Review of ‘Lady Grim: A Halloween Anthology’ by Various Authors
This was a good collection of lesfic horror and paranormal reads for Halloween. I’m not the biggest fan of short stories, I’m much more of a novella and full-length reader, but what was nice was that these were not short shorts. 13 stories over 400 pages, gives you enough time as a reader to sink into each new setting. As in most collections, some shorts were better than others, so my 3.50 rating is the median score for all the stories that I read.
I was attracted to this collection because of my love for the paranormal, but also because of the list of authors. This collection has some very popular indie authors in lesfic and some published too. I’m happy I can finally say I read something by Lise Gold, it’s been too long coming. I do have to mention that I passed on reading two stories, Erica Lee’s and Annette Mori’s. Erica Lee is on my do not read author list and Mori’s story was tied into a world that a few of her series takes place in. Mori actually wrote a chart to explain the characters and what books they came from which was really nice and should be helpful to other readers. It just happens that I’m so anal about reading books in chronological order that I could not jump into the middle of the series with that short. Her other books are sitting on my Kindle, waiting to be read, so eventually, I will come back and read Mori’s short story.
When it came to the stories themselves, I was surprised there were more stories on the horror side and in fact, they were grimmer than I expected. I guess I should have expected that from the title. There were some creepy stories and a lot of the kinds of horror where bad things happen to people. If you have read some of Ocean’s horror books you will know she likes to torture her characters a bit and that was a similar feel in quite a few of these shorts.
I’m not going to comment on all the shorts but I wanted to mention some of my favorites. There were two stories I felt that stood out among the rest. My absolute favorite ended up being Lila Bruce’s story. It was a campy werewolf story that was just fun to read. After enjoying her book ‘Chasing Shadows’ so much, I’m not surprised how entertaining her short was. My second favorite was by KC Luck. What was different about this story is that it was really sad, sad but also warm. I know that sounds so odd to have as a favorite in a horror collection, but I just thought it was beautifully written and it’s a story that will stick with me. I also have to add some honorable mentions to Lise Gold, Serena Bishop, and Ann Hagan. These three stories were all well done and good Halloween reads.
If you are looking for a collection of horror and paranormal stories, which are mostly on the darker side, this collection is for you. I did not connect with all the stories but that is almost impossible in collections. The stories that I liked, I really liked and quite a few were really well imagined. 3.50 Stars.
Lady Grim: A Halloween Anthology
This was a good collection of lesfic horror and paranormal reads for Halloween. I’m not the biggest fan of short stories, I’m much more of a novella and full-length reader, but what was nice was that these were not short shorts. 13 stories over 400 pages, gives you enough time as a reader to sink into each new setting. As in most collections, some shorts were better than others, so my 3.50 rating is the median score for all the stories that I read.
URL: 3.5 stars, Ghosts, Horror
Author: Various
3.5
