Amazingly unhinged. Definitely made me want to check out the author's other work. 

The premise of this book instantly grabbed my attention. I love post-apocalyptic novels and I love zombies, so I was thrilled to find this standalone novella.

Unfortunately, I found this book to have several issues, and I feel that the story suffered due to how short it was. There simply wasn't enough pageroom to really introduce the world and how it worked, and the little we did get didn't really make much sense. I found it odd how few zombies there seemed to be and how it was relatively safe for Quinton to move around.

I really loved how the author tied in the HIV aspect and did something new with zombies – namely that despite the zombie virus people retain their own consciousness, so they're aware of what's happening with them. I mean, what a horrific thought! That being said, I found it anatomically unrealistic that they were still able to speak and cry as all their soft tissues were decaying and quite literally sliding off their bodies.

There were also issues with continuity. One moment Quinton is super injured, struggles to walk, the next he's fighting, running and carrying a body like it's no big deal. He was also able to walk several hundred miles with an injured leg in what seemed like two days tops. If there was an intended time jump, it wasn't clear.

I wasn't really a fan of the characters either, as they felt very juvenile despite being at least in their late 40s or early 50s. The choices they made didn't really make sense for people who have lived decades in a zombie-infested world.

All in all, I was hoping for more, but I'm still glad I decided to pick this up.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. 

First off, I loved the premise of every story in this anthology. This was my first time reading bite-sized horror stories and it certainly won’t be the last because I really enjoyed the experience.

The same theme threads through all of the stories, but I found that they were actually quite similar in many other aspects aside from including nannies, some of which may feel like cliches (specifically, memory loss, believing what you experienced was a dream and the experience actually being a dream). That being said, it was interesting to see what different authors did with the same building blocks.

I’ll briefly go through each of the stories below.

1. The Silver Whistle by Marlena Frank. Good writing, but I felt that it was lacking depth and I wish I had finished the story knowing more about the child and his father – what exactly was happening and why?

2. When You Hear Them Scream by C. Vonzale Lewis. Might have been my favourite both in terms of the premise and execution. I loved the two timelines, even though one of them was very brief. I felt that it gave the story much more substance than it would have had without it.

3. A Little Blood and a Broken Cage by Jessica Cranberry. Very atmospheric and mysterious. I again enjoyed the tiniest bit of backstory we got. I found the ending a bit abrupt and would have liked more complexity. The solution just seemed too simple. (Also, in Chapter 6, Sofia suddenly changes into Sofie.)

4. That Thing in the House with the Arched Roof by Katya de Becerra. I just love creepy houses so much. Great writing in this one and I loved that the ending didn’t have a big red bow on it.

5. You Can Close Your Eyes by Elle Beaumont. Again, fabulous ending, but the writing itself confused me a little bit. I had to go over some snippets several times to understand who was talking with whom and I still didn’t quite understand what was happening and how.

6. A Mother’s Love by D.M. Siciliano. Unfortunately, I think this is the weakest of the bunch. The night Alexandra searched the rooms of the house, the entire feel of of the story switched to something almost cartoonish and absurd, but I don’t think it was the intention. The constant mentions of the storm started to feel very ’It was a dark and stormy night’ type of a cliche.

The writing was odd in some places in terms of syntax and the sequence of the events/interactions also didn’t make sense. Alexandra tells her roommate Cassidy the Big Secret twice, with the second time being presented as if it’s the first time, and only after the second time, Cassidy reveals all she knows and has heard, even though it made no sense to hold all this information back after the first time Alexandra told her who she’s babysitting. It has lots of potential, but definitely needs some work still.

I think overall I'd rate it 3.5. Even through all the faults (which weren't major in 5/6 of the stories), I can't deny I was utterly gripped throughout.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

y'all, idk wtf that was, I don't even know how to rate it

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I felt a bit let down to be honest. I went into it not knowing it was a retelling, but then it started feeling kind of familiar and I was like "wait a second... is this Bluebeard?", so for the bulk of it I was convinced it was indeed, and then it turned into something else entirely.

I don't want to give away too much about this one because I do think it's worth reading, especially if you like books that read like a confusing fever dream. The writing was really good, I just don't enjoy books with this vibe and I have zero interest in the thing it was a retelling of (again, being vague on purpose, but I think most people would get it much, much sooner than I did).

Nothing really wrong with it. I just found it kind of boring and I couldn't seem to care about the characters or the story at all.

I don't think I have ever been so entranced by a book from the first page to the last. It's a thoroughly grim and emotionally taxing read, but weirdly, some parts of it made me feel so at peace. Something about the idea of the world being almost empty is really captivating to me. Hoping the next books are just as good.

This was not an enjoyable read. The premise sounds fine and the cover is gorgeous, but unfortunately they don't make a good book. I'm tired of YA fantasy books that give the impression as if the author thinks it's okay to cut corners because it's YA.

My biggest issue was that the conflict at the heart of the story made absolutely no sense. The Sea Queen wanted Lira to be a killer, but when she is, she doesn't like it. I tried to explain it by telling myself that she was just jealous because she knew she'd have to pass over her throne, but even that was just... flimsy. Lira says they are raised to be killers, they are a race of killers, it's in their nature. Only it clearly isn't, it's the Sea Queen that wants them to kill for some unknown reason. The reasoning why everything is happening was utter nonsense.

The characters were drier than sawdust, the dialogue and banter juvenile and annoying. It was really hard to root for anyone in this story. It's rare for characters to stir no emotions in me. It didn't help that there was no chemistry between Elian and Lira and why they ended up in love is a mystery to me. Elian was such an unpleasant character overall, boasting about how he's this great pirate with an amazing ship and everyone fears him, and I just couldn't see why. If he was a person, he'd be an Andrew Tate follower.

The ending.. don't even get me started. Throughout the book we are told of this land of extreme cold, a journey to a mountain that only the royal family survives. And then there's the fight scene where apparently the cold didn't exist anymore? Suddenly nobody is hampered by their heavy and thick clothes (if they even had them, because like I said, it's like the cold wasn't an issue anymore), people were in a moat full of water (which, by some miracle, was not frozen in this land of extreme cold) and didn't even flinch. The way everything happened was just very convenient. Also, Pagos was chosen to be the hiding place of the Eye of Keto because it's the furthest from the sea and the mountain is in the centre of their world, but they went there by ship, so how exactly is it the furthest place? Make it make sense.

Also, I realise writers stretch the boundaries of language, but you can't just use random verbs with nouns they have no business being used with (looking at you, whimpering light, sweating wind and moaning thunder).