Like any anthology, some stories will be stronger than others, but this one particularly suffered from the unevenness of its highs and lows being on very opposite ends of the spectrum. Some of the stories were written awkwardly, suffered from scene transition issues, and/or just didn’t hit the mark; while others were fantastically written and completely sucked you in. Thankfully most were very engaging and unique, particularly those in the latter half of the book, which I flew through.

It used to be that I would consider myself hesitant to check out short stories collections and anthologies, mostly because I had a string of lackluster ones over a space of time. But in more recent years I've had pretty good luck with short stories collections, and it has made me more adventuresome in checking more out, especially if they sound super interesting. I had this mentality going into NEVER WHISTLE AT NIGHT: AN INDIGENOUS DARK FICTION ANTHOLOGY, in part because I'm always wanting to read stories from groups that have been left out of the narrative, but also because I have enjoyed a few of the authors in the collection, curated by Shane Hawk and Theodore C Van Alst Jr. And overall, I liked it. There were some stories that were a little too much for me, and others that were a little more telling than showing. But there were others that I really liked, either because the scares were on point or because the plots and messages themselves were powerful and heartwrenching. Some standouts include "Navajos Don't Wear Elk Teeth" by Conley Lyons, "Kushtuka" by Mathilda Zeller, "Tick Talk" by Cherie Dimaline, and "Sundays" by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (this one was my favorite). I also now have a number of authors that I am going to need to seek out and read more from! It's a varied collection with a lot of different kinds of dark stories, be it horror, thriller, or dark fantasy, and while some of them are really intense I think that readers of these genres will certainly find something to like with everything offered.

NEVER WHISTLE AT NIGHT has a lot of bold and talented voices in horror and thriller fiction which reflects their experiences as Indigenous people living in the U.S. and Canada, and I think that horror and thriller fans really need to seek it out.

This Indigenous anthology collection started off with a BANG and did not disappoint. All of these stories pulled my emotions in different ways. Some of these were spooky, some were just edge of your seat odd, and some were really emotionally dark and heavy. This book is described as " a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination" and I wholeheartedly agree that is what it is. I hope that readers will want to read this and welcome all of the emotions and learning that come with it.

Kushtuka, Collections, Dead Owls, Before I Go, & Scariest Story Ever are a few that stick out in my head as ones I will definitely revisit again. Sundays was a deeply emotional story that I cannot quit thinking about. Residential boarding schools is a topic that I tend to not read about because it hits really close, but to be able to pack that much emotion into a short story is truly amazing and I will for sure be looking up other work by David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

I am definitely buying this book for my shelf and can't wait to talk to people about it.

This excellent collection features stories from twenty-six different indigenous authors from the so-called U.S. and Canada. The dark stories in Never Whistle at Night range from kinda weird to unsettling to downright disturbing. There's a tick that never stops growing larger, there's a werewolf, there's skinwalkers, there's undead folks, there's torture, there's possession, there's necromancy. Some of the scariest stories of all, though, are those that portray manifestations of trauma and genocide. There's one particular story - Sundays by David Heska Wanbli Weiden - about a man's experience at a residential school that absolutely wrecked me.

Overall, I would highly recommend Never Whistle at Night to anyone who loves fiction that's bizarre and/or scary. These stories are perfectly bite-sized forays into the dark. (It's all around us, you know.)

This was a wonderful collection of stories by some absolutely brilliant authors! So many new to me authors and a few I recognized or have read before. This is exactly what I was looking for in a dark, creepy anthology. These stories were so creative, so entertaining and so unsettling! There were a few I felt were maybe a little out of place and didn’t work for me but my overall rating was a 4.2. I loved reading about the folklore and it just worked so well in this book. I would highly recommend it.

Let me preface this review by first saying I love to learn about cultures I may or may not share. I appreciate folklore from around the world and have found that through stories, you can learn so much about the deep seated cultural beliefs of your fellow humans or your ancestors through the exploration of what they have found exciting, brave, adventuresome, and worth staking ones’ life on in addition to what scares someone, or how someone seeks revenge and the cause of it. This was a very interesting prospectus on the people of the Americas, whose land was taken and settled and what myths, legends, and beings still exist here beyond our sight and will continue to exist long after our bones are forgotten and tangled in the roots of the very soil that still belongs to them.

I first found out about this book in my ‘suggested reads’ through Amazon. When I found out it was an ARC I was desperate to get my hands on it. I was approved and that was the the beginning of a truly wild adventure into some of the most viscerally engaging horror stories I’ve ever read. It was a true bonus that they were all told from Indigenous voices. Not only do I continue to think about these stories weeks later, but the level of unsettling most of them gave me still gives me such pause and a depth of learning that continues to roll around in my subconscious like some sea serpent, surfacing on occasion into my conscious thought.

One of the major benefits of reading these as an anthology is that you get to visit different heads and learn new fears you either had never been exposed to or fears you absolutely share with the author. Every one gave me a different kind of chill or a dark feeling or something new to really dwell on. Some had stories that caused me to rethink my perspective entirely and deepen my own understanding of cultural pitfalls that I myself do not experience.

Regardless of how you want to approach this book, you should.
This book is a must read for everyone and you can bet I’m going to be buying a copy of this to keep on my shelf. The cover is just a preview of the unsettling feelings you will get reading these stories.

I’ve been followed by books I’ve finished in the past, but I haven’t been haunted like this one haunts me. I don’t reread books usually, but there are definitely some stories here that I plan to reread, if only to get them out of my head like a song turned earworm you play on a loop to dislodge. Wish me luck.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for the advanced copy and to all of the authors who contributed.

Heavy hitting, dark and ‘stop you in your tracks’ powerful. Every story felt so full bodied and hit me in my heart whether it was the monster or the man that was the villain. A top read of 2023 and will recommend it to everyone. There’s so much we can take away from this beautiful collection.

This is a wonderful collection of short stories! All my ratings ranged from 3-5, as most short story collections do for me, but overall it’s a 5 star collection. I had a lot of 5 star stories, but a couple of standouts for me were Hunger and Before I Go.

I love that there is a mixture of well known authors and authors that haven’t published books before- some of my favorites were by these “newer” authors. I also really liked that it’s a mix of mythical creatures and people (mainly white people) as the evil of the story. I’d love to read another anthology collection like this!

There are many recognizable names in this collection: Rebecca Roanhorse, Richard Van Camp, Cherie Dimaline, Mona Susan Power, Darcie Little Badger, and Waubgeshig Rice. There’s even a foreword by Stephen Graham Jones. But I was especially excited to be introduced to some new (to me) Indigenous authors.

The stories in the anthology vary from fun campfire stories about werewolves (Night Moves by Andrea L. Rogers) and ghosts (Night in the Chrysalis by Tiffany Morris) to more serious and disturbing tales about residential school sexual abuse (Sundays by David Heska Wanbli Weiden), [HA1] mental health (The Prepper by Morgan Talty), stolen land (Limbs by Waubgeshig Rice), and missing and murdered Indigenous women (The Ones who Killed Us by Brandon Hobson). There were bits of Native languages sprinkled throughout the various stories, for example I learned Uguku is “owl” in Cherokee, Kwe’ is “hello” in Mi’kmaq, and Mahsi’ cho is “thank you” in Gwich'in. This felt especially nice to see since so many Native languages are endangered. I can’t possible review all the amazing stories within the collection (and they are all amazing), so I’ll focus on a few of my favorites.

Kushtuka by Mathilda Zeller is about an Alaskan Native woman named Tapeesa. Recently an obnoxious White man named Hank Ferryman and his son Buck have moved to the area to build a monstrous lodge full of stolen Native artifacts. Tapessa is sent to the lodge cook for one of Hank’s parties and on the way the grotesque man asks her to tell him a “Native story.” Tapeesa warns that telling stories after dark could catch the attention of a spirit, but Hank laughs this off as silly superstition. She tells him the story of the Kushtuka, a shape-shifter that can take human form and tries to lure people away. As predicted, the story summons a Kushtuka which attacks Hank’s lodge. We also see this idea of attracting the attention of evil spirits in Before I Go by Norris Black, where a woman’s grieving causes the Night Mother to appear and offer to bring back her dead husband (it doesn’t end well).

One of the things I related to in Kushtuka was Tapessa being called “basically White” by Hank because her dad is White. As a biracial person myself, having others (especially White people) try and tell you your identity isa pet peeve of mine. Historically, I would’ve been considered Black since my father is Black (due to the “one-drop” rule which I discuss below), despite having light skin. Yet these days most White people label me White because I’m White-passing. In both cases, White people choose my identity for me without listening to what I have to say, much like Hank does for Tapessa.

In White Hills by Rebecca Roanhorse, a White woman named Marissa is judged for having “too much” Native blood by her White in-laws. Marissa is your typical rich, White woman. She’s married to a wealthy business man named Andrew, is very concerned with her appearance, and lives in an HOA neighborhood in a big house. After going to the country club to announce her pregnancy to her husband, Marrissa makes the mistake of mentioning she’s a small percentage of Native (in reference to not being offended by a racist mascot) and her husband becomes visibly upset. The next day Elayne, Andrew’s mother, takes Marissa to a “specialist” who has racist phrenology drawings on the wall. Elayne explains that she doesn’t want a “mutt” grandbaby who may be dark skinned and “savage” (despite Marissa being white). The way in which Elayne views Marissa’s child is very reminiscent of the “one drop” rule. The one-drop rule was a legal principle based on a form of hypodescent, the assignment of a mixed-race child to the ethnic group considered "lower status." In other words, anyone with Black ancestry (no matter how far back) was considered Black. There were strict classifications for mixed-race individuals that were given offensive names like “Mulatto” and “octoroon,” I discuss more about how this racist system allowed the US to hold up White supremacy here. I mentioned above how annoying it is when other people (especially White people) decide my identity for me, butit’s even worse when the government does it.

And this leads me to blood quantum. Blood quantum is highly controversial and personal, and since I’m not Indigenous and therefore shouldn’t weigh in on such a heated debate I will tread carefully and stick to the facts as best I can. If you’re not familiar, Blood Quantum laws were enacted by the United States government to determine if someone was considered Native or not dependent on their degree of Native ancestry. The first "Indian Blood law" was originally created in 1705 when the Virginia government wanted to limit the civil rights of Native people and people of Native descent. Some Native tribes continue to use blood quantum to determine who can enroll for tribal membership, others do not. Leah Myers, a member of the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, gives an example of the importance of tribal enrollment in her Atlantic essay:

"Tribal citizenship is more than symbolic. It determines eligibility for educational assistance, medical care, and other social benefits. Plus, only members can attend citizen meetings and vote in tribal elections. If my future children don’t meet the blood requirements for my tribe, they could still participate in events, cultivate plants in the traditional-foods garden, and take Klallam-language courses. But no matter how much they served the community in love and time, they would be deemed a 'descendant' and marked as separate."

Here’s a guide to Blood Quantum that gives both the arguments for and against blood quantum (full transparency, most Native sources I looked up were against these laws). Basically, blood quantum proponents argue that getting rid of blood quantum rules will make scarce resources even scarcer due to population growth and that it will allow disconnected outsiders and pretendians to join the tribe, which will erode their culture. Opponents of blood quantum argue that statistically it will eradicate Native nations, and point to the law's racist origins which were intended to control and erase Indigenous people. It also makes relationships complicated, as Indigenous people must calculate their potential children's percentage of Native blood and if they can enroll or not, which can put a strain on families. Blood quantum also conflicts with traditional Indigenous ideas about kinship and has“no basis in Native American traditions.” Essentially, both proponents and opponents disagree on the best way to preserve their tribal nations.

This idea is explored more fully in the story Quantum by Nick Medina. A woman named Amber is so obsessed with blood quantum and getting her children on the tribal roll that she favors her son Grayson, who’s 5/16 Native, while ignoring his brother Sam, who is only 1/8 Native, to the point where Sam is practically feral. She even tries to steal blood from a deceased Native man from their tribe so she can inject it into Sam.

Another story I enjoyed is Collections by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala, an incredibly creepy story about collecting human remains. Professor Smith, a liberal White woman, collects the heads of all the students she’s helped. She’s very proud of her collection: she has all the sexualities and genders, all the religions, and almost all the races. An Indigenous head would be her “white whale.” Megis (called Meg by the White professor) is understandably horrified by the collection, as is one of her Black classmates, but none of her white classmates seem to be. Professor Smith implies she wants to help Megis so she can have her head for her collection. Megis, the first person in her family to go to college, is desperate to stay on Professor Smith’s good side so she can maintain her scholarship and get a good job, and therefore doesn’t have much choice but to stay in the house of horrors. While an extreme example, the story underlines how troubling it is when museums collect human remains without consent and how academics will treat bodies as mere curiosities.

“When [Native American artifacts and human remains] were acquired, collectors weren’t thinking of Indigenous peoples as human beings. People were resources, and human remains were to be preserved alongside pots” says Jacquetta Swift, the repatriation manager for the National Museum of the American Indian and member of the Comanche and Fort Sill Apache tribes. It’s the unfortunate reality that most human remains on display and in private collections, are unethically sourced from BIPOCs against their wishes.

This theme is also lightly touched on in Navajos Don’t Wear Elk Teeth by Conley Lyons where a Native man named Joe has a summer fling with White man named Cam. Cam collects teeth, some of which turn out to be human (he claims his last boyfriend was a Navajo man who gave him an elk tooth for “good luck” which Joe is dubious about). One of Joe’s friends refers to this as “bad medicine” and suggest Joe get an elder to sage his house.

Not all the stories are quite so dark, however. Snakes are Born in the Dark by D. H. Trujillo felt like a Goosebumps book or a fun story kids tell to scare each other, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In the story, an Alaskan Native boy named Peter goes hiking in the woods with his white cousin Maddie and her rude boyfriend Adam. They come across Native petroglyphs in the Four Corners desert which Maddie and Adam both immediately touch. Peter warns them not to touch the carvings but Adam continues to do so while mocking him. Unsurprisingly both Maddie and Adam suffer unpleasant (though non-lethal and impermanent) fates which results in a humorous ending. It’s a fun twist on the classic “Indian curse” where we (and Peter) are rooting for the White people to get their comeuppance.

I could go on and on about the stories in the anthology, like Hunger by Phoenix Boudreau where two Cree college girls, Summer and Rain, outsmart a Wehtigo. Or Scariest. Story. Ever. By Richard Van Camp that touches on who gets to tell Native stories and how to share culture without stealing it. They’re all great. I also felt like I learned a lot while reading the anthology.

Never Whistle at Night was definitely an interesting read. The first batch of stories felt like they had very interesting premises but didn't find a satisfying way to wrap them up, but as the book went on the quality grew significantly and when I went back to reread the first half of the book again, I found those stories to be better upon a second look at them.

For the most part, the tone of the stories matched one another, something that is rarely present in anthology books... and what a tone these stories had. Never Whistle at Night puts the "dark" in "dark fiction" and every author keeps this tone up masterfully. My main positive of this book is that none of the stories are ever boring; every author knows how to create engaging stories that will have you hooked all the way through.

I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to pick up a solid collection of short stories and not have to read them all in one sitting... although after reading just one story, you'll likely be hooked.

3.5 stars rounded up

I love this gorgeous cover! This is the perfect book for fall. Some stories were hard to stomach, some made me scared to go to sleep, some I liked more than others, but they were all beautifully written. I loved reading the bios of each author.

I will say this book might not be for everyone, definitely check the trigger warnings!

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage Anchor for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately, this is a DNF for me at 42%, I have seen a lot of rave reviews for this book, and it definitely isn’t a bad book, it just isn’t for me. I did enjoy some of the stories in this one, but overall was not enjoying the book enough to continue.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Never Whistle At Night is an indigenous dark fiction anthology. I haven't read many anthologies so on that aspect I enjoyed that I could sit down and read one story and then pick it up later on for something completely different.

The content was as described, dark, but I thought each story was so well written, and well thought out. Some of them will stay with me for a long time, especially Quantum by Nick Medina. It absolutely horrified me, but made such a clear point with what it had to say.

As other reviews have mentioned there are a lot of triggers through this collection but it's hard to mention them all as each story contains something different.

It is a fantastic, and thought provoking read and I would definitely recommend it!

This story collection was SO much fun and so very spooky!

I read Shane Hawk's book, Anoka, years ago and really liked it. I was excited to start this collection of stories, knowing it was in his creative and talented hands.

My favorite story in this collection was White Hills by Rebecca Roanhorse. Admittedly, I may be a bit biased, as I really enjoyed Roanhorse's Black Sun series.

Highly recommend for horror fans! :)

MY REVIEW: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
👉 A star-studded anthology of indigenous dark fiction?!?!??!? So many of my favs are featured in this one… and so many new favs 👀
👉 Not all of these stories are horror (so you won't be TOO scared) but, woof, every single one sure was unsettling.
👉 If you need spooky reads for spooky season, this is THE book--And the perfect place to find spooky authors to check out after you're done.
👉 This might a contender for favorite book of the year!!

A fascinating and solid collection of short stories from indigenous authors. I really enjoyed the dark/horror themes within the stories and the basis in native folklore. I also greatly appreciate the mini author bio included at the end of each story, very helpful in introducing me to new authors! My personal favorites from this collection were: Quantum by Nick Medina, Snakes Are Born in the Dark by D.H. Trujillo, and The Prepper by Morgan Talty. I would highly recommend this!

Never Whistle at Night is an incredible anthology on every level, from the contributor list to the diversity of settings, times, and tribes represented, to optimistic endings and not. These pages are steeped in the pain of generational trauma, injustices past and present, yes, but they also offer rich folklore, loving family bonds, unique perspectives, and all channel the magic of telling a good story. While I wish I could note every line, every syllable that struck me, that would make my review longer than the book, so I will highlight some of the most memorable tales.

Rebecca Roanhorse's offering, "White Hills", is a nightmarish examination of the cost of assimilation in a society of bleach-blonde influencers and pricy HOAs.

In Conley Lyons' "Navajos Don't Wear Elk Teeth", young, queer Native Joe resists his living space, body and his very identity being colonized all over again.

Body horror is at its most satisfyingly horrific in D.H. Trujillo's "Snakes Are Born in the Dark", warning those who disrespect sacred spaces.

One of my favorites was "Before I Go" by Norris Black, a melancholy, romantic and cautionary tale of maintaining order and letting the dead leave us properly.

"Dead Owls" by Mona Susan Power is my absolute favorite, though, a grim reminder of the harm othering can cause. A young girl is pulled into a dark dreamscape, an intersection of American atrocities where the past can hurt you in more ways than one. A bittersweet end to this one really tugged at my heart.

Amber Blaeser-Wardzala takes the term "dark academia" to the next level in the chilling "Collections".

A stunning conclusion, "Limbs" by Waubgeshig Rice, employs amazing imagery and ends this collection with a satisfying display of environmental vengeance.

Equal parts unsettling and satisfying, this anthology was everything I hoped it would be, and more. There is incredible writing in here, every story coming vividly to life in my reader's mind.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Stephen Graham Jones' introduction, the late night storytelling tone of which was perfect to lure readers into the dark.

The cover is also absolutely gorgeous.

As with any anthology with multiple authors, I found that I enjoyed some stories more than others. That being said, I think this is one of the best anthologies that I have read. It was also a huge plus to read stories that were written by a wide variety of indigenous (North American) writers. It was also not surprising that nearly every story gave a nod (or more) to the atrocities perpetrated on the indigenous peoples of this continent by the European colonizers.

I heard a joke the other day by an Irish comedian who said that people keep asking why Brexit took so long. The answer was, of course, because it always takes the English a hell of a long time to get out of anywhere they have colonized. There is probably not a continent on this planet that hasn't felt the effects of European colonizers.

Back to the book--some truly creepy stories gathered here! I read this through NetGalley but I am absolutely going to have to get a hard copy for my bookshelf. I really, really enjoyed it.

Never Whistle at Night is a collection of Indigenous dark fiction from twenty six authors including Darcie Little Badger, Tommy Orange, Rebecca Roanhorse as well as its editors Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr and is the perfect book as we head into spooky season. There is a huge variety in the types of stories being told, which means that there will almost certainly be something to appeal to every reader, and each of the stories is short enough to read in fifteen minutes or less, but I found so many that kept me thinking about them for much longer. Some of the stories in this book are among the most genuinely unsettling I have come across in all my years as a reader. As with any collection of stories, especially an anthology featuring so many different authors, some stories were more to my liking than others. The stories range from traditional horror with ghosts, zombies and were wolves as well as creatures like the Kushtuka, a shapeshifting creature that takes on the shape of someone you love to lure you away, to stories featuring the monstrous nature of humanity and the darkness that people can carry inside.
There were so many wonderful and thought provoking stories in the book that I could not possibly go through them all here but for me particular highlights included :
Navajos Don't Wear Elk Teeth by Conley Lyons which focused on a more human monster
Hunger by Phoenix Boudreau which felt really rooted in an oral storytelling tradition
Scariest Story Ever by Richard Van Camp which I liked because of its hopeful ending
Collections by Amber Blaeser- Wardzala , a story so strong in its visuals that I could see it being adapted for film or television.

The book is described as a " celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination" and I hope that many many people will pick it up and share in that celebration because this is a book that deserves to be shouted about from the rooftops.
I read an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I loved the premise of indigenous horror fiction. I haven't read too much of it and I’m not sure about the mythology, so seeing that in all different eyes is always fun. Seeing everyone’s different experiences is the best part of a multiple author collection. There’s not one one to do horror, and this collection knocks it out of the park I also love the different ranges of horror. While we get body horror and general discomfort in stories, they come with a deeper meaning. Whether you like horror, fantasy, or just darker fiction in general, I highly suggest this collection. There’s so many different authors and while I wasn’t familiar with most of them, I love seeing new names and learning who I should read next!