This is such a perfect winter horror read. It’s a collection of scary short stories set in the cold, and I waited until it got properly chilly in upstate NY to read it—which definitely added to the atmosphere! Most of the stories were really strong, and I loved how each one brought something different to the table while still fitting that eerie, wintery vibe. If you’re a fan of horror anthologies, this one is definitely worth picking up.

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this one in exchange for an honest review!

This is a horror anthology that is all about winter. We have some major horror writers in this anthology like Josh Malerman, Rachel Harrison, and Darcy Coates.

Unfortunately, I don't think anthologies are really for me. I always tend to give them three stars because I usually like some stories and hate others and it all just washes together for me.

I think this anthology was one of the better ones that I have read though. I still will be giving it three stars because I don't feel like a lot of the stories really stood out for me.

I do think that winter is the perfect time for horror and this book had a lot of fun vibes throughout. I would recommend this to people who like anthologies, however, it was not totally for me.

Thank you so much to Crooked Lane Books for the eARC of THE DARKEST NIGHT!

It’s not very often that I feel confident in recommending an anthology — anthologies tend to be very hit or miss for me & I prefer longer form fiction. However! THE DARKEST NIGHT was so good & I was invested in pretty much every. single. story!

THE DARKEST NIGHT is a terrifying anthology of 22 winter horror stories featuring Josh Malerman, Eric LaRocca, Rachel Harrison & plenty more! Literally, so many of my favorites are included in this book.

THE DARKEST NIGHT is a wonderful addition to any spooky winter TBR; all stories are very solid making this perfect for anthology lovers & those who are a bit more hesitant to pick up a collection.

This was an amazing compilation of stories from some of my favorite authors! I can't even choose a favorite because I enjoyed all of the so much. They were atmospheric, creepy, gory, and adding in Christmas made them that much better! I have always loved compilation books, especially those with horror stories, but I think this one has to be my favorite so far!

Winter is perfect for getting cozy with a book which reminds you of what you’re (not) missing in the cold darkness (or dark coldness). What I love about this one is the variety. Even though these are all respected horror authors, they bring such distinct voices that we are getting an eclectic mix.

The Darkest Night: 22 Winter Horror Stories is overall a solid collection. As with any book of short stories, some entries worked better for me than others. Featuring stories with creatures, hauntings, and gory violence, as well as more introspective tales about grief and family, nearly every subgenre of horror is represented.

I really enjoyed "Mr. Butler" by Clay McLeod Chapman, "Thaw" by Rachel Harrison, and "Bruiser" by Jamie Flanagan, but my top two in the collection were "Nice" by Nat Cassidy and "Eggnog" by Kristi DeMeester. "Nice" was such a deliciously nasty story and really scratched my campy Christmas horror itch. "Eggnog" was perfectly executed and had me rejoicing for tired new moms everywhere.

This collection is bursting with big names, and I will admit that a few of those big names' stories disappointed me, but I'm not calling anyone out. I highly recommend this collection for those long, dark winter nights...preferably with a glass of mulled wine or a hot toddy. Thank you to Crooked Lane Books for the complimentary reading opportunity.

The Darkest Night edited by Lindy Ryan was an intriguing collection of horror short stories with brilliant authors and a beautiful collection of narratives and points of view. Pretty brilliant!

I read a little over half the stories but I got bored. I wanted to like this one because I like some authors, but I couldn't get through them. I wish it was a little scarier and something more.

Thank you Netgalley

I wanted to like this book so badly. While there are some new-to-me authors in this collection, many of these stories were written by some of my favorites. I think I struggled most with the amount of authors and the lengths of some of the stories. I think this collection would have been stronger with fewer stories, as some of them felt like they weren't quite fleshed out enough and could have benefitted from being a little longer (in my opinion).

While this wasn't the collection that I'd hoped it would be, I still recommend readers to give this one a try. if it sounds appealing. You might end up enjoying it!

i’m normally a big fan of anthologies and short story collections but this one felt mostly mediocre and pretty bland.

there’s a lot of big names in there and several authors that i generally enjoy reading, so i don’t think it’s necessarily the chosen authors that made it feel meh to me? maybe it just wasn’t the right fit for me 🤷‍♀️

i do think there’s some stories that stand out more than others and maybe i’m biased because it’s also specifically authors i’ve loved everything i’ve read from them so far — but in general most of the stories with some oomph definitely was in the latter part of the book imo

in general it’s an okay collection of winter horror stories that are mainly depressing and grim to read. if that’s your thing, you’ll most likely enjoy this collection though.

/// ARC courtesy of Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley.

🌗Book Review🌗
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Thank you so much @crookedlanebooks and @netgalley for the advanced copy of this Christmas/holiday horror anthology that Stephen King himself would be proud of. I loved this one so much! Some of these stories actually kept me up at night, I haven’t been that scared in a minute ! It was a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me! Some of my favorites were:
Mr Butler- about a man whose box haunts him, his stepfather introduced Mr Butler the box as punishment and it will actually terrify you.
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Eggnog- which follows a disgruntled new mom who attends her husband’s work party, only to discover a self proclaimed “work wife” has quite the crush on her husband.
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Cold as ice- a man who is trying online dating finishes another unsuccessful date. Only to discover what it actually means to be described by a woman was cold as ice.
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Nice- a child is told he’s being too nice from Santa’s elves who are being worked in labor camp/sweat shop conditions. He shows the elf how naughty he can really be.
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QOTD- do you like winter/holiday themed horror books or movies ?! Personally I just love them! 😍 I included some recommendations in the graphic for other books like this one!

Some of these short stories were absolutely amazing! And some were just not for me. I found quite a few authors that I'm going to read more from, including Darcy Coates, Lee Murray, Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, Kristi DeMeester, Sara Tantlinger, and Mercedes M. Yardley. Their stories were my favorite. I especially enjoyed "Threads of Epiphany" by Sara Tantlinger. It reminded me of Katherine Arden and Naomi Novik in the way she handled the mythology. I would read an entire book based on this story! Same for "The Ladies' Society for the Dead" by Darcy Coates. I was gripped by this story and absolutely loved the ending. The last story, "Bruiser", by Jamie Flanagan was really good. I wish it were novella-length so we could dive deeper into the story and the paranormal aspect of it.
Like I said, there were some stories that just weren't for me. Some were just not my taste content-wise or thematically. Some were a little bit of a mess and reminded me of bad creepy pasta on reddit.
I would recommend this collection to anyone who loves horror and is looking for a good December read.

The Darkest Night is a delicious collection of creepy and spine-tingling stories. I mostly wanted to read this book for Rachel Harrison's short story, but quickly fell in love with ALL of them. This was a fun collection with the biggest and best names in horror. Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for this ARC!

As we’re making our way towards the shortest day of the year, I finally finished this collection of short stories that give you the chills in more ways than one.

As with all short story collections whether it be from one author or multiples there were some stories I loved and others that left me wanting more.

Overall this collection is a solid collection perfect for this time of year.

Every anthology is a mixed bag, but I have to say this one was pretty uniformly bad. There was not a single story of the 22 featured that I 100% liked. With some of them, the writing was very poor, others were just deliberately nasty or veered into fantasy/fairy tale territory (yaaaaaaaaaaawnnothanks) instead of horror.
Personally, my verdict is: Stay clear of this one. Why? Let me count the ways.

Gwendolyn Kiste, "The Mouthless Body in the Lake": uninspired story that takes its time going nowhere (decades, to be precise). Also explains the MC's lack of initiative with the fact that she's 39 and it's obviously MUCH too late to turn her life around. Thanks for the laughs, girl!
2 stars out of 5.

Tim Waggoner, "Cold as Ice". Started out nice, then lost the plot and ended up in Deluluville. Isn't it sad when you come up with this super cool idea but have no idea how to turn it into a satisfying story. You know, with a fitting conclusion and stuff.
2 out of 5.

Josh Malerman, "Children Aren't the Only Ones" etc. This one was fairly interesting but hampered by the fact that it was also inescapably dumb (lady sees her childhood closet standing by the side of the desert road she's driving down... um, yeah. Of COURSE she stops to check it out, and OF COURSE it's totally real, so if suspension of disbelief is not your thing, you might be in trouble here). Also, way too long.
3 out of 5.

Hailey Piper, "The Vermin Moon": Actually had high hopes for this one, until it turned the final corner and lost me. 3 out of 5.

Stephanie Wytovich, "The Body of Leonora James": Ugh. This lady is trying WAY too hard. I don't think there's a single sentence in this thing that reads like it was written by a human. "It was early yet, the part of morning when it's still dark, still quiet, and the earth vibrates with rage, but the cardinals flew down to the forest floor in a conclave of slaughter, their feathers like crimson scalpels slicing through branches and leaves." I'm sure there is something resembling a story buried beneath the juvenile up-to-11-prose, but I was retching too hard to look for it.
0 stars.

Clay McLeod Chapman, "Mr. Butler". Story about a sentient cardboard box. I think? Stephen King would have turned the concept into 1980s gold, but Mr. Chapman is no Stephen King, so I'm afraid the whole thing reads as ridiculous as it sounds. Also, WAY too long.
2 stars.

Ryan/Brooks, "Feast of Gray". Dude takes a Christmas takeout to his abusive mom's grave. Why? No idea. 2 stars.

Eric LaRocca, "I Hope This Finds You Well". Fake old time-y prose that turns grating from the first line because the execution is simply lacking. The story itself is just as tedious. 2 stars.

M. Rickert, "The Buried Child". I suspect this story was meant to be "literary", probably with a capital L, but, well, it isn't. Throwing in some story-within-a-story fake fairy tale-ish stuff certainly doesn't help. Very weak. 1 star.

Lee Murray, "Father's Last Christmas". Interminable fantasy (!) story, complete with kings and knights and clerics and succession woes and plucky bastard daughters and a pseudo-medieval castle. Did not sign up for this kind of thing, so DNF.
0 stars.

Cynthia Pelayo, "The Warmth of Snow". I don't know what this is. Maybe this is another author with delusions of being highbrow, but quoting Shakespeare at length really is not that great an achievement, and it does not make for scary reading. I literally could not care less about what the author was trying to tell me with this. 0 stars.

Golden/Lebbon, "Wintry Blue". At first I was like, FINALLY a real horror story. FINALLY something with a plot. FINALLY somebody who knows what they're doing. Then... it fizzled. I mean, this could have gone in a number of directions, but for some reasons the authors settled on that most tired of chestnuts, the Twist Ending. It's enough to send me into hibernation.
(And by the way, Katie must be the dimmest nine-year-old on the planet. So she and her dad are up in the mountains and she's going on about how Santa won't be able to find her, so instead of behaving like a normal person and telling his NINE YEAR OLD daughter to knock it off with the Santa business already, Dad tells her that up here, it's the snowmen who help Santa along. Cue clueless Katie doing a little happy dance in her car seat: "So we have to build a snowman called Frosty, and he can tell Santa where I am? [...] Yay! Yaaaaaayyyy!" Let me repeat this one more time: that kid is NINE.)
Still, IMO it's among the best of the (admittedly sad) bunch, so I'll go with a 4 star rating.

Kelsea Yu, "Carol of the Hells". Not as bad as the pun might make you think, but not that great either. 3 stars.

Nat Cassidy, "Nice". This is someone who really has not grasped the concept of POV yet. Also, there are some pretty pathetic attempts at humor. The prose, let's just say it's inching towards pedestrian, but it hasn't quite gotten there yet.
The piéce de resistance here is a Christmas tree aiming for maximum yuck: "Human organs hung from the branches... . Ropes of intestines twined around like tinsel. [...] Other organs [...] smeared across the evergreen in unrecognizable clumps. A spleen, a gallbladder, a lung -- who the fuck knew?" Also, one of the MCs is named Twinklebottom. So yes, this obviously was written by a 13-year-old who felt a bit full of himself.
0 stars.

Rachel Harrison, "Thaw". Another one from the "Started out great, then fell apart" school of writing this anthology is so fond of, this one involving a new-ish couple, a snowman and a lonely cabin. I know what you're thinking, and yes, you are right.
3 stars.

Thommy Hutson, "Candy Cane". Whatever. Way too long, convoluted prose, familiar plot. 1 star,

Kristi deMeester, "Eggnog". Not horror, more like insecurity chicklit involving protecting your property (husband) from pesky tarts who are prettier than you. Don't know how this ended up here. 2 stars.

Sara Tantlinger, "Threads of Epiphany". Pseudo-Germanic fairy tale fantasy thing. Ugh. No horror, no stars.

Darcy Coates, "The Ladies' Society for the Dead". Featuring a plot twist you see coming from miles away, but still one of the best stories in this mess of a book. 4 stars.

Jeff Strand, "Being Nice". Gimmicky in a dumb way. 2 stars.

Mercedes Yardley, "Ghosted". Yay! More "revenge" chicklit. Involves characters with names like "Jak" and "Analee", so it shouldn't come as a surprise that nobody here behaves like a real person. 1 star.

Jamie Flanagan, "Bruiser". Starts out as a ghost story set in a nursing home and then takes a sharp turn into Crazytown, complete with designs on compromising the Mona Lisa. Yes, *that* Mona Lisa. I think this wanted to be a Stephen King novella but it could have used a bit more editing. Still, one of the better ones, all in all. 3 stars.


And that's it. The Goodreads blurb calls this an "advent calendar" of horror stories, but of course at 22 stories this doesn't really work either, unless you count the weird-but-not-in-a-good-way "illustrations" (why?? Really -- why???). As a lifelong horror fan, this collection depressed the hell out of me.
My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, but this just wasn't for me.

This book is a collection of short stories of Christmas horror, perfect for those who wish halloween season lasted longer.

A very good and chilling collection of horror stories set in winter. As with any collection there are bound to be hits and misses but overall I enjoyed the collection and the authors that it's put on my radar.

I was really excited to read this anthology during winter 2024, so I requested it. Here we are. The weather has changed and I dove in head first. I have to say, it is similar to most anthologies. There are good and there are great. There are also some that just don’t hit, but could work for others. I have to say many of my favorite authors hit these stories out of the park. And I even found a few new authors that I am curious to read more.

I’d you are looking for a collection of stories to read for cold weather or winter holidays then I would definitely recommend this collection.

Overall this was a very enjoyable winter horror collection! There is a really varied mix of settings, moods, and plots. Grief horror, ghosts, creatures, & slashers; from darkly atmospheric & moody to funny & gory. Some take place at Christmas, some are just set during winter. We get isolated snowy locations, desert roads, forests, and suburban neighborhoods. I really think there is something here for everyone.

I did rate each story individually to help me decide on an overall rating for the collection and while I didn’t love every single story, a little over half of the 22 stories were a 4-5⭐️, which is a percentage I am very happy with! Especially considering how much I loved the ones I did enjoy and less than a handful of the others were under a 3 star experience.

My very fave stories:
- The Vermin Moon by Hailey Piper
- Mr. Butler by Clay McLeod Chapman
- Nice by Nat Cassidy
- Being Nice by Jeff Strand
- Threads of Epiphany by Sara Tantlinger

Others I loved:
- The Warmth of Snow by Cynthia Pelayo
- Candy Cane by Tommy Hudson
- Eggnog by Kristi DeMeester
- The Ladies Society for the Dead by Darcy Coates
- Thaw by Rachel Harrison
- The Body of Leonora James by Stephanie M. Wytovich
- I Hope This Finds You Well by Eric LaRocca


Very happy with my overall experience with the anthology and definitely recommend if you like short horror stories and are looking for something with lots of winter and Christmas vibes!

This book is available now in all formats. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the arc!

I think I’ve found my new favorite collection of wintry horror stories! This book is filled with amazing authors. We’re talking Rachel Harrison, Josh Malerman, Nat Cassidy, Clay McLeod Chapman, and Christopher Golden just to name a few. While those were all familiar names to me, this book also introduced me to Tim Waggoner, Sara Tantlinger, and Jamie Flanagan—all of which I hope to read more from soon.

The Darkest Night contains 22 stories, all of which are winter and/or holiday themed. Some are fun and humorous, while others will leave you glancing nervously over your shoulder. And one story…well, that one will break your heart. I rated 13 of the stories 4 stars or higher. I’ll be adding 2 of the stories to my all-time favorite short stories list. The remaining 9 stories were all 3-3.5 stars for me (solid stories, I just didn’t connect with them as strongly).

My Top 5:

▪️ Mr. Butler by Clay McLeod Chapman
▪️ Nice by Nat Cassidy
▪️ Cold As Ice by Tim Waggoner
▪️ Threads of Epiphany by Sara Tantlinger
▪️ Bruiser by Jamie Flanagan


Seriously, if you’re looking for the perfect wintry read, pick this one up. I’m already planning to reread the Cassidy story on Christmas Eve, and I can definitely see myself adding this book to my yearly holiday reading list.

4/5 stars
Recommend!