Summary: A cemetery full of the restless dead. A town so wicked it has already burned twice, with the breath of the third fire looming. A rural, isolated bridge with a terrifying monster waiting for the completion of its summoning ritual. A lake that allows the drowned to return, though they have been changed by the claws of death. These are the shadowed, liminal spaces where the curses and monsters lurk, refusing to be forgotten.
Hauntings, and a variety of horrifying secrets, lurk in the places we once called home. Written by New York Times bestselling, and other critically acclaimed, authors these stories shed a harsh light on the scariest tales we grew up with.
Stay / Erica Waters
The tallest poppy / Chloe Gong
Loved by all, save one / Tori Bovalino
One-lane bridge / Hannah Whitten
Ghost on the shore / Allison Saft
Petrified / Olivia Chadha
Third burn / Courtney Gould
It stays with you / Aden Polydoros
Truth or dare / Alex Brown
The burning one / Shakira Toussaint
(Summary and pic from goodreads.com)
My Review: I have to admit that when I put this book on reserve it’s because I was really hoping that “the anthology of folk horror” was a collection of horror stories about folk monsters, folk tales in places like Appalachia, maybe some cool Native American folklore, etc. What this actually was was a collection of stories about folk tales like “Bloody Mary,” and then many featuring things that I hadn’t really heard of. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that for the most part, these are just short scary stories. That isn’t a bad thing, per se, but I was really hoping for some cool folk lore, which is always a fave. Also, the cover. It’s awesome and I would say exactly what I would expect a book with this title to have.
One thing I did enjoy about this book was the short story aspect. We’ve all read horror stories of sorts, whether they’re crime, or paranormal, fairytale reimagined, or many other aspects of horror. These end up being a novel-length exploration of whatever the topic was, and although that’s sometimes really fun, especially around Halloween time, short stories lend themselves well to horror and I enjoyed that. Whereas a novel may drag it on for a long time, and maybe sometimes it’s a slow burn, a short story is a Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma’am type deal where you’re in and out. There’s definitely something to be said for a horror story that bites hard and fast and leaves you reeling. This book is like that—there are lots of different subjects, so even if you didn’t love the topic of the particular short story, it wasn’t like it was boring or dragged on forever. It gave you just enough to satiate the creepiness or scariness factor and then you’re on to the next one.
As with any collection of short stories, authors are of varying abilities. Sometimes they’re awesome, and sometimes they’re not as strong as others. I felt this to be true with this collection of stories. Some of the stories were stronger and the writing stronger than others.
There were several stories in this book that I enjoyed a lot, but I think my favorite one was the last one, “The Burning One,” by Shakira Toussaint. I found it to be the most surprising and had the biggest buildup of creep and the biggest surprise at the end. It definitely took a direction I didn’t see.
Overall, I thought this book was a fun and fast read. I do not usually read hard core horror, and so the scary but not too scary aspects of this book were great. I do wish it was more “folk” horror, but if I hadn’t had my expectations built up to that, I would have been happy to enjoy just some fun horror stories of varying types.
My Rating: 3 Stars
For the sensitive reader: This book is horror, so there are scary situations, and some language. I would rate it PG/PG-13.
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