Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

This collection of short stories follows a Cherokee family from the 1830s to the future. As the stories are horror (and sometimes sci-fi) short stories they include all manners of creatures known from classic horror stories, such as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies and aliens, but they also focus the man made horrors of violence, racism, misogyny, domestic abuse, medical abuse and systemic oppression.
I spent the first half an hour after opening this book not reading, but instead flipping through the pages from the family tree in the beginning to each short story title page, which includes the name of the person whose life we will explore for a bit and taking notes of who's related to whom. I am grateful I did that as I think that made the stories feel even more connected. In general, I got really excited, when I saw the family tree, I enjoy a good family tree in a book and especially this one adds a lot to my enjoyment of the story. It also left me already wondering and worrying for the branches of the tree that did not continue and furthermore I think the book immediately primed me for the generational trauma I could expect from the stories. I also want to point out the lovely illustrations included in the book, featuring Cherokee script were really interested. I was also glad to see that a little glossary was included in the back, which also proved useful to translate some stories.
At points the choice of monsters started feeling a bit repetitive (there's a lot of werewolves and ghosts in here), but there are also some other beings featured in here that made it interesting again! And even the various werewolf stories were not by any stretch of the imagination boring, as the stories varied in time frame and family structure enough to stay intriguing. I also enjoyed that there were quite a few sapphic MCs in these stories. Often the dread is wonderfully built and kept me on my toes all throughout the stories. Not all of the stories are constantly filled with horror either, sometimes the focus lies on grief or on building interesting characters, which I enjoyed as well. My favorite moments were when I was able to spot an overlap in the stories and I can only recommend you take some notes on the dates and family tree as well, as I think it increased my enjoyment a lot. I also enjoyed that a variety of story-telling styles were includes (such as newspaper articles). All in all, I have to say that this is a really great short story collection with connected tales that I enjoyed very much and if you’re looking for diverse horror that often centers young women and deals with themes of colonialism and oppression, I can only recommend you check this out!
My personal favorite short stories were: "An Old-Fashioned Girl", "Man Made Monsters", "Maria Most Likely", “Ama’s Boys”, “Ghost Cat”, “Deer Women”, “I come from the Water” and “The Zombies Attack the Drive-In!”. There weren’t any short stories I really disliked and even if a few didn’t interest me that much I still found myself enjoying most of them! As always in my reviews for short story collections you can now find some short notes for each short story (here including the time stamps and connections of the characters, as I found that helpful to do while reading) including trigger warnings. Because of this there are some spoilers from here on out, but it should never be enough to ruin your enjoyment of the stories if you do want to read my full review first:



*FAV* An Old-Fashioned Girl: this short story follows Ama Wilson in 1839, as her tribe is fleeing from persecution by Texas Rangers. Due to sickness her family gets separated from the tribe and soon two men, a doctor and his servant, ask to join their camp for the night. Scary and with a really interesting end this is a great start to this anthology. tw: murder, racism, gore, vomiting, kidnapping

*FAV* Man Made Monsters: this story follows Suzanna Fish (born Wilson, Ama's sister) in 1856, her birthname and past having long been discarded, as she investigates the things her family’s former doctor left behind at her father's estate after retiring. Heartbreaking for many reasons and I enjoyed the dread. tw: kidnapping, child murder, ableism

An Un-Fairy Story: this story follows Edgar Spears Jr. (son of Suzanna Fish) in 1866, as he runs away from his grandmother who wants to take him to a boarding school and meets up with a nice man who takes him in for the night, but when he returns things are different. Very short, but interesting! tw: mentions of boarding schools for Native American children

Hell Hound in No Man's Land: this story follows Wilbur Spears (the son of Edgar Spears Jr.) and Jess King (grandson of Suzanna Fish) in 1919 as they recount their experience during the war. This time the story is framed through a news article and thus includes some intentionally racist content (such as "the two men, who only speak Indian"), but I found it quite interesting to read, tw: racist language

Homecoming: this story follows Rabbit Wilson (a great-great-great grandson of Ama Wilson and thus a return to the beginning of the family tree and a descent on the other side) in 1945 as he awaits his brother's return from war, the horror of this story is a bit more hidden than the other horrors so far, but I still enjoyed the quiet dread it evoked in me, an interesting story filled with grief, tw: animal death

*FAV* Maria Most Likely: this story follows Mary (but only ever called Maria) Spears Henry (granddaughter of Wilbur Spears) in 1968, as she comes to terms with her heritage and the fact that she tends to pass as white in most of her everyday life now that she's expecting a child, but a secret is haunting her and drives her to accept dangerous help, unsettling and horrifying, the monsters here are human and for that vastly more terrible, tw: unsafe medical procedures, cheating

Me & My Monsters: this story follows Gina Wilson (daugher of Rabbit Wilson) in 1968 after she is rescued from a bad date by a monster at the lake and then attempts to date him. Okay, but short. I would have liked to know more of the lore behind the lake monster. tw: mentions of attempted sexual assault

Shame on the Moon: this story follows Jimmy and Janie King (grandchildren of Jess King) in 1969 as a vampire attack leaves the sister dead and changes a teenage boy’s life forever. Seems rather typical in its choice of roles at first (evil white vampires, nice, but persecuted Indian werewolves), but I liked the end. Tw: murder, death

Snow Day: this story follows Audrey "Sissy" Henry and Sarah "Jisdu" Henry (the children of Maria Spears) in 1979 on their way home from school, as school lets them out earlier than usual as a freak snowstorm forces the city to close down. Unable to get into their house, they seek refuge in the car in the garage. The dread builds really well and I liked the story. I also enjoyed the way the nicknames were implemented in the story, as I was wondering how they would come into play, having read them on the chapter header. Tw: child endangerment

*FAV* Ama's Boys: this story follows Ama Wilson (yup, the very same Ama Wilson from the first short story!) in 1990 as she talks about her boys. As a vampire turned at 16 a long time ago her hunting takes on a bit creepy vibe in modern times, due to the age difference, but also interesting in examining how looking forever 16 might be a bit off a problem for a vampire. Obviously, I also really enjoyed seeing how her story continues! Tw: attempted sexual assault, murder

American Predators: this story follows Jamie in 1997, a girl (although there are hints of Gender tbh) who is stuck in a dead-end job she hates after flunking out of college and is now on a road trip with two very racist guys from a radio station shooting some video footage for a report on native American crafts, their road trip comes to an end when they finally come upon a little antique shop run by Darla King (daughter of Jimmy King), I enjoyed all the various horror media that was mentioned here and I definitely loved the pay-off at the end, tw: racism, sexism

Manifesting Joy: this story follows Joy Stone (who is less directly connected to the family tree of Ama Wilson, as she is a cousin to Amanda Stone, who marries Ben Wilson, the son of Gina Wilson) in 2000 after the death of her grandmother as she starts misplacing things in her grief. When the things she wishes for suddenly appear again, she finds hope again. Sweet, but very short. Tw: death

Lens: this story follows Diane King (great-granddaughter of Jess King) in 2014, who is offered the opportunity to regain full vision with the help of an experimental surgery, as you can assume weird stuff happens, really interesting and I enjoyed it a lot, tw: eye trauma, child abuse (not by parents), medical horror, implied medical abuse

*FAV* Ghost Cat: this story follows Stephanie King (granddaughter of Jimmy King) in 2016, the daughter of a real Cherokee man and his race-faking wife, as she's dealing with both the estrangement from her family and the death of her best friend, heartbreaking, but cute, tw: death, contemplation of suicide

Happily Ever After: this story follows Laura Wilson (granddaughter of Gina Wilson) in 2019 as she tries to break up with her boyfriend, but finds herself unable to fully disentangle herself from the relationship until her brother begins talking about an online prince-mail-order catalogue, kind of weird, but interesting and fun, tw: domestic abuse, death by illness, puking

*FAV* Deer Women: this story follows Sali King (sister of Diane King) in 2019 as her school goes on lockdown for what might be an active shooter or just a drill, the story is very tense and I enjoy the look it gives into the lore of the Deer Woman and the way the story has some really interesting twists, tw: murder, mention of school shootings

*FAV* I Come from the Water: this story follows Walela King Preston (great great granddaughter of Jess King) in 2029 after her father's death as she is left to care for the family when her mother sinks into depression. As if all that wasn't enough work for a teenage girl, there's also the matter of the weird alien being that moved into the family's pool and is now slowly dying and her incredibly exhausting school life after her former BFF outed her to everybody after she admitted on having a crush on her. Very interesting and heartbreaking in its depictions of grief and family relationships and I enjoyed the sci-fi aspect of this story a lot! tw: death, homophobia, bullying

*FAV* The Zombies Attack the Drive-In!: this story follows Charlotte Henry (granddaughter of Sarah Jisdu Henry) in 2039 as her family tries to survive the zombie apocalypse, a really heartbreaking story and I felt very sorry for this small family who lost everything not once (due to the zombies), but twice (due to domestic abuse before). I really enjoyed the short moments of happiness that was found in this apocalypse and I also enjoyed that this story, with the biggest upheaval in the societal structure, was the last one (plus I also found it fun that Blood Quantum, another zombie story with focus on Indigenous People, had come up in an earlier short story, because there are similarities :D), an incredibly good short story that brings everything full circle, which I enjoyed a lot! tw: domestic abuse, infectious disease, murder

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

Before reading this Chinese horror short story anthology, most of what I knew from Chinese horror came from horror movies, podcasts about the mythology and urban legends and finally online creepy pastas and so I was incredibly intrigued by this anthology to see what else was out there. Starting out I was immediately further intrigued and encouraged by the editor’s introduction where she talks about how it was initially hard to find Chinese horror she wanted to include in her anthology, especially while avoiding violent misogyny. This made me very excited to read the short stories as it can be incredibly tiring to read an anthology and read story after story by cishet male authors with misogynistic characters. It definitely made me hopeful that I would encounter something new and interesting and get to read stories with interesting characters. I also appreciated that trigger warnings are given in the front of the book, but that the page also includes a spoiler warning if you're the type of person who'd rather skip them. One thing I also found incredibly interesting is that after each short story we are given a short editor's note providing cultural knowledge as well as a biography of the author and sometimes thoughts by the editor, which made the stories even more interesting to me.
The short stories themselves encompass a wide variety from horrors born from our modern times to traditional ghost stories to futuristic technological terrors and include ghosts, futuristic technology, monsters, serial killers and more and travel across the vast expanse of China to include local folklore from various corners of the country. The stories take place in small isolated mountain villages, in vast expanses of forest, but also in small inner city apartments or at university. The stories also often explore societal ails from the downsides of technology to small mountain village medicine, misogyny or the troubles of finding an affordable home near Beijing. While not all short stories where to my exact liking, there were others I really enjoyed. As each short story was written by a different author, but translated by the same translator, I found the writing style to flow well together, without the stories becoming repetitive or boring.
All in all, this is a really interesting short story collection and one I can absolutely recommend if you enjoy or are simply interested in reading more Chinese horror. As the horror is not too extreme, I think this can also be interesting for people who can’t handle more brutal horror or those who enjoy the psychological build-up of dread (but there is also more than enough blood and gorey deaths for those horror fans who do enjoy a gruesome murder :D). I really enjoyed how many different horror aspects are covered by this anthology and was never bored (because again, even if one of the short stories wasn’t to my liking, I knew there’d be another one I’d surely love!)! And there are quite a few short stories I loved in here, my favorite being: The Waking Dream by Fan Zhao, Immortal Beauty by Chu Xidao, Those Who Walk at Night, Walk With Ghosts by She Cong Ge, Have you Heard of Ancient Glory by Zhou Dedong and Ti’Naang by Su Min.
All in all, I am deeply thankful I received an ARC of this book and very happy that I got to gain this amazing view into Chinese horror and can only recommend it to anybody who enjoys horror!

The Girl in the Rain by Hong Niangzi: A short story following a triad of university students, two girls and one boy, who encounter terrifying urban legends on their way back to their dorms from university. At times the horror felt a bit contrived, particularly after the second twist in the end, but I liked the urban legends horror in the beginning a lot as well as the first twist. Definitely an interesting beginning to this anthology. tw: cheating, murder, suicide, childhood trauma, coercion

*FAV* The Waking Dream by Fan Zhou: A futuristic horror about the future of work, where thanks to new technology workers can go to the office in their dreams. This seems to be fine for most people, but for one worker who has always had problems with nightmares, it becomes an incredible burden. Very interesting and incredibly haunting this showcases the dangers of capitalism and technology encroaching on the private home and inner lives of people, I quite enjoyed it! I also wonder if the translation choices of “men” vs “females” and “the healthy” vs “disableds” was intentional, because if so. Very interesting in showing the different treatment of marginalized groups of people. tw: suicide, murder, spiders, body horror, coercion, drugs, depiction of mental illness, needles, imprisonment

*FAV* Immortal Beauty by Chu Xidao: A more traditional ghost story about love and betrayal and vengeful wives, this story follows the wife of a powerful man, who replaces her with the younger model all too soon. Gruesome violence and incredible rage flows through this story and I adored it! Angry ghosts vs misogynistic society is always a fun story! Tw: misogyny, murder, domestic violence, abuse, graphic violence, imprisonment, sexual abuse, torture

*FAV* Those Who Walk At Night, Walk With Ghosts by She Cong Ge: A rather long ghost story set in a small mountain town where a young doctor insists on leaving to bring an old man to the hospital despite the warnings of everybody else in the village. Felt more like a traditional Chinese horror story, but manages to become interesting both with the way superstitions and folk medicine meet modern medicine, all while history is much more alive than anybody thinks, very well written and builds dread incredibly well. Also historically very interesting. Tw: graphic injury, death, alcohol, needles, torture.

The Yin Yang Pot by Chuan Ge: A young man looking for a place to eat meets and old flame and decides to share the same Yuanyang pot with her as they did before they lost touch, only this time she is weirdly insistent he not eat from the white side of the dish. But can he handle the heat to keep his promise? An interesting ghost story with a fascinating twist at the end. Tw: car accident, suicide mention, imprisonment

The Shaxiao by Goodnight Xiaoqing: A warrior dreaming of fighting monsters and rescuing maidens finds his dreams shattered when he finally encounters his first real monster and finds himself defenseless. Interesting and I enjoyed how common fantasy tropes were turned on their heads here. Tw: death, animal death, domestic abuse, imprisonment, torture, implied sexual assault

*FAV* Have you Heard of Ancient Glory by Zhou Dedong: A young couple finally finds an apartment they can afford, but something incredibly weird is going on as they notice that none of their neighbors ever turn on the lights. Very scary and with an interesting twist on the haunted house trope. I really enjoyed it! Tw: death, suicide, mental illness, ptsd, trauma, alcohol, imprisonment

Records of Xiangxi by Nanpai Sanshu: The longest short story in the collection by far (it alone takes up 50 pages of the collection) tells of a grandchild piecing together a story from folklore that their grandfather used to tell them before he died, engaging in research and travels, connecting a few pieces of folklore from a specific region to gain a full picture of the folklore from there. The longest part of the short story is taken up by a retelling of a group of military men being tasked to carry a child sacrifice up the mountain to protect the town. It is an interesting story, but really very long. If you are interested in folklore and military horror this might interest you more than it did me. I found the horror very well done though and found myself filled with dread at times, but was not particularly interested in the characters, which is a personal issue of mine and will certainly not apply to every reader. Tw: child death, death, gore, body horror, corpses, alcohol, graphic violence, insects, racial/religious slurs, torture

*FAV* The Ghost Wedding by Yimei Tangguo: A horrifying story about a small town kidnapping a woman to find a suitable bride for one of their town’s young men. Very violent and gruesome and with a focus on the all too human monsters among us this story is sickening and great. I loved it, but you need to have a strong stomach for it! tw: abduction, human trafficking, rape, suicide, very violent domestic abuse, animal abuse, child abuse, childhood trauma, threats of graphic violent punishment, unsanitary, dehumanization, self-harm, strangulation, torture

Night Climb by Chi Hui: During a hike up the mountain at night to arrive on top in time to see the sunrise a climber encounters a group of very strange beings also travelling towards the top of the mountain, very short, but interesting and I enjoyed reading about a fat character in here as well!

Forbidden Rooms by Zhou Haohui: A saw-like trap is set for a neighbor who heard a little child cry in her apartment and did nothing until it was too late. She wakes up in a locked room with the child’s father, who had abandoned the boy with his father and receives phone calls that might lead her to freedom. Very intense and quite interesting. tw: child death, child neglect, murder, violence, starvation, voyeurs, strangulation, suicide, torture

*FAV* Ti’Naang by Su Min: A young woman returns to her hometown to introduce her fiancé to her family, but soon the town’s secret and the father’s temper start to cause issues. Really interesting story, heartbreaking as well and I loved the dread it built a lot. Tw: domestic abuse, child abuse, childhood trauma, gaslighting, racial/religious slurs

Huangcun by Cai Jun: An author is approached by a person from a small town that featured in his latest book during a book signing. The only problem is that he made the town up. Intrigued by this coincidence, he accompanies the reader to her hometown and discovers that something incredibly strange is going on in Huangcun. Really great story with many references to western horror stories as well, which I found interesting. Tw: suicide, childhood trauma, domestic abuse, graphic violence, racial/religious slurs, self-harm

The Death of Nala by Gu Shi: A mother who is terribly afraid of her son, a young boy who seems to take pleasure in cruelty, reaches her breaking point when she adopts a little kitten only to find it dead in her son’s hands. Interesting look at mental health issues, but I do wish the child had been given a bit more depth instead of simply being a “natural born killer”. tw: animal death, child death, murder, cruelty, graphic violence, imprisonment, mental illness, strangulation, ptsd

Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

This is a relatively short novella. One thing that speaks for it is that it can be understood if you haven't read the original story it is based on (The Count of Monte Christo). On its own it is an interesting space opera featuring a marginalized main character and an anti colonialist revolutionary plot. In the first half of the story we are told about the reason for Virika's imprisonment and her time in prison. This part of the story is interesting and nicely paced. Her emotions are clear, her loss heartbreaking and I really enjoyed the character building provided here. While there wasn't a lot of world building at that point, the story provided enough opportunities to understand what was going on anyway and by being in a very confined space it worked brillantly. When I reached the second part of the book, the escape and her revenge I was incredibly excited for this character I had started to really care for to finally shine in action. Unfortunately the lenght of the novella really started to shine through here. Many things happen in the second part of the novella and the plot speeds up a lot. This wouldn't be soo bad, if there weren't also many scene changes, which made the story feel a bit underdeveloped at times.
Especially towards the last third of the book there are a few time skips, which greatly impacted my enjoyment of the story. We are told of some really interesting things Virika did... We just don't really see her do them and if we get a scene it is short and more tell than show. Including these scenes instead of skipping them would have increased tension, extended the story a bit and slowed the pacing in the second half of the book, which were my three main issues with the story.
Despite my criticisms here I still enjoyed the story and found it particularly interesting in its depiction of what oppression does to marginalized people and how they can internalize it. I also did very much enjoy reading about a colonized lesbian woman getting revenge on the empire that betrayed her.
The romance portrayed in the novella is also very sweet and I adored the bonding over shared childhood food, but the falling in love bit could have been more interesting if it had been extended a bit. Like this it happened very fast and felt a bit flat, as I couldn't really get that invested.
All in all an interesting story, even if it was too short to live up to its potential, but I definitely want to read more by the author since I can see a lot of really interesting parts here.

tw: suicide, racism, homophobia, murder, sexual harassment, mass murder, isolation, imprisonment