Book Review | Tales from the Graveyard by Susan Shultz

Tales from the Graveyard: The Complete Collection by Susan Shultz
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

"In a pleasant little New England town, there is a house on a hill. Its garden is decorated with gravestones.

The house has stood for ages now, and occupants have come and gone.

But those who died there never leave.

They just watch…and wait.

Susan Shultz's haunting Tales From the Graveyard series is now available in one complete digital collection.

The Blacksmith.

Jessie.

Dirt.

Sam.

Read Tales From the Graveyard: The Complete Collection today, and you'll see.

Our ghosts never leave us."

Holy crap was this book bad. It's supposed to be a short story collection of interlinked horror books. There is absolutely NOTHING horrific about them. Most of them are laughable or infuriating because there are characters you want to slap the shit out of. There is so. much. instalove. in these short stories. "Ooo a mysterious figure, I love him, he must mate with me". That's essentially every single story in this collection.

It was written with SO many simple sentences, it made me want to rip my hair out. Everything was written like this. It was really not dramatic. Despite it trying to be. It was just irritating. You see how it's so short and choppy? This is the only horrific part of the book! The dreadful writing just put me off even more. There is no character development, no depth to the writing, very poor scenery and world building. I just hated this writing style so very much.

Character wise, most were batshit crazy or just irritating as BLEEEEEEEEP. There was little to no development, and there is absolutely NO description into their mind set. Why does the first woman, Ainsley, want to eat hearts? I'm assuming the Blacksmith is telling her to, but we don't know why he is telling her to, and it's never explicitly stated that he is making her. It just says he smiles when she does. So what is that about? The rest of the characters are left pretty much one dimensional and dull. I didn't care what happened to them at all.

Plot... There was very little of it. It is all centred around one house, very similar to Slade House by David Mitchell, but not written as well and certainly not as interesting or thrilling. The rest of the plot is pretty much just "sitting around, woops I died for Blacksmith". Like that's all that happens. It's so uninteresting. I nearly gave up with it, but I hate leaving NetGalley books unfinished, so I pushed through. The ending did absolutely nothing for the rest of it, either.

I rated this a 1/5 stars. Hated it and everything about it. Blah.

View all my reviews