Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe! Today I’m reviewing a short story collection, and a first read from this particular author. I read A LOT of short story collections, both from my own personal TBR and from review requests. I get so many requests to review short story collections, you wouldn’t believe. I guess it’s a good thing that I love short stories!
I am, however, becoming increasingly difficult to entertain with an entire collection. It seems weirdly ironic to me that the more I read, the less patience I have and the shorter my attention span. If something doesn’t immediately hook me, I’m more prone to DNF it than I used to be (the mere thought of putting a story down without finishing it used to fill me with stress before, I just couldn’t do it!). What I found with this particular collection was that the stories that hooked me REALLY hooked me, but there were others that weren’t my cup of tea. I do think that this is largely down to my own personal taste – the author uses a lot of different styles, tones, subgenres, and narrative voices, so naturally, some appealed to me way more than others just because of my preferences.
My favourite line in the whole book is from the title story ‘Black City Skyline’. It goes like this:
“It’s as if she fell into a hole and took the hole with her.”
I don’t know why, but I absolutely love that, it conjured such imagery!
There’s a lot of variety here, as I mentioned. This collection brings local legends, vampires, weird mattresses, phantoms, and much more. My personal favourites are ‘Hello? Is Someone There?’ and ‘Home Staging’. I loved them both.
‘Hello? Is Someone There?’ is about a couple forced into a long-distance relationship due to a pandemic. It’s cute! They talk on the phone a lot, and make frequent use of video calls. Unfortunately, the lady is dealing with a presence in her home. Her boyfriend doesn’t quite believe it, but eventually, he does see something a little spooky via video chat one night. The problem is… if he can see it…. it might be able to see him….
‘Home Staging’ is one of the weirdest and creepiest stories I’ve read, and I loved it! Katrina returns to her family home to retrieve some forgotten items, only the new owners aren’t home when she arrives….. or are they?!
I’d recommend this to general horror fans, I think there’s probably a little something in there for everyone! If you’d like to check out the book or the author, there are some links below for you:
Happy Goat Horror 
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