This collection, as a whole, is a solid 4.75/5. All 5 stories were awesome and l'll go into a little detail on each below, but I highly recommend these stories if you haven't checked them out yet.

Jackknife by Joe Hill kicked things off with a man removing a knife from a mysterious tree. This story is super wacky and does some really cool, really dark stuff. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Solid 4.5/5 from me.

Stephen Graham Jones was next with The Indigo Room. This story was an excellent touch on paranoia. SGJ managed to make a mundane office setting quite terrifying. This one was a bit of a mind-fuck, but it's great, as all SGJ's work is. He doesn't miss, after all. 4.5/5.

Grady Hendrix followed with The Blanks. This was, hands down, the scariest of the 5 and my favorite as well. A family is on a beach trip when their son sees a "blank." There's some history here we barely scratch the surface of... a town knowing some mysteries... idk man I want a full novel of this though, it was fucking awesome. 5/5.

Catriona Ward's Night And Day In Misery was our penultimate story, and it was the saddest of the bunch.
An excellent little tale that had the creep factor, but was definitely the emotional punch of the bunch. I really enjoyed it. 4.5/5.

Last, but definitely not least, Owen KIng wrapped things up with Letter Slot. This story was wild and such an awesome concept. I feel like I can't say too much about this one without giving a lot away, but it rocked. 4.75/5.

The nitty-gritty: An uneven but solid bunch of stories, I was ultimately won over by three that were very good indeed.

This is my first time reading a collection of Amazon original stories, and overall it was a fun experience. Below I’ll give a brief review and rating of each of the five stories. Let me know which ones sound good to you!

JACKKNIFE by Joe Hill
4 stars

This was a very creepy story about a man who encounters a killer tree, and I liked it a lot.

Dennis Lange, a college professor, is in all sorts of trouble when he is forced to move out of his house after his wife catches him sexting with one of his students at school. He rents an Airbnb, and while taking a walk one day, he encounters a strange sight: a huge sycamore that appears to be halfway wrenched out of the ground. Embedded in its trunk is an old jackknife, and strange phrases are carved into the tree next to the knife. With a misguided sense of nostalgia, he decides to remove the knife and takes it home.

The next day, Dennis spots the tree again—but it has moved. And the next day, the same thing happens. Trees can’t walk, can they? Then why does it feel like the tree is stalking him? Dennis is about to find out the hard way.

Hill does a great job of building suspense around the tree, and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen. He gives Dennis a nice backstory, painting him as a guy who got himself into trouble, but it’s not completely his fault. The ending was a bit abrupt and “out there,” but up to that point I was terrified!

THE INDIGO ROOM by Stephen Graham Jones
2 stars

This story was not good, unfortunately. I was very surprised because I usually love the author’s work. 

The story takes place in a corporate setting. Jennifer is a manager for the company, and during a meeting, she begins to see odd things in the conference room. When the lights go down, she thinks she sees one of her coworkers without a head. Later, an accident in the elevator leads her to believe she might be seeing the future.

The author’s scattered writing style is present here, but it doesn’t work at all in this setting. I was both bored and confused while reading this story, and it wasn’t until the end, when Jennifer’s son Cole takes on a very emotional role, that things picked up. It almost felt like Jones knew the ending before he started writing but couldn't figure out how to get there in a way that made sense.

THE BLANKS by Grady Hendrix
5 stars

This was my favorite of the bunch, and it was a really good one!

Rachel and her husband have been bringing their two kids to Jeckle Island for years. Every summer they move into their Jeckle Island house for two months of sunny beaches, drinks and cookouts with the neighbors. Everyone on Jeckle Island knows about the Blanks, and they all know the rules: if you see a Blank, you ignore it and look away. You pretend it isn’t there. Even the kids have the rules drilled into them.

But one day, Rachel’s young son Callum sees a Blank attack one of their neighbors—and the Blank sees Callum. Rachel is terrified, because she knows exactly what comes next…

The beauty of this story is the way Hendrix creates unease right from the beginning. You have a happy family spending an idyllic summer at the beach, but the reader knows something is off. The author never explains what the Blanks are, but leaves it up to the reader’s imagination, which makes them even scarier. I also loved the way everyone is in complete denial about the Blanks and what they do. It was simply chilling!

NIGHT AND DAY IN MISERY by Catriona Ward
4 stars

I loved this one too! This is a more serious, heartbreaking story that the others, about a woman whose husband and son died in a car accident, and she’s decided to end her life, hoping to be reunited with her son.

Stella is retracing the steps her ex husband and son took before they ended up in the lake, dead from drowning. She's come to the same hotel they spent the night in, and Stella has plans to visit the fateful scene of their accident and join her son in the watery depths. But then a boy appears in her hotel room, a boy that looks like her son, but older. And he's trying to tell her something important.

Catriona Ward’s writing is so good, and I felt for the main character Stella, who has so much grief in her past and can only see one solution to ending it. This story has lots of potential triggers, including spousal abuse, alcoholism, death of a child and suicide ideation. There’s also a Sixth Sense vibe that I really loved. 

LETTER SLOT by Owen King
3 stars

This took a while to get going and I was bored for the first half of the story. Maybe not the best pacing for a short story, just saying. A young boy and his mother are struggling to make ends meet, when the boy comes across an almost magical way to turn their luck around.

Letter Slot had some creepy moments, but the ending disappointed me, and so it was just an OK read.

I also want to mention that in several of these stories there are dogs who are killed off, and once again I’m wondering why writers think animal cruelty is necessary for a good horror tale. I’m at the point where whenever there’s a dog in the story, I expect it’s going to meet a bad end. Sigh.

But aside from that, I'm glad I took a chance on this collection. It was a nice change of pace to read shorter works of fiction!

I’m usually not a big thriller/horror fan, but these collections of stories was a big hit!!! They were creepy, but twisted and all the feelings that keep you seconding guessing it all!! These are all a must read!!!

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!!!

Jackknife:

As an avid fan of Joe Hill, I was pleasantly surprised to find out he released a new short story as part of the Shivers collection. In this one, a jackknife pulled out of a dying sycamore tree has deadly consequences.

This author can write about a spoon and have it be interesting yet hauntingly eerie as he pulls you into his world. In such a limited number of pages, he constructed a chilling atmosphere with three-dimensional characters and a nightmarish tale. As always, there is not a flaw in sight, and I rate this one a solid five stars.

The Indigo Room:

This author took the mundane office setting and turned it into a surreal nightmare with Final Destination vibes. We are thrown straight into the mind of the protagonist, chronicled as if in a trancelike state. The ending was done outstandingly, leaving the reader satisfied while the characters are still in motion, which is an impressive feat in itself. Three and a half stars.

The Blanks:

This was a memorable, dread inducing story that left me yearning for more. It was tragic and terrifying. The author did a perfect job of describing the creatures while still leaving it to the reader's imagination. This will pull you in and leave its mark. The atmosphere in a secluded location held an ominous feeling, building up to the very end. There is so much that can be explored here, and I can't help but beg the author for more in the form of a full novel. Five perfect stars.

Night and Day in Misery:

This was a tearjerker that deals with loss in the most brutal of ways. While this was paranormal and not exactly horror, this still fits perfectly in with the collection, and there was a haunting undertone felt throughout. This author wrote this flawlessly, and while it's a love or hate type story, no one can deny the talent and power of her writing. Four Stars.

Letter Slot:

While I am still coming to terms with the ending, this was a brilliant story of self-preservation and morals. This one really makes you think about what you would do given the situation. It lingers, and it pulls at your conscience. Written by a talented hand from a talented family, you can't go wrong here. Four Stars.

Thank you, Netgalley and Amazon Original Stories, for this digital copy.

I was sadly disappointed in the Joe Hill story. It had all the hallmarks of sending us in one direction, and then didn't follow through. I honestly thought the story had been cut off before the ending and when I realized that was the end I was sorry I wasted my time.

However, the other three stories were great, and I think were increasingly better as we went along. The story by Stephen Graham Jones was clever, but I wish it had been pushed just a little further.

Grady Hendrix's story was really timely, about seeing what you want to see and the consequences of not doing something sooner. I cried over Catriona Ward's story. Owen King's was just about perfect.

Aside from Joe Hill's story, the whole collection was pretty solid.

Five short stories by five celebrity authors that are sure to keep you talking about and sharing this collection. When asked to recommend a book or author, I typically recommend anthologies or collections such as this one. Readers are treated to stories that demonstrate an author's skills as the stories may be short but they are never short of impact. These five authors are already some of my favorites so it's easy for me to recommend these 5 star stories. Read, review, share, repeat.

Nice collection if stories by some of my favorite writers. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this interesting collection

This thriller-horror series delivered a chilling, emotional ride. Each part added a new layer of tension—some stories slow and creeping, others sharp and unsettling. There was heartbreak, confusion, and moments that genuinely got under my skin. The emotional depth, especially around the children and their choices, made it more than just scares—it felt personal and haunting.

The final story raised the biggest question: was the resolution real, or something imagined? That uncertainty left a lingering unease, the kind that stays with you. Not every answer was given, but maybe that’s the point. This series doesn’t just want to scare you—it wants to haunt you. And it does.

The Shivers Collection is a collection of five horror short stories all by excellent authors.

1. Jackknife by Joe Hill
Good solid horror with a spooky, malevolent tree and some very unpleasant deaths. I have read a few books by Joe Hill before and I do enjoy his style. I do not read them before I go to bed though. 4 stars

2. The Indigo Room by Stephen Graham Jones
A little scary because some very strange things happen, but I was not able to follow the sequence of events to my own satisfaction. I was not tempted to read it twice so I can only say it was okay but not great. 2 stars

3. The Blanks by Grady Hendrix
Decidedly creepy and definitely not bedtime reading. Hendrix could really use the Blanks in a full-size book. I for one would certainly like to know more about them. 5 stars

4. Night and Day in Misery by Catriona Ward
Beautifully written, spooky but not scary, a very sad story about a mother and the death of her child. 4 stars

5. Letter Slot by Owen King
A very clever tale about a boy who is offered the chance to improve his fortune but it comes at the cost of someone else's suffering. What will he choose to do? Twisty ending. 4 stars

Altogether a very good collection and worthy of a collective 4 stars

Jackknife. Joe's Hill

Ruined by scandal, Dennis Lange is hoping for a comeback. Selling the ge, and a unhealthy attraction to a student of his. And to make matters worse there was a giant tree that seemed to be stalking him. Strange but compelling tale from a master of the spooky stuff that makes you both scared and slightly uncomfortable

The Indigo Room by Stephen Graham Jones
Don’t lose your head over office politics…The horrors of the modern workplace meet actual horror in a fiendishly entertaining short story from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.

I have to say, Graham Jones hit it out of the park with this one!
Great story, the visuals were awesome, I could see that conference room and knew just how that elevator felt as it moved.
I cared about the main character and I felt her growing fear for her son.
Well done Mr. Jones, well done.

The Blanks by Grady Hendrix
Residents have an unspoken pact with the island’s unnatural inhabitants: ignore them, live happily. But in New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix’s thrilling short story, one boy can’t look away—and pays the price.
True horror is the sadness and pain of a loss you know you can't avoid or stop.
Such a well written andnhard hitting story. Hendrix is a request artist with a pen.

Night and Day in Misery by Catriona Ward
In the gloom of her hotel, a mother readies to rejoin her past. Feverish nightmares meet the chilling light of day in this haunting short story from USA Today bestselling author Catriona Ward.

What's worse? The pain of loss or finding out the truth that led to that loss?
A hard hitting, intense story that moves you to tears. Not sure if the tears come from pity or the pain of her past. Maybe both. Probably both.
Catriona Ward wrote a tale I wont soon forget.

Letter Slot by Owen King
A helping hand, a fateful cost. In this ominous short story from New York Times bestselling author Owen King, the cost of living keeps rising—and it collects payment from the soul.
Interesting take on making a wish for better luck. Not sure if it falls under "be careful what you wish for" or not.
I found the ending a little u satisfactory though. Not only was the who of the good luck a bit unbelievable, the boys response didn't seem to be on track with the rest of the story. Overall not bad.

A series of short stories by today's new horror writers, The Shivers, punlished April 15, 2025.

Thanks to @netgalley and Brilliance Publishing and Amazon Original Stories for the opportunity to read this eArc in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

The first collection of short love stories was mostly great, 2 duds
Every one since, I have not enjoyed a majority of the stories. This wasn't really horror?
Not a fan

Thank you to Netgalley and Amazon Original Stories for this advanced readers copy of the Shivers Collection in exchange for my honest review.

Honestly, this collection did not impress me. There is not much to say as each novella is less than 50 pages, but one of them bored me to death, one included writing that cringed me out and contained unnecessarily disgusting diction, and the other three novellas were meh. I wish I had something good to say about this collection. They were not thrilling or scary in the least, and I was expecting more. I guess I can say I enjoyed The Blanks the most.

A solid, spooky collection by some of horrors biggest names-
Ranking-
Jack Knife by Joe Hill 3.5
The Indigo Room by Stephen Graham Jones 4
The Blanks by Grady Hendrix 5
Night and Day in Misery by Catrina Ward 3.5
LetterSlot by Owen King 5

As with any collection, I enjoyed some more than others. Stephen Graham Jones writing a story in an office setting made me chuckle as I waited for the gore. He did not disappoint!
Grady Hendrix story read like an episode of Black Mirror- a seemingly normal family going away for the summer vacation. Is this horror or quiet brilliance as a metaphor for white privilege?
Another favorite was Letterslot by Owen King. It’s coming of age with a twist and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.


Thank you to NetGalley for early access!

An excellent collection. It ranges from EC Horror comic-style sick jokes (which I love), to grief horror and moral what-would-you-do? horror (both of which I love). Great stuff all around.

This short story collection wasn’t my favorite. To be honest I liked more stories on Amazon’s Creature Feature collection.
👻 Grady Hendrix’s story The Blanks reminded me so much as the tv show From it was really distracting.
👻 Catriona Ward’s story was interesting but not scary. I did enjoy it though.
👻 Stephen Graham Jones’ story was violent but it left me wanting more.
👻 Owen King’s story was my favorite.
👻 Joe Hill’s story reminded me of The Shining but I liked the weird twist that the story took.

Another amazing collection released by Amazon. The stories were short but they packed a punch. I especially loved The Blanks and it was the only 5 star in the collection for me. The rest were around 3-4.5 stars.

While overall I enjoyed the Shivers Collection, there definitely were some hits and misses like I always seem to have with short story collections!

Here are my thoughts on each:

Jack Knife ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Liked the creepy sycamore tree with a dark past (and present)! Disliked the MMC. Loved the ending!!

The Indigo Room ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Reminded me of Final Destination, just in an office setting. Not sure what to make of the ending. I normally love SGJ, but this was just meh.

The Blanks ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wow, an excellently creepy and disturbing story! And that ending…man, that was bleak! This was my favorite in the collection!

Night and Day in Misery ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I actually teared up with this one! An incredibly dark and sad tale of grief with a touch of paranormal.

Letter Slot ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A stark reminder to be careful what you wish for! And the ending made my jaw drop!

Thank you to NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for the opportunity to read the eARC in exchange for my honest review! ❤️

Jackknife di Joe Hill
Joe Hill mi piace sempre, anche se sulla carta il suo tipo di horror - molto classico, sotto tutti i punti di vista - non avrebbe nulla per interessarmi. Eppure costruisce in poche pagine personaggi così interessanti (e, in questo caso, così ossessionati) da rendere la storia in sé irrilevante. Sono i personaggi che mi mettono a disagio, mai la vicenda; e non è poco.

The Indigo Room di Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones e io proprio non ci prendiamo, né sulla lunga né sulla breve distanza; venticinque pagine in cui mi interessava talmente poco la voce narrante da perdermi interi paragrafi.
Con questo abbandono ogni tentativo di approfondire la sua conoscenza: non siamo fatti l’una per l’altro.🤷🏻‍♀️

The Blanks di Grady Hendrix
Amo come Grady Hendrix manipola con gusto tutti i topoi dell’horror classico. Qui costruisce una storia d’atmosfera, ben lontana dalle carneficine che mette in scena di solito, ma non meno inquietante.
Il prezzo che si paga per la serenità d’animo: ignorare tutto ciò che può mettere in pericolo il nostro mondo. A qualsiasi costo.

Night and Day in Misery di Catriona Ward
Una classica storia di fantasmi, con un sottotesto psicologico reso benissimo, con pochi accenni; e alla fine una storia di guarigione.

Letter Slot di Owen King
Primo incontro con il secondo figlio scrittore di Stephen King, e anche questa una conoscenza che sono contenta di aver fatto. Ottimi personaggi, un protagonista credibile, e un horror classico, lento, incentrato sulle emozioni.
Non credo che reggerei un romanzo, ma questo racconto me lo sono gustato.

Looking for some bite-size horror?

The Shivers is a collection of short stories by five talented horror writers. Each story spans about 45 pages or roughly an hour on audio. These tales twist ordinary experiences into something eerie, blending the mundane with supernatural dread. The result is a collection that is unsettling, atmospheric, and surprisingly emotional at times. I thoroughly enjoyed all the narrators, and I believe you can't go wrong with either format.

I’m obsessed with Amazon Original Stories.
The Shivers collection written by five amazing authors: Joe Hill, Stephen Graham Jones, Grady Hendrix, Catriona Ward, and Owen King nailed these short stories.

I was hooked from the beginning!!
It was amazing and engaging.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.