Most winter-themed books that you’ll find will be based around mostly Christmas and related holidays, which is a no for me. Christmas bores me and no amount of horror is going to change that. I know. I’ve tried. A general winter-themed book, though? All right, I’m willing to give it a shot. Besides, I do love anthologies and I haven’t read one in a while, so it’s overdue.
First thing’s first, as usual. I enjoyed the writing. The author has a good style and this book was read in one sitting. (Which I know I mention a lot, but let’s not discuss how many books I have on my Kindle that I am reading a couple of pages at a time over the course of a month or longer.) The formatting and the editing I have a little issue with. Mind you, the book was formatted nicely, but it was formatted in a way that my Kindle app was unable to change some things, like the fact that the background was white and the text was small. It made for a physically uncomfortable read, though obviously not enough to stop me and this really just comes down to personal preference. I also think the book could have benefitted from another round of editing. That is not to say there were huge mistakes or anything, but maybe it’s just that I’m married to an editor who is always lecturing me about how things work. (I say lecture, but I’m the one asking her, hahaha.) Other people might not have noticed at all and none of them took away from the stories. Just a note.
Now, onto the stories. What I appreciate in a good anthology is that there are no repeats of storylines and this book did not disappoint in that. Each story was uniquely its own. A lot of the stories ended abruptly and I say that in a very positive way, as I don’t like having my hand held in horror, I like being left to wonder. There were plenty of good twists throughout the book, but the book in no way relied upon twists to make each story happen and I also enjoyed that. There were, inevitably, a couple of Christmas and elf stories and whilst they weren’t my thing, I think people who enjoy such topics would really like them.
I never know how to judge these things because I am not once scared by… much of anything when it comes to horror. To someone else, this book might have been frightening, but to me it wasn’t. I would describe it more as eerie, subtle and sometimes even tragic. I am a firm believer that horror cannot be minced down to just ‘scary’, so please understand that that is in no way a complaint. It made it more enjoyable for me, if anything. There were several stories that sat with me for a while, those abrupt endings making me just stare at the ceiling and linger on it and what it all meant. The author is good at keeping you on your toes.
All in all, I think this author did a great job with this book, I don’t regret reading it and I would highly recommend it to people who like… well, any of the things that I’ve mentioned. My favourite stories were: The Ribbon and the Lark, A Little Night Music, The Extinguished (TW: for animal death) and No Good Deed, though like I said, I didn’t think there was a bad story in the bunch. I look forward to reading more from the author.
