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Showing of 5 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Everything is a little creepy and a little gross. All YA protagonists, mostly female. Overall a quick and interesting group of short stories.
Among the Shadows is a very interesting book and I could easily picture reading the short stories around a campfire! That said, the book is not entirely composed of paranormal or ghost stories. Yes, there is a story about a monster under the bed, one with aliens, and another about a demon, but many of the stories look further into what makes a monster, and how humans and real life can be just as scary, if not more, than anything else. The wide array of story lines drugs, depression, family, post-apocalypse, entertainment, false realities.
And in many cases the reader is left wanting more, which is one of the things that makes this book unique. All 13 authors are very talented and have books of their own. Obviously, you want this one. Some of my all-time favorite authors here. This book is filled with awesome short stories by excellent authors!
Nothing excessively exciting, but definitely a good read, especially if you like creepy things I don't. See all 5 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. When Edmund tries the one Natasha hands him, he finds it has a delicious spicy meat filling. The vodka is passed round again, the packet of food is soon empty. No-one says anything; but all three are laughing…. And Edmund suddenly realises that he has forgotten where he is.
He has believed himself, for a moment, to be eating pastry-covered meat-balls with two young renegade scientists, and mildly intoxicated on vodka. Actually, he has to tell himself, he is lying on a recliner in the Tvorez facility, under sedation and connected to a sophisticated AR programme. He looks more closely at the Natasha and Grigor figures.
It is impossible, he realises, for them to be programme-generated constructs. They must be the projections of real participants in the simulation, in reality, like himself, lying on recliners somewhere in the Tvorez buildings. Do they know they are in a simulation? Or have they, like the subjects of his tests, been conditioned to believe that what is happening is reality? That, after all, is what they have tried to convince Edmund is the case. Natasha now connects a gas cylinder to the stove, lights it and starts heating an opened can of some kind of thick soup. Once it is steaming, she wraps it in a piece of cloth and, like the vodka, she takes a mouthful and then passes it round.
The light is beginning to fade outside the hut, and Edmund assumes that it is now late evening, dinner time. In fact, he has been feeling hungry for some hours. The simulation appears to be mirroring real time. And this, he knows, is worrying. His hunger will be real; but the meatballs and soup are illusions. Though lying on the recliner will not use up much energy, going the whole day and the night to come without food of any kind will not be healthy. More seriously, he is likely to become dehydrated — unless, of course, the needle in his arm is doing more than feeding him a sedative.
He is still wearing the bracelet, and enters the break code again on the off-chance that it is once more operational. For whatever purpose, Tvorez is keeping him in the simulation. The soup is finished, and so is half the vodka. Grigor leaves the shed and returns a short while later with a bundle of branches, which he arranges against the rear wall and indicates is to be Edmund's bed. Luckily it is a fine evening; at least, Edmund thinks, the Tvorez programmers are not treating him as badly as they might.
Otherwise it would be raining — or, for that matter, snowing. He feels less hungry and quite tired. Perhaps he is correct about the intravenous feed. As it grows dark Natasha and Grigor tidy away the stove and supplies and lie down on their respective beds in the corners. Edmund does the same between them.
Natasha gives an impressed "mmmm", and says "Good night! From Grigor there comes only a grunt. Then, abruptly, Natasha leans over and kisses him firmly on the mouth - not a long kiss, but one that takes him completely by surprise, despite the fact that he has been half hoping, since drinking his share of the vodka, that something like that would happen. For a moment he feels a growing arousal. If it weren't for Grigor…. Then he remembers that the kiss hasn't really happened.
What, he wonders, is Tvorez playing at? Natasha is looking down at him, her now loosened hair falling across both their faces, and with a lop-sided, playful smile. Edmund is about to say something when, as quickly as she has leant over, she head drops back onto her plastic sack. There is a good chance, Edmund thinks, that he will now fall asleep too — or, to be more accurate, lose consciousness.
When he comes to he will once again be in the real world. Now he is not as sure as he was that this is what he really wants. He listens to Natasha's breathing…. From behind they are noises. Looking back, Edmund sees a number of dark figures emerge from the trees and surround the shed they have just left. Two slip in, and immediately come out. The whole group then spreads out, some moving into the meadow. Almost at once these see the tracks through the grass left by Natasha, Grigor and Edmund, and they shout out the information.
The three only just manage to reach the woodland on the far side before the squad of some half-dozen begins crossing the meadow after them. They plunge into the trees, running straight ahead. Natasha is the tallest, and, it is soon clear, the fittest. Still carrying her sack, she slips between the trees and over fallen branches like a deer, gracefully agile. Edmund and Grigor, however, are very soon in trouble, stumbling and panting in an effort to keep up. Edmund has already dropped one of the gas cylinders in the grass. Now the stove and the remaining cylinder fall from his hands.
For a moment he thinks of picking them up; but Grigor grabs his arm and pulls him on. Behind them the pursuing squad has reached the tree line and is catching up. Grigor shouts something to Natasha, and she briefly stops and turns. He waves for her to go on without them. For a few seconds she stands looking at them, uncertain.
Then, as the sound of the approaching men grows louder, she gives a half-salute, turns again and disappears into the trees. Grigor now starts running again, turning rightwards away from the direction Natasha has taken, and still carrying his sack. Edmund realises what he is doing, and follows. The hope is that the pursuers will go straight on after Natasha, leaving the two men to double back or find somewhere to hide. But they are winded and make too much noise. Grigor drops the sack and tries to put on a spurt. Somewhere on the way he has also lost his glasses.
The lead members of the squad are only a few metres behind. Then Grigor trips on a fallen branch and lands heavily on the other side. Edmund leaps the branch, but catches his foot on Grigor's outstretched legs and pitches forward. In a second they are both seized and their hands taped behind their backs. One of their captors shouts out, and they are joined by a man carrying a medical case, from which he takes a syringe. Edmund's arm is held up. The injection goes into his wrist…. Assuming it had been some kind of escape game, he had presumably not made it to the end.
It was a game he was unquestionably not going to play again. Edmund angrily tore off goggles and headphones, and rolled to his feet, ready to demand an immediate meeting with the project team. Pain shot up his legs, and he almost fell. The psychosomatic bruising and stiffness was worse than he had ever thought possible, he felt exhausted, and the arm that had received the needles — both real and simulated — was swollen and discoloured. He was forced to grip the side of the couch while looking round for the technician.
It was the same man whose avatar had begun the chase. He was standing by the door; and for a moment seemed uncertain whether to escape through it, call for help, or come to Edmund's assistance. In the end he remained where he was and merely said:. Then, realising that the phrase was probably too idiomatic, added:.
Please inform them at once. The technician did not move. Edmund walked unsteadily towards him and shouted:. That seemed to get through. The technician hurried through the door, shutting it behind him. When Edmund tried it, it was also locked. During the next ten minutes or so, he lay back again on the recliner hoping to recover and prepare for a confrontation with Anna.
He could not help thinking of the events within the simulation — in particular those that had taken place in the arena — as real experiences. Even as part of a game scenario they were intolerable. Eventually there were noises at the door, which opened to let in the technician; then two men in combat fatigues; and, finally, Anna, also in braided military uniform.
No attempt was now being made, Edmund realised, to disguise the real nature of Tvorez, nor of its head. We are most sorry for unacceptable errors. Those responsible will be disciplined. Edmund did not respond immediately. It occurred to him that dealing with the Belorus military might not be quite the same as dealing with an academic or commercial body.
Complaining loudly, citing his contract and threatening legal action might not be all that effective. Instead, he said in as normal a voice as he could manage:. Scenario for you was mixed — entangled, I think you say — with military training programme. We are very sorry, Professor. I, as Director, am honorary Colonel. But also academic, business work. We make sure for future that these now kept very separate. The explanation seemed at least plausible, Edmund thought. A programme training military personnel to evade capture in hostile territory made sense. The way in which he had found himself within it, however, did not.
Natasha and Grigor part of military programme. Is not possible for you to question them. Having his head smashed in, outside the script, must have been rather traumatic. The experience was exceptionally traumatic. He is no longer at Tvorez. The man looked puzzled. Then Anna directed a few sharp words at him, which Edmund did not understand; and he began to look terrified. We now examine him. Reasonable though Anna's explanations were, he could not shake off a feeling that they were not the full truth.
Still disorientated and aching, Edmund was escorted back to the guest suite. After Anna and the accompanying guard had left — the other had taken the technician away in a different direction — he tried the door to his room. To his relief, it was not locked.
Is this some heavy-handed joke? I never had the chance to see you live in person, but I know one thing for sure: These were almost certainly the "volunteers" for participation in his project, promised by Anna. He rises to his feet, helped on either side by the two figures. Crossing the cell, he sat down on the bench which lined one of the side-walls. There can be little doubt that the blow is fatal.
He then swallowed two large shots of single malt and opened the project folder on his laptop. Was it possible to draw any useful conclusions from what he had just experienced? The first problem was to separate those events which had followed his original project from those which had stemmed from the military programme. Assuming that at least the beginning of the confrontation between his two subjects had been as planned, at what stage had the corruption occurred?
Edmund would have liked to think it was just before the first brutal, if simulated, death. On the other hand, given the parameters he had set, that outcome could well have been exactly what his test was designed to deliver. The failure of the break code, the arrival of the technician figure, his flight from the pursuing spectators and everything that had subsequently taken place were obviously part of the military scenario. But what was to be made of the bizarre events in between?
Why had the victorious subject killed the presiding officer? Crucially, at what stage had the subject become aware that he was only in a simulation? Or, it suddenly occurred to Edmund, perhaps the murder of the officer had nothing to do with the corruption of his programme. What if it arose, instead, from a defect in the subject's prior conditioning? What if the subject had believed throughout that the events were real? Having taken part in a fight to the death, and on the point of death himself, had he reacted like a gladiator who has nothing to lose, and turned on a leading member of the crowd which had come to watch the spectacle?
It could even be the case that the conditioning had functioned as intended, and that the subject had attacked the officer in the full knowledge, by then, that the events were only simulated. He could have been taking the opportunity to work off resentment at some punishment. Or perhaps the officer was generally disliked, and this was a way of giving him a nasty — though actually relatively harmless - shock.
It was vital, Edmund concluded, that he interview the subject concerned as soon as possible. No doubt, like the officer, he could be badly traumatised, particularly if the conditioning procedure had failed. It that case Tvorez would want to keep him under protective wraps as long as possible. But Tvorez owed Edmund. Military or no, they had signed a contract. He could also, he thought, make a lot of trouble for them, especially with the Belarus government, which would surely be alarmed that a foreign civilian had participated in one of their military training programmes.
Anna would have to make the subject available. It was even possible that something might be learned relevant to the original research project. Then there was the strange and pleasantly unsettling episode with Natasha. How could that have been part of a military training programme? Closing his laptop after sketching out a few key questions for the interviews to come, Edmund went to the wide triple-glazed window and looked out. He might, he reflected, have still been within the simulation, looking from the Tvorez side at where he and the two scientists had been.
It was mid-afternoon, and the forest edge beyond the fence and the grass strip was illuminated by bright sunlight. Under the tree canopy beyond it was impenetrably dark. From just inside the tree-line there came a series of flashes. Someone seemed to be signalling with a small mirror. Getting from the first-floor guest suite to the ground floor beneath it seemed, at first, impossible.
The only stairs Edmond could find were the ones that led down to a long passageway, and eventually to the lobby by the main entrance. All the windows were sealed. He reasoned, however, that there must somewhere be a back staircase for the staff that cleaned his room and restocked his drinks cabinet. After some frantic tapping on the walls of the landing outside his rooms he found it, the doorway disguised to blend in with the pinewood panelling.
It was evident that Tvorez did not want him, or indeed any of their clients, moving around unsupervised. At the foot the stairs Edmund found himself, as expected, in a service area. There were open cupboards stacked with bed-linen, blankets and towels; shelves carrying boxes of soap, and miniature bottles of bath-oil and shampoo; and, in a locked glass-fronted cabinet, vodka, whiskey, brandy, wines and other drinks. In a separate area through a small archway were supplies of another kind: There was also a door leading to the outside, no doubt for taking deliveries.
It was, of course, locked. Edmund wondered if he might be able to force it, but the lock and hinges were of heavy-duty steel, and the door itself was faced with sheet-metal. He looked for some other way out; but there was only a small sealed window. He was about to give up and return to the first floor when there was a noise.
Someone on the outside was turning a key in the lock. Edmund quickly climbed half way up the stairs, out of sight, but still able to see into the service area. The door opened and the man in the grey uniform who had delivered supplies in the simulation — or one very like him — came in carrying one of the metal boxes. Edmund prepared to rush back up the stairs to the first floor. But the man in grey went through the archway to the outdoor equipment store, no doubt to return the box he was carrying.
For a moment, Edmund realised, the way to the outside was clear. Should he take it? He hesitated for only a second. Trying to make as little noise as possible, he leapt to ground level and sprinted through the still open door. Edmund's first thought, as he emerged into bright sunlight, was that he needed somewhere to hide.
The man, having deposited his box, would almost certainly come out again — that he would go up to the guest floor and out through the official guest entrance was surely out of the question. The window in Edmund's suite had not given a good view of the ground immediately below, but he thought he had seen some bushes up against the wall about twenty metres to the right. He had not been wrong. A short dash, and he was able to throw himself to the ground behind reasonably thick cover. But only just in time. The man in grey uniform emerged from the building, locked the door behind him, and passed within only a half-metre of Edmund's hiding-place.
He then rounded a corner and was out of sight. So far, so good, thought Edmund. And then it occurred to him that the way back was now closed, at least the way he had come out. He could always, of course, go round to the main entrance. However, entering the Tvorez facility again officially when, officially, he had never left might prove awkward. In any case, he would be no further forward than before in investigating the signals from the forest edge. It was only at this moment, now that the short burst of action was over, that the full implications of those signals hit him.
An event which had occurred in the simulated Tvorez training programme now appeared to be happening in the real world. How could this be? He remembered what the Natasha and Grigor characters had told him: But this was still unthinkable. And an alternative explanation, which then occurred to him, was even more unthinkable: For a moment Edmund felt as if he was on the edge of a cliff suffering an attack of vertigo: Then he pulled himself together. Though there seemed to be no sure way to establish the truth, one course of action was open.
He would cross over to the forest edge, and find the source of the flashed signals. If it turned out to be Natasha - and he had to admit that he strongly hoped it would be - he could at least question her further; and he could perhaps learn something even from a simulation. The decision made, Edmund got to his feet and looked across the stretch of grass towards the electrified fence. If the simulation was consistent - or had been an accurate reflection of reality, or had been reality — there would be a tunnel under it more or less in a direct line between where the signal had come from and the door into the storage area.
Crouching, he ran to the approximate spot; and, yes, there it was: Still crouching — though anyone happening to look out of the Tvorez building would have had little difficulty in spotting him — he reached the edge of the forest and dived into the darkness. He had been spotted; but not from where he had come. Once again he was grabbed from behind — but this time far less violently — and a long-fingered hand was placed over his mouth.
He was able to turn. It was, of course, Natasha. For a moment she kept her hand over Edmund's mouth, at the same time hissing "shh! When he nodded, she let go, and signalled that they should go deeper into the trees. Edmund followed for about a hundred metres, after which she suddenly stopped, turned, and pointed at him. She was not smiling. Her attitude was still unfriendly. She took a step towards him, smiling. Was she about to kiss him again?
If so, he had to resist the tempting distraction. I need to know the truth," Edmund answered. Now…is this a simulation? Last time real also. But bad, not legalno. If what she was saying were true, thought Edmund, then Tvorez — Anna - had been lying from the start. It was possible he had discovered some dark military secret; and that meant he was now in serious danger. They would hardly let him go back to London as if nothing had happened.
But then, why on earth would they have got him involved in the first place? On the other hand, it was also possible that Natasha was wrong…that is, a simulated Natasha, with a real Natasha actually, like him, on a recliner in the Tvorez building. And, given Tvorez's techniques, her projected self could easily be convinced that the simulation they were in was reality. That explanation, though, also raised awkward questions. What, for example, was the point of trying to convince him, within the simulation, that Tvorez was acting illegally?
The more he turned the dilemma over in his mind, the more only one course of action suggested itself. He must somehow get back into the Tvorez building and look in the room where he — and presumably Natasha, too — were perhaps on their recliners. If the recliners were empty, one possible conclusion was that everything was real, and perhaps had been real from the start.
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In that case, he needed to get away fast — away as far as possible from Tvorez before he was missed, and somehow make it to Minsk airport. If, on the other hand, everything had been and still was a simulation, what they found would of course prove nothing. The situation would be full of paradox. The whole programme might crash, and he would be definitively back in the real world. His first problem was to let Natasha know what he had in mind. Her English was, by quite a distance, ahead of his Russian. Even so, when he began to outline his plan, pointing in the direction of the Tvorez buildings and signalling that they should go there, she backed away in horror.
She had understood, evidently, that he was encouraging her to surrender. After several minutes of mixed mime and occasional words in English and Russian, he seemed to convince her that he was on her side. He could, of course, have just said goodbye and tried returning to Tvorez on his own.
But it had occurred to him from the start that this would be impossible without someone more familiar with the facility's layout than he was. Even if he could somehow get in the same way he had exited, the only way from the guest suite to the main buildings was via the main, well-guarded, entrance. He needed her to show him how to get in without alerting any of the official military personnel. As a non-military scientist, she might just know a way. He also had to admit that being with Natasha's would be welcome in its own right. He had found himself running their kiss in the open-sided shed over and over again in his head, even when Anna had explained that the whole episode was only part of a garbled military training programme.
And now, he realised, it was possible that the kiss had been real. Terrible though the implications were in other ways, he was almost wishing that this was true. As these thoughts began to suggest a completely different plan of action, his optimism about Natasha's ability to get him into Tvorez was quickly justified.
When his objective became clear, Natasha smiled, nodded, and beckoned Edmund to follow. After first retreating into the forest, they took a wide right-hand loop, and emerged again beside a gravelled track that led to a wire-mesh gate in the Tvorez fence, closed with a heavy padlock and chain.
On the far side was a small hut — presumably a guard-post — and beyond that a number of oblong, single-storey buildings constructed of breeze-blocks, but with slatted wooden roofs. Natasha signed to Edmund to stay back, and to crouch or lie down. She herself moved cautiously, still under the cover of the trees, until she was in a position to look through the fence at the guard-hut.
After a few moments, she returned, signalled to Edmund to get to his feet, and together they walked openly up to the gate. Natasha took a key from one her fatigue pockets, undid the padlock, disengaged the chain and opened the gate enough for both of them to slip through. She then quickly replaced the chain, padlocked the gate shut, and, pulling Edmund behind her, took cover in the narrow passageway between two of the breeze-block buildings. She put a finger to her lips to make sure Edmund stayed quiet, but was grinning at the same time.
Pointing the guard-hut, she mimed drinking from a bottle, then falling asleep. Evidently this was fairly routine behaviour for those sent to guard a hardly ever used back entrance. After a few moments of listening, Natasha began edging round to the far side of one of the buildings, indicating that Edmund should stay put; and vanished round the corner. About a quarter of an hour went by, and he began to wonder what he should do if she failed to return. After half an hour he had become seriously worried; but a few minutes later Natasha suddenly reappeared.
She was no longer in soiled combat fatigues, but wearing all-in one white overalls with a hood concealing her hair and much of her face — for a heart-stopping moment, indeed, Edmund had not recognised her. She had brought with her a second, larger white all-in-one, which he was evidently supposed to put on. Once he had done so, Natasha beckoned him to follow. Together they walked openly up a dirt path, reinforced with wire mesh, towards the Tvorez main buildings. Edmund was astonished and full of admiration at the speed and efficiency with which Natasha had operated, once she had known what he wanted.
The side-door which they eventually came to was guarded by a young soldier in combat fatigues. For a moment it looked as though he was going to check their identities, and Edmund got ready to run. But Natasha flashed some kind of pass at him, together with a quick smile, and he stood aside to let them both in.
On the opposite side of a small vestibule were a pair of swing doors. They crossed and pushed through. They were in the casualty ward. On either side of the central passageway was a row of beds, each holding a patient bandaged on an arm, a leg, the head or in some cases the whole body. Those whose faces were visible all had the same central-Asian features as the subjects in the combat scenarios.
Looking more closely, Edmund had the uneasy feeling that he half-recognised one — a man who appeared to have a broken nose. Another, his neck in a brace and heavily bandaged, was attached some kind of respirator. Could he be, Edmund thought, the man in the unarmed combat simulation who had killed his opponent, and then the presiding officer, with a stone?
He looked round to see Natasha urgently beckoning. She pointed to a side door, and he followed her through it into a passageway. On either side were several doors with barred grills at eye-level. Natasha again beckoned for him to come closer, then whispered:. Edmund could not stop himself from shivering, as if the temperature had suddenly dropped below zero. Those combat scenarios they had programmed in London…Tvorez had never run them!
Instead, they had carried them out in real life, tricking him into believing it was a simulation. Men had fought and died in front of him! Had they also thought it was a simulation? But she put her fingers to her lips, and indicated that he should stay where he was. Edmund tried to follow; but she signalled him back, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek - he found himself feeling disappointed there had not been more - then went to the doors and through them.
He was again on his own. For some minutes, Edmund stayed exactly where he was. Then he decided that he must find out more. He walked quietly to one of the grilled doors off the corridor and looked in. It was a prison cell. A man in combat fatigues, with the same build and features as the others, was lying on a wooden shelf, either asleep or unconscious. Moving along the corridor, he looked through the other grilles. The rooms were identical, all but one with a sleeping, unconscious — or possibly, Edmund realised — dead inmate.
These were almost certainly the "volunteers" for participation in his project, promised by Anna. Thinking of Anna brought him back, with a jolt, to awareness of his situation. There was no question any more of bringing himself out of simulation by confronting another self on the recliner. And it was obvious, too, that Tvorez could not let him return to London with that information.
He should have made for Minsk airport while the opportunity had existed, instead of persuading Natasha to bring him back inside. What had he been thinking of? He answered his own question. He had been thinking it inconceivable that what he had witnessed was really taking place. It was still almost inconceivable. Which brought him back to the question: For a moment, he considered taking his life in his hands, revealing who he was and demanding to be brought to see Anna. Then a better idea came to him. With luck, he had not yet been missed from the guest suite.
If he could somehow get back there, he could re-appear officially as if he had never left — but now knowing that the whole thing was a fraud. If he was clever, he might get Anna, or one of the other members of the team assigned to him, to let something slip. The first problem was that he had no idea how to get from where he was - presumably the medical section of some kind of prison wing - to the area holding the guest suite.
This could only be solved when Natasha returned. The second problem was more serious: Going back the way he had come, through the service area, was now impossible. The only way was to go to the main lobby and pretend to have just come down from the guest suite. He returned to the spot where Natasha had left him. Sabrina has come home for revenge.
Did not care for this story. Lewis - Could not get into this story dis not finish. Sep 18, Amy rated it really liked it. Most of these stories were really well done. As with all anthology type books, I enjoyed some more than others. All the stories showcase the darker side of ourselves. Some have happier endings than others but none end truly happily.
That was somewhat refreshing. I don't usually like non-happy endings, but in this context it works for me. I enjoyed the rest as well, and an honorary mention goes out t Most of these stories were really well done. I enjoyed the rest as well, and an honorary mention goes out to Such a Lovely Monster and Canary, which I really liked as well.
None of the stories in this anthology are bad. I enjoyed each one. If you want to explore the darker side of humanity in a short story version, give this a try. Dec 10, Hannah Hall rated it it was ok. I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway at the end of October, and yes, it did take me over a month to read it.
As with most anthologies, I liked some of the stories here more than others.
I didn't like the others much at all, and these three were only a bit better than the rest. The book itself has a cover and title that make it seem more creepy than it actua I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway at the end of October, and yes, it did take me over a month to read it. The book itself has a cover and title that make it seem more creepy than it actually is, which I suppose I should have expected since it seems to be a YA novel. I've got nothing against YA novels.
It's just that most of them can't really bring the sort of horror I was expecting. It was okay overall, but there wasn't anything special here. Oct 29, Kelly rated it really liked it Shelves: Oct 12, Thomas Bruso rated it really liked it. In "Such a Lovely Monster," written by Justina Ireland, the thing under the bed is engaging and keeps the reader turning pages. A clever twist on things that go bump in the night.
Fun, spirited, dark stories. Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy of the book. Oct 03, Chelsea rated it really liked it Shelves: I really loved this! I got my copy from the Kickstarter and it's signed by Demitria Lunetta! Some of the stories were definitely better than others, but I enjoyed them all. Second favourite was "Lonely Hunter. Oh, and also "Heroin e " by Kelly Fiore. I'm definitely going to pick up a copy of her new book when it's out. I love short stories, I love horror, I l I really loved this!
I love short stories, I love horror, I love YA. I'll definitely be rereading this one: Oct 08, Sarah rated it really liked it Shelves: For a short story collection this was consistently great. I enjoyed all the stories, some more twisted than others, and will definitely be adding this to my rereads shelf. Some of these stories are definitely worth revisiting. It was a great, short read. Highly recommend this for fans of short stories and stories with a dark twist. May 18, Kelly rated it liked it Shelves: The Kickstarter really didn't give that much information on what it would be about.
I was thinking it would be spooky, suspenseful, gothic-y, supernaturally stories when I pledged for it. That's what the cover seems to imply, at least to me. However, it's more dismemberment, torture, murder, and a girl prostituting herself for drugs. I really can't read any more. They are well-written, and there are some interesting ideas. Sep 23, Briana rated it it was ok. I was close to marking this DNF, but that seemed unfair based on the fact the stories are all by different authors.
Too many of them aren't great examples of the short story form, mistaking sudden endings and lack of information for suspense and cleverness. Also so many dark themes that didn't have proper build-up. Who knew so many teenagers are cold, heartless killers? Apr 10, Deanna Pina rated it really liked it Shelves: This tome contains 13 short stories. While I went in expecting to be scared, I found that the majority of the stories were more creepy, strange, and sometimes very cool.
If you like creepy stories. Stories that are just a bit too unsettling. You might enjoy some of the stories from this title.