The Shivers Collection was such a fun and creepy read. I liked every single story, which honestly doesn’t happen often for me with collections. Each one had its own vibe but they all nailed that unsettling, eerie feeling that makes horror so good.

The short story format worked really well here. The pacing was sharp, the tension built quickly, and the endings stuck with me. I actually found myself almost sad when some of them ended because I would 100 percent read full novels based on each and every story.

This collection really shows how powerful short horror can be. If you enjoy stories that hook you right away and leave you a little uneasy, I definitely recommend picking this up.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this eARC. All opinions are my own.

These were an enjoyable reading experience. Always excited when new collections are released.

Such an amazing group of authors all together in one place, I knew I needed to read this.
1) jackknife - this one was interesting, well written, terrifying, a killer tree
2) the indigo room - workplace horror, is what we see actually happening, gruesome, office
3) the blanks - my favorite one, creepy island, a terror no one talks about, similar to bird box, don’t stare
4) night and day in misery - least favourite, didn’t get it, death, hotel room, supernatural
5) letter slot - struggling teenager writes a letter about his worries, abandoned show house, pushing boundaries

I went into this anthology purely for the Grady Hendrix story, The Blanks, and in typical Grady Hendrix fashion, it did not disappoint! I loved the seaside setting, the ominous allusion to not all being right in this picturesque vacation destination, and I really enjoyed the protagonist. I would highly recommend this anthology, as well as anything by Grady Hendrix!

This collection is packed with such good authors and there's a story for everyone. Spooky, creepy and very quick and enjoyable. Highly recommend and I actually have to several coworkers!

This is an amazing collection of authors to find in one book!

Each story is well-written. These authors all have very distinctive styles, which makes the collection diverse and enjoyable to read. This would be a great collection to read during spooky season, as a couple of the stories give off a distinct autumnal feel. "The Blanks" by Grady Hendrix was the most unsettling story in the collection, but each was an enjoyable read.

Overall I enjoyed these stories. Some were better than others. One of my favorites was The Blanks while my least favorite was The Indigo Room. They all have a few scare, some are sad and tragic. Enjoy these quick reads. Perfect for summer reads.

Thank you NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for an advance copy of this collection. I have listened to other Amazon Original Stories, and find them largely hit-or-miss. This collection was the strongest one I have read so far. It’s hard to lose with a line-up including Grady Hendrix (he never does anything wrong!), Stephen Graham Jones (another favorite), both Joe Hill and Owen King, as well as Catriona Ward (love some female representation!). Each story was disturbing in its own way and there was not a slow or weak one in the bunch. My personal favorite was Jackknife by Joe Hill - the concept of a tree as the evil character was perfection. None were over-the-top scary or gory, all were very well written and enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley and Publishers for this ARC

This is a nice little horror anthology, by five fantatsic authors. Great little stories to dip in and out of, Just like every anthology I enjoyed some more than others.

A fantastic collection of stories by some really great authors. I enjoyed each of the stories and definitely recommend checking them out if you're a horror fan!

The Shivers (Short Horror Anthology) is a creepy little collection featuring five horror-thriller shorts from five different authors.
It’s definitely got variety, and a few of these left me unsettled—in the best way.

Jackknife by Joe Hill – ★★★☆☆
Loved the eerie vibe, especially the unsettling tree that keeps moving about.
The story pulled me in, but I was left wanting more from the ending… I craved that bit of closure it didn’t give.

The Indigo Room by Stephen Graham Jones – ★☆☆☆☆
Honestly, I finished this and just sat there blinking. I didn’t quite get what happened and felt confused. Unfortunately, this is not for me.

The Blanks by Grady Hendrix – ★★★½☆
I know this author’s works since I’ve seen it quite a lot on social media and book stores.
It delivered some good old-fashioned creepiness with a solid plot—definitely worth the read.

Night and Day in Misery by Catriona Ward – ★★★★☆
This one hit different. It had horror elements, sure, but the emotional depth at the end caught me by surprised. Heartbreaking and strangely beautiful—I really liked it.

Letter Slot by Owen King – ★★★★☆
Super unique plot and an ending I didn’t see coming. Strange, surprising, and it really left a mark!

Out of all five, the last three were my favorites. They worked well as short stories—creepy, complete, and satisfying in just a few pages. The authors totally nailed the eerie vibes without dragging things out.

⚠️ 𝐓𝐖: alcoholism, misogyny, grief, child abuse, paedophilia

The collection’s strength lies in its variety, making it ideal for readers looking to sample the breadth of modern horror. It's an eerie, enjoyable showcase of horror's current heavyweights, with an impressive line-up of contributors, and barely a bad story in the bunch.

Joe Hill, "Jackknife":
I thought the premise of this one was fairly dumb (dude hopes to find redemption as well as major media fame by writing about a haunted TREE?? Needed a crane to keep my disbelief suspended after that) and it's one of the few instances where I thought a piece of fiction might have benefited from being longer... the author just throws so much at this story that there's no way things get resolved in a decent manner. I mean, the homeless guy and his mystical cat?? And the guys who managed to stop the tree the first time around?? And then the MC with his whole shedload of backstory; everything was just a bit too much for a short piece like this one, and in the end it just fell apart, IMO.
2.5 stars.

Stephen Graham Jones, "The Indigo Room".
Left me underwhelmed. The setting and the (purportedly female) POV did not convince me at all, and at times the whole thing gave me Ramsey-Campbell-on-a-bad-day vibes. Also, this baby was waaay too long, I was ready for it to be over a long time before it actually managed to come to an end.
Guess I'm just not compatible with SGJ.
2 stars.

Grady Hendrix, "The Blanks"
Easily the best entry in the current The Shivers collection. I'd recommend going in cold; don't bother with checking "what it's about". So heavy on the atmosphere, you can basically smell the brine; and I like the way the story unfolds in the most unselfconscious way -- you get the feeling you actually KNOW these people, and that place, and whatever's going on never gets over-explained so it's a lot easier to suspend your disbelief and just let yourself get caught up in the story.
Also, this was the only story of the bunch that qualified as scary, in my opinion.
4 stars.

Catriona Ward, "Night and Day in Misery"
Meh. This was not horror. This was just depressing and... weird? Even cheesy? I mean, the end just made me roll my eyes. This is sooo full of feelingz and thoughtz and just general deep, deep depth, it felt more like some questionable soap opera, or a super-tragic Hallmark movie. Manipulative and boring -- not my favorite combo. Although I have to say, that title certainly delivered.
I don't know, I just don't like Catriona Ward.
1 star.

Owen King, "Letter Slot"
ANOTHER King spawn in the same collection?? Is that the state current mainstream horror is in? Surely you must be kidding me.
Thankfully, this is one of the two good stories on offer (the other being of course "The Blanks" by Grady Hendrix, thankfully unaffiliated with the Master from Maine). It does not exactly reinvent the wheel, because, let's face it, this is basically another Monkey's Paw kind of tale. (If somehow you're not familiar with the WW Jacobs story, check it out, like, now-- it's A LOT scarier than this one.)
This story is quite nice on the atmosphere, and the characterization was good too; it was an entertaining read with something of a twist at the end that may or may not surprise the reader, so technically this was a lot better than I had anticipated. Was it scary? Nah. Spooky? Nope. But it moved along nicely and kept me involved, so I'm not complaining.
I'm giving this 3.5 stars.

So all in all a bit of a mixed bag (as with all anthologies), but it's worth it just for the Grady Hendrix story.

The five short stories in Amazon’s The Shivers collection all capably fulfill the promise of the collection’s title: they all made me shiver at least once, and most more than that. While they all have some supernatural element (some slowly revealed, some blatant from the start, and mostly all in the form of ghostly presences of some kind), they are mostly absent of jump scares and gore. They are more on the suspenseful side of horror, an interesting blend of the psychological and the supernatural. All of the stories have a grounding in the everyday that is slowly (or, as slowly as one can in a short story) infused with dread and then outright horror.

In Joe Hill’s “Jackknife,” a disgraced college professor at loose ends slowly realizes there is something not right about the tree from which he recently removed a rusted old jackknife. In Stephen Graham Jones’ “The Indigo Room,” a dramatic office presentation turns dark, eerie, and prophetic. Grady Hendrix’s “The Blanks” takes place in an almost too idyllic island summer community whose secrets are hinted at before being revealed, while Catriona Ward’s “Day and Night in Misery” tweaks the haunted hotel room trope in a most moving way. The collection concludes with “Letter Slot” by Owen King, focused on a teen boy living in poverty on the same road as an abandoned McMansion to which he is inexorably drawn.

While I’ve read stories or novels by Joe Hill, Owen King, Stephen Graham Jones, and Grady Hendrix (but only one short story in Hendrix’s case), this was my first exposure to Catriona Ward’s work, and her story (like the others) definitely made me want to read more (readers, feel free to recommend what Ward book I should read next!). All five authors understood the assignment here and delivered on it. Hill’s story is probably the most outright horror/least suspenseful. Jones’s is absolutely the most surreal and otherworldly. Hendrix’s is the creepiest. Ward’s and King’s tie for the title of “most tugged at my heart.” I enjoyed all five stories and can’t stress enough how much each creeped me out.

For four of these stories, the sense of dread works so well because the authors make you care about the main characters through personal moments or traits or reminiscences that resonate. Suspense is more suspenseful, horror is more horrific, when you care about the characters who are in danger. I found the main character of the Hill story to be thoroughly unlikeable and thus less sympathetic but found the other protagonists to be relatable. Interestingly, three of those main characters are mothers of young children who are in some sort of danger, while the fourth is a teenage boy with a sick mother (a natural reversal of the caregiver/cared-for roles).

Fair warning for those who might need it: both the Ward and Hendrix stories involve child death. Both happen “off screen” but are recounted in enough detail that it may upset some people.



I received an advance electronic reading copy of this book for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The Shivers is available now in e-book and audiobook format only from Amazon, and can be purchased as individual titles or as a bundle.

When I calculated my average rating for this I was truly shocked by how low it was because I had so much fun with reading this collection. I thought each story (besides one) were quite decent, and I mainly loved getting to sample so many iconic authors through this as I had only read from Grady Hendrix before. Each story was so different but fit the theme really well, and yeah. I feel like I liked this collection as a whole more than I did the individual stories apparently.

With such a spectacular author line up I went into this with higher expectations than were realistic, so that's on me, but this collection did what every other short story collection does - it provided some highs, some lows, and ultimately ended up feeling pretty mid. I have loved each of these authors independently, and some of them in short form, but as a cohesive 'set' this just didn't deliver for me. I wouldn't steer anyone away from this collection, nor any of the authors. In fact I'd highly recommend them all, but perhaps more so in long form. A nice experiment that didn't quite pull it off.

Wow! Horror talents collected together. This was awesome!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I went into this book with high expectations. I’ve enjoyed almost everything I’ve read from all these authors, with the exception of Owen King, since I had never read anything from him before,

Each short story had creepy moments but overall it just didn’t do it for me. I disliked Jackknife the most. It took me so long to read. I kept restarting it, took weeks off. I just couldn’t focus on it. Once I got past that story, I was able to read the others pretty quickly. My favorites were “The Indigo Room and “Night and Day of Misery.” Truly haunting.

My overall rating for the complete collection is 2.5.

Thank you Netgalley & the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Jackknife
I really liked the eerie concept of nature coming to life as a silent, lurking threat, it gave the story a chilling atmosphere that worked well. However, the frequent use of crude language pulled me out of the experience and, in my opinion, took away from the impact of the story.

The Indigo Room
This story just did not grab my attention or keep me hooked.

Blanks
Eerie and creepy, what nightmares are made of . But why would a mother be so chill about her decision…(I don’t want to give away the ending).

Night and Day in Misery
I truly felt for this mom and the emotional pain she was going through. I also really enjoyed the eerie, ghostly presence… whether it was there to help or hinder her healing process.

Letter Slot
Dyabolical in all the best ways!

*Thank you to Joe Hill, Stephen Graham Jones, Grady Hendrix, Catriona Ward, and Owen King Amazon Original Stories and Netgalley for the digital copy. I am freely leaving my honest review.

All five authors featured in this collection were new to me. Nor did I have any idea that two of the writers featured in this collection, Joe Hill and Owen King, are the sons of Stephen King. How interesting to have so much talent in one family!



JACKKNIFE by Joe Hill

Dennis Lange, a professor at the University of Maine and the author of a bestselling book on celebrity scandals, is in the throes of a scandal of his own. His marriage has gone bust, after his wife discovered his sexting history with a female student, Parker Townsend, whose father raises a stink and gets him fired. Asked to leave by his wife, Dennis moves into an AirBnB.

Nursing the beginnings of an alcohol addiction, Dennis begins to take walks around the neighbourhood to control his drinking habit. On one such walk, he sees a tree with a knife embedded in it. He pulls out the knife, ignoring the words, Don’t Touch, carved into the bark, and inadvertently sets the tree free.

The tree starts moving about, unleashing a nightmare. By the time, Dennis googles the dates and names carved into the bark, and discovers its grisly history, it is already too late.



The story delivered the promised shivers. Joe Hill has written a story about a tree and filled it with menace. Names like University of Maine, Joe Rogan etc root the story in reality, reminding us that otherworldly menace can coexist with ordinary things.

Speaking of sexual abuse of children, the author writes, a lot of it was he-said, she-said, in an era when he-said carried a lot more weight.

The near parallels between Dennis Lange and Orville Shue adds an interesting touch.

+++++++++

THE INDIGO ROOM by Stephen Graham Jones

This is a story set in the real world with nothing supernatural about it.

Jennifer, a divorced single mother of eight-year-old Cole, has parent pick-up on the very day some decidedly odd things take place in the office. When junior associate Gracie turns off the light and lowers the blackout shades in the meeting room, known as the Indigo Room (Sharon, the boss, has named all the meeting rooms after colours), Jennifer has an unreal, disturbing vision which turns out to be a premonition.

It was a strange premise, and I liked the story, but it wasn’t really scary. The style of writing, though nice, took some getting used to and pulled me out of the story. The ending was confusing, ending on an inconclusive note.

In the end, we don’t know why Sharon, the boss, called them all to the Blue Room.

+++++++++++++++

THE BLANKS by Grady Hendrix

This was a horror short story that touched me deeply as a parent.

Rachel and Stephen, and their children, Zoe ‘Zee’ and Callum, aged 14 and 11, residents of Brooklyn, escape every summer to Jeckle Island where they own a summer home. They have been doing so for 16 years. It’s always been fun until it isn’t.

The Island is home to the Blanks, otherworldly creatures you must never acknowledge or lock eyes with. If you look at a Blank, your life is over. They will come to get you. There is no escape from them. Once you lose a loved one to the Blanks, it’s as if they become tainted. No one wants to have anything to do with them.

But then one of their own stares at the Blanks. What would be the consequences of that action?



The horror, for me, lay in the fact that people continue to court disaster, despite knowing the danger they are exposing their loved ones to.

A reference to men’s ‘caveman compulsion’ tells us about the burden that Stephen will carry all his life, his inability to do anything. Particularly when fathering comes naturally to him.

The author does a marvel with an ironic foreshadowing when one of the kids insists that children should be allowed to vote because they are the ones who are going to live in the future.

+++++



NIGHT AND DAY IN MISERY by Catriona Ward

On the eighth anniversary of the deaths of her husband Frank and two-year-old son Sam, depressed and lonely Stella decides to kill herself at the very place where their deaths occurred. It’s a place in Missouri, a place that an unhappy local refers to as Misery.

Checking into the very room at the hotel where they last stayed, Stella prepares to jump into the river at the bottom of which the bodies of her husband and son were found. She blames herself for their deaths, for the liquor found in Frank’s blood.

For eight years, she has suffered, and now she hopes to join them, and find peace. But as she sleeps, on her last night, she has strange dreams that feel real, blurring the line between truth and the supernatural.



This story was beautiful, with a paranormal element. The writing was beautiful. Once again, I found myself hooked on the story, as a mother.

+++

LETTER SLOT by Owen King

Blake, the son of physically challenged and ailing single mother Wendy Price, is used to living a difficult life. But when he sees his mother in pain, yet forced to work two jobs, he is torn. Following up on a school assignment, he writes an anonymous letter, talking about his troubles, and drops it through the mail slot of an abandoned show house. He expects nothing to come of it, and is surprised when he finds a response to his letter, asking him to volunteer the name of one person he hates, in exchange for good fortune.

Blake succumbs to the temptation and is rewarded by good fortune. But the granting of his wishes only leaves him wanting more. And soon there will be a reckoning, particularly when Blake notices a horrible side effect to the granting of his wishes.



This story had an interesting premise, but it could have been a little tighter. Also, the ending felt a little tame. A reworking of the conclusion could have hit harder.