It's always hard to rate collections of stories, as there will always be some that speak to you more than others. This is the first thing I've read from the author and I'm now really curious to read more. I would also love to read something in longer form (I don't know if they've written something longer but I assume so). Many of the stories I actually thought would do really well in a novel format. Like the pre-pandemic world that was created and used in several stories.
As a sidenote I thought the narration was excellent

Happy #bookbirthday to THE WISHING POOL & OTHER STORIES by @tananarivedue . I believe most of these stories were previously published, but now they have been collected for your reading and 🎧 pleasure. Thank you to the author, @netgalley , and the publisher @recordedbooks for the audio-ARC.

These stories are basically grouped into 4 sections - Wishes, The Gracetown Stories, The Nayima Stories, and Future Shock which helps to group the stories by theme.

I really enjoyed these stories which were all pretty unique in their own right, but if I had to choose my favorites, the title story and the Nayima Stories were my faves.

These stories range from domestic and social horrors to post-apocalyptic survival stories. The Gracetown Stories focus on a small town in Florida with strange occurrences while The Wishing Pool conjures up the old adage of "be careful what you wish for."

I was super stoked that Due was releasing this collection AND a novel this year as her work has always resonated with me. She has a way of weaving trauma and complicated emotion into her stories filled with horror. She feels like a mix between Octavia Butler and Shirley Jackson to me which are two of my all time favorite authors.

There are so many excellent books coming into the world today that I want to devour!

Let me know what you are currently reading in the comments! Or tell me your favorite short story collection as I am a big fan!

Have a wonderful day bookbots!

💚SMASHBOT💚

#bibliophile #booknerd #bookreview #pubday #netgalleyreviewer #netgalley #bookish #bookworm #tananarivedue #horrorbooks #shortstorycollections

Thank you NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review. This was good, there was a strong start with stories that sent shivers up my spine. The second half of this book seemed to move away from the pure horror element more into a dystopian horror. I would highly recommend, this book will give you chills and was written with such a wonderful style. And it has minority representation for African Americans and LGBT+.

Very well-written and creepy. Not super scary horror, not murder mysteries. But creepiness pervades this collection. Don’t come in expecting a HEA or even the H for every story enclosed.

The stories often feature fantastical elements, but each contains a lot of realism in terms of themes, characters, and situations. Tricky familial relationships. Having to carefully, slowly navigate around white people’s racism to prove their humanity, the worth of black lives.

Monsters come in many forms. Sometimes the monsters are gigantic swamp leeches, ghosts, demonic possessions; sometimes the monsters are racists, trigger-happy cops, child killers. Sometimes they are the wishes we make, the promises we can’t keep, the suffering we ignore.

The short stories about the pandemic viruses were written before the COVID-19 pandemic, but Tananarive Due keeps them in this new collection. It’s startling how close we could have been to that dystopian world, how another virus pandemic could get us there.

The stories here cover the past, the present, and the future. The future tales contain regresses into the past, from a societal standpoint, from a progressive standpoint. The past tales feel like they could still take place in the present day. And yet I wouldn’t say that “the more things change, the more they stay the same” is a theme of the work here. There is novelty in each story from the situations to the reactions to the consequences.

9/10 for me. I think that this will be a book that stays with me long after the narrator’s voice stops on the audiobook, long after I get brave enough to again turn off the lights.

This is definitely one of my favorite short story collection ever. I struggle with them sometimes, but not with this one. I loved everything about it.

All of the stories were perfectly paced and they all flowed so damn smooth. Excellent.

The narrator couldn’t have been a better choice either. The cadence and tone were perfect.

Damn. This was good.

The Wishing Pool is a gorgeous collection of short stories by Tananarive Due. 

The stories are quiet horror fiction, some with a bit of science fiction, some in modern day. Due builds dread wonderfully and I loved that many included a social horror element.

The Biographer and The Wishing Pool were my favourite stories, I think. Both hit me hard in different ways.

I listened to an audiobook ARC and the narrators were excellent but with short stories sometimes I need to slow down and savour the words on the page. Will be buying a paper copy for sure.

Thank you to NetGalley and Recorded Books for my review copy of this audiobook.

I listened to a review copy of this book provided by Netgalley. The stories were absorbing and really made me think. At times I wished I had a book as I wanted to reread some parts. Looking forward to reading this author's backlist, as I have not read anything by her before.

Do you remember being a child, and your dad or grandpop would tell you ghost stories to scare the crap out of you? Well, that's exactly how these short stories felt for me! Since both my Dad and Grandpop passed, these stories brought me a familiar comfort and fright. Apt to reading at bedtime, Ms. Due gives us a blend of supernatural, earthly and horror genres, perfectly intertwined.
I enjoyed Suppertime and The Rumpus Room, small town ghosts with BIG impacts on race, family, imagination and fear.
Last Stop on Route 9, Haint in the Window, and Ghost Ship were especially my faves. Giving frights, thrills and hope. Peaking your flight or fight; heart pounding.
My first read of Ms. Due's literary works and it definitely won't be my last. A page turner for all!
Both skillful and descriptive, providing vivid scenes for one to ponder. Definitely a MUST read if you love all things frightening.

While none of these stories were frightening to me, they're the other kind of unsettling - the kind that worm into your head and make you just a bit uncomfortable. I was impressed with the creativity in each story and how Due is great at making you think one thing is happening but it's actually something else.

Tananarive Due’s The Wishing Pool and Other Stories is a wonderful collection of short horror pieces. From the opening piece, the title story, which has the feel of a cross between the Twilight Zone and the classic The Monkey’s Paw (careful what you wish for!) I knew I was in for something special. Often intense and disturbing, the stories are also quite thought provoking. This is especially true given Due’s style and how she ends each of these stories. Not with a definitive ending, but rather one that leaves you to wonder just what comes next, what becomes of these memorable characters. For those that have never read any of Tananarive’s work, this is a fantastic way to get a feel for her incredible talent. William DeMeritt’s and Jasmin Walker’s narration is spot on. This is definitely a collection I’ll revisit again in the future. I’d like to thank RB Media for the opportunity to listen to an advanced copy of the audio version of The Wishing Pool and Other Stories.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R1L4OIH5S580BS/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
4 stars for the wishing pool. I really enjoyed every short story in this book. I didn’t find them scary but very interesting none the less. There were a couple that made me wish they were a little longer just because I wanted more story.
The author does a fantastic job with their writing , and story telling .

This collection of short stories left me wanting so much more. It's filled with unique stories that feel incomplete and would be wonderful as fully fleshed-out stories on their own. This horror genre is amazing and a great little dive into this realm!

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Jasmin Walker & William DeMeritt and enjoyed it so much that I started recommending it to friends before I was even halfway in!

We get 14 phenomenal stories, aptly divided into 4 parts; Wishes, The Gracetown Stories, The Nayima Stories and Future Shock.

We get a massive variety of genres and sub genres including cursed objects, post-apocalypse, paranormal, monsters (both human and non-human), hauntings, etc etc etc

We get unforgettable characters, some new and some from previous stories; some good and some evil. Heroes, killers, babies, comedians… and even a bobcat! Bobby🫶🏻

When I attempted to rate the individual stories, I had ten 5stars and four 4stars. They were all so good but I must admit that The Nayima Stories and Future Shock were my favourite parts and held my favourite stories. I’m just a sucker for that sci-fi horror.

If you haven’t checked out Tananarive Due yet, this is a fantastic place to start! She does horror right!

An introduction to the fantastical horrors of film historian and horror writer Tananarive Due. The Wishing Pool and Other Stories gathers 14 short stories centered on Black characters or experiences in the 20th and 21 centuries.

Divided into 4 common theme sections, we join characters experiencing days or situations outside of their normal course of events. A woman drives to a funeral with her cousin and gets lost in a mysterious fog, a book store owner battles a haunting in his gentrifying neighborhood, a young child surviving alone in an apartment, a women revisits her childhood home to care for an ailing parents, and several stories feature people trying to survive or recover from a dangerous pandemic.

Lots of variety of tone, some happy or hopeful, others about unintended consequences, hauntings or mans inhumanity. All stories have a heightening of tensions. Some endings are sudden surprising twists, others end with clear resolutions.

The audiobook edition has two narrators, William DeMeritt and Jasmin Walker. They alternate depending on the story's narrator. DeMeritt reading the male, Walker the female. Both read well and clearly, with effort to match the pace of the story's events. They make clear distinctions with which person is speaking with a separate narratorial voice.

Short story collections are a great way to sample a new author. Due is new to me, and this collection has made me an instant fan. The stories range from horror to suspense to sci-fi. We get pandemic tales, hauntings, post-apocalyptic stories, and more. One story has a teaser for Due's upcoming novel, The Reformatory (which I'm now super-excited for).

The author's writing chops are on full display in every single story. It is impressive, the way Due is able to write great characters, with so few words.

The book was broken up into 4 parts, each section collecting similar or loosely related stories. I felt that every story was at least good, and there were a few that really stood out for me. I'll admit that a couple left me wanting more, because I wanted to dwell in Due's world for longer.

My favorites: Haint in the Window, Last Stop on Route 9, Rumpus Room, and The Biographer.

The narrators were both good and the production quality was high.

Thank you to RB Media Recorded Books and NetGalley for providing the audiobook. All opinions are my own.

it is no surprise to anyone that tananarive due continues to show that she is a masterful storyteller in the horror genre. this was my first short story collection i’ve read from due but it certainly won’t be my last. one of my favorite parts about tananarive due is her ability to provide such intense payoff in her books. her short stories encapsulated that ability to write intense climaxes but in a much more concise structure. this is simply a fantastic collection that i will visit again in the future!

Thank you to #Netgalley and RBmedia Recorded Books for the Audio-ARC
Available April 18, 2023

Horror short stories tend to be hit or miss for me. Those that go for terror rarely are successful, and suspense works best with a slow burn, but I was pleasantly engaged throughout this collection. Many of the tropes of horror are here, with a heavy lean toward ghosts, monsters and dystopias resulting from pandemics (which the author states were written pre COVID), however the strength of these stories is that while the ghosts and monsters build the tension they are rarely the source of fear and violence that the protagonist should have been watching out for. Instead, we see how racism, systematic violence, poorly run legal punishment systems and abusive family dynamics are the true horrors of our world.

These stories are written with a clear voice and focus on the historical and contemporary realities of being Black in America. Should the characters be worried about the ghost tearing your workplace apart or the armed white security guard in the store’s gentrifying neighborhood? Should a woman who loses everything after an accident leaves her daughter with a broken bone believe in the kindness of strangers? What happens historically after sundown? Do all wishes come true, and if so, what does that truth really look like?

Pick it up if you get a chance, it’s a solid collection.

Books like this are exactly why I keep picking up books of short stories despite not being a fan of many of the ones I read. Every story in this was interesting with characters that you became lost in, there were plenty of moments that had me spooked and the way this author's experiences through the last few pandemic ridden years translates in the stories toward the end were so telling. I loved this book from start to finish and can't wait to jump into other works by this author.

A phenomenal collection of stories that uses horror and sci-fi to examine monsters- real, magical or internal. So many have twists Due is famous for, and a writing style that is moving and accessible. There are connections and nods to both her other works and other authors that I really appreciated. My personal favorites were The Biographer and Haint in the Window, but there is something for everyone in each story.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Net Galley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Off the bat I want to thank the publisher Akashic Books and RB Media, along with Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this audiobook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I ABSOLUTELY loved this short story collection and the audiobook was phenomenal.
I have read a few books by Tananarive Due before (but none of her short story collections), so I had a slight idea of what to expect, but this four part short story collection really nailed it out of the park. It showcases everything Due is so fantastic at writing. I felt like every story was strong on it's own, left me wanting more, but also apart of Due's writing world. (Several of the short stories reference other short stories based on other reviews, her graphic novel The Keeper, and her upcoming novel.)
As mentioned this is a four part short story collection that ranges from magical realism, swampy southern gothic settings, pandemics, to even a sci-fi future. So the reader will definitely be able to find their favorites. This collection is also centered on the Black experience and just does such a fantastic job of putting one's own voice at the forefront using the real and spooky to highlight the horrors of the real and mystical.
This collection just made me want to immediately read more of Tananarive Due's books. I cannot recommend enough picking this one up (and in audiobook form!)