Unfortunately this book was a let down. I was very excited to read a collection of gothic short stories and the concepts of each one (except maybe Greasy Pete that was just barf) were great but the execution was not there. The author should have made the stories a little bit longer or tried to include less in them in order to get the point across. Instead each story was a weird limbo length that left the plots feeling unfinished. Several of the stories would jump around or include pieces that didn't seem to fit. Other times the big reveal at the end would happen but it didn't have the effect is was supposed to since the story hadn't been fleshed out enough.

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

This book was very entertaining and a nice easy, quick read. Some of the stories I thought could've been longer but overall I enjoyed this book.

These are well-written stories that put a fresh take on typical gothic settings alongside expected tropes such as madness, loss and death. I loved The Fashion Show in particular told by a menacing machiavellian fashion designer, and The Haunted Night is both unsettling and emotive. A very entertaining collection of tales full of creepiness and surprise endings.

This cover and description looked so promising. Unfortunately, the content didn't deliver.

This is a collection of short stories that are supposed to be horrifying, except there is too little plot development for the stories to truly be scary or complete even. I know a lot of horror can leave the fate of the characters to the reader's imagination but I found myself with most of the stories going OK here's going to be the good stuff and it turned out to be the end of the story. I only really felt two were complete, The Haunted Carnival and the Fashion Show. The Fashion Show was by far my favorite story and the one that felt tidy and finished and was actually full-on creepy.

The other thing was there is total lack of originality in the titles of the stories - three of them start with "The Haunted...". I think if the author would have given one more chapter to each story with a bit more explanation of the what/why, it would have made the stories much better. The one about the haunted club was too hard to follow.

Such a bummer, I had high hopes for being terrified and instead wound up mildly annoyed.