I don't read a lot of short stories, but this collection by the author was an absolute treat. For readers who have come to love the author's work, this gives you a taste into the author's mind and then leaves the reader to fill in what happens next. Let your imagination wander . . . into dark territory.

Some stories are creepier than others, specifically The Block and Butterfly Island. But all intrigued me in just a few pages.

I also loved that the author included why she put this collection together, a very honest admission on the struggles as a writer. And she included what inspired each short story.

Whether you are looking for a spooky fix or just a fan of the author, this collection is a MUST!

I really enjoyed this anthology. Most of the stories were full of suspense and some were pretty scary.

This was a DNF for me. I try to be into short stories but this missed the marked for me. I barely got through the first one, and then I gave up. I still like this author but short stories are not my thing which I discovered here.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchanged for an honest review.

I thought that this collection was alright -- I didn't really think that the preface to each story was necessary. I thought the stories themselves ranged in creepiness and potency of horror -- some were really frightening and some weren't so much. But I think that it was an interesting collection, though not very cohesive.

3 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the early read.

I follow C.J. Tudor on social media and know she was going through a hard time and I am amazed she still managed to publish a book this year. She even gives a personal introduction explaining this. She even gives a brief "here is what was going through my mind" before each story.

I am not always a fan of short stories, but I am a fan of C.J. Tudor. I flew through these stories. Some were darker than others, but all were original, well thought out and creepy. She ended most of them well, some I was left wanting it to go further.....but short story collection.

Fans of Stephen King....pick it up and enjoy.

Since reading several of Tudors’ novels in the past, when I saw a short story collection, I jumped on the chance to peruse it and am not disappointed. The twists were amazing, the storytelling was great and almost every story can give you that squirming sensation in your chest. Here are just a few of my favorites:


“End of the Liner”:
What if you spent your entire life on a luxurious cruise liner?
This is the first story you get to read and it started the book off with a bang. The concept of it really made me reflect. End of the world and I get to be on a relaxing cruise for all of it? Sold! Well… until you ACTUALLY start to think about it. Never stepping foot on land again, the same day over and over again, and what happens when there are too many people for such a limited space? Perhaps it isn’t as nice as it might seem.


“Runaway Blues”:
Even the seemingly sweetest people can have deadly secrets. This rings true as you read this story of a couple who meet a man with a voice to be remembered and his little hat box. I adore this story. Starts you off with a relaxing bar scene and some great music and ends with widened eyes and goosebumps.

“The Copy Shop”:
This is the story that I’d considered the least spooky in terms of content but it didn’t stop me from being absolutely horrified at the concept. Once your possessions are “damaged”, would you be willing to give up the original to get a perfected copy and how far would you take it?

Overall, this a great collection of stories that will give you chills, thrills and what ifs.

I received a free copy to review from Net Galley.

4.5 Stars

C.J. Tudor has become a favorite author of mine reminding me of early Stephen King, who I once greatly enjoyed. I was immediately drawn in by her introduction to this book of short stories where she shared the health challenges of her parents during the pandemic. This stressful time adversely affected a book she was writing, which was ultimately shelved. That's when she decided to change paradigms and express her love of writing through the short story medium. I never seek out short story compilations, but made an exception here because I really admire this author.

Tudor prefaced each short story with her real life experiences that inspired her to write them. I enjoyed reading tidbits about her life in Nottingham, England where she once worked as a dog walker. She was a natural writer without any specific school training for it, and marveled at the compensation when her short story offerings would be accepted by magazines and such. It could amount to weeks of dog walking!

Tudor's stories were often relevant to current events, swirling around possible apocalyptic endings, involving the usual evil tendencies of corruption, greed, self-preservation, apathy- and more. She has her finger on the pulse and pulled me into her terror vortex during almost every single story. She is a prescient, intuitive, masterful spinner of tales. As I finished each story I immediately summarized each one to possibly include in my review, but I think it's much kinder to allow the reader to go in blind and savor every bloody drop all by themselves.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

C.J. Tudor is one of my favorite authors, and while I definitely think she shines in her novel writing, for the most part these stories did not disappoint. I enjoyed that each story got a mini introduction and I think it helped explain why some might have felt a little less expanded on than others. Lots of apocalyptic/pandemic themes, which seems fitting after realizing many were written in the last few years… there’s just something about the way she writes horror that’s so accessible and really works for me. If you’re a fan of her previous books, I can’t see you not enjoying at least some of these stories. My favorites were “Final Course”, “Runaway Blues” and “End of the Liner”.

A Sliver of Darkness
by C. J. Tudor
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️





• Thank you to #RandomHouse/Ballantine and #NetGalley for providing this Advance Reading Copy. Expected publication date is November 8, 2022.

#StoryGraph: fiction horror short stories dark mysterious tense medium-paced
256 pages | first published 2022

This is a bone-chilling and macabre debut collection of ten short stories — creepy and perfect for the season.

• End of the Liner: Everyone left alive live on cruise ships that have been traveling for 50 years, never landing on a destroyed Earth. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• The Block: Five kids break into a condemned apartment building and some crazy half-human monster are chasing them. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Runaway Blues: The “Fat Man” sings at The Blue Flamingo where you go to drink pink Martinis. He lost his voice then he lost his girl. But, she’s back and will never walk away again. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• The Completion: A real estate agent makes the deal of his lifetime … or is it the apocalypse? ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

• The Lion at the Gate: A graffiti lion painted on a gate actually mutilates a boy … but, wait … now it’s changed into a ... ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Gloria: Gloria is a “cleaner-upper”. She breaks murdered bodies down into manageable parts, stuffs them into heavy black sacks and scrubs and bleaches the crime scene. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

• I’m Not Ted: Not-Ted has been chosen to be “elevated” — to live in luxury beyond his dreams. Ok, I am Ted (he succumbs to temptation. But, he’s not Ted and it all disintegrates before him. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Final Course: What could be more terrifying than a dinner party at the end of the world. What could be more apocalyptic than the world being mysteriously cast into darkness? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• The Copy Shop: Can a copy ever be as good as the original? Yes, sometimes even better. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Dust: Calima winds bring sandstorms to the volcanic desert reducing visibility to near zero, transforming the landscape into something altogether more alien. Another world. Which was just what Olivia needed right now. To escape reality. To forget her life. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Butterfly Island: And to top it all off, enter the flesh-eating butterflies. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a book of short fiction stories with the first story in the book being the strongest and from there the others slowly became less interesting to me. The problem with these short stories is that they have endings that don't make sense. The formatting was done poorly with each chapter starting with a big letter covering words.

I really liked that Silver writes an introduction to each short story - it made me invested in each story! It is hard to rate a book of short stories - some were very intriguing and others weren't as enjoyable.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I always think that short story collections show a writer's range in a way that full-length novels don't, and C.J. Tudor's debut collection A Sliver of Darkness is no exception. Featuring unsettling stories about cruises that never end, apocalypses of various kinds, heinous rituals, and murderous graffiti animals, this collection takes us into the darkest depths of Tudor's imagination. Tudor guides us the entire way, beginning each story with an introduction about how the idea for the story originated -- and I loved that she did this, because it always fascinates me to get a glimpse into a writer's mind.

My favorite stories in the collection were "End of the Liner," "Runaway Blues," and "Final Course," but all of the stories worked for me on some level. Although all of the stories stand alone, most of them center on common themes like survival, redemption, retribution, friendship, and love gone wrong -- all viewed, of course, through a horror lens. So much of a short story is about the way it ends, and Tudor totally nailed the endings of all of these stories.

A Sliver of Darkness is a creative, disturbing, darkly funny, and thought-provoking collection of stories. Although I'm excited for another full-length novel from Tudor next year, I hope she returns to the short story format at some point in her career.

I’ve been chasing the high of reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ever since I was a kid, so horror anthologies are an immediate yes for me. Add to it the fact that it’s a horror anthology by CJ Tudor and I’m definitely on-board. While these stories were more creepy than actually scary, I found myself thoroughly enjoying myself while reading this book, even though not every story was a hit for me. I also really loved the introduction section of each story where the author mentioned how she came up with the inspiration for it because I love knowing what makes an author’s mind click into story-writing mode.

I love C.J. Tudor. She can do no wrong! I usually stay away from short stories because it always seems like there are more misses than hits. But this collection struck all the right notes - fun, creepy reads. I will read whatever she writes. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to the publisher for a free netgalley.

Really enjoyed this short story compilation. Most stories were intriguing, but all were well written.

My top 5
1. Final Course
2. Dust
3. Butterfly Island
4. Jazz
5. Block

My track record with CJ Tudor as a horror author has been a bit hit or miss, and her latest anthology A Sliver of Darkness leans more in the vein of “hit” for me. She tends to write over-the-top, somewhat convoluted thrillers that somehow can still be a lot of fun and it was interesting to see what she did with a shorter word count for each story. I will say the success of each one varied quite a bit, and this anthology did lack a clear throughline that I look for in these types of collections. But this is probably the best time I’ve had with a short story collection in a while.

My favorite of the works here was the opener of the collection - inspired by the author’s musings on using ships being used as a contingency plan in the event the Earth’s surface becomes inhospitable. Ships on the ocean that is, not ones designed to send us to outer space. I have a soft spot for isolated communities with sketchy hierarchical systems that develop in the aftermath of an apocalypse (think: City of Ember) and this was a great version of that.

I have to say I was confused by Tudor’s inclusion of a story centered on a character she had previously written in one of her full length novels. She claimed it could be read and understood completely separate from the previous work but after finishing it I still couldn’t shake the sense of leaving something half-finished. This may have just been one to leave in the drafts, especially since it seemed from her author’s note she was already interested in revisiting this character in another full-length work.

In the end, I think A Sliver of Darkness is a perfectly-timed fall release that features some real standouts and few stories I felt were mostly mid. It could have benefited with more cohesion in the connection between each story but that’s not something most anthologies really seem to capitalize on in any case. But I’m happy to say Tudor’s writing seems to work for me in either short or long form and I’ll be looking out for her next release.

Thank you to the publisher Ballantine Books for providing an e-ARC via NetGalley for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc!!

I'm a fan of C.J. Tudor and, of course, a big fan of horror. I was so excited when I found out this author was releasing a book of short horror stories. There is something so eloquent about good horror in small bites like this. This is a perfect genre for short stories.

One of my favorite things about this collection is the introductions to each story that let me peek into Tudor's life and see how the author finds inspiration.

These were bone-chilling, unnerving and unsettling so of course I loved it! I definitely recommend picking this one up and enjoying on a dark night!

Out November 8, 2022!

This was a fun short story collection. I liked most of them but only a few stood out. My favorites were Gloria, Last Meal on Earth & Runaway Blues. I did enjoy how the author had an introduction for each of the stories and explained where their inspiration came from.

I don’t normally like collections of short stories. I find it hard to connect with a character or a plot because they’re over so quickly and then moving on to another. However, there were some stories in this collection that I really enjoyed! “Gloria” and “Final Course” jumped right into the story and you are immersed into the world from the start. There were many I thoroughly enjoyed and only a few I didn’t connect with.
Overall, this was a good collection of short stories.

C.J. Tudor has to be one of my favorite new authors. I have read EVERY. SINGLE, BOOK she has written. And she NEVER disappoints. A Sliver of Darkness is a collection of short stories and I loved every one.