This book includes 5 stories centered around that wonderful story at is Halloween. While I found all the stories enjoyable, my 2 favorites were Robert McCammon's Strange Candy and Mark Allan Gunnells' #MakeHalloweenScaryAgain.

Strange Candy was FANTASTIC. It takes a lot to give me chills, but the end did.

#MakeHalloweenScaryAgain is a well-told murder mystery type story. I had a feeling I knew how it was going to end, but it was still intriguing.

Good short horror stories are in this book. All of them held my interest and I was sorry when the stories were done. Scary but not too scary. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

Are you as big a fan of Halloween as I am? I'm constantly on the lookout for new stories about my favorite holiday. Well, now we have a new reason to look forward to this upcoming October. Brian James Freeman and Hydra Books have a new anthology series coming out every week in Oct 2017. It doesn't get much better than that!

Book One starts us off with Robert McCammon's short but sweet story from 2012 entitled STRANGE CANDY. This is a perfectly written story for Halloween and will have you sobbing into your Snickers bars,

Kevin Lucia brings us another Clifton Heights story called THE RAGE OF ACHILLES or WHEN MOCKINGBIRDS SING. Kevin is also one of the editors at Cemetery Dance; I wish he wasn't so busy there. He needs more time to write. I love Clifton Heights and want to visit everyone. In this story, we learn about a young boy who is different from others. I actually don't recall if he used the word, but I think the child was autistic. It was one heck of a Halloween story.

DEMON AIR by John Little had to have it's roots while the author was in flight. There are so many bad stories about airlines now, why not enjoy another about a girl who is traveling to her ancestral homeland to learn about her roots.

Lisa Morton provided LA HACIENDA DE LOS MUERTOS: a story about cowboy movie being filmed south of the border at Halloween. This has a fine twist of an ending. I would expect no less from Ms. Morton.

Finally, the piece de resistance. The novella length #MakeHalloweenScaryAgain by Mark Allan Gunnells. This was a wonderfully twisted tale by an author I'll need to check out. A serial killer is on the loose apparently because of a Facebook post.

This is a solid 5 star anthology and I'm very grateful to Hydra Books for letting me have an advance copy to review. I highly recommend HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL VOLUME 1 and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Great read! Looking forward to reading more by this author!

Review: HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL VOL. 1

The 3 short stories and 2 novellas in this anthology, which promises to be first of a series, are all excellent. Authors Robert McCammon, Kevin Lucia, John R. Little, Lisa Morton, and Mark Allan Gunnells, all "bring the holiday home" and vivify small town Halloween--some with hope, some with sadness and grief, some with insular bigotry and terror. All of the stories will leave readers thinking ("Could this happen in my community? Could such events happen to me?") because really, everything here is realistically plausible. HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL VOL. 1 is definitely on my reread-at-Halloween shelf.

Halloween Carnival Volume 1 is a short collection of spooky stories all based around Halloween. As with most collections you get to read short stories from your favourite authors like Robert McCammon but the best part is being introduced to authors you've not read before. The standout story for me is by Kevin Lucia which reads like an old Stephen King Castle Rock story. An excellent new collection that I would love to read more of.

Five creepy novellas about the spookiest day of the year, with a classic by Robert McCammon and four original stories by Kevin Lucia, Lisa Morton, John Little and Mark Alan Gunnells, will have readers checking under the bed before going to sleep