This frightening collection succeeds by delivering a wide variety of terrifying tales.
This jam-packed horror anthology features cryogenics, an alien invasion, a cartoon bunny, and more.
The best stories among the 35 set in workplaces in this volume, the second such anthology released in recent months by Whisper House Press, skillfully highlight the breadth of horror. Barry Charman’s “The Ghouls” is a timely tale about the catastrophic impact of misinformation specialists on society. “Cute Aggression” by Emily Flynn-Jones details the increasingly unhinged actions of a merchandiser haunted by a cartoon rabbit (“All day, Bella Bunny stares at me with her too-wide eyes, adorable button nose, puffball tail, stubby limbs, and blank space where a mouth should be”). Adam Rotstein’s “Ooh That Smell” focuses on what occurs when food is left in an office refrigerator for far too long. “Second Amendment” by Robert Bagnall describes the bloody outcome when a designer’s shooter game works too well. Rose Skye’s “Alignment” follows a man whose life gets taken over by a popular app. “Koschei’s Thread,” by Eóin Dooley, debates the morality and effectiveness of cryogenics. John Mahoney’s “Slacker” centers on a gruesome discovery made by a prison librarian. “Where’s My Meds?” by Andrew J. Pixton, shows what happens when two creatures can’t get the drugs they need at a recovery center. Lisa Morton’s “When Darkness Comes” reveals how one man attempts to combat ignorance following an alien invasion. And in “Stick to the Script,” by PW Interrobang, a new customer-service rep learns the hard way what lurks below the surface of his company’s toys. Editor Capone has done a masterful job, as this multifaceted collection offers something for everybody. There’s a variety of lengths, from one page to 15. Even readers who usually avoid the genre can find well-crafted stories that they can savor that depend more on suspense than scares. That doesn’t mean that hardcore horror fans won’t find the gore and frights they seek, as there are plenty of those. More SF-based horror (à la the film Alien) would have added to the spectrum provided by the anthology. Still, the modern horror called technology is prominently featured in this vivid compilation. This is a gripping compendium to curl up with on a spooky night or a haunted holiday.
This frightening collection succeeds by delivering a wide variety of terrifying tales.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9798989391967
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Whisper House Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An impressive and surprising take on war-story tropes.
A doughboy makes a curious discovery at the front in this inventive metaphysical horror tale.
This novel by Kraus centers on Private Cyril Bagger, a U.S. soldier during World War I and the son of a bishop who died on the Lusitania; he’s taken his father’s Bible with him into the Army as a remembrance. He’s also a confidence man and shirker relegated to burial duty in the French countryside, which is fine with him: The work is grotesque (Kraus depicts wartime deaths in visceral detail) but keeps him from becoming a corpse himself. Alas, his commander has hand-picked him and four other “disreputable” soldiers for a suicide mission to rescue what sounds like an incessantly shrieking soldier. Cyril finds the source of the shrieking, which turns out to be—well, that’s tricky. Cyril sees her as a vaguely familiar woman, clothed in red and blue, bathed in bright light, and capable of magically rescuing him from the worst of German gunfire; members of his cohort see a mother, a former lover, and other women. So for the purposes of Kraus’ novel, the shrieker is a metaphor for the ways war stands in contrast to our deepest needs for care and safety. It’s a sweet sentiment, albeit one that Kraus coats in a lot of ugliness, particularly the seemingly endless human carnage. Kraus structures the novel as an extended run-on sentence (with paragraph breaks), giving the story a relentless and intense rhythm. As a veteran horror writer, he’s gifted at depictions of blood and guts and knows how to keep a story moving, but in its latter stages the novel is a philosophical one as well, concerned with humanity’s seemingly inborn need to wage war and what might counter it. The identity of the woman Cyril calls an angel is vague, but Kraus has a clear grasp on our worst impulses.
An impressive and surprising take on war-story tropes.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781668068458
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2025
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