31 Days of Halloween { review } Haunted Legends, edited by Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas

Synopsis: Multiple award-winning editor Ellen Datlow and award-nominated author and editor Nick Mamatas recruited Jeffrey Ford, Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlin Kiernan, Catherynne M. Valente, Kit Reed, Ekaterina Sedia, and thirteen other fine writers to create stories unlike any they’ve written before. Tales to make readers shiver with fear, jump at noises in the night, keep the lights on.

These twenty nightmares, brought together by two renowned editors of the dark fantastic, are delightful visions sure to send shivers down the spines of horror readers.

Review: Anthologies are also hard to review because it’s hard to give full attention to every single story in a collection. Because, while I really enjoyed this entire anthology, there were definitely some I loved more than others:

Knickerbocker Holiday by Richard Bowes — this story of a man who reveled in a family curse pulls from the local New York legend of the Headless Horsemen. How could I not love it? I adore The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
The Spring Heel by Steven Pirie — from the title one can see that this is a tale about the English legend, The Spring Heeled Jack. I loved how this story was both eerie but had me almost rooting, in a way, for Jack.
Shoebox Train Wreck by John Mantooth — I’ll admit, I am a bit partial to this one because John is a local residing a stone’s throw from me (though I had never heard of him until I read this collection). I found this story to be fantastically creepy. Can’t wait to read more of his work.
La Llorana by Carolyn Turgeon — this story is about a woman running to Mexico in hopes of escaping the death of her child, and gets way more than she would have imagined. Child ghosts on the beach = very creepy.
Others I especially liked: Oaks Park by M.K. Hobson, That Girl by Kaaron Warren, and Following the Double-Face Woman by Erzebet YellowBoy.

The idea behind this book—writers taking local legends, perhaps most never even written about before and turning them into original stories—was a perfect fit for the season and I had so much fun reading it. Makes me want to dig deeper into legends myself and see what I can cook up. Haunted Legends contains ghosts, Jersey Devils, Mothman-like creatures, phantom hitchhikers, curses, sentient inanimate objects, Native American legends, Resurrection Mary and more! Loved it!

Rating: 5 jotai out of 5!

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Teresa

Teresa (nom de plume: Torrance Sené) is a self-proclaimed geek, a Janeite, a lover of werewolves and bad-ass angels, an aspiring novelist and an avid book reader who freelances as a web designer. You can follow her on Twitter at @eireannoir.