read this anthology, featuring some authors whose work I’ve previously enjoyed to some new (to me) faces that I’ll definitely be watching. This anthology kicks off so strong, and I was thoroughly enjoying each new story, however, I felt towards the end, the end, it really loses steam. Rating anthologies is somewhat tricky because while I put the overall book at three stars, some of these pieces are 5-star quality.

Some of the standout pieces include:

Kalynn Bayron starts the anthology with a thrilling piece about a monster eager to satisfy its need to kill and finds its match in its newest victim. This one threw me off in the best way possible. It was such an unexpected ending and was the best choice to begin with.

Ashia Monet’s haunting tale about a mysterious entity that arrives at a church. I liked how this one dealt with religious hypocrisy; the visuals in this short were one of the best. I was not the biggest fan of Monet’s debut, but this one was spectacular.

All My Best Friends Are Dead by Liselle Sambury. 10/10. My favourite. It reminded me of those late 90s/early 2000s teen shows that had always had one Halloween/horror episode in their lineup. But with actual horror and not sanitised for a young audience.

Papa Pearlie by Ryan Douglass. A young man joins his family gathering, headed by the patriarch of his family and discovers a secret that followed his family for years. I was a bit unsure at the start, but by the end, this was the story that made me put down my phone at 1 a.m. and forced me to sleep.

Overall, there are many more I could praise. Still, there are also many which were disappointing and the general feeling I had regarding them was that they all had excellent ideas and thrilling concepts. Still, the execution of them is where I found myself almost skipping to the next story. But the ones that I did enjoy were some fantastic and frightening reads.

THOUGHTS

This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year... and also one of my most disappointing reads. Don't get me wrong. There are some great stories in this anthology. But a lot of them just weren't to my taste, and that made this collection a bit of a slog to get through.


PROS
Horrific: Some of these tales are absolutely horrific, in the best way possible. What else could you ask for from a horror anthology? Splashing blood, shambling zombies, and more: this book really does play on the worst fears we have (and some fears we didn't have until now).

Powerful: There's something really powerful in these stories, because horror is not a genre that has, historically, been particularly kind to melanin. But these authors grab the genre by the throat and let their hero(ine)s survive, struggling back to their feet in triumph. This book is a reclaiming of a genre, and I love that.

Range: This book has an incredible variety of horror in it. Not all horror is created equal. Creeping darkness, shadowy basements, countryside manors, and the horrors that happen in broad daylight: there's a bit of everything here for the horror fan, whether slasher or psychological thriller or demonic possession. Rage and revenge take the lead.


CONS
Lull: One of the problems I have with short story collections is that not all stories are created equal. Especially in a collection like this, where all of the stories are so vastly different, I found my interest waning. This collection starts off alright, and it definitely ends on a high note. But the lull in the middle was disappointing. I found the stories confusing and boring, which is never a good combination.

Mature: There's a lot of gore in this book, of which readers should definitely be warned, but that's not my real critique here. That's just part of the genre. A lot of these stories didn't quite seem teen to me, to the point that I kept checking, repeatedly, the publisher's marketing category for this book. The themes are older and the content can be, too. Though it is nothing that an older teen wouldn't be able to handle, it still didn't feel quite like a good fit for the category.

Nonsensical: Now, I don't mind horror that strays a bit from reality--give me tentacle monsters all day long! But to be truly horrific, I think horror needs to have its roots in the real world. It needs to be grounded in our own fears, our own reality, and I think a lot of these stories fell flat because they just didn't quite hit that note of This Could Be Real.


Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐
4/10
Fans of Editors Shelly Page and Alex Brown's Night of the Living Queers will like this new Black horror anthology. Those who loved Liselle Sambury's Delicious Monsters will like the dark twists on tropes at play in this collection.

This anthology is just... so cool. Of course, it being an anthology, I enjoyed some stories more than others, but overall, this was so great, and there were so many stories that completely intrigued me and that were so much fun. A lot of them had really interesting twists. I also loved how many of these stories were queer, which is always an added bonus!

As with every anthology I read, there were a few hits and misses for me in These Sunken Souls but in the celebration of the spooky season, I’m going to concentrate only on the ones I enjoyed because I would pick this anthology up for these ones only anyway!

Lights by Kalynn Bayron

This one is a bit twisty and majorly macabre, and I enjoyed it from start to finish. I am a personal fan of stories that never reveal any personal details about the main character (kind of like Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier), and Lights did this! I was excited about that because I hardly ever get to read this specific thing except in things I write myself so *cheering*

Be Not Afraid by Ashia Monet

I think this may be the standout story of the anthology. The writing was beautiful and atmospheric, and again there was a bit of a twist and I loved it. I am here for the real villains of the story to get what is coming for them.

All My Best Friends Are Dead by Liselle Sambury

I really liked this one! I love a good teen girls think nothing through and end up summoning something they were 100% not prepared for story. I also really like Sambury’s writing (I loved it in her novel Delicious Monsters) so it was no surprise to me that it was one of my favourites in the anthology

Papa Pearlie by Ryan Douglass

This one did miss the mark just a teensy bit but I enjoyed it overall because creepy dolls. I am always here for creepy dolls. To be honest, I think Papa Pearlie could have done with being a bit longer so that things could have been explained and explored more.

No Harm Done by Circe Moskowitz

No Harm Done was pretty much the most brutal of the stories and I really liked it. Zombie stories are so often told right in the middle of the apocalypse but this one started out completely normal and then BAM – zombies. Kind of reminded me of the beginning of Fear the Walking Dead, which I really enjoyed. Definitely one of my top faves of the anthology!

I love short stories and anthologies. Even the best author must flex their writing skills to deliver quality short stories. In less than a usual chapter length, they must introduce us to the characters and their communities/ back stories, commit to an "event" and then solve it, all while keeping the reader engrossed and flipping pages. I often find that an author will switch genres in an anthology, which gives me an even better appreciation for their talent.
Many have a similar theme with the writers giving their story an unusual “spin” to meet the theme’s intent without copying each other. It is not unusual to find a true gem mixed in with the overall excellent stories, making anthologies a triple threat/ treat.
I have now read the stories, researched the authors, and added many of their back titles to my TBR list.

I love Horror so much and All These Sunken Souls was an incredibly addition to the genre. This features ten stories from various authors and sets out to create more of a space for Black characters in horror, something incredibly necessary as they are often stereotyped in these stories. The stories all bring so much to the table - starting and ending incredibly strong! The order and placement of the stories feels well thought out and intentional. If you love any horror aspect, there is definitely something here for you.

My favorites in this collection - Lights, Be not afraid, The Teeth Come out at Night

This review will be posted on my blog (https://reviewsofyabooks.blogspot.com) and various other social media outlets on September 17, 2023.

This was a great anthology. The wide range of themes covered means that there is something for everyone. Are you into haunted mansions? Bloody Mary-esque legends? Zombies? Insidious lovers? You'll find it in here. The wide range of themes here makes it perfect for new and old horror fans alike, and as someone who has consumed her fair share of horror media, I really enjoyed all of the stories, they were unsettling in exactly the way that I hope horror stories will be.

If you were a fan of the horror anthology Night of the Living Queers: 13 Tales of Terror Delight, and would like to keep delving into the world of horror anthologies especially while we approach the Halloween season, I think this book would be a perfect one for you.

This was a bit of a mixed bag, but I had a mostly positive experience with it. It felt as though almost every author was well-acquainted with horror and its many subgenres and I think they, overall, managed to capture it really well. Even with the stories that weren't to my particular liking in terms of personal preference, I had to command the craft and the narrative. There were a couple of duds, a lot of really solid stories, but then there were a few absolute wins and I would love to talk about those because they really did something to me.

LIGHTS was fantastic. Short and to the point, I thought it was an excellent opener for the collection. It knew exactly what it wanted to do and then it delivered on the premise a hundred percent. I'd read Kalynn Bayron and gone into this story not the biggest fan only to exit it completely in love with her.

THE TEETH COME OUT AT NIGHT was, likewise, absolutely incredible. I marked down the author's upcoming book lightning fast because the narrative felt incredibly tight and precise and I LOVED the places this story took us. The world building was solid and I felt like we really got to know the main character over a short period of time - heck, I CARED about the main character. It was overall really well built.

PAPA PEARLIE was simply fantastic and I wanted to reread it the second I finished it.

My personal favorite, though, was THE CONSUMPTION OF VIENNA MONTROSE. I actually don't think I've ever loved a short story as much as I loved this one in my entire life. The writing was EXQUISITE. Joelle Wellington immediately became an auto-buy author for me. I literally need more of her words in my life. The plot and the characters were great, too, but THE WRITING?! EXCUSE ME?! One of the best I've read all year.

I am not a horror reader at all. horror movies scare me to no end, but I was hoping that an anthology wouldn't be as scary. I was right. The stories are really good, some of them had twists that even I didn't see coming, but I'm ont sure I would classify them all as horror. So if you're hesitating reading this, because you think it'll be too scary, don't worry about it!

Great collection of stories from an even greater collection of authors. Black speculative horror is a genre that I’m beginning to enjoy more and more so this was definitely right up my alley

A strong horror anthology that both invents new haunts and puts unique spins on familiar tropes. As always with anthologies I preferred some stories more than others; absolute standouts for me were the stories by Ashia Monet (i love fucked up church interfacing & imagery & righteous gore), Liselle Sambury (i love insane girl group friendships), Joelle Wellington (a girl simply has the right to mutually obsessive madness with a haunted house) and Circe Moskowitz (ouch :( my favourite zombie outbreak story ever. such good character work)