I absolutely love short stories as I find you can pick them up and put them down as often as you need.

This book is the perfect pick up if you want something gripping and chilling

I had a very hard time getting into this one, it was very slow and didn't keep my interest that it became more of a chore to read than a pleasure

I did get slightly confused with this book, I would have preferred one longer novel. I did enjoy 'The Door' but it could have been longer.

I wasn’t sure where "The Door" was going, but I kept thinking of the Twilight Zone and I was not far off by the time I finished it. What a way to begin The Door and Other Uncanny Tales. Dmetri Kakmi had everything there but the theme song (laugh). I was just curious whether anybody got beyond the door alive - I’m not telling! (smile)

After that trip, Kakmi sends us into familiar territory of the ghost story by the fire. It moves right along and then suddenly you’re like damn there’s that door hitting you in the face. It is like the ending credits of a horror film when you think there are going to be survivors. Still not telling.

Now for “In The Dark”, pay attention rainbows because there is a twist to this one which makes another story even creepier to remember. This story is just gruesome when you put all the details together in your head. Full body shivers - even now while I am typing.

So what are we learning? Never open a door and never reach out for a hand in the dark…(spooky laugh). The Door and Other and Other Uncanny Tales is perfect to keep you up late night.

I received an ARC of this book and I am writing a review without prejudice and voluntarily.

Book Review for The Door and Other Uncanny Tales by Dmetri Kakmi
Full review for this title can be found at: @fyebooks on Instagram!

The Door and Other Uncanny Tales by Dmetri Kakmi was a beautiful collection of short stories. There are a total of 6 horror tales and overall they are all wonderfully written standalone stories. My favorites were The Door, In the Dark, and Haunting Matilda. These stories were all captivating and I found myself fully immersed in them, which is not easy to do in 30 minutes time. Kakmi is able to create characters whom I actually cared about. Overall, I highly recommended The Door and Uncanny Tales to horror lovers.

This was a good collection of horror stories, nothing really stood out but it passed the time. I'm interested in checking out more from this author.

A good, varied mix of horror stories. This was a solid collection for me and i'd happily read this author again, but unfortunately there were no total stand outs for me here.

I like horror and I am not scared of reading strong materials. All the opposite, I appreciate authors who dare to go there. I also liked that there is a common atmosphere to all these short stories, and that there is even a character who gets repeated in two of them. The order of the short stories is very important, so I would recommend every potential reader to stick to the order on which the short stories have been published.

The best short story is the first one, The Door, which is also the longest. I was ruling for the main character, and I am ruling now even more because in other short stories I understood everything that he has been through throughout his tough life. I don't want to spoil it here, but I empathised with him, as an artist with no too much success. The aspect of being mentally and psychologically frail has been treated amazingly well by the author.

I liked the cover of this short story collection a lot. The mystery of the door and what may lurk behind it appealed to me and encouraged me to give it a try.

I liked the description of the painting process and of the paintings themselves. That created a feeling in me of a writer who writes well and that takes care of his craft.

I would recommend it, but I would also advice potential readers about the violent and sexual content. If you don't mind that, give this book a try. It is good.

I read this book through the website NetGalley´s program..

https://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/16053542/

Many thanks to NetGalley & Ninestar Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I do not typically read short stories, so this was something very different for me. I was looking for something creepy & spooky, and the description and cover of this book caught my eye.
For me, the first two stories (The Door and The Boy at the Gate) were the strongest, but unfortunately I did not care for the others. What I liked: The Door has a unique Twilight Zone feel, and The Boy at the Gate has a very old fashioned ghost story feel. What I did not like: The remaining stories then venture too far into the bizarre, macabre, and gross for my liking.
That said, all stories are original and very different.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3543041966?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

This is a good book for spooky season, especially if you’re a fan of short stories. I didn’t particularly love it but enjoyed the first story quite a bit. 3 stars.

This was an intense book, full of strange and sometimes really creepy and not in a good way stories. I really loved two of them, they were the kind of ghost stories that you could read in a campfire. The one with the abortion was really weird, though.
The thing I really liked was all the LGBT characters, it's not common in this kind of stories.

First of all, thank you very much to the publisher and NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My true rating for this collection of short stories would be 3.5 stars, but I bumped it to 4 to counterbalance some of the lower reviews. I'm an avid reader of horror (it's nearly all I read at this point), and while this wasn't a stand-out or anything groundbreaking, I did find it a solid and enjoyable little collection of short horror stories. I enjoyed three of the six stories, with the other three just not being to my taste.

The Door - Enjoyed the quiet, creeping dread of this one. I know that not everyone enjoys this more ambiguous sort of horror, but I very much do. One thing that I really appreciated about this story was that the horror wasn't entirely reliant on the supernatural; it was split between that and the sometimes horrifying mystery of self-identity and the place we hold in other's lives.

The Boy by the Gate - A bit of what could be called a "run of the mill" ghost story, but a fairly fun and effective one nonetheless. It had a sort of old-school vibe to me, with the bulk of the story being read from a letter giving it a bit of that "1950s Victorian horror movie" feel.

In the Dark - Not the worst short story I've ever read, but this one was mostly a miss for me. It seemed like it wasn't fleshed out enough, was a little too bare bones and needed a bit more development; it almost struck me as something I might read on the NoSleep Reddit. I was also initially intrigued that the child in this story seems to be the main character in the first story, but that element ultimately didn’t seem to add anything.

The Long Lonely Road - I love reading horror that is either from other countries than the USA, or that's tinged with different cultural traditions. This one reads almost like a simple folk tale, and is quite sad; I enjoyed it.

Light In Her Eyes - Mm, not a fan of this one. Seemed a bit too... preachy. It's one thing to explore grief and trauma related to a subect like this, but some of the language used, as well as the set up and conclusion, seemed a bit too "rah, rah, pro-life!" for me. Unsure if that was the author's intention, but really disappointing nonetheless.

Haunting Matilda - Lovecraftian horror is my favorite, but this was another miss for me. A bit too schlocky and "B-movie edgelord" for my tastes.

As always I’ll review the stories individually then average the scores out!

The Door: 4/5

A deliciously creepy premise. A man paints a life size door, then starts to hear noises from behind it. Soon it does exactly what a door does—it opens. And the man has to contend with what’s on the other side.

The Boy by the Gate: 4/5

Short and sweet. A young woman sees a little boy in a graveyard and makes the fatal mistake of drawing his attention. Masterfully handled and the perfect ghost story to tell at a sleepover!

In the Dark: 3/5

Features our main guy from the first story but as a boy. I really enjoyed the plot but I wish it hadn’t ended so abruptly—it felt like a story that had just started rather than its own complete telling. A young boy ends up going to a cottage that has horrors within.

The Long Lonely Road: 4/5

Short and sweet, surprisingly. We see a few ghosts and learn the sad story of their visit once a year.

Light in Her Eyes: 1/5

This felt very much like the author telling us their opinion about abortions and nothing else.

Haunting Matilda: 3/5

I’m not sure how I feel about this last one. It’s definitely dark and twisted, which pretty much guarantees it’ll stick in my head a long time. Did I enjoy it? Not really—it was a little gross. Anything with children being taken advantage of in this manner is off putting for me. But I admit it kept my interest.


So overall the average rating I got for this is 3.16 rounded to 6. All in all I really enjoyed the stories and I think there’s some solidly creepy material here.

There was potential in this collection, as I actually liked most of the stories (4 out of 6, not a bad percentage, but my average rating was 3.25).  Sadly, two missed the mark for me, one of which totally disgusted me, and not for the reasons you may be thinking.  I get the edginess, and I found these stories to be pretty unique, but in the end they just didn't stand out from other collections I've read recently.

First, I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this title. Thank you.

I don’t normally write a review for books I don’t care for, but I agreed to write one so here it is.

Short stories often fall flat for me and this book was no different. The first story had a good base but had so much other stuff going on it seemed to lose its way to the punchline so to speak. I know I was lost and found myself uninterested and skipping most of the filler.

After that fiasco, I just could not invest in the rest of the stories. Not even to skim them. Sorry.

Have you ever found yourself completely taken in by a painting? Have you ever felt that you could walk from your world into the world that the artist has painted onto canvas?
Orestes Gallanos is living the life of his dreams with the man he loves. Orestes creates a realistic and haunting oil painting of a door. onto linen With Orestes, we open the door and walk in and discover all that Orestes has forgotten and thought was behind him. He's a troubled man, Orestes. "In The Dark" we meet Orestes again, as a teen and there we learn much more about this troubled man. He's a nice man and we care for him and want him to release his burdens and be free. Orestes wants to be "safe".
The Door and In The Dark were by favorite two stories in this collection. I like learning more about Orestes psyche, but was still left to wonder what was next in both stories. I'd love follow-ups to learn how Orestes managed to get from the pitiful being at the end of In The Dark to the man who opened The Door, and I wonder who ends the story with Simon....is Simon in good hands with a newly confident partner or is danger on the horizon?
The Long, Lonely Road was my other favorite. We often hear of ghost stories in which an event is repeated on schedule. Sometimes this is called a "stone tape". and is thought to be energy recorded on the surroundings that is replayed. In The Long Lonely Road we learn that there is more to this stone tape that a simple recording of energy. The boy and the animals in this tale are delightful and fun.
I enjoyed The Door and Other Uncanny Tales. I love coming across horror that is intelligent and unique. I would honestly love to read more about Orestes. Orestes was a interesting character that I found easy to care about. #Netgalley #TheDoorandOtherUncannyTales

The Door- 2.5/5
The Boy at the Gate- 2/5
In the Dark- 2/5
The Long and Lonely Road-1.5/5
Light in Her Eyes 2/5
Haunting Matilda- 2/5

The Door was the best out of all of them, though it was a bit repetitive and kind of confusing. The others I just didn't care about and overall didn't like the writing style.

I've had a weird hankering for horror recently (very unlike me) and as I do in times of book need, I turned to NetGalley. Imagine my excitement when I got approved for The Door. I've been obsessed with short stories lately so this collection was perfect.

The Door contained some brand new stories and a couple of previoulsy released tales.

Most of the stories were set in Victoria, which is where I'm from, so it was really cool to read the fantastic descriptions of Melbourne and a couple of other beautiful towns. I will admit, the creepy level was raised because I knew the places that were mentioned. Also there is a warning at the start of the book as some pretty heavy topics are covered, like domestic abuse, child abuse and attempted suicide. Most of these stories are centred around a child, so just a heads up.

As for the stories, they started out strong. The Door was intriguing, creepy and I turned the light on at one point. Note to self, reading horror is not best saved for night time.

"The eye withdrew from the keyhole and, almost instantly, a face appeared in the frosted glass above."

This was the moment I said Get Fucked, and put the book down for five minutes because it scared the shit out of me. Just for clarification, it was a painting, there should have been no one behind the door, it wasn't a real door.
The Door was a deep dive into what it means to be alive, to actively live instead of passively existing. I thought it was a well written, inclusive story, that seemed to dive deep, considering how short the story was.

The collection continued with several beautifully written stories that I found engaging and horrifying. The slow build creep factor was high. I was really glad to have picked this one...

Until I came to the story Light in her Eyes and look, I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, I tried to figure out if I was reading it the wrong way, but I just couldn't get passed it. I was fucking horrified and kind of disgusted. I was going to share a quote from this one just so I don't have to be the only person whose retinas were burnt, but I decided that wouldn't be fair on any unsuspecting person that reads this. I'm not even going to dive into the last story because there was a scene in it that made sure I would never ever read this author again. Not for me.

Also I feel like I should mention that besides maybe 2 or 3 of the stories, I didn't find the others scary.

So overall a couple of really well written stories followed by two stories that were beyond fucked and they tainted the entire collection for me.

The Door and other Uncanny Tales is a collection of short spooky stories. Although I don't prefer reading short stories, I requested this book for its scary content. The first story - The Door, is the spookiest of them all after which it starts to go downhill.
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It concerns with an artist Orestes, who paints a life-size painting of a door and then one night, while he is alone, finds that door open. This was a quiet horror sort, which I like, slowly building up the atmosphere. The next story - The Boy by the Gate is also okay, spooky to some extent but after that it descends into gory horror which I don't like. I finished the rest of the stories but it didn't deliver the scares as I thought.
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'Haunting Matilda' and 'In the Dark' deals with child abuse and are really graphic which I personally don't like. All in all, I didn't enjoy this collection.

Thanks to @netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.