Member Reviews

A book of different short stories about women in horror ? Sign me up! The title, the description of this book and the cover caught me from the beginning, that's why I requested this book from NetGalley. However now that I've finished it, I have to say I am little dissapointed with this whole collection of short stories. I loved some of them such as 24 Hour Diner and The Doll's House but the rest of them felt weird and not really engaging.

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The average of my ratings for these stories came out to a 2.8, which I rounded up to 3 just because it came so close.

With any anthology there’s always going to be some hits and some misses, however I found many of these stories fell in the “just okay” range for me, which made it hard to want to press through to get to the few stories that truly stood out. Many of these stories play off common horror/monster tropes and just don’t put enough of an original twist on it. I could guess the plot of at least half of this anthology within the first couple pages of a story.

That said, I want to call out Leda and the Fly for being the most original and engaging story of the bunch, and also my favorite of them. I’m a sucker for horror stories that put a creepy twist on something otherwise mundane (in this case a blank wall). Also queer girls! There’s a handful of stories in this with queer people, and thankfully this is one of them.

On that note. I try not to comment on grammatical errors in ARCs because I understand that they’re unfinished copies, but the story Personal Demons features a nonbinary main character who is referred to twice with the wrong pronoun. Not by another character within the story, but by the actual narration. I understand that it may not have gone through any copy editing yet, but it was still uncomfortable to read.

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I enjoyed this. I thought the short stories were written really well and the short stories are well crafted. There are some that stand out more than others and left me wanting more, and those are the ones I liked the most in this. It's a good anthology to read around October, though. Definitely recommend it for readers looking for something that's slightly creepy.

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I really enjoyed this book of short horror shorts. However there were only a few that I was not able to go to sleep after reading them since it creeped me out a bit to much, which kept me reading more of the book. There was one that I wished there was more to the story to understand it a little better. I would recommend this to anyone who is wanting to get into horror and needs a little stepping stone to get there. Overall I enjoyed this read.

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I sadly have to say that I’m still not a big fan of short stories. I absolutely loved the horror theme and I liked most of the stories, but they’re just too short for my liking

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This is an interesting collection, with a nice variety of subject matter. A couple of the stories don't feel like they quite fit the theme, but all do have a girl who is 'strange'. As with all anthologies, some stories are better than others, but there's something in here for every fan of weird fiction.

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This anthology was very hit or miss for me as some of the stories were quite strong, but the majority felt not fully fleshed out.
Overall this collection was enjoyable though and I would definitely try another anthology with a similar theme.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC.

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This is a mixed anthology, I found some stories more enjoyable than others and even skipped to the end of a few. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC egalley.

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I was very excited to read this anthology, I love horror and am always looking for more female authors in this genre to add to my bookshelf. This book seemed to me to be marketed as a collection of short stories by badass women about badass women/girls which is more or less the case.

Overall I enjoyed the collection, there were a handful of stories that are very intriguing and could definitely become full length novels. Unfortunately there was also a few that made absolutely no sense to me, ending very abruptly, leaving me very confused but thankfully they were very short and I did not waste much time reading them.

Another aspect of the book that was a turn off was that in a few of the short stories the women in them were either minor characters or were portrayed as stupid, weak, or pitiful. This is not what I want from a "Women in Horror Anthology."

I gave this book three stars because I did enjoy reading it and am excited to read more from these authors, I would definitely read another anthology from this collection and recommend it to my "strange girl" friends.


Thank you to NetGalley and the Publishers for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Thank you first off, NetGalley as well as Azzurra Nox and your publisher for giving me this book to review.
First of, this book did not come to me as being a short story when I selected it but it was still a great read. I have issues with reading short stories at time because as you finish on you are onto the next so quickly and sometimes I need to digest what I have read before starting a new book or in this case, a new short story. What I really liked was that their were women in these horror stories that were strong. This is quite rare for women to be depicted this way in horror because they are alway left to be running and tripping and falling and never standing their ground.

As said before, I can read short stories but they are not my favourite but all in all, thank you for the read.

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Several of these stories by Glaswegian women are built on promising ideas, working through some aspect of the daily horror women face (e.g. predatory men, familial pressure, haunted dollhouses, etc.). However, they tend to feel unfinished, first drafts quickly sketched down, and lacking the final polish to transform these ideas into something truly lasting. The short form of the stories makes it an easy book to pick up and leaf through, with a sharper edge it could have been even harder to put down.

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I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A solid collection of short stories. I would have liked it more if the stories felt a bit more connected in some way or another. But overall, this was a good read. I enjoyed it.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and netgalley for this review copy.

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I've realized reading this book that I have a hard time reading a collection of short stories quickly. I like to enjoy each story and that makes reading a collection take forever. That being said I enjoyed most of the stories. For the most part I wanted them to last longer, which is a good thing. There were one or two stories that I struggled to read and was happy they were short. I would recommend this anthology to other readers.

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I LOVE women in horror. I love the idea of a woman being scary or powerful in a way that she can use to fight back. I love the idea of being the scariest thing walking down a dark street or a lonely alleyway in the dead of night.
Women taking back our power in the form of ripping open a man's jaw and eating his internal organs like Pringles is...it's just extremely my thing.
So I love the idea of a horror anthology entirely written by women. But, I gotta be honest, most of these stories weren't very well written. I hate saying that, because I want to be supportive of this type of anthology but a lot of them read like they were written by inexperienced authors and were heavy on the typos. Some of them were hard to get through.

The ones I really enjoyed were "Sideshow," "The Doll's House," "Blood," "The Girl Who Never Stopped Bleeding," "Leda And The Fly," "My Mirror Wife," "Her Garden Grows," 'Revival," and, the best one in my opinion: "Tribal Influence" about a young Guatemalan immigrant who gets separated from her parents at the US border and is quickly found out to have a very strong and very dangerous ability.

As with "Tribal Influence," a lot the stories in this collection were concentrated on hot-button issues (There's also a story that is told from the viewpoint of a non-binary person, a few stories that centered around lesbians) all of which I really loved! Which was why I wanted to love this, but I just...didn't.
I did love the stories that I listed, which is still a pretty good number and I really, really appreciated that the book put trigger warnings on the story that centered around a really violent rape and murder. I wish more anthologies did that kind of thing.

But overall, three stars. I really wanted to love this but it just didn't work for me.

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The cover drew me to the book, I love horror stories and this anthology is a good read, with women as the main characters. Lots of short stories that keep your interest (although a couple did leave me hanging and wanting a bit more). On the whole the book was fun, easy to read and well worth a look.

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This book is a compilation of short horror stories, whose main characters are women. There are 22 short stories of all kinds: paranormal, science fiction, contemporary, etc. There are funny stories, very scary ones and others that will break your heart. And definitely some stories would be perfect as books!

It has a very entertaining format for reading and you can perfectly choose a story for each day and read them in any order. All the stories were entertaining, but there are five that won my heart, and I'd love to see extended versions of those stories:

Jenny's Bobo tells the story of a girl who has a very particular creature in her house. This could perfectly be a Middle-Grade book.

Night Terrors left me with a feeling of anguish, much like Black Mirror. A really captivating story.

Self-Portrait With Pears: this was by far my favorite, it's a shocking story with a very current and dangerous theme. This book left me with cold blood because it talks about our reality. It's heartbreaking and terrifying.

The Doll's House: This story also left me with cold blood, I mean... dolls are creepy objects. It's macabre and I really wanted to see more. I would love to read a book about this story. It's so good!!

Sideshow: This story took a turn I didn't expect and was fantastic and disgusting at the same time.

As I told you before, there are many stories and you'll surely find one that will be your favorite. I really love this book, and I want more! I'll definitely recommend this book on my other platforms

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I loved this big chunky book full of horror! These are A list stories and I have discovered new authors to look up and add to my never ending tbr list.

February is Women in Horror Month where we celebrate all the amazing female authors and their scary stories.

Having read tons and tons and tons of horror, not a whole lot can scare me and I felt uncomfortable and nervous in quite a few of these.

Thank you Netgalley for being awesome and letting me grab this ARC

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I like the premise of the book and the variety of the different stories and characters. Would probably appeal to an audience slightly younger than myself though!

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Anthologies introduce readers to new authors they might not otherwise try. Wrapped around a theme, this one is horror, it also allows some of our favorite authors to show us new skills. The short length of each story lets me start and finish each one while waiting on one thing or another. Azzurra Nox has now added many more authors to me TBR pile. This book is excellent for any and everyone who likes a little spooky with their scary.

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Unfortunately, I am struggling to get into this anthology so I am going to invoke my reviewer policy clause to DNF it. I won't be providing a public review. I love the concept, but I can't get into the stories.

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