I loved this horror novel! Suspenseful and on edge experience in a haunted house with ghosts from the past and someone to discover therm.

Please read this book with caution

Love the Sinner is a collection of stories based on the seven deadly sins. Gluttony and Wrath are the shortest of the stories, while others have chapters. I rather enjoyed this book. It wasn't hard to keep track of or to focus on, has a good creep factor, and the book itself is short enough that you become immersed in it.

Thank you, Netgalley and Brigid Gate Press LLC., for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

This was an amazingly, impressive collection of horror stories! I was completely immersed from the first page to the last. Glorious gore and enough psychological terror to really give you the creeps. My favorite story was Sloth, the whole every man is an island thing and just coming to the realization of a particular type of terror that is innate in all humans made me want to sleep with the lights on. This bends genres well but is by far a book of horrors. The writing is excellent and the way the characters are portrayed makes them feel like maybe you know them already. Of course, everyone need to check the trigger warnings, the very first story is a magnificent introduction into how the rest of the book will make you feel. If you don't get the creeps, well, you are far tougher than me!

* I received this book for review from NetGalley. I was not paid for my review, and all opinions are my own. *

Initially I wasn’t sure how some of the stories connected to the Seven Deadly Sins as I understood them. After reading into the idea of the sins being about misdirection, and connecting this idea to the stories, I enjoyed them more.

I liked how each story began with a quote or diary-like entry, which provided insight about the main character.

1. Suicide - not one of the seven sins but considered a cardinal sin. This story featured a main character, clearly with war-triggered PTSD, as he tries to get some rest and relaxation.
2. Wrath - someone unexpected takes the law into their own hands
3. Envy - an author meets up with his idol/rival and learns that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
4. Lust - I didn’t really understand the connection from the story to the sin
5. Sloth - didn’t get the connection here either but the story was quite sad and haunting
6. Gluttony - somebody indeed ate too much here
7. Greed - a highway patrol officer works some overtime
8. Pride - MC has both too much pride and not enough

My favourite stories were Suicide, Envy, and Pride. I think the author’s writing it good, but some of the stories just didn’t click for me.

Thank you NetGalley for sending me this book.

Book : Love The Sinner
Author : Mo Moshaty
Pub Date : 05 July 2023

Thank you NetGalley, Brigid Gate Press, LLC, & the author for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I love books full of short stories. I love how each short story involves the sins. Usually when I read books with short stories I just read them throughout the season but I read each of these in a sitting. My favorites were Leftover and Free Weight.

This book is something that I will pull out and pick and choose one or two to read here and there. There is a story(ies) that will please everybody which is great!!! I already told book buddies to snag up this book of short stories!!

I really enjoyed this book! The seven stories in this book are all centered around the 7 deadly sins and 1 mortal which was really interesting to read. My favorite stories in this book are "Things Are Tough All Over" which dealt with greed and "Eager" which dealt with pride, although I enjoyed every story. 10/10 would highly reccomend.
*Special Thank You to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy prior to publication*

This was a very cool horror short story collection. I enjoyed it. I would have liked a little more storyline to some of them but that is how it is a lot of times with short stories. I think others may like it even more than me. For example, I do not care for military themed stories much so someone who does would like that story in it better. I thought it was crazy that I liked the one of the shortest ones in the book. I say give it a try it may just be exactly your kind of stories. I loved the cover as well. Pretty fast read which I love.

I love the works of Mo Moshaty and so when I heard that she finally had a collection coming out, I flipped my lid and was so incredibly fortunate to be able to read this advance copy of “Love the Sinner” from Brigid’s Gate Publishing.

The stories are thematically organized by the seven deadly sins, such as envy, lust, and so on. Each tale presents an interesting moral take on the characters and their situations. There are also wonderful quotations at the start of each new section to foreground the reader's expectations, which I thought was a nice touch.

Certainly, the stories go into modern-day sins and their sinners, some ending with huge gut punches. One hopes that perhaps if this work were ever to be adapted, that it would get a "Tales from the Hood" type of treatment. One of the most powerful pieces of the collection is also the shortest, "Maddalena," which is poetic and gory and wonderful.

Overall, "Love the Sinner" is a wonderful short story collection from Moshaty and it will leave readers hungry for more!

*3.5 Stars*

Love the Sinner is a collection of stories based on the seven deadly sins. The stories range in length as some have multiple chapters and others are only a few pages. The stories range in theme in terms of type of horror based on the sin.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection. The stories were all well written and my favorite was Free Weight however all of the stories were okay. This mainly just lacked an “umph” factor for me. Each stories ranges from 3-4 stars but none of them really called out to me. This is definitely a strong collection of stories that I recommend

I love the concept. Eight short stories all based in sin, and exploring hem in a wonderfully horrific way.

There was a good variation to them, in all aspects. The varying length of them was really good, the shortest being just one page! All of them were very impactful.

It’s insane how well the descriptions work, and how they shape the story depending on what sin it is about. It makes it feel like more than it is in a way.

Really cool book!

3.5 stars

I enjoyed this collection. As with all short story collections you have your highs and lows. Overall it was slightly above average in comparison to similar books.

This single-author collection read a bit unevenly for me, but what I enjoyed, I really enjoyed.

Like the title implies, the stories are themed by cardinal sin: suicide, wrath, envy, lust, sloth, gluttony, greed, pride. Some are quite short, like Gluttony and Wrath, while some have chapters or parts to them, like Envy and Pride. I found the inconsistent format super helpful for reading, allowing more stopping points when I was on the go and such. My two favorite stories were the first one, suicide's "A Battle Between Boys", and envy's "Free Weight".

The first story is a post-WWI tale, from what I gathered. "A Battle Between Boys" is a literally haunting examination of PTSD, veteran trauma, and what war participants leave behind on the battlefield, as well as what they bring home with them. I found the protagonist's journey of healing a nice quiet, sad tale, not quite frightening. His plight and the messaging is timeless, applicable really to any war in the past century or so.

The envious story, I could totally see made into a movie. Moshaty's screenwriter abilities are on full display in "Free Weight", a chilling story of the costs of professional jealousy and the consequences of pleading for inspiration. Author Collin Auberon endures a grim burst of creativity during some forced self-reflection at a remote writing retreat, aided by some macabre visitations in a style akin to <i>A Christmas Carol</i>. I really enjoyed this one, the writing so well done that some creepy moments that rather implied than told had even more chill factor.

The lust story, "Leftover", read a bit like an incoherent fever dream, and I enjoyed that as well. It certainly stuck with me after reading.

Like I mentioned before, not all of the stories blew me away or highlighted their sinful themes so effectively, but I really enjoyed several of them. The collection balances out well.

As someone who loves short stories I often have mixed feelings about short story collections. I think it's simply because there's always some stories that resonate with me more, making me compare the other stories of the collection to them, instead of judging their quality individually. That is the case again with this collection.

Maddalena, a only page long story, is the most effective one in my opinion. I would actually say that it's up there on the favorite short stories I've ever read. Truly goes to show the authors writing talent by creating so effective, with so little words.

Other stories I really enjoyed were In the Interest of Time another shorter one where a man is being chained to a floor while being confronted by another man, and Free Weight where we follow two horror writers rivalry.

There was only one story that I didn't really enjoy, the longest one titled Things Are Tough All Over.

Overall this was a good collection of short horror stories from a clearly talented writer and I'm excited to read her future work.