Loving horror and anthology this was a must. There isn't a dud in this collection of satisfyingly gory tales.

I only read the first three stories and I loved all of them.. Just wished they where a little longer , each story would make a good book on its own maybe make the book only about three stories each so that your able to fit more into each story

.This collection could definitely benefit from a proofreader, and the writing quality is not the best. The stories aren’t perfect, but I had lots of fun reading them and was never bored. I really enjoyed this overall. I will say “Good Sister, Bad Sister” could probably benefit from being reviewed by a Muslim woman for sensitivity, as the portrayal of the mother’s anger over the hijab felt a bit off.

While I like short stories, I realize that I am not a fan of blood & guts, gore, violence, fear and death. Some of the stories were ok, with some more untypical elements, some Muslim & LGBTQ, but primarily horror. Interesting to read as an exercise, but sadly, not for me.

The writing wasn't bad, but it felt a little like the full potential of the stories wasn't reached. There was a lot of gore, sure, but the horror of it didn't really feel that potent. Would recommend to teens who want something with gore without being too scared.

I realized I am not too fond of short stories. The stories in this book were okay, but they did not hold my interest.

Vicious Traditions is a horror anthology which has collected many different types of stories between its covers. Tales range from supernatural creatures to encounters with the worst of humanity.

The trigger warning that you get at the start of this is very well placed. Most of the stories involve extreme violence and gore. Several of them also feature some kind of assault (physical and sexual). Take this warning very seriously. If you cannot handle that kind of reading please do not read this.

There are a lot of stories in this short book. Most of them are a good length. You get enough story to satisfy you but they don't linger for too long. There are several stories that are only a couple of pages long however (Driver Surprise Me and Across the Woods in particular) and that is just way to short for me. It's unsatisfying. I think I would have liked those if I had more background and had more time to spend in the world of the stories.

My favorites were Fields of Blood (really quite excellent. I can see this as a short movie in a horror anthology. I would love to see how the visuals would translate from page to screen), One For the Money (very short and somewhat predictable but very well done), and Good Sister, Bad Sister (I just straight up think this would be a fantastic movie I would pay to see this in the theater).

My least favorites were Red Snow (mental illness is not a plot twist), Green Gloves (story moved way too quickly for me. I think it would have been much better if it had taken it's time in a longer story), and Lake of Sin (my least favorite. Main character makes incredibly stupid choices for no reason and is very lucky),

The way I rate anthologies and short story collections is to rate each story and then average it out at the end. As a result this is getting 3 stars. I really liked some of the stories but the really bad ones dragged the overall rating down with them.

I'm not going to say that I don't recommend this book. The good stories really were amazing. Once again, do not ignore the trigger warning at the start of the book. It is there for a very good reason. Recommend this for fans of horror and horror shorts of an appropriate age to handle the content.

I think this book was quite fascinating.It's a bunch of scary short stories. There were a couple stories that disappointed me. I felt it just needed more to the stories. I have a few favorites , and those were the more exciting stories. My most favorite story of all was the very last story and it was a long short story.. The cover itself was what made me get the book. Plus I am always looking for a few scary stories to read.

I received a free copy of the book and is voluntarily writing a review

Vicous traditions by Azzurra Nox.
VICIOUS TRADITIONS is a collection of short stories about dark and twisted encounters with the supernatural and the unexplained. Sometimes the line between reality and madness is razor thin. You will be lead on a dark and creepy journey where you'll constantly look behind your back. What's that unexpected sound? Is that a shadow or a creature? Delve into the darkness if you dare.
A good collection of tales. The first one was my favourite. 4*.

I accessed a free copy of this through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I was interested to try a horror anthology but this perhaps wasn’t the best example to start with.

I had intended to individually rate and review each story however once I was about 4 or 5 stories deep, I realised they would all say the same thing.

The author has some interesting ideas, intriguing concepts, but what’s really missing is the development. Each story feels like it could really be fleshed out into something a lot bigger - and indeed a lot of them feel like they NEED that. Perhaps I’m not familiar enough with short stories and anthologies, maybe these are actually concise and effective in their entirety but I personally was left with a lot of questions after reading some, especially those which are really short like ‘Driver, Surprise Me’.

Another criticism would be that it’s in desperate need of a good editor. The texts were riddled with grammatical errors and unnecessary syntax. A competent line editor would be able to tidy the stories up well and hopefully they’d be a lot more effective for it.

My one last gripe, I have to say, is I don’t think it’s smart to open an anthology with effectively a fanfiction. I have nothing against fanfiction; I used to write it myself about 10 years ago. But the first story in this anthology is so very clearly taken from the ‘80s film The Lost Boys, updated and modified. Unless it’s explicitly stated somewhere within the anthology that the stories would feature heavy inspiration from existing fiction, I don’t believe a story like that belongs in this kind of format. This is probably just a very personal opinion.

I would be interested to read more from this author in the future once they’ve honed their craft more. I do feel they have some unique and interesting ideas that just require more work to become something special.

Free ARC from Net Galley

Nice collection.

First story almost made me quit as I thought I had somehow gotten a "YA" thing but the rest 'grew-up' fast.

I LOVE Azzurra Nox's horror anthologies, so I was excited to read some of her original fiction. Unfortunately, this collection just didn't work as well for me as Strange Girls did. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely a solid horror anthology. The premises of the stories are very interesting and often have fun twists. The main issue with me was the clunky writing style and the predictable plots, which brought down the interesting images and situations that the characters found themselves in. There was also a little too much infodumping for my tastes. I liked this collection best when the author got truly off the wall and weird, like in "One For the Money, Two For the Show" and "Driver, Surprise Me." Overall, I think this is a pretty decent short story collection and enjoyed reading it.

I’m going to go with a 3 on this one. It’s a little clumsy in parts, and I had to deduct because I found myself thinking the stories were very predictable. That being said, there are some decent stories in the collection.

As a collection of horror and grotesque stories it is one of better ones I have read. In places they are visceral and gripping. For me I prefer one complete story but I was thoroughly entertained by this book, I can see several of these tales having legs and being elongated into a full book. This is just my opinion. My favourite was Baby Teeth. All in all a good read.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for giving an honest review.

This novel is full of unique and spooky short stories. It reminds me of Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, but with a western traditional horror twist. Some of the stories I liked a lot more than others, like Good Sister, Bad Sister. Many of these would honestly be interesting as novellas or even full length novels, others seemed very clunky and repetitive.

The horror or fear aspect of a few of these stories is a big reveal which feels a little underwhelming in comparison to the length of the story. While they will make you curious to discover what is going on, I feel like there could’ve been a touch more suspense or darkness. Based on the cover and the trigger warnings I honestly expected most of these stories to be a bit darker horror and twisted.

Really loved the ideas behind these short stories, but the execution on some was hit or miss.

Boys of Summer is an absolutely awful story to start off on- pacing and juvenile writing made me hate it and seriously question the quality of this anthology, but the rest of the collection does get better.

There were also a lot of silly typos all throughout the book that makes enjoying the act of reading difficult.

I probably wouldn't have requested this book if I had realised it was by the same author who edited the collection Strange Girls: Women in Horror Anthology, because that collection contained the worst story I've ever read and I didn't set out to read something I wouldn't enjoy, nor to be negative on purpose. However, Vicious Traditions is a better collection than that one. overall. There were some stories in it that I quite enjoyed. Others had the bones of a good story but needed a better editor to look over them.

Hopefully the typos at least were fixed in the final version. There were a few. For example, "rouge" instead of "rogue" appears more than once, and for a minute I was confused as to what a "rouge tea bag" was (some sort of herbal tea?). Also someone had a "bird's best" of hair.

Boys of Summer- bit of a blatant rip off of the lost boys. The barnacles on the protagonist's leg was a nice image. Unfortunately the writing was a bit over the top for my taste, and there was too much telling and not enough showing. The characters kept explaining the plot out loud.

Fields of Blood- That was an okay ghost story. Gruesome without really being scary.

Baby Teeth- There's a lot of scope in the theme of mothers with post natal depression and/or psychosis, but this story didn't quite do it for me. I cannot believe that a prison psychiatrist would talk to a patient that way, eg. outright saying that what they did was "monstrous". The author seems to have only a hazy idea about child development, which makes it harder to make what the baby was doing at different ages seem creepy. Also I cracked up at the line about the protagonist's "suspicion" of the baby growing after seeing her baby sitting upright eating cockroaches and speaking coherently. A wee bit more than a suspicion at that point, I would hope!

There are Pierrot dolls in multiple stories in the collection, which is an interesting motif. Also, a number of characters with "fire engine red hair".

One For the Money, Two For the Show- The cost of entry thing was super creepy. Well done.

Red Snow- Another Pierrot doll in this one. It's not bad.

Driver, Surprise Me- A very creepy little vignette.

Silent Ivy Hotel- Great title. Decent story. It's just a nitpick, but just "Medusa" would do. It's kind of annoying to explain "Medusa from Greek mythology". Give the reader some credit.

Comets Tear the Skies- It's an okay premise but the writing lets it down.
"They're there, two perfect toned pair of legs". Two pair? So, four legs?
"The desert is poisonous and it kills those who dare to tread it with its venom" Nit picking again, but poison and venom are different things. If something bites you and you die, it's venomous. If you bite it and you die, it's poisonous. The desert doesn't really do either.
"I'm sure whoever lives in that pyramid can help you" said no-one ever!
"They're orphans. This is a non-profit orphanage". Are for profit orphanages a thing?
"The pie overflows with large midnight blueberries, some of them so blue they appear a dark shade of vermillion." So blue that they look red?! I guess they mean purple, but then just say purple.

Green Gloves- That one was okay.
"Maja had latched an anchor in my heart" Anchors don't latch.

Across the Woods- Short, but nicely done.

The Invasion- This one had a good premise.

My Tears Ricochet- An okay ghost story.

Lake of Sin- The historical background to this one was cool.

Good Sister, Bad Sister- A little like Ginger Snaps. Nice to see some diversity.
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have to say, the cover is gorgeous, but all these stories would probably only appeal to tweens who spend all their time on creepypasta or watching Youtube videos of people playing Five Nights at Freddy's. There wasn't any <b>graphic</b> violence or gore, just fade to black scenes and a few written with as little description as possible when it came to blood.

So, overall, definitely not for me, but something kids looking to get into horror would definitely be into.

Putting together a short story collection is not an easy task, and Azzurra Nox was smart in beginning hers with five short stories previously published and then layering on an additional nine. I liked many of the ideas in Nox's stories, and applaud her for putting in the time and effort to create this collection, because, again - it's a lot of hard work. So I want to acknowledge that work.

Having said that, this collection was not my favorite. You can see Nox starting to play with concepts like story and ethics and belief, but most of the stories feel unfinished. Like they needed another round or two (or forty, if you write like Hemingway) of editing. The flash fiction works best, for me, potentially because I expect a lot less from flash fiction than I do from something appropriately called a short story.

Let me caveat this by saying I think the point of Nox's stories is generally story, or plot-driven. We all know I'm a character reader who's a sucker for beautiful sentences, but that's not what Azzurra's focusing on - which is fine, but it also means I'm not really her intended audience.

So if you like idea-driven, short fiction and don't really give a damn about characters or writing style (no judgment, we all like different things in our reading material), and are a horror fan, it's worth checking this collection out.