Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC.

This is a fun collection of short horror stories. I've never read anything from this author before so I had no idea what I was getting into. 

The stories are very well written and flow smoothly. There are definitely some different levels and kinds of horror in the different short stories.

The collection contains some dark topics, so definitely read the content warnings if you feel like you might need to. 

I'm now very interested to read some of the books in this author's backlog.

Greatly enjoyed this book. Anthology of horror stories that are creepy and unsettling. The writing are pretty straightforward and plot written not too complicated but there are some chapters that can be dragging while some not fully fleshed out.
One of the story, Spindel, felt like a story from goosebumps. Some of my favourites stories are Spindel, Stump and the Trunk.

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

This is a collection of some spooky short stories.

Unfortunately, I didn't find them all that spooky.

I did love the settings of these stories though, they had really great locations that had such eerie vibes. The locations really did have so much potential to be so spooky. But these stories just fell a little flat for me. They weren't bad by any means, they were just okay. They didn't grab my attention the way I wanted them to. I find that really makes all the difference in how impactful a horror or mystery story is.

I also think that maybe if the stories were a little longer, maybe I could've gotten more invested in them? I do know that with romance novellas and short stories that is a problem I have, so maybe it's the same with spookier stories? I need the time to get invested. Just a theory.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My Goodreads review is up and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly reading wrap-up.

I find short story collections can usually be very hit and miss. There may be a few in a collection that I really enjoy, but usually there are more than a few I don’t like so much. This book however, was fantastic! I enjoyed every single short story and could not put this down. The characters of each story were all so well developed (not an easy feat when each story is so short!) and I loved the ideas behind each one. I also loved how a couple of the stories seemed to link together.

The only negative point: I did find some sentences were a little repetitive - the use of the word “carapace” became a little jarring to me, and I also noted twice a sentence referring to someone shaking their head like an etch a sketch to rid themselves of bad memories etc. While not a massive issue, I feel like these stories could be revisited to reword them slightly so they don’t sound so repetitive. You have to admit though, the etch a sketch makes for a great simile!

I’m now on the hunt for more by this author as I thoroughly enjoyed this collection!