Haunted

Edited by Alex Davis and Ryan Merrifield

Average Rating 7/10 (1 Review)

Spirits walk among us...

Ghosts can be found truly anywhere. It might be the quaint but abandoned village of Snap End, in the heart of the English countryside, or the beautiful but dilapidated Canterbrem home in rural Texas. Perhaps you’ll find these supernatural visitors in the heart of a suburban estate, or running through the forests of Muskogee country. Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll come strolling into your own home...

Prepare yourself for five unique visitations in Haunted, where the dead return may return with a desire for revenge or the simple wish to continue making our lives better...

Review by Ben Macnair (310515) Rating (7/10)

Review by Ben Macnair
Rating 7/10
Boohoo Books is a small, independent press in Derby, England, who specialise in publishing the work of emerging, talented writers from the East and West Midlands. They specialise in stories of a speculative nature, ranging from science fiction, to horror, which is where some of the five stories in Haunted fit. The five stories within the 90 or so pages of Haunted run the gamut of place, emotion, and human experience.

We have the pre-war team of Morris Dancers in Paul Melhuish’s The Snap End Morris Men, who make their presence apparent in the music of disembodied accordions, fiddles, and the smack of stick on stick, but promise no harm.

Amanda Bigler’s Cloven offers something completely different, with a journalist jealous of the career of someone younger, and newer than he is, pursuing the same crime, until it becomes apparent that it is something more horrific and closer to home than they thought.

Turning the Cup by M.R Crosby is a fine story. Set at Christmas, as a lot of good Ghost stories are, it focuses on a fraudulent fortune teller, who offered comfort to the living, but attracts the attention of the dead, until in the final telling it is revealed that she too will soon join them.

Michael Bracken’s Little Spring is a love story that crosses the widest divide of all. Set in America, it follows love-lorn Shelby Paulson, who finds her perfect home and lover after her marriage ends. Unfortunately her new partner is already late.

The closing story Kevlin Henney’s Promises you Can Keep follows the same trajectory of The Sixth Sense. The central character, calls on a house to fix the Washing Machine,only to learn that he cannot be seen by the adults in the house.

This is a fine collection of stories by a cast of talented writers, and although there is nothing really horrific in the book, the stories can certainly set an atmosphere.
Ben Macnair (31st May 2015)