I loved these spooky stories! Got this as an arc from Netgalley, and now I'll definitely keep this author on my radar. The writing was REALLY good, not just the stories, but also the writing in itself. Many times I paused my reading and thought "that was really clever" or "that was really beautifully written". My favorite stories: The Door, Haunting Matilda & Light In Her Eyes
It's rare that I actually get spooked while reading scary stories, but The Door had a moment that freaked me out, and I loved it!

CW: These stories contain some descriptions that might be triggering or disturbing to some people. There are specific trigger warnings in the beginning of the book.

This book was.....interesting. Very horror specific and definitely very graphic to the point of being almost difficult to read sometimes. Was never necessarily scary but more so just over the top when it maybe was not totally necessary? Either way not really my cup of tea but well written. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

★★★☆☆ The Door
★★☆☆☆ The Boy at the Gate
DNF☆☆ In the Dark
DNF☆☆ The Long Lonely Road
★★☆☆☆ Light in Her Eyes
DNF☆☆ Haunting Matilda

The first story was by far the best and also longest in this collection so maybe the author just needed to flesh them out a little bit more to get them to a higher level, but then again In the Dark and Light in Her Eyes in particular had me pulling the most hilarious 'what the hell am I reading' faces so I'm not sure anything could have saved them for me. The few other reviewers so far seem to enjoy this book so it might just be me, but I apart from the first story I did not find any of them engaging or remotely scary [beyond some surface level shock value in a few places] and the writing style was oddly juvenile in places. Unfortunately this was just largely a miss for me.

The door and other uncanny tales is written by Dmetri Kakmi who has written about the darker sides of life and classic urban legend ghost stories.

Some of these stories have already been published before but include three new ones so that you can now read them all together.

The stories involve living paintings, ghosts of children, serial killers and haunted houses to name a few. The writing is quick and has easily relatable characters. Some of these made me feel sympathy for characters, dislike towards others. Its a strength to be able to switch up a readers emotions like that.

Some of these stories are not for the faint of heart and include everyday horrors, lives people live and that you know exist, sadly.

I rated this 4 stars on Goodreads. Thank you to Net Galley and NineStar press for the ARC. This is expected to be published on September 28th 2020! If you enjoy short stories, the darker horrors of life and ghost stories give this a go.

This is a short anthology of chilling ghost stories.
Each story was hauntingly captivating and hypnotic.
My favorite one was Matilda.
Very original, dark and scary ghost stories for your next campfire trip!