Anyone who knows me knows that I love horror, I really do. However, there's no denying I've had some bad luck with horror anthologies. There are very specific things I dislike and more often than not, they tend to crop up in anthologies. The idea of a horror anthology written entirely by women was so appealing to me because (sadly) a lot of the stuff I dislike tends to be written by male authors. Also, who doesn't want to support more female authors?
Amazingly, I was 100% correct in my assumptions. Almost all of these stories succeeded at being really intriguing tales of horror without any of the weird sexual elements, glorification of violence or other dodgy gender stuff I dislike. There is one exception to this-'The Eyes of the Dead' by Danielle R. Bailey is a particularly brutal tale about the aftermath of a rape. It wasn't a bad story by any means but it didn't really fit with the tone of the other stories and I felt like it was a bit too bleak for an anthology of this nature.
Having said that, there's a good mix of stories here in general. A fair few of them felt like they were too short and ended just as they were getting interesting which was a shame. Some of my favourites include 'Adam's Self-Portrait with Pears' by Rachel Bolton, 'Personal Demons' by Angelique Fawns, 'Cracked' by Regan Moore, 'Revival' by Madison Estes and 'A Song Only She Can Hear' by Wondra Vanian. There are some which are traditional horror but a lot of them had a dark fantasy side to them which was neat.
All in all, I'm very glad I read this collection and I would recommend it to anyone who has trouble finding a horror anthology that fits their tastes. I wouldn't say the tone is particularly feminist but it is a refreshing kind of horror and one I would love to see more of.
Overall Rating:
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