Excellent stories by excellent horror writers. Not a audiobook to listen to at nightime.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Did not finish this one. I just could not get into the stories. I can't name one that I read that could actually be considered horror.

Touted as "an advent calendar of short stories", this was a really great read heading into spooky season and into winter - I would even have loved to read it closer to the winter holiday season. I enjoyed getting to read stories from different authors - 22 stories did seem to be a bit much, but overall, the vibe of this compilation was creepy and fun. LaRocca and McLeod Chapman's short stories resonated the most for me. Narrated by multiple actors including Imogen Church, who is always amazing, the book was well-paced and the narration clear and not distracting.

Entertaining overall - not always terrifying, but always exciting!

This collection is a real mixed bag. There is a handful of standouts from Clay McLeod Chapman, Rachel Harrison, Nat Cassidy, Jeff Strand, and Jamie Flanagan. Many of the others barely scratch the surface of interesting, horror, and/or winter.

The audiobook performances from this crew of narrators definitely elevate the stories.

I will recommend this to everyone I meet. Perfect short stories to find new authors. Definitely a must buy.

I was thrilled to be approved for this arc just in time for the “spooky season”. Not all stories were equal in scares but that’s the thing about horror stories: they are all totally subjective! There was a type of horror (monster, paranormal, grief, etc) for everyone.

The narrations were wonderful and I highly recommend adding this to your collection. Listen to a bed time story every now and then 😈

The Darkest Night is a collection of winter horror short stories that will haunt you in the chilliest of nights from a myriad of some of horror’s best authors.

One of my absolute favorite stories was Mr. Butler by @claymcleod and I have not stopped thinking about it.

Each story has something absolutely terrifying to entertain you with, so make sure you add this to your winter tbr!

Like most anthologies not every story is a masterpiece but this collection has an incredibly solid line up of stories for long winter nights.

This is a really enjoyable collection of wintery horror tales! I particularly loved the Box story and found that to be very original. Each tale has a Christmas/ snowy theme and all are a great length to keep you entertained. They are all summed up nicely… none feel rushed. I really enjoyed all the different narrators too! A really good way to wile away the winter season. .

A really nice anthology of horror stories with a cold, winter theme. I really enjoyed Rachel Harrison's story Thaw. Who doesn't love a good snowman? It was the main reason I requested this title. But there were some other great stories here as well. And as the temperature begins to drop as fall and winter approach, this is the perfect anthology to curl up with near a nice fire. I will definitely be recommending this one for our store.

What a great way to spend a chilly night. The Darkest Night revives the tradition of telling spooky stories on winter nights, and it does so gloriously. The stories range from funny, to enraged, to sad, to bone-chilling, but all have a deep winter's chill of spookiness. A young couple are haunted in a remote cabin. A father and daughter must fight a frozen monster. A group of women gather to lay ghosts to rest. Pretty much all of them are hits. Very enjoyable variety of stories, and the multiple narrators really adds to the fact that it's a bunch of different writers.

✨Thank you to Netgalley, Crooked Lane Books, and Spotify Audio for the gifted digital and audio copies of this book✨

I’m so sad to inform you that this book did NOT live up to expectations. It is difficult to give this book an overall rating because I really enjoyed some of the stories, and others bored me to tears. I was SO close to DNFing because it felt like I was wasting my time wading through legitimately terrible stories to get to the actual good stuff.

This book is a collection of stories written by some of the BIGGEST Titans in horror. I thought this would be an absolute BANGER. But unfortunately, many of these stories were boring or fell flat. And many of them tried so hard to be poetic they just made no sense. I wanted chills. I wanted scary. I wanted unease. But I got a whole lot of pretentious prose that translated into a whole jumble of nonsense.

Some of the stories I REALLY enjoyed are the following:

✨Children Aren’t the Only Ones Who Know Where the Presents Are by Josh Malerman
✨Mr. Butler by Clay McLeod Chapman
✨I Hope This Finds You Well by Eric Larocca(The ending of this one 😱)
✨Wintry Blue by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
✨Nice by Nat Cassidy(This one was not only funny but so unsettling. It was perfection)
✨Egg Nog by Kristi DeMeester(Do NOT mess with a nursing mom 👊🏼)
✨Being Nice by Jeff Strand(This one was laugh out loud funny)

Alongside some of the biggest horror authors in the biz, we also had some of the greatest audio narrators ever. And they all delivered. 👌🏼

Overall, I’d recommend reading this one in print, and picking and choosing which stories you want to actually finish. Life is too short to read books and stories that you don’t like.

It's been a while since I've read any short stories, so I was long overdue for this book. I saw it through a Goodreads giveaway and was so excited to receive an ARC. This anthology is exactly what I needed for spooky season--and the bright side is that you can also listen again for the holiday season!

I enjoyed so many of these stories, and I love a lot of the authors featured in this book. Some were new to me, too, and I enjoyed being able to read their stories and see if I liked their style. I recently finished Nestlings by Nat Cassidy, so I was excited to listen to his and ended up being one of my favorites simply because of how messed up it was. I'm a little picky with the horror genre and some of these short stories missed the mark for me, but that will happen to anyone. People's tastes and preferences aren't the same. Even if I found one story a little disappointing, I still loved listening to this audiobook. I wish I could remember all the titles so I could list them, but honestly the only one I made a mental note of was Mr. Butler because it was so weird...

I'm sure my library will get a copy and I can't wait to see it in print!

A truly remarkable cast of writers and narrators. Such an accomplishment to assemble such remarkable talent, many of whom I have read and loved and even met over the years. Especially the talented & beloved Clay McLeod Chapman (I will never look at an empty box the same way ever again-kudos). EGGNOG was a true gem of a story!

All of my favorite authors and narrators in one anthology. I love it! I will never recover though. The story with the Elf will give me lifelong nightmares. Actually three or four of them will be haunting me. I loved all of them. I love this so much!

I have never been much for short stories, but I figured horror mixed with holiday was a new twist I shouldn't resist.

Oh, how I wish I had.

I thought maybe I was missing something, when the first few stories just seemed to drift off, not really resolving into anything other than a woman going into a lake or a man's body disappearing so he could join some cold alternate universe consciousness. But they never got any better, and I can't name one that could actually be considered "horror". So disappointed.

I was really worried when I read the first two stories and they were both in 2nd person. I really don't like stories in 2nd person. But then it got much better. Some of my favorite authors and a few new ones. Just get past the first two.

So, let me preface this by saying that I'm not a big fan of short stories. Like, I'm so much NOT a big fan of short stories that I'm just now getting around to reading all of Stephen King's short story collections, and I've read everything else Stephen King has ever written. I'm a huge super fan.

So.... keep that in mind when reading this review and seeing that I only gave this book 3 stars.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "If you dislike short stories so much, why did you request an ARC of this book?"

Great question!

And the answer?

I don't really know. As I mentioned, I've been trying to read short stories lately (namely, King's short stories), and in reading them, I've found that I've missed out on some really great tales. For example, I finally got to read the stories behind some really excellent movies, like "Apt Pupil" and "Children of the Corn." I've also been delighted by random stories like "Quitters, Inc." and "The Library Policeman."

So... when I saw that some of my favorite horror writers (Josh Malerman, Eric LaRocca, Nat Cassidy) incldued stories in this book, I thought, "Okay. I'm going to give it a try."

Unfortunately, it just really didn't do much for me.

Don't get me wrong. There were a few diamonds in the rough. "Candy Cane" and "Mr. Butler" stood out as excellent stories among a sea of 'meh' stories. And "Being Nice" was just all kinds of creepy and terrifying.

But on the hole, I kind of zoned my way through this one. There were many times when I finished a story and really couldn't have told you what it was about at all. That wasn't the narrator's fault, mind you. It was just that the stories didn't hold my interest.

So, again, take my 3-star review with the very large grain of salt it deserves. If you enjoy short stories and horror, you'll probably like it much better than I did.

audio-ARC from NetGalley.

2.5

After the first few stories, I was pretty sure this was going to be a two star read. Most of these stories were neither scary nor particularly uncomfortable.

I bumped my rating due to a few standouts: Carol of the Hells, Eggnog, The Ladies' Society for the Dead, Being Nice, and Bruiser.

I have now learned that anthologies are not my thing.

I cannot recommend this collection enough, and think horror lovers should check this one out for some nice short story morsels throughout spooky season!! So many stories in this collection were 5 star reads for me, with very few misses.

The Darkest Night features so many horror authors that I already love, and has introduced me to many more that I’m looking forward to exploring further. With most stories being centered around winter and Christmas, I’m looking forward to reading through these stories again later in the year.

Some of my favorite stories in this collection:

The Mouthless Body In The Lake - Gwendolyn Kiste

Nice - Nat Cassidy

Thaw - Rachel Harrison

Cold As Ice - Tim Waggoner

I love short stories and can’t wait to check out some more spooky anthologies soon! Check this one out if you love horror, winter, and the holiday season!! I listened to this one audio and enjoyed the fun and diverse cast of narrators for this one!

**Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the eARC of this title, and to Spotify Audio for the amazing audiobook!!**