A well done, page-turning anthology of stories about home being where the horror is.
A collection of contemporary horror fiction.
This debut offering from Whisper House, edited by its founder Capone, features a selection of horrific short stories united by home-and-neighborhood themes, with contributors ranging from seasoned, award-winning veterans of the publishing world to newcomers seeing their work in print for the first time. The stories cover the whole of the human landscape, from city life to country life to the most obviously terrifying location of all (the suburbs), and they vary in length from just a couple of pages to an average page count of around 10. The ethos of the anthology will be familiar to fans of Stephen King (there are virtually no stories here that aren’t explicitly cut from King’s cloth): the unexpected horror in the quotidian and familiar, whether it’s the neighborhood playground or that particular terror of modern life, the local homeowners association. In Sam Weller’s “Creepy Crawly,” the hapless narrator finds himself in an increasingly aggressive standoff with a millipedelike creature in his apartment (“We both lived in a hole-in-the-wall,” he observes. “And if you really look at it, in one way or another, don’t we all?”), and a Jewish mother and her son encounter particularly virulent xenophobia in an Adelaide suburb in Jordan King-Lacroix’s “Just Being Neighborly.” Capone edits this collection with evident skill, choosing solid work and arranging it effectively. Brisk, businesslike entries like “Decorations” by J.D. Simpson, featuring a town that takes Halloween very, very seriously (“Around eleven forty-five, the temperature plunged” on the big night. “Dead grass hardened into hoary spikes of frost; fog formed in the shivering woods”), contrast well with more diffuse outings like “The Annual Family Reunion” by Christina Griffith. As in all anthologies, there’s some uneven qualities, but fans of modern horror will find plenty to please them here.
A well done, page-turning anthology of stories about home being where the horror is.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9798989391936
Page Count: 344
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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